I assume, but the piece does not say, this story is an excerpt from The Pale King.
Once when I was a little boy I received as a gift a toy cement mixer. It was made of wood except for its wheels—axles—which, as I remember, were thin metal rods. I’m ninety per cent sure it was a Christmas gift. I liked it the same way a boy that age likes toy dump trucks, ambulances, tractor-trailers, and whatnot. There are little boys who like trains and little boys who like vehicles—I liked the latter.
It was (“it” meaning the cement mixer) the same overlarge miniature as many other toy vehicles—about the size of a breadbox. It weighed three or four pounds. It was a simple toy—no batteries. It had a colored rope, with a yellow handle, and you held the handle and walked pulling the cement mixer behind you—rather like a wagon, although it was nowhere near the size of a wagon. For Christmas, I’m positive it was. It was when I was the age where you can, as they say, “hear voices” without worrying that something is wrong with you. I “heard voices” all the time as a small child. I was either five or six, I believe. (I’m not very good with numbers.)
Read more: “All That,” by David Foster Wallace | The New Yorker “All That,” by David Foster Wallace | The New Yorker
Yay!!
Lord, I love his stuff. It feels like he writes like my mind works - meaning he writes in a diversionary-yet-clear way that feels like a mind firing a buncha neurons at once, and the fact that a reader like me can get inside that is cool. The fact that he has interesting things to say within that style is even cooler.
My issue should arrive tonight - you’ve whet my appetite.