Matty Pemulis's birthday, and Da (p. 684)
His Da’d begun fucking Matty up the ass when Matty was ten. A fook in t’boom. Matty had complete recall of the whole thing. He’d seen sometimes where persons that had unpleasant things happen to them as children blocked the unpleasantness out in their mentality as adults and forgot it. Not so with Matty Pemulis. He remembered every inch and pimple of every single time.
Context
The theme's anti-repression pole stated flat out: Matty knows the protective block exists, has seen other people granted it, and was denied it — total recall of trauma, unblocked, at twenty-three. Carlisle weaves it against the previous section's praise of John Wayne's "forgetful will": the gift that makes Wayne a champion is exactly the mercy Matty never got.