the bus back from P.W.: the purple knee, injected
Schacht was in too much knee-pain to remark on much of anything, and Schtitt had E.T.A.’s Barry Loach inject the big purple knee with something that made Schacht’s eyes roll up in his head.
Context
Victory's bodily price, administered on the spot: Schacht is "in too much knee-pain to remark on much of anything," so Schtitt has Loach "inject the big purple knee with something that made Schacht's eyes roll up." The team wins and the body is medicated back into function, the trainer's needle keeping a wrecked joint in service. It's the regimen's maintenance economy at work — the same knee that freed Schacht from ego is a chronic ruin now managed by injection, the athletic body kept playable by chemistry it can barely stand.