The Pale King: An Unfinished Novel
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Reynolds & Sylvanshine (lovers? roomies?) vie for Lehrl’s attention & favor like courtiers or children—it’s how they pass the time in the dullness of IRS intrigue.
Reynolds & Sylvanshine live together—sort of like Rosencrantz & Guildenstern in Hamlet. They have an incredibly nice reproduction of Gerard ter Borch’s Parental Admonition (28 x 29 in., Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam) that they hang wherever they live—or else an incredibly good forgery, done by one of the great painter-imitators of the modern US.
§38 DW, because of snafu, favors upgrading IRS computer systems—Stecyk wants to preserve human examiners?
§43 There is no bomb. It turned out that an actual load of nitrate fertilizer had been blown up. Again, something big threatens to happen but doesn’t actually happen.
This becomes disaster—the scanners are viewed as able to replace examiners—their jobs are threatened: contest between Drinion + scanner set up.
§46 Rand works in Problem Resolution, not Exams? Because her prettiness helps defuse appellants and keep them from making as much trouble as they would otherwise? Another Personnel coup from X, the talent-arrangement genius?
Drinion came home as child to find whole family gone—at least that’s the rumor. A lot of stuff about Drinion, his manner of paying attention, should be implicit, or should unfold over a much longer time.
IRS rap on Meredith Rand: She’s pretty but a yammerer of the most dire kind, on and on, excruciating to be around—they speculate that her husband must have some kind of hearing aid that he can turn off at will.
At Rand and Drinion’s last meeting, in book, Drinion asks: “Would you prefer it intense, or casual?” Rand breaks into tears.
Rand gets obsessed with Drinion (as type of “savior”?) in the same way she’d been obsessed with Ed Rand in hospital?
REC Center in outlying Peoria district called “Anthony, Illinois”? Who is Saint Anthony? The tornado continues…
End pt. 1. In pt. 2 (forthcoming?) Rand describes, quickly, how they got romantically involved (or Rath or someone else does, or it gets out through summary mediated by several different tellers): M.R. felt she needed Rand, or rather she felt sorry for him because he was sick and unattractive (additional repulsive symptoms in private) and going to die soon. Always expecting him to die in the near future. And she saw how lonely and sad his life was, his apartment was. So she married him, at just age 19… But he didn’t die, hasn’t died; and now M.R. is trapped, miserable, especially because Ed isn’t grateful to her, and would laugh spitefully at her if she ever tried to say to him that he should be grateful, that she’d taken pity—Rand would say that the real person she’d pitied was herself, and that marrying someone always on the edge of possible death was a great way to let herself feel both safe and heroic.
Every day at day’s end they have the same exchange:
“How was your day?”
“I work in a mental hospital. How do you think my day was?”
It’s not funny or intimate, no shared joke—they’ve been in the same basic relationship for 6 years, w/o growth or change, and Rand is looking for someone to save her, extract her from it.
* * *
Big issue is human examiners or machines. Sylvanshine is after the best human examiners he can find.
Embryonic outline:
2 Broad arcs:
1. Paying attention, boredom, ADD, Machines vs. people at performing mindless jobs.
2. Being individual vs. being part of larger things—paying taxes, being “lone gun” in IRS vs. team player.
David Wallace disappears 100 pp in.
Central Deal: Realism, monotony. Plot a series of set-ups for stuff happening, but nothing actually happens.
David Wallace disappears—becomes creature of the system.
Overall movement: Old IRS guard are driven by self-righteousness, tax cheats as deadbeats, tax payment as virtue, or to work out their own psych stuff like anger, resentment, subservience to authority, etc. Or else they’re drab civil servants in it for security, standard government workers. New IRS guard are not only good accountants but good strategic and business planners: whole point is to maximize revenue—disregard civic virtue, disregard moral warrior aspect of being in tax collection. New Peoria REC Personnel guy is new guard: his whole deal is finding employees and organizing stuff so that examiners maximize the revenue that auditors/collections can yield. His willingness to experiment/think in fresh new ways leads, paradoxically, to deep mysticism: a certain set of numbers that lets examiners concentrate better, etc. The ultimate point is the question whether humans or machines can do exams better, can maximize efficiency in spotting which returns might need auditing and will produce revenue.
Drinion is happy. Ability to pay attention. It turns out that bliss—a second-by-second joy + gratitude at the gift of being alive, conscious—lies on the other side of crushing, crushing boredom. Pay close attention to the most tedious thing you can find (tax returns, televised golf), and, in waves, a boredom like you’ve never known will wash over you and just about kill you. Ride these out, and it’s like stepping from black and white into color. Like water after days in the desert. Constant bliss in every atom.
