Schacht privately foresees Hal's reckoning — "a psychic credit-card bill… coming"

pivotal · YDAU, 6 Nov

• When: 6 Nov YDAU (2009)
• What: Schacht's quiet diagnosis names Hal's escalation and prophesies his fall: he has watched "Hal's devolution from occasional tourist to subterranean compulsive, substance-wise, with his Pump Room visits and Visine," and "deep down believes that the substance-compulsion's strange apparent contribution to Hal's erumpent explosion up the rankings has got to be a temporary thing, that there's like a psychic credit-card bill for Hal in the mail, somewhere, coming." The passage also frames Hal as "asymmetrically hobbled on the care-too-much side," dreadfully secretly caring, and fearing his weak ankle will end his game the way the knee ended Schacht's. The novel's plainest in-range foreshadowing of Hal's coming collapse. See events 52 (daily dependence), 119 (YG collapse).