Clipperton saga reflections
the sodium cyanide his Dad kept around for ink for drafting […] his dad hears the thump of the kid keeling over and rushes into the kitchen in his bathrobe and leather slippers and tries to give the kid mouth-to-mouth resuscitation
Context
The most gruesome father-son panel in the Clipperton digression: a Fresno kid whose architect father doubled as his coach wins the big 18's title, gets carried off "on the shoulders of his dad," comes home and drinks Nestlé's Quik laced with the cyanide his father kept for drafting ink. The father hears the thump, rushes in, and dies giving the boy mouth-to-mouth — killed by the poison passed from the son's mouth into his own. The landed horror is the closed loop: the father's own trade-chemical is the suicide agent, and the father's reflex to breathe life back into his son is the exact thing that kills him, the coach-and-son bond completed by the two of them dying mouth-to-mouth on the kitchen floor.