the supine morning: take out the ankle's ligaments, never play again
Then it occurred to me that I could walk outside and contrive to take a spill, or squeeze out the window on the rear staircase of HmH and fall several meters to the steep embankment below, being sure to land on the bad ankle and hurt it, so I’d not have to play.
Context
The book's starkest statement of the plateau-trapped player's bind. The refusal to play hardens into a plan against his own body — arrange a fall "on the bad ankle," or a worse one: "Never have to, never get to" is the whole trap in five words: the only exit from the Show-machine Hal can imagine is to sabotage the chronic ankle so completely that the choice is made for him. He can't quit; he can only be injured out. The regimen has left him no door but the destruction of the instrument.