IJ study archive

Scene 108: pemulis catches avril wayne

Scene
108
Pages
550–553
When
late P.M. (c. 2100h Study Period), Mon 9 Nov YDAU (2009)
Where
E.T.A. Community & Administration Bldg., after hours — Rusk's door, the dark lobby, admin reception, the Dean of Academic Affairs's doorless officein: E.T.A. (Enfield Tennis Academy) › E.T.A. Comm.-Ad. building
POV
3rd person, Pemulis-attached

Characters present

Characters referenced

Themes

Open questions this scene bears on

Connects to (editorial cuts & payoffs, 8)

Summary

Prowling the dark Comm.-Ad. building during mandatory Study Period in a deliberately insolent thrift-ensemble, Pemulis ear-samples the building's closed doors: Dolores Rusk diagnosing Ortho Stice's "counterphobia" in Oedipal jargon while Stice tries to tell her about his bed; Tavis alone, shirtless on the StairBlaster, chanting either "Total worry" or "No don't worry." Then, in the blazing doorless office of the Dean of Academic Affairs, Pemulis walks in on the novel's most scandalous tableau: John Wayne in football helmet, light shoulderpads, athletic supporter, socks and shoes "and nothing else," down in a three-point stance and growling, with Dr. Avril Incandenza — "Hal's Mumsly-Wumsly" — in a green-and-white cheerleader outfit, doing near-splits and miming blows on a pellet-less whistle. Wayne dresses "with no little dignity"; Avril stays frozen mid-split; and Pemulis, smiling, announces "I predict this'll take about two minutes at most" — the acquisition of the blackmail leverage that will (temporarily) save him from the Eschaton/urine fallout.

What to notice

The plot's quiet detonator, staged as farce — and the farce mechanics repay attention. The scandal itself is delivered in flat itemized blocking (helmet, pads, supporter, socks and shoes, pellet-less whistle, homemade pompoms), horror-comic precisely because nothing is editorialized; the unspeakable moment gets one of the book's great time-dilation one-liners, "There was way less time passing in the office than there seemed to be." Pemulis's exit line — "I predict this'll take about two minutes at most" — is the blackmail's opening move: this catch is the lever he will pull in the urine crisis, and its eventual failure is his expulsion, so the whole late ETA plot pivots on this doorless office. Notice the scene's structure as an ear-sampling of closed doors, and what the first door does: Rusk diagnosing Stice's "counterphobia" — magical thinking about objects — while the object-moving in question is the wraith actually haunting his bed; institutional psychology confidently pathologizing a ghost, played entirely for comedy. And one plant in a subordinate clause: the "odd vehicular shape" by the trophy case that Pemulis doesn't pause to investigate — wheelchair-shaped dread already inside the gates.

Beats — page-by-page
  • p. ~550: Stice with Rusk "well after regular hours"; her diagnosis: counterphobia — "magical thinking about... the behavior of objects' relation to your narcissistic wishes"; Stice's twanged "Fear of linoleum?"
  • pp. ~550-551: Rusk's runaway GI Joe/Barbie riff (GI as General Issue weapon and gastro-intestinal acronym; Barbie as "the Oedipal mother as image"); "I don't play with no goddamn Action-Figurines"; Stice's voice cracking on "something about his bed"; the needlepoint CHAMPION AN INNER CHILD TODAY sampler that upsets the little kids.
  • p. ~551: the insolent ensemble itemized — maroon paratrooper pants, fuchsia socks (Jennie Bash's, to be returned laundered), brother's gum-soled Wallabies, orange fake-silk turtleneck, ensign's shoulder-braid, yachting cap bill bent bumpkinish — "less insolent than just extremely poorly dressed, really"; Stice naming his anger "Horace" after the coyote-baited pointer.
  • pp. ~551-552: the dark 2100h lobby between Harde's crew and the graveyard shift; "an odd vehicular shape near the north wall's trophy case that Pemulis didn't pause to investigate"; riding Lateral Alice Moore's Third-Rail chair while surveying her desk; two of five drawers locked.
  • p. 552: Tavis behind his closed inner door (light from the crack under it; Pemulis "didn't even have to put any kind of ear to the wood") — the StairBlaster's "hiss and high-speed grind," the chant ("Total worry total worry" or "No don't worry no don't worry"), the envisioned "little titties of fat bouncing"; Tavis's knob lacks Rusk's insulating rubber sheath.
  • pp. 552-553: the doorless Dean's office: Wayne helmeted, padded, supporter-and-socks-and-shoes-clad, three-point stance, "classic low-register growling sounds of U.S. football"; Avril near-split on the shag with deLint's pellet-less whistle, one arm up; homemade pompoms of shredded paper and amputated wooden-racquet handles on the seminar table; "I probably won't even waste everybody's time asking if I'm interrupting."
  • p. 553: the frozen tableau ("There was way less time passing in the office than there seemed to be"); Wayne dresses with dignity, undoing the chin strap's snaps, never replying to "Nice-looking helmet"; Avril pursing lips to chuff hair from her eyes; Pemulis schoolboy-straight, hands over his fly: "I predict this'll take about two minutes at most," smiling.