STECYK?
There is a counterpart to Sylvanshine. This is a high-end Personnel person for the REC (for the side that advocates human examiners over computers and the DIF). He searches for immersives. Ringers who can be brought in and examine complex returns without the sort of boredom that numbs you. (Or it’s Stecyk, an examiner totally devoted to his job—hated, an abstract application of probity and virtue—constantly on the lookout for ways to help. It’s he who goes to Meckstroth’s office with the idea of how to send receipts directly to bank, save money and time.) Stecyk now in Personnel and Personnel Training?
They’re rare, but they’re among us. People able to achieve and sustain a certain steady state of concentration, attention, despite what they’re doing. The first one Stecyk spotted was in the library of Peoria College of Business, in the reading room, an Asian kid in one of the reading chairs that looks a great deal more comfortable than it really is, slumped back and legs crossed ankle on knee, reading a statistics textbook. Stecyk goes by twenty minutes later, kid is still in exactly the same position, reading. Stecyk crosses the room just behind him to verify that the kid’s several pages along. His notes are precise and flush-left in a tiny neat script. An hour later, the kid is still in same position, reading same book, now 14 pages later.
A guard working security outside a credit union. Standing at parade rest all day. Can’t read or chat. Simply watching people come in and out, nodding when nodded at. In Midstate Security faux-police uniform. There in case of any trouble. Stecyk walks in and out several times, as occasion to watch guard. What’s impressive is that the guard pays closer attention to him each time, meaning the guard registers the fact that Stecyk is coming in and out more than is normal. He’s able to pay attention even in what has to be a staggeringly dull job.
Midwest meditation semifinals. Contestants hooked up to EEG—it’s who can achieve and maintain theta waves for the longest period of time.
Woman on assembly line counting number of visible loops of twine on outside of bale of twine. Counting, over and over. When the whistle blows, every other worker practically runs for the door. She stays briefly, immersed in her work. It’s the ability to be immersed.
Endpapers from Hardcover Edition
IRS Form 1040 US Individual Income Tax Return. Form 1040 Schedule A Itemized Deductions. Form 1040 Schedule B Interest and Dividend Income. Form 1040 Schedule C Profit and Loss From a Business. Form 1040 Schedule D Capital Gains and Losses. Form 1040 Schedule E Supplemental Income and Loss. Form 1040 Schedule EIC Earned Income Credit. Form 1040 Schedule F Individual Soil and Water Conservation Expenses. Form 1040 Schedule G Income Averaging. Form 1040 Schedules R & RP Credit for the Elderly. Form 1040 Schedule SE Self-Employment Tax. Form 1040-ES Estimated Tax for Individuals. Form 1040A US Individual Income Tax Return
(Short Form). Form 1040A Schedule 1 Interest and Dividend Income. Form W-2 Wages, Salaries, Tips, and Withholding. Form W-2G Prizes and Winnings. Form 1099-MISC Non-Employee Compensation. Form 1099-DIV Dividends and Distributed Investment Income. Form 1099-INT Interest From Financial Institutions. Form 2106 Employee Business Expenses. Form 2106-EZ Unreimbursed Employee Business Expenses. Form 2119 Sale or Your Home. Form 2120 Multiple Support Declaration. Form 2210 Underpayment of Estimated Tax by Individuals, Estates, and Trusts. Form 2441 Child and Dependent Care Expenses. Form 3468 Computation of Investment Tax Credit. Form 3800 General Business Credit. Form 3903 Moving Expenses. Form 4255 Recapture of Investment Credit. Form 4562 Depreciation and Amortization. Form 4625 Minimum Tax on Preferences. Form 4684 Casualties and Thefts. Form 4726 Computation of Maximum Tax on Personal Service Income. Form 4797 Sales of Business Property. Form 4868 Application for Automatic Extension of Time to File US Individual Income Tax Return. Form 4952 Investment Interest Expense Deduction. Form 4972 Tax on Lump-Sum Distributions. Form 6251 Alternative Minimum Tax—Individuals. Form 6252 Installment Sale Income. Form 8283 Noncash Charitable Contributions. Form 8332 Release of Claim to Exemption for Child of Divorced or Separated Parents. Form 8582 Passive Activity Loss Limitations. Form 8606 Nondeductible IRAs (Contributions, Distributions, Basis). Form 8615 Tax for Children Under 14 Who Have Investment Income of More than $850. Form 8824 Like-Kind Exchanges. Form 8829 Expenses for Business Use of Your Home. Form 656 Offer in Compromise. Form 709 United States Gift and Dependent Transfer