Infinite Jest: Chapter 37 Summary & Analysis

5 November — Year of the Depend Adult Undergarment. Orin calls Hal and Hal tells him that he’s picked an “interesting” time to call, as Hal is clipping his toenails, a sound Orin hates. Hal describes the nail clippings flying straight into the wastepaper bin, which he and Orin compare to the feeling of having a particularly successful streak while playing their respective sports. They then discuss superstitions. Orin admits that he thinks he’s being followed “by handicapped people,” although he also dismisses it as likely a product of his imagination. He mentions that he is being profiled in Moment magazine, and that the journalist keeps asking about Orin’s family. He’s now realized that the story seems to mostly be about James.

Orin says the journalist is unusually large, but “weirdly sexy.” Orin says he’s reluctant to discuss family matters with the journalist, and reviews the details of James’s suicide with Hal. Hal notes that no one except Mario really talks about James or his suicide these days. Orin asks who found James’s body, and Hal replies that he did, at the age of 13. Orin mentions that the journalist’s name is Helen. Orin asks about the P.G.O.A.T.—Joelle—and Hal explains that she hasn’t been around E.T.A. since she and Orin broke up.

Hal explains that James had sawed a head-shaped hole in the microwave door, and that there was a bottle of Wild Turkey whisky next to him on the counter when he died. Orin grows more and more horrified by the details of the suicide, and Hal tells him not to feel bad, while casually mentioning the fact that Orin didn’t come to the memorial service. Orin comments on how traumatized Hal must have been, and Hal recalls the grief counseling Avril made him attend. He describes the grief counselor as insatiable, and says it was “the most brutal six weeks of full-bore professional conversation anybody could imagine.”

At the time, Hal voraciously consumed books and other material about grief in order to give a convincing account of his feelings, with little success. The fact that Hal couldn’t manage to tell the counselor, “a top-rank authority figure,” what he wanted to hear was deeply disturbing. Hal was suffering enormously: he lost weight, couldn’t sleep, was losing matches, and getting B grades. He was petrified that he was going to “flunk grief-therapy.” In despair, Hal paid a visit to Lyle, who told him that instead of being a “student of grief,” he should start reading books for grief professionals in order to gain insight into the counsellor’s perspective.

Orin is incredulous about this twist in the story, but Hal insists that from then on, everything changed for the better. He misbehaved in exactly the way the books for grief professionals suggested he would, dramatically confessing that the first thought he had on entering the room with James’s body was “that something smelled delicious!” He then acted out the process of grief he’d learned from the books, and left the counsellor in a euphoric state. Hal explains that he was always disturbed by the fact that the counsellor would keep his hands hidden under his desk, but during their final session he realized it was because his hands were deformed. This made him laugh hysterically, forcing him to flee the room.