endnote n.279: the etiology of Hal's block
The kid’s the former E.T.A. whose name keeps eluding and torturing Hal, who hasn’t gone over twenty-four hours without getting high in secret for well over a year, and doesn’t feel very good at all, and finds the kid’s name’s elusiveness infuriating.
Context
Hanging off the bow-tied kid's appearance in scene 132's film-summary: the etiology of the recall block, delivered from the apparatus — over a year of daily secret use, three days stopped, and the first faculty to degrade is the one Hal's identity is built on. The novel's cleanest single statement that Hal's memory failures are withdrawal symptoms.