Gately, the wraith, and the figurants (pp. 831–832)
The wraith disappears again and again just as instantly reappears, now holding one of Gately’s Ennet House basement flea-baggy Staff bedroom’s cut-out-and-Scotch-taped celebrity photos, this one an old one of U.S. Head of State Johnny Gentle, Famous Crooner […] Again the wraith disappears and instantly reappears holding a can of Coke, with good old Coke’s distinctive interwoven red and white French curls on it but alien unfamiliar Oriental-type writing on it instead of the good old words Coca-Cola and Coke. The unfamiliar script on the Coke can is maybe the whole dream’s worst moment. […] The Oriental can of Coke now rests on Gately’s broad flat forehead.
Context
Carlisle's catch, recorded not adopted: the wraith has just claimed it "couldn't ordinarily affect anybody or anything solid," yet here it fetches Gately's taped-up Gentle photo from Ennet House and parks a cold, solid, foreign Coke can on his forehead. The contradiction quietly arms every later wraith-agency question: Stice's bed, the tunnel objects, the glued brooms.