IJ study archive

The Port Washington meet (p. 262)

quote

His play, like his manner in general, seems to Schacht less alive than undead. […] He figures Wayne figures it doesn’t much matter: he is destined for the Show; he will be an all-business entertainer, citizen of the world, everywhere undead, endorsing juice drinks and liniment ointment.

Context

Ted Schacht watching John Wayne through a tarp-window archer-slit at the same meet: the perfected player diagnosed as walking dead, "less alive than undead" — repeated as "everywhere undead" in the endorsement-future Schacht projects for him. The exact phrase returns verbatim for Poor Tony at p. 684, and Wayne, the wraith's eventual mouthpiece-by-possession, gets his undead diction six hundred pages early.

In anthology