Big Buddy sessions (pp. 111–112)

Dropped in one clause, an actual father: Kent Blott's, a globe-trotting cancer surgeon whose presence in his son's life is a trust fund and a flight schedule. The raw makes nothing of it, which is the point — the real fathers in this scene are mostly off removing tumors from wealthy membranes somewhere, their money standing in for them, while the boys spend their evenings being fathered by teenagers and coaches. A small absence-pole datum against the scene's dense surrogate-father structure. (That the money substitutes for presence is a light inference; the raw states only the job, the travel, and the fund.)