Read Online Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace - Free Book Online

membranes, after all.’
    ‘I might have to burp a little bit in a second, from the soda. I’m alerting you ahead of time.’
    ‘Hal, you are here because I am a professional conversationalist, and your father has made an appointment with me, for you,
     to converse.’
    ‘MYURP. Excuse me.’
    Tap tap tap tap.
    ‘SHULGSPAHHH.’
    Tap
tap tap tap.
    ‘You’re a professional conversationalist?’
    ‘I am, yes, as I believe I just stated, a professional conversationalist.’
    ‘Don’t start looking at your watch, as if I’m taking up valuable time of yours. If Himself made the appointment and paid for
     it the time’s supposed to be mine, right? Not yours. And then but what’s that supposed to mean, “professional conversationalist”?
     A conversationalist is just one who converses much. You actually charge a fee to converse much?’
    ‘A conversationalist is also one who, I’m sure you’ll recall, “excels in conversation.” ’
    ‘That’s
Webster’s Seventh
. That’s not the
O.E.D.
’
    Tap tap.
    ‘I’m an
O.E.D.
man, Doctor. If that’s what you are. Are you a doctor? Do you have a doctorate? Most people like to put their diplomas up,
     I notice, if they have credentials. And
Webster’s Seventh
isn’t even up-to-date.
Webster’s Eighth
amends to “one who converses with much enthusiasm.” ’
    ‘Another Seven-Up?’
    ‘Is Himself still having this hallucination I never speak? Is that why he put the Moms up to having me bike up here? Himself
     is my dad. We call him Himself. As in quote “the man Himself.” As it were. We call my mother the Moms. My brother coined the
     term. I understand this isn’t unusual. I understand most more or less normal families address each other internally by means
     of pet names and terms and monikers. Don’t even think about asking me what my little internal moniker is.’
    Tap tap tap.
    ‘But Himself hallucinates, sometimes, lately, you ought to be apprised, was the thrust. I’m wondering why the Moms let him
     send me pedalling up here uphill against the wind when I’ve got a challenge match at 3:00 to converse with an enthusiast with
     a blank door and no diplomas anywhere in view.’
    ‘I, in my small way, would like to think it had as much to do with me as with you. That my reputation preceded me.’
    ‘Isn’t that usually a pejorative clause?’
    ‘I am wonderful fun to talk to. I’m a consummate professional. People leave my parlor in states. You are here. It’s conversation-time.
     Shall we discuss Byzantine erotica?’
    ‘How did you know I was interested in Byzantine erotica?’
    ‘You seem persistently to confuse me with someone who merely hangs out a shingle with the word
Conversationalist
on it, and this operation with a fly-by-night one strung together with chewing gum and twine. You think I have no support
     staff? Researchers at my beck? You think we don’t delve full-bore into the psyches of those for whom we’ve made appointments
     to converse? You don’t think this fully accredited limited partnership would have an interest in obtaining data on what informs
     and stimulates our conversees?’
    ‘I know only one person who’d ever use
full-bore
in casual conversation.’
    ‘There is nothing casual about a professional conversationalist and staff. We delve. We obtain, and then some. Young sir.’
    ‘Okay, Alexandrian or Constantinian?’
    ‘You think we haven’t thoroughly researched your own connection with the whole current intra-Provincial crisis in southern
     Québec?’
    ‘What intra-Provincial crisis in southern Québec? I thought you wanted to talk racy mosaics.’
    ‘This is an upscale district of a vital North American metropolis, Hal. Standards here are upscale, and high. A professional
     conversationalist flat-out full-bore
delves
. Do you for one moment think that a professional plier of the trade of conversation would fail to probe beak-deep into your
     family’s sordid liaison with the pan-Canadian