Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace Read Free Book Online

and the clock. He
     looked at the windows but not at the foliage and blacktop driveway beyond the windows.
     He had already vacuumed his venetian blinds and curtains, everything was ready to
     be shut down. Once the woman who said she’d come had come, he would shut the whole
     system down. It occurred to him that he would disappear into a hole in a girder inside
     him that supported something else inside him. He was unsure what the thing inside
     him was and was unprepared to commit himself to the course of action that would be
     required to explore the question. It was now almost three hours past the time when
     the woman had said she would come. A counselor, Randi, with an
i,
with a mustache like a Mountie, had told him in the outpatient treatment program
     he’d gone through two years ago that he seemed insufficiently committed to the course
     of action that would be required to remove substances from his lifestyle. He’d had
     to buy a new bong at Bogart’s in Porter Square, Cambridge because whenever he finished
     the last of the substances on hand he always threw out all his bongs and pipes, screens
     and tubes and rolling papers and roach clips, lighters and Visine and Pepto-Bismol
     and cookies and frosting, to eliminate all future temptation. He always felt a sense
     of optimism and firm resolve after he’d discarded the materials. He’d bought the new
     bong and laid in fresh supplies this morning, getting back home with everything well
     before the woman had said she would come. He thought of the new bong and new little
     packet of round brass screens in the Bogart’s bag on his kitchen table in the sunlit
     kitchen and could not remember what color this new bong was. The last one had been
     orange, the one before that a dusky rose color that had turned muddy at the bottom
     from resin in just four days. He could not remember the color of this new last and
     final bong. He considered getting up to check the color of the bong he’d be using
     but decided that obsessive checking and convulsive movements could compromise the
     atmosphere of casual calm he needed to maintain while he waited, protruding but not
     moving, for the woman he’d met at a design session for his agency’s small campaign
     for her small theater company’s new Wedekind festival, while he waited for this woman,
     with whom he’d had intercourse twice, to honor her casual promise. He tried to decide
     whether the woman was pretty. Another thing he laid in when he’d committed himself
     to one last marijuana vacation was petroleum jelly. When he smoked marijuana he tended
     to masturbate a great deal, whether or not there were opportunities for intercourse,
     opting when he smoked for masturbation over intercourse, and the petroleum jelly kept
     him from returning to normal function all tender and sore. He was also hesitant to
     get up and check the color of his bong because he would have to pass right by the
     telephone console to get to the kitchen, and he didn’t want to be tempted to call
     the woman who’d said she would come again because he felt creepy about bothering her
     about something he’d represented as so casual, and was afraid that several audio hang-ups
     on her answering device would look even creepier, and also he felt anxious about maybe
     tying up the line at just the moment when she called, as she certainly would. He decided
     to get Call Waiting added to his audio phone service for a nominal extra charge, then
     remembered that since this was positively the last time he would or even could indulge
     what Randi, with an
i,
had called an addiction every bit as rapacious as pure alcoholism, there would be
     no real need for Call Waiting, since a situation like the present one could never
     arise again. This line of thinking almost caused him to become angry. To ensure the
     composure with which he sat waiting in light in his chair he focused his senses on
     his surroundings. No part of the insect he’d seen was