A Homage to The Pale King

An afternoon at the tennis club between a first serve shot straight into the net and an ambitious second serve turned out too weak.

If I hit my first serve right, there’s nothing to do for anyone; if not, the second becomes strategically vital.  Finally beating my all-time rival in yet another episode of our never ending Saturday match, engaged as we are in this endless fifth set that’s been going on for years, always, constantly head to head.

The ball bounces one, two, three, four times. My second serve is brave, sliced, deep and fast. I follow it to the net attempting a courageous serve and volley. My opponent prepares his forehand, I position myself waiting for his passing shot and in that moment, while time stands still, I look at my corner.  Tennis reveals itself to me as a mystical-religious experience as I see his figure on my corner, always in the centre of a cone of light which exalts his character, substance, depth. The glasses, long hair and unshaven beard and sometimes his bandana, were just red herrings strewn around his figure to distract from the label of genius and literary golden boy which David Foster Wallace always tried to escape.

I Learned to love him while translating “Burned Children of America”, a lighting, an epiphany a perfect prose. Each beat a challenge, each word an adrenaline injection invigorating the soul of the translation and led you onwards and deeper inside the dependence fro that style so descriptive and painful until you almost perceived the hyper-reality of the burnt skin, the indistinct cry of mother and son, the little frantic movements the hand, the hurried steps of the father outside the veranda and the child’s body like “a thing among things […] his soul suspended like a cloud of vapour”.

Discovering David Foster Wallace satyrical writer in “A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll never do again and falling in love with “Girl with Curious Hair”, a collection of masterpieces were the next steps. And finally his worship for Roger Federer: “while you watch him play, you utter sounds which make your wife run from a different room to check you are still all right”.

David is sitting on my corner writing, surely another masterpiece. He lifts his eyes waiting for my volley, just his eyes. I do not let him down, my opponent’s passing shot is tainted by the depth of my second serve and lose strength. I cover the net perfectly, my ball dies on the line. Point. Advantage. I bounce the ball one, two, three, four, seven times. My first serve is powerful and accurate. I look at my corner and te Pale King has gone. I can only dedicate the match to him.