OK. That's better.
Much has been made of the mold that Hal eats as a baby, and how it opens him to the experience of Pemulis's throwback drug. But John Wayne took the drug and himself had a reaction to it.
Also, I believe that Hal is permanently disabled by the drug, WHICH he has ALREADY taken when he happens across the luckless Ortho Stice stuck to the window. Hal seems fine, but Ortho immediately thinks Hal is crying, or upset. Later, the janitors (i.e. Hamlet's gravediggers) also believe that Hal is mugging in a way Hal never intended — and when Hal looks at himself in the mirror, his visage is composed and demure.
Once Hal reaches the Whataburger tournament (which happens two weeks after Stice's defenestration? Does that sound about right?), Hal believes he is speaking eloquently while the Arizona admissions people only hear horrifying gutteral grunts from him — horrifying enough to call an ambulance.
The day of Stice's window mishap, Pemulis discovers eight ceiling panels on the floor his sneaker / drug mule and its contents are nowhere to be found.
Did the ghost remove the sneaker, give it to Hal, and then bolt whosit's bed to whomever's room (Axelford? Troelsch?) it was? Nobody heard the ghost bolt up the bed, so the removal of eight ceiling panels would almost certainly be a quiet act for him.
Interesting too, that at ETA Incandenza's spirit is a ghost, while Don Gately refers to it as a “wraith.” Of course, Gately might have the advantage, so to speak, as he is able to see Incandenza's ghostly image.
