The White Flag AA meeting — "Gately looks at a rectangular blue-selvaged…"
Gately looks at a rectangular blue-selvaged expanse of clean linen whose gentle rises barely allude to any features below, he looks at her and has no idea whether she’s serious or not, or whacked, or trying like Dr. Geoff Day to erect Denial-type fortifications with some kind of intellectualish showing-off, and he doesn’t know what to say in reply, he has absolutely nothing in his huge square head to Identify with her with or latch onto or say in encouraging reply
Context
The reception of the subjunctive aria: Gately's best guess at what grammar might be for — "Denial-type fortifications," intellect as a wall against surrender — is the text's own name for the theme's stakes here, and against her syntax he has "absolutely nothing in his huge square head," a lexical mismatch so total it triggers the old cage-panic. (The doubled preposition "to Identify with her with" is as written.)