Orin's B.U. punting and Joelle (pp. 297–298)
Himself would take Orin and his beloved out after dailies, entertaining Joelle with his freakish gift for Canadian-cab-hailing while Orin stood turtle-headed in his topcoat
Context
This is the scene's core paternal transaction, and it runs entirely through film and through Joelle. Himself can't reach Orin directly — but he can understudy Joelle with Leith, give her a stage name, use her in one picture after another, and hail cabs for her charm while his son stands mute in his topcoat off to the side. The father enters the son's life as a third party to the son's own romance, more fluent with the girlfriend than with the boy, and the narrator marks exactly this stretch — the Toronto dailies, the shared cabs, Himself showing them the room where he and the Moms first met — as "the end's start, gradually, in hindsight." The one channel open between them is a lens, and the father uses it to take the girl.