the Port Washington meet (pp. 262–263)
Wayne’s father is an asbestos miner who at forty-three is far and away the seniorest guy on his shift; he now wears triple-thick masks and is trying to hold on until John Wayne can start making serious $ and take him away from all this. He has not seen his eldest son play since John Wayne’s Québecois and Canadian citizenships were revoked last year.
Context
The book's clearest picture of a father spending his own body for a son. John Wayne's father is breathing asbestos in a Montcerf mine, the oldest man on his shift, "triple-thick masks" now the only thing between his lungs and the payoff — he's holding on to be lifted out of the mine by the son's future pro money. And the cruelty of the arrangement: he "has not seen his eldest son play" since Wayne's Canadian citizenship was revoked for defecting to an American academy. So the father sacrifices himself for a career he is no longer allowed to watch — the surveillance-hunger pole inverted into pure absence, a father who can only imagine the greatness he's dying to fund. The triple-thick masks are the scene's catalogued Masks item: the father's face disappearing behind filters as he waits underground.