Hal's secret marijuana habit and the "No-One-Must-Know" obsession

pivotal · YDAU (2009), standing

• When: YDAU (2009); Hal "age seventeen" (standing condition; flagged best-guess position)
• What: The defining reveal of Hal's private life: at 17 he covertly smokes high-resin marijuana ("Bob Hope") from a brass one-hitter in E.T.A.'s subterranean Pump Room, exhaling palely into an industrial exhaust fan so no odor escapes, then brushing teeth / eyedrops / Old Spice / wintergreen Kodiak to surface "right as rain." Crucially, "Hal likes to get high in secret, but a bigger secret is that he's as attached to the secrecy as he is to getting high" — an all-consuming "No-One-Must-Know" compulsion he cannot explain ("It's not fear per se"). Use is grounds for immediate expulsion per the E.T.A. catalogue. The central concealment that structures Hal's arc and later withdrawal.