Infinite Jest (189 page)

He says ‘I’m Mikey, alcoholic and addict and a sick fuck, you know what I’m saying?’

And they laugh and shout out ‘You definitely are’ as he stands there rocking the podium
slightly, blurred a bit through the linen, smearing one side of his face with a laborer’s
hand as he tries to think what to say. It’s another of these round-robin-speaker deals,
each speaker picking the next from the smoky lunchtime crowd, jogging up to the fiberboard
podium trying to think what to say, and how, for the five minutes each is allotted.
The chairperson at the table up by the podium has a clock and a novelty-shop gong.

‘Well,’ he says, “well so I seen some of the old Mikey come back out yesterday, you
know what I’m saying? Fucking scared me to see it. What it was, I was going to take
my kid down to the lanes and bowl a couple. With my kid. Who he just got the cast
off. So I’m all happy and whatnot, got the day off, see the kid. Quality sober time
with the kid. So on and so forth. So I’m all on the happy wagon and like that, about
seeing the kid, you know what I’m saying? So, what, so I call up my cunt of a sister.
He’s living back with them, with Ma and my sister, so I’m calling up my sister to
see can I come get the kid at such-and-such time and whatnot. Because you know how
the judge said I got to get one of them’s fucking consent to even see my kid. You
know what I’m saying? Because of the restraining order on the old Mikey, from before.
I got to get their permission. And I, what, accept that, I say OK, so I’m calling
up all accepting and on the happy wagon for my sister to consent, and she out of the
goodness of her heart she makes me wait while she says she’s got to check it with
Ma. And they consent, finally. And I, what, accept that, you know what I’m saying?
And I say I was going to be there at such-and-such time and whatnot, and my sister
says ain’t I even going to say thank you? Like with the attitude, you know what I’m
saying? And I say ’t the fuck, what, you want a fucking medal for letting me see my
own kid? And the cunt hangs
up
on me. Oh. Fucking
oh
. Ever since the judge with the order, it’s with the attitude over there, the cunt
and Ma both. So after she just hangs up on me a little of the old Mikey I think starts
to come out and I go over there and yes all right I got to be honest I do I park on
the grass of their fucking lawn, and I go up and go up and I see her and I’m like
Fuck you you cunt, and Ma’s in the hall behind her in the door, I go Fucking hang
up on me why don’t you, you should go for some fucking counselling you know what I’m
saying? And they don’t neither one of them like that verbal comment too much, right?
The cunt almost starts laughing and goes, like,
I’m
telling
her
to go for counseling?’

Crowd-laughter.

‘I mean I ain’t exactly coming over there with long-term sobriety, right? And I accept
that. But the cunt’s got the hook on the door and she’s going Who the fuck are
you
to be telling
me
to go for fucking counselling after the sick fucking little like stunt you and that
bimbo
pulled on that kid who only just now even got the cast off? Oh, and no sign of the
fucking kid anywhere. Just her and Ma through the screen door, all over the place
with the attitude. And now they tell me to get the fuck off their porch, No they tell
me, as in like Permission Denied, consent to see my own kid fucking
refused
. And the cunt still in her fucking bathrobe after noon, and Ma behind her half in
the bag already and hanging on to the fucking wall. You know what I’m saying? My serenity’s
like:
See
yaa! And I say up
boat-
ayouse’s asses, I’m here for my goddamn kid. And now my sister says she’s going for
the phone, and Ma’s saying The fuck, get the fuck out, Mikey. And plus did I mention
no sign of the kid, and I ain’t to even like
touch
the screen door, not without consent. And I’m wanting to fucking kill somebody here,
you know what I’m saying? And my sister’s getting the antenna out on the phone, and
so I go OK I’m fucking leaving, but I like grab my balls at the both of them and go
Eat me the boatayouse, you know what I’m saying? Cause now it’s the old Mikey back,
and now
I
got with the attitude now, also. I’m wanting to light my cunt of a sister up so bad
I can’t hardly see to get the truck off the lawn and leave. But and so and but so
I’m driving back home, and I’m so mad I all of a sudden try and pray. And I try and
pray, driving along and whatnot, and it comes to me I see irregarding of their fucked-up
attitude I still need to go back and apologize irregardless, for grabbing my balls
at them, cause that’s old fucking behavior. I see for my own sobriety’s sake I need
to go back and try and say I’m sorry. The thought of it just about makes me puke,
you know what I’m—but I go back and pull the truck up out front on the street and
pray and go back up on the porch, and I fucking apologize, and I go to my sister Please
can I at least see the kid to see the cast off, and the cunt goes Fuck you, get the
fuck out, we don’t accept your fucking apology. And no sign of Ma, and the fucking
kid there’s no sign of him, so I got to accept her word and don’t even know for sure
if the cast is even off. But why I needed to share I think is it scared me.
I
scared me, you know what I’m saying? I was at the counsellor’s after and I told him
I go I got to get some kind of hold on this fucking temper or I’m going to end up
right back in front of the fucking judge for lighting somebody up again, you know
what I’m saying? And God fucking forbid it should be somebody that’s in my family,
because I been that route once too many times already. And I go like Am I nuts, Dr.,
or what? Do I got a like death-wish or what? You know what I’m saying? The cast just
only now finally comes off and I’m wanting to light up the fucking cunt that’s got
to
consent
I should get closer than a hundred m.’s to the kid? Is it like I’m
trying
to set myself up for a drink or what exactly is it with this spring-loaded temper,
if I’m sober? The temper and judge is why I fucking got sober in the first place.
So what the fuck is this? Well fuck me. I’m just grateful I got some of that out.
It’s been up in my head, renting space, you know what I’m saying? I see Vinnie’s getting
ready to fucking gong me. I want to hear from Tommy E. back there against the wall.
Yo Tom
my!
What are you, spanking the hog back there or what? But I’m just glad to be here.
I just wanted to get some of that shit out.’