Tax Return. Form 851 Affiliations Schedule. Form 870 Assessment of Deficiency in US Income Tax. Form 870-AD Adjustment in Assessed Deficiency. Form 990 Return of Organization Exempt from US Income Tax. Form 990-T Exempt Organization Business Income Tax Return. Form 1041 US Fiduciary Income Tax Return. Form 1041 Schedule I Alternative Minimum Tax. Form 1041 Schedule J Accumulation Distribution for a Complex Trust. Form 1041 Schedule K-1 Beneficiary’s Share of Income, Deductions, Credits, Etc. Form 1065 US Partnership Income Tax Return. Form 1065 Schedule K Partner’s Share Of Income, Credits, Deductions, Etc. Form 1120 US Corporation Income Tax Return. Form 1120A US Corporation Income Tax Return (Short Form). Form 1120 Schedule PH US Personal Holding Company Tax. Form 1120F Income Tax Return of a Foreign Corporation. Form 1120-ES Estimated Tax for Corporations. Form 1120S Schedule K-1 Shareholder’s Share of Income, Credits, Deductions, Etc. Form 1122 Authorization and Consent of Subsidiary Corporation to be Included in a Consolidated Income Tax Return. Form 2220 Underpayment of Estimated Tax by Corporations. Form 4626 Alternative Minimum Tax for Corporations (Including Environmental Tax). Form 7004 Application for Automatic Extension of Time to File US Corporation Income Tax Return. Form 8275 Disclosure Statement. Form 8832 Entity Classification Election. Form 9465 Installment Agreement Request.
Contents
Front Cover Image
Welcome
Editor’s Note
Epigraph
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Notes and Asides
Endpapers from Hardcover Edition
About the Author
Also by David Foster Wallace
Copyright
About the Author
David Foster Wallace was born in Ithaca, New York, in 1962 and raised in Illinois, where he was a regionally ranked junior tennis player. He received bachelor of arts degrees in philosophy and English from Amherst College and wrote what would become his first novel, The Broom of the System, as his senior English thesis. He received a master of fine arts from the University of Arizona in 1987 and briefly pursued graduate work in philosophy at Harvard University. His second novel, Infinite Jest, was published in 1996. Wallace taught creative writing at Emerson College, Illinois State University, and Pomona College, and published the story collections Girl with Curious Hair, Brief Interviews with Hideous Men, and Oblivion and the essay collections A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again and Consider the Lobster. He was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship, a Lannan Literary Award, and a Whiting Writers’ Award, and was appointed to the Usage Panel for The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language. He died in 2008, leaving behind unpublished work of which The Pale King is a part.
A reading group guide to The Pale King is available at www.DavidFosterWallaceBooks.com.
Also by David Foster Wallace
The Broom of the System
Girl with Curious Hair
Infinite Jest
A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again
Brief Interviews with Hideous Men
Everything and More
Oblivion
Consider the Lobster
McCain’s Promise
This Is Water
1 Little-known fact: The only US citizens anywhere whose Social Security numbers start with the numeral 9 are those who are, or at some time were, contract employees of the Internal Revenue Service. Through its special relationship with the Social Security Administration, the IRS issues you a new SS number on the day your contract starts. It’s like you’re born again, ID-wise, when you enter the Service. Very few ordinary citizens know about this. There’s no reason they should. But consider your own Social Security number, or those of the people close enough to you that you’re entrusted with their SS. There’s only one digit that these SS numbers never start with. That number is 9. 9’s reserved for the Service. And if you’re issued one, it stays with you for the rest of your life, even if you happen to have left the IRS long ago. It sort of marks you, numerically. Every April—and quarterly, of course, for those who are self-employed and pay quarterly ESTs—those tax returns and ESTs whose filers’ SS numbers start with 9 are automatically pulled and routed through a special processing and exam program in the Martinsburg Computer Center. Your status in the system is forever altered. The Service knows its own, always.
2 This is a term of art; what I really mean is that everything that surrounds this Foreword is essentially true. The Foreword’s having now been moved seventy-nine pages into the text is due to yet another spasm of last-minute caution on the part of the publisher, re which please see just below.
