Don Gately, for those of you who haven’t had the time or patience to read David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest, may seem like an unlikely character with whom to identify. (and if you’re planning to read this novel, you might want to skip down several paragraphs as I’m about to give some of the plot away) Gately is one of two main protagonists in Wallace’s work. The first, Hal Incandenza, is a brilliant, privileged young tennis player who, while attempting to give up a not-so-secret marijuana addiction, suffers a mysterious mental breakdown. Don Gately, at the other end of the socioeconomic and intellectual spectrum, seems at first glance to be a born loser. Raised in an incredibly dysfunctional family setting, he becomes a narcotics addict and supports his habit through burglary and collecting bad debts. Built like a linebacker, he has a large squarish head and an ill considered hairdo.
But Don Gately redeems himself. After doing some incredibly foolish things, like gagging a man with a head cold while committing a burglary (and unintentionally causing the man’s death by suffocation), he sobers up, becomes a devoted adherent to AA and analogous self help programs, and ends up running Ennet House, a residence for recovering addicts just down the hill from the Enfield Tennis Academy, home of the aforementioned Hal Incandenza. Towards the end of the novel, Gately finds himself defending an Ennet House resident, a twisted cocaine addict named Lenz who brutalizes small animals for fun, from some hulking, crazed Québécois nationalists, enraged over the death of their dog.
At the end of a brawl which involves the enthusiastic participation of most of Ennet House’s eccentric inmates, Gately is barely alive. He wakes up in a hospital, unable to move or talk, and experiencing intense pain. Taking his sobriety seriously, he refuses narcotics and has to deal with well-meaning doctors who push pain medications that he is desperately trying to resist. We never really find out what happens to Gately. It’s unclear if he lives or dies. But as he lies there, striving to communicate, living in the moment of each tortured breath, each pained spasm, he assumes noble, even heroic proportions.
Upon completing Infinite Jest, I didn’t quite know what to make of it. It is a hugely ambitious and terribly sad novel. The principal characters, as should be obvious by now, wrestle with the legacy of warped family dynamics, mental illness, drugs, and various forms of dependence. Most of them are incredibly damaged. Their lives unfold amidst an imagined early 21st century backdrop which pits Québécois terrorists against an imperialist United States. Wallace depicts, among other topics, an increasingly intrusive media, the dynamics of advertising, terrorism, avant-garde film, higher mathematics, professional tennis, addiction, and pharmaceutical minutiae in bewildering detail. The book lingers in the mind and defies easy analysis. Much as I hated to admit it, I think I will probably need to read those 1,079 pages again.
Recently and unexpectedly, though, I found myself reflecting upon Don Gately. A week ago, I underwent surgery, a “three segment LeFort I maxillary osteotomy with rigid fixation” to correct “severe dentofacial deformity and Class I openbite malocclusion.” In simple English, I voluntarily agreed to have my jaw sawed into three pieces and realigned so that I could chew with all of my teeth instead of just my molars. Once the general and local anesthesia wore off, I found myself asking, “what was I thinking?” And I found myself empathizing with poor Don Gately. For several days, I even imagined that I looked like Don Gately. Thanks to facial swelling, I now had a large squarish head, trapezoidal even. The associated bruising looked much like misshapen sideburns, that, as I recovered, seemed to slide down my face on to my neck.
But more essentially, I realized the helplessness that one feels when one cannot talk. My jaws were and still are being held shut with rubber bands. I can now take them off a few times a day. But at first I could not and was limited to writing on a yellow legal pad. I was also taking a light dose of hydrocodone (Vicodin) for pain relief which wasn’t quite enough. In those first post-operative days, it was impossible to think beyond the immediate present, a present which was characterized by extreme discomfort, utter dependence, and an inability to believe that things would ever be any different. It was truly wretched.
Of course it also turned out to be finite. My face is slowly becoming my own. I can breathe comfortably again. The discomfort is bearable. If I have to, I can speak through the rubber bands; it’s just not much fun. The liquid diet is temporary. And things will continue to improve.
But getting back to poor Don Gately. In his situation, I do not think I could have been so stoic. Being in a situation of extreme pain, when one has limited information about how long that pain will last, being unable to speak or communicate without knowing if one ever could again, would be unbearable. I’d have begged for drugs, all too quickly, so I wouldn’t have to deal with that reality. And that thought is sobering.