The man’s pants’ crease was gone at the knee and his Cardin topcoat looked slept in.

‘It was good of you to grant me an easement.’

Pat M. tried to recross her legs and shrugged. ‘You said you weren’t here professionally.’

‘Good of you to believe me.’ The Assistant District Attorney for Suffolk County’s
4th Circuit up on the near North Shore’s hat was a good dress Stetson with a feather
in the band. He held it up in his lap by the brim and slowly rotated it by moving
his fingers along the brim. He’d re-crossed his legs twice. ‘We met you and Mars at
the Marblehead Regatta for the McDonald’s House thing for children, not this summer
but either the sum—’

‘I know who you are.’ Pat’s husband wasn’t a celebrity but knew a lot of local celebrities,
from the mint-reconditioned-sports-car upscale network around Boston.

‘Well it’s good of you. I’m here about one of your residents.’

‘But not professionally,’ Pat said. It wasn’t a question or verification. She was
cool steel when it came to protecting the residents and House. Then back home in her
own home she was a shattered husk of a wreck.

‘Frankly I’m not sure why I am here. You’re just down the hill from the hospital.
I’ve been up at Saint Elizabeth’s off and on for three days. Perhaps I need to simply
air this. The 5th District boys—the P.D.s—speak well of the place. Your House here.
Perhaps I need simply to share this, to work up the nerve. My sponsor’s no help. He’s
simply said do it if you want to have any hope of things getting better.’

Anything less than a combination thoroughgoing professional and AA-longtimer would
have at least hiked an eyebrow at one of the most powerful and remorseless constables
in three counties saying
sponsor
.

‘It’s Phob-Comp-Anon,’ the A.D.A. said. ‘I went through Choices
³⁸³
last winter and have been working a program of recovery in Phob-Comp-Anon a day at
a time to the best of my ability ever since then.’

‘I see.’

‘It’s Tooty,’ the A.D.A. said. He did a pause with his eyes closed and then smiled,
still with his eyes closed. ‘It is, rather, me, and my enmeshment-issues with Tooty’s…
condition.’

Phob-Comp-Anon was a decade-old 12-Step splinter from Al-Anon, for codependency-issues
surrounding loved ones who were cripplingly phobic or compulsive, or both.

‘It’s a long story and not a particularly interesting one, I’m sure,’ the A.D.A. said.
‘Suffice to say that Tooty’s been in torment over some oral-dental-hygienic-violation
issues that have their roots we’re discovering in some issues from a childhood whose
dysfunctionality we—well, which she’d been in denial about for quite some time. It
doesn’t matter what. My program’s my own. The hiding the car keys, the cutting off
her credit with different dentists, the checking the wastebaskets for new brush-wrappers
five times an hour—my unmanageability’s my own, and I’m doing what I can, day by day,
to let go and detach with love.’

