Mario's walk: the Association urine-guy with them by the ear
Van Vleck at lunch said he yesterday saw Pemulis and Hal coming out of Tavis’s office with the Association urine-guy holding them both by the ear. Van Vleck said Hal’s face was the color of Kaopectate.
Context
The urine-testing machinery enters as slapstick and lands as dread. The O.N.A.N.T.A. "Association urine-guy" frog-marches Pemulis and Hal out of Tavis's office "holding them both by the ear," Hal's face "the color of Kaopectate." The governance apparatus's power over the athletic body is total and bodily-humiliating — a grown official can literally grab the academy's top talents by the ear over what's in their urine. The Show they're bound for runs on this: your body isn't only tested on court, it's owned at the level of its fluids, and the man who owns it can march you around like a caught schoolboy. (Sets up 155/157's dosing-window panic.)