Infinite Jest

by David Foster Wallace

This last fantasy makes him ashamed, it’s so cowardly. And even contemplating a romantic thing with a clueless newcomer is shameful. In Boston AA, newcomer-seducing is called 13th-Stepping 351 and is regarded as the province of true bottom-feeders. It’s predation. Newcomers come in so whacked out, clueless and scared, their nervous systems still on the outside of their bodies and throbbing from detox, and so desperate to escape their own interior, to lay responsibility for themselves at the feet of something as seductive and consuming as their former friend the Substance. To avoid the mirror AA hauls out in front of them. To avoid acknowledging their old dear friend the Substance’s betrayal, and grieving it. Plus let’s not even mention the mirror-and-vulnerability issues of a newcomer that has to wear a U.H.I.D veil. One of Boston AA’s stronger suggestions is that newcomers avoid all romantic relationships for at least a year. So somebody with some sober time predating and trying to seduce a newcomer is almost tantamount to rape, is the Boston consensus. Not that it isn’t done. But the ones that do it never have the kind of sobriety anybody else respects or wants for themselves. A 13th-Stepper is still running from the mirror himself. Not to mention that a Staffer seducing a new resident he’s supposed to be there to help would be dicking over Pat Montesian and Ennet House on a grand scale. Gately sees it’s probably no accident that his vividest Joelle-fantasies are coincid...