Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace Page B

his upper lip completely covered his nostrils
     and all he could smell was lip. Mildred Bonk got high in the afternoon and watched
     serial-cartridges, and Bruce Green had a steady job at Leisure Time Ice, and for a
     while life was more or less one big party.

YEAR OF THE DEPEND ADULT UNDERGARMENT
    ‘Hal?’
    ‘…’
    ‘Hey Hal?’
    ‘Yes Mario?’
    ‘Are you asleep?’
    ‘Booboo, we’ve been over this. I can’t be asleep if we’re talking.’
    ‘That’s what I thought.’
    ‘Happy to reassure you.’
    ‘Boy were you on today. Boy did you ever make that guy look sick. When he hit that
     one down the line and you got it and fell down and hit that drop-volley Pemulis said
     the guy looked like he was going to be sick all over the net, he said.’
    ‘Boo, I kicked a kid’s ass is all. End of story. I don’t think it’s good to rehash
     it when I’ve kicked somebody’s ass. It’s like a dignity thing. I think we should just
     let it sort of lie in state, quietly. Speaking of which.’
    ‘Hey Hal?’
    ‘…’
    ‘Hey Hal?’
    ‘It’s late, Mario. It’s sleepy-time. Close your eyes and think fuzzy thoughts.’
    ‘That’s what the Moms always says, too.’
    ‘Always worked for me, Boo.’
    ‘You think I think fuzzy thoughts all the time. You let me room with you because you
     feel sorry for me.’
    ‘Booboo I’m not even going to dignify that. I’ll regard it as like a warning sign.
     You always get petulant when you don’t get enough sleep. And here we are seeing petulance
     already on the western horizon, right here.’
    ‘…’
    ‘…’
    ‘When I asked if you were asleep I was going to ask if you felt like you believed
     in God, today, out there, when you were so on, making that guy look sick.’
    ‘This again?’
    ‘…’
    ‘
Really
don’t think midnight in a totally dark room with me so tired my hair hurts and drills
     in six short hours is the time and place to get into this, Mario.’
    ‘…’
    ‘You ask me this once a week.’
    ‘You never say, is why.’
    ‘So tonight to shush you how about if I say I have administrative bones to pick with
     God, Boo. I’ll say God seems to have a kind of laid-back management style I’m not
     crazy about. I’m pretty much anti-death. God looks by all accounts to be pro-death.
     I’m not seeing how we can get together on this issue, he and I, Boo.’
    ‘You’re talking about since Himself passed away.’
    ‘…’
    ‘See? You never say.’
    ‘I do too say. I just did.’
    ‘…’
    ‘I just didn’t happen to say what you wanted to hear, Booboo, is all.’
    ‘…’
    ‘There’s a difference.’
    ‘I don’t get how you couldn’t feel like you believed, today, out there. It was so
right there
. You moved like you totally believed.’
    ‘…’
    ‘How do you feel inside, not?’
    ‘Mario, you and I are mysterious to each other. We countenance each other from either
     side of some unbridgeable difference on this issue. Let’s lie very quietly and ponder
     this.’
    ‘Hal?’
    ‘…’
    ‘Hey Hal?’
    ‘I’m going to propose that I tell you a joke, Boo, on the condition that afterward
     you shush and let me sleep.’
    ‘Is it a good one?’
    ‘Mario, what do you get when you cross an insomniac, an unwilling agnostic, and a
     dyslexic.’
    ‘I give.’
    ‘You get somebody who stays up all night torturing himself mentally over the question
     of whether or not there’s a dog.’
    ‘That’s a good one!’
    ‘Shush.’
    ‘…’
    ‘…’
    ‘Hey Hal? What’s an insomniac?’
    ‘Somebody who rooms with you, kid, that’s for sure.’
    ‘Hey Hal?’
    ‘…’
    ‘How come the Moms never cried when Himself passed away? I cried, and you, even C.T.
     cried. I saw him personally cry.’
    ‘…’
    ‘You listened to
Tosca
over and over and cried and said you were sad. We all were.’
    ‘…’
    ‘Hey Hal, did the Moms seem like she got happier after Himself passed away, to you?’
    ‘…’
    ‘It seems like she