3 At the advice of its corporate counsel, the publishing company has declined to be identified by name in this Author’s Foreword, despite the fact that anyone who looks at the book’s spine or title page will know immediately who the company is. Meaning it’s an irrational constraint; but so be it. As my own counsel has observed, corporate attorneys are not paid to be totally rational, but they are paid to be totally cautious. And it is not hard to see why a registered US corporation like this book’s publisher is going to be cautious about even the possibility of appearing to thumb its nose at the Internal Revenue Service or (this from some of the corporate counsel’s hysterica
l early memos) to be ‘abetting’ an author’s violation of the Nondisclosure Covenant that all Treasury employees are required to sign. Nevertheless—as my lawyer and I had to point out to them about 105 times before the company’s counsel seemed to get it—the version of the Nondisclosure Covenant that’s binding on all Treasury employees, not just on agents of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms and of the Secret Service, as formerly, was instituted in 1987, which happens to be the year that computers and a high-powered statistical formula known as the ANADA (for ‘Audit–No Audit Discriminant Algorithm’) were first used in the examination of nearly all individual US tax returns. I know that’s a pretty involved and confusing data-dump to inflict on you in a mere Foreword, but the crux here is that it is the ANADA,(a) and the constituents of its formula for determining which tax returns are most apt to yield additional revenue under audit, that the Service is concerned to protect, and that that was why the Nondisclosure Covenant was suddenly extended to IRS employees in 1987. But I had already left the Service in 1987. The worst of a certain personal unpleasantness had blown over, and I’d been accepted for transfer at another college, and by autumn of 1986 I was back on the East Coast and again up and running in the private sector, albeit of course still with my new SS number. My entire IRS career lasted from May 1985 through June 1986. Hence my exemption from the Covenant. Not to mention that I was hardly in a position to know anything compromising or specific about the ANADA. My Service post was totally low-level and regional. For the bulk of my time, I was a rote examiner, a.k.a. a ‘wiggler’ in the Service nomenclature. My contracted civil service rank was a GS-9, which at that time was the lowest full-time grade; there were secretaries and custodians who outranked me. And I was posted to Peoria IL, which is about as far from Triple-Six and the Martinsburg Center as anyone could imagine. Admittedly, at the same time—and this is what especially concerned the publishing company’s counsel—Peoria was a REC, one of seven hubs of the IRS’s Examination Division, which was precisely the division that got eliminated or, more accurately (though this is arguable), transferred from the Compliance Branch to the newly expanded Technical Branch, by the advent of the ANADA and a digital Fornix network. This is rather more esoteric, contextless Service information than I’d anticipated having to ask you to swallow right at the beginning, and I can assure you that all this gets explained and/or unfolded in much more graceful, dramatically apposite terms in the memoir itself, once it gets under way. For now, just so you’re not totally flummoxed and bored, suffice it to say that Examinations is the IRS division tasked with combing and culling various kinds of tax returns and classifying some as ‘20s,’ which is Service shorthand for tax returns that are to be forwarded to the relevant District office for audit. Audits themselves are conducted by revenue agents, who are usually GS-9s or -11s, and employed by the Audit Division. It’s hard to put all this very smoothly or gracefully—and please know that none of this abstract information is all that vital to the mission of this Foreword. So feel free to skip or skim the following if you wish. And don’t think the whole book will be like this, because it won’t be. If you’re burningly interested, though, each tax return pulled, for whatever reason(s) (some of which were smart and discerning and others, frankly, wacko and occult, depending on the wiggler), by a line examiner and forwarded for audit is supposed to be accompanied by an IRS Series 20 Internal Memo, which is where the term ‘20’ comes from. Like most insular and (let’s be frank) despised government agencies, the Service is rife with special jargon and code that seems overwhelming at first but then gets internalized so quickly and used so often that it becomes almost habitual. I still, sometimes, dream in Servicespeak. To return to the point, though, Examinations and Audits were two of the main divisions of the IRS’s Compliance Branch, and the publishing company’s house counsel’s concern was that the IRS’s own counsel could, if they were sufficiently aggrieved and wanted to make trouble over the Nondisclosure Covenant thing, argue that I and several of the Post 047 REC coworkers and administrators who feature in this story should be grandfathered in under the constraints of the Nondisclosure Covenant, because we were not only employed by the Compliance Branch but posted at the REC that ended up figuring so prominently in the run-up to what came to be known variously as ‘the New IRS,’ ‘the Spackman Initiative,’ or just ‘the Initiative,’ which was ostensibly created by the Tax Reform Act of 1986 but was actually the result of a long, very complicated bureaucratic catfight between the Compliance Branch and the Technical Branch over Examinations and the Exam function in IRS operations. End of data-dump. If you’re still reading, I hope enough of all that made sense for you to at least understand why the issue of whether or not I explicitly say the name of the publishing company was not one that I chose to spend a lot of time and editorial goodwill arguing about. You sort of have to pick your battles, as far as nonfiction goes.