‘I think I understand.’

‘I’m working Nine, now.’

Pat said ‘The Ninth Step.’

The A.D.A. reversed the hat’s rotation by moving his fingers in the opposite direction
along the brim.

‘I’m trying to make direct amends to whosoever my Fourth- and Eighth-Step work’s revealed
I’ve harmed, except in cases where to do so would injure them or others.’

A tiny spiritual slip from Pat in the form of a patronizing smile. ‘I have a nodding
acquaintance with Nine myself.’

The A.D.A. was barely there, his eyes fixed and dilated. The remorselessly ingathered
eyebrow-angle Pat had always seen in his photos was completely reversed. The brows
now formed a little peaked roof of pathos.

‘One of your residents,’ he said. ‘A Mr. Gately, Court-Remanded out of the 5th Circuit,
Peabody I believe. Or Staff counselor, alumni, some status.’

Pat made a kind of exaggerated innocent trying-to-place-the-name-type face.

The A.D.A. said ‘It doesn’t matter. I’m aware of your constraints. I want nothing
from you on him. It’s him I’ve been up at Saint Elizabeth’s to see.’

Pat allowed herself one slightly flared nostril at this news.

The A.D.A. leaned forward, hat rotating between his calves, elbows on knees in the
odd defecatory posture men used to try to communicate earnestness in their sharing.
‘I’m told—I owe the—Mr. Gately—an amend. I need to make an amend to Mr. Gately.’ He
looked up. ‘You too—this remains within these walls, as if it were my anonymity. All
right?’

‘Yes.’

‘It doesn’t matter what for. I blamed the—I’ve harbored a resentment, against this
Gately, concerning an incident I’d considered responsible for making Tooty’s phobia
reflare. It doesn’t matter. The specifics, or his culpability or exposure to prosecution
in the incident—I’ve come to believe these don’t matter. I’ve harbored this resentment.
The kid’s picture’s been up on my Priority-board with the pictures of far more objectively
important threats to the public weal. I’ve been biding my time, waiting to get him.
This latest incident—no, don’t say it, you needn’t say a thing—seemed like just the
opening. My last chance went federal and then fizzled.’

Pat allowed herself a very slightly puzzled forehead.

The man waved the hat. ‘It doesn’t matter. I’ve hated,
hated
this man. You know that Enfield’s Suffolk County. This incident with the Canadian
assault, the alleged firearm, the witnesses who can’t depose because of their own
exposure…. My sponsor, my entire Group—they say if I act on the resentment I’m doomed.
I’ll get no relief. It won’t help Tooty. Tooty’s lips will still be white pulp from
the peroxide, her enamel in tatters from the constant irrational brushing and brushing
and
brushing and
—’ he clamped his fine clean hand over his mouth and produced a high-pitched noise
that frankly gave Pat the howlers, his right eyelid twitching.

He took several breaths. ‘I need to let it go. I’ve come to believe that. Not just
the prosecution—that’s the easy part. I’ve already tossed the file, though whatever
civil liability the—Mr. Gately might face is another matter, not my concern. It’s
so damnably
ironic
. The man’s going to two-step out of at the very least a probation-violation and prosecution
on all his old
highly
convictable charges because I have to pitch the case, for the sake of my own recovery,
I, who wanted nothing so much as to see this man locked down in a cell with some psychopathic
cellmate for the rest of his natural life, who shook my fist at the ceiling and
vowed
—’ and again the noise, this time muffled by the fine hat and so less well-muffled,
his shoes pounding a little on the carpet in rage so that Pat’s dogs raised their
heads and looked quizzically at him, and the epileptic one had a very small loud-noise
seizure.

‘I hear you saying this is very hard but you’ve decided what you need to do.’

‘Worse,’ the A.D.A. said, blotting his brow with an unfolded handkerchief. ‘I have
to make an amend, my sponsor’s said. If I want the growth that promises real relief.
I have to make direct amends, put out my hand and say that I’m sorry and ask the man’s
forgiveness for my own failure to forgive. This is the only way I’ll be able to forgive
him. And I can’t detach with love from Tooty’s phobic compulsion until I’ve forgiven
the b—the man I’ve blamed in my heart.’

Pat looked him in the eye.