The locker room and the Loach saga (p. 965)
Dressing and stretching, wrapping grips with Gauze-Tex or filling a pouch with fuller’s earth (Coyle, Freer, Stice, Traub) or sawdust (Wagenknecht, Chu), getting taped, those in puberty getting shaved and taped. A ritual. Even the conversation, usually, such as it is, has a timeless ceremonial aspect.
Context
Carlisle's structural catch, recorded not adopted: the novel's first and last E.T.A. locker-room scenes (3 Nov, pp. 95ff; 20 Nov, here) are built from the same parts in the same order, so the chapter's form enacts what Hal is about to say on the wrap-bench. The "timeless ceremonial aspect" is the text's own setup for the recorded/erasable vertigo a page later.