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

Resistance’s notorious M. DuPlessis and his malevolent but allegedly irresistible
     amanuensis-cum-operative, Luria P ———? ’
    ‘Listen, are you okay?’
    ‘
Do
you?’
    ‘I’m
ten
for Pete’s sake. I think maybe your appointment calendar’s squares got juggled. I’m the potentially gifted ten-year-old tennis
     and lexical prodigy whose mom’s a continental mover and shaker in the prescriptive-grammar academic world and whose dad’s
     a towering figure in optical and avant-garde film circles and single-handedly founded the Enfield Tennis Academy but drinks
     Wild Turkey at like 5:00 A.M. and pitches over sideways during dawn drills, on the courts, some days, and some days presents
     with delusions about people’s mouths moving but nothing coming out. I’m not even up to
J
yet, in the condensed
O.E.D.,
much less Québec or malevolent Lurias.’
    ‘… of the fact that photos of the aforementioned… liaison being leaked to
Der Spiegel
resulted in the bizarre deaths of both an Ottawan paparazzo and a Bavarian international-affairs editor, of an alpenstock
     through the abdomen and an ill-swallowed cocktail onion, respectively?’
    ‘I just finished
jew’s-ear
. I’m just starting on
jew’s-harp
and the general theory of oral lyres. I’ve never even
skied
.’
    ‘That you could dare to imagine we’d fail conversationally to countenance certain weekly shall we say maternal… assignations
     with a certain unnamed bisexual bassoonist in the Albertan Secret Guard’s tactical-bands unit?’
    ‘Gee, is that the exit over there I see?’
    ‘… that your blithe inattention to your own dear grammatical mother’s cavortings with not one not two but over
thirty
Near Eastern medical attachés…? ’
    ‘Would it be rude to tell you your mustache is askew?’
    ‘… that her introduction of esoteric mnemonic steroids, stereo-chemically not dissimilar to your father’s own daily hypodermic
     “megavitamin” supplement derived from a certain organic testosterone-regeneration compound distilled by the Jivaro shamen
     of the South-Central L.A. basin, into your innocent-looking bowl of morning Ralston… .’
    ‘As a matter of fact I’ll go ahead and tell you your whole face is kind of running, sort of, if you want to check. Your nose
     is pointing at your lap.’
    ‘That your quote-unquote “complimentary” Dunlop widebody tennis racquets’ super-secret-formulaic composition materials of
     high-modulus graphite-reinforced polycarbonate polybutylene resin are organochemically identical I say again
identical
to the gyroscopic balance sensor and
mise-enscène
appropriation card and priapistic-entertainment cartridge implanted in your very own towering father’s anaplastic cerebrum
     after his cruel series of detoxifications and convolution-smoothings and gastrectomy and pros-tatectomy and pancreatectomy
     and phalluctomy…’
    Tap tap. ‘SHULGSPAHH.’
    ‘… could possibly escape the combined investigative attention of…? ’
    ‘And it strikes me I’ve definitely seen that argyle sweater-vest before. That’s Himself’s special Interdependence-Day-celebratory-dinner
     argyle sweater-vest, that he makes a point of never having cleaned. I know those stains. I was there for that clot of veal
     marsala right there. Is this whole appointment a date-connected thing? Is this April Fools, Dad, or do I need to call the
     Moms and C.T.?’
    ‘… who requires only daily evidence that you
speak?
That you recognize the occasional vista beyond your own generous Mondragonoid nose’s fleshy tip?’
    ‘You rented a whole office and face for this, but leave your old unmistakable sweater-vest on? And how’d you even get down
     here before me, with the Mercury up on blocks after you… did you fool C.T. into giving you the keys to a functional car?’
    ‘Who used to pray daily for the day his own dear late father would sit, cough, open that bloody issue of the
Tucson Citizen,
and not turn that newspaper into