the supine morning: take out the ankle's ligaments, never play again — "That I could carefully plan out…"
That I could carefully plan out a fall from the courts’ observation transom or the spectators’ gallery of whatever club C.T. and the Moms sent us to to help raise funds, and fall so carefully badly I’d take out all the ankle’s ligaments and never play again. Never have to, never get to.
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.