[reformulado - umas 5 vezes]
James Orin Incandeza, Jr., pai de Hal, Mario e Orin, suicida-se colocando a cabeça dentro de um aparelho de microondas. É Hal quem primeiro o encontra morto e a experiência leva-o a umas sessões de terapia.
'The grief-therapist encouraged me to go with my paroxysmic feelings, to name and honor my rage. He got more and more pleased and excited as I angrily told him I flat-out refused to feel iota-one of guilt of any kind. I said what, I was supposed to have lost even more quickly to Freer, so I could have come around HmH in time to stop Himself? It wasn't my fault, I said. It was not my fault I found him, I shouted; I was down to black street-socks, I had legitimate emergency-grade laundry to do. By this time I was pounding myself on the breastbone with rage as I said that it just by-God was not my fault that —’
That what?’
'That's just what the grief-therapist said. The professional literature had a whole bold-font section on Abrupt Pauses in High- Affect Speech. The grief-therapist was now leaning way forward at the waist. His lips were wet. I was in The Zone, therapeutically speaking. I felt on top of things for the first time in a long time. I broke eye-contact with him. That I'd been hungry, I muttered.’
'Come again?’
'That's just what he said, the grief-therapist. I muttered that it was nothing, just that it damn sure wasn't my fault that I had the reaction I did when I came through the front door of HmH, before I came into the kitchen to get to the basement stairs and found Himself with his head in what was left of the microwave. When I first came in and was still in the foyer trying to get my shoes off without putting the dirty laundry-bag down on the white carpet and hopping around and couldn't be expected to have any idea what had happened. I said nobody can choose or have any control over their first unconscious thoughts or reactions when they come into a house. I said it wasn't my fault that my first unconscious thought turned out to be —’
'Jesus, kid, what?’
' "That something smelled delicious!" I screamed. The force of my shriek almost sent the grief-therapist over backwards in his leather chair. A couple credentials fell off the wall. I bent over in my own nonleather chair as if for a crash-landing. I put a hand to each temple and rocked back in forth in the chair, weeping. It came out between sobs and screams. That it'd been four hours plus since lunchtime and I'd worked hard and played hard and I was starved. That the saliva had started the minute I came through the door. That golly something smells delicious was my first reaction!’
'But you forgave yourself.’ David Foster Wallace, Infinite Jest
O cheiro apetitoso que Hal sente, ainda sem estar a par da tragédia que acaba de ter lugar, é o da cabeça chamuscada de seu pai. O estereotipado episódio do incesto involuntário, presente dos Gregos a Eça de Queirós e capaz de induzir a insidiosa culpa que vem de uma revelação que nos torna cúmplices inimputáveis mas consumados, é aqui pervertido, embora apenas no que tem de acessório, para dar origem a uma cena hilariante. A cena é extraordinária porque o riso não é um simples indicador de prazer ou de empatia. Hal sofre e o leitor ri - aliás, ri justamente por estar iluminado por aquilo que Hal desconhecia. Mas é como se estes extremos se tocassem e ambos - personagem e leitor - fossem vítimas da mesma experiência. A única diferença qualitativa, além da brutal diferença de intensidade, é que o leitor não pode ser salvo por aquilo que poderia eventualmente salvar Hal (a percepção da sua ignorância). Hal não chega sequer a ser traído pelos seus sentidos, é traído pela realidade. O leitor sofre uma traição mais íntima, porque é o seu corpo que falha, visto que há um instante em que, no contacto com o mundo livre de constrangimentos sociais que só o solitário acto de ler permite, não conseguimos reprimir a vontade de rir. E no fim não dá para reler esta cena macabra sem rir e poder, assim, reclamar alguma civilidade, tal como seria inútil a Hal ter voltado a passar por aquela porta em busca de paz. Mas é esta a forma de nos aproximamos de Hal e experimentamos com ligeireza - obrigado, David - a sensação de que os traumas, com ou sem terapia, não seriam traumas se não fossem irreversíveis. A salvação é aguentar, não há mais nada. Agora preciso de ir jogar bilhar com o Judeu.