Themes in this scene

  • Family and Hamlet: Gertrude caught — the mother's sexuality staged as grotesque pageant with her son's 18-and-Under rival; "Hal's Mumsly-Wumsly" makes the betrayal explicitly filial; the costume fetish (football + cheerleader) replays Orin's career and makes Wayne another son-surrogate in Avril's "politeness roulette" family system.
  • Surveillance and Disguise: Pemulis as walking counter-surveillance — noiseless lobby crossing, door-listening, desk-tossing — dressed in an anti-disguise of pure insolence; the scene is the acquisition of leverage, the E.T.A. economy's real currency.
  • Ghosts and Wraiths: Rusk's counterphobia diagnosis is comically wrong for the right reasons — Stice's "magical thinking about... the behavior of objects" is the wraith actually moving his bed (the first rumour at p. 632; the escalation runs to scenes 167 and 179); institutional psychology pathologizes a haunting.

Connections — backward & forward

Backward

  • Sequence with scene 102 (10 Nov, Tavis's office): the day after this catch, Pemulis sits through the Eschaton-discipline meeting with conspicuous calm — this scene is why.
  • Jennie Bash's socks and Chip Sweeny's belt: Pemulis's whole costume is assembled from the E.T.A. barter/hustle economy he runs (cf. the Big Buddy "tennis-as-game-of-chance" exercise).

Forward

  • The payoff is documented in n.324 (p. 1066ff, see scenes/scene n324): the parenthetical reveal that Pemulis used this catch to escape the urinalysis — and n.332 (scenes/scene n332): on 17 Nov Avril's relayed "regards" burns the card and Pemulis is expelled anyway.
  • Stice's bed material runs from the first rumour (p. 632) to Stice-frozen-to-the-window (scene 167, pp. 864-876) and the bed bolted to the ceiling (scene 179, pp. 941-958), with the wraith disclosures of Gately's hospital visitation (pp. 829ff) in between; Rusk's uselessness here is why Stice takes his "objects" problem to Lyle and Hal instead.
  • Avril's affairs corroborated elsewhere: Orin's n.234 testimony and Bain's n.269 letters (the "indictment-proof" smothering love), plus the John Wayne thread — Wayne's drugged on-air meltdown (n.332) spills E.T.A. secrets — the leaflet about Wayne and Mrs. I. later surfaces in deLint's papers at the hearing.
  • The "odd vehicular shape near the north wall's trophy case" — unremarked wheelchair-shaped dread; reads as A.F.R. infiltration foreshadowing (the wheelchair-bound presence around E.T.A. intensifies toward the novel's end — the rumored Québec wheelchair contingent of scene 183, Poutrincourt's gala-morning absence, the Wayne-as-informant questions — though the text never draws the link explicitly).
  • Tavis's worry-chant continues his "Total Worry" characterization from the dawn-drills scene (094) and the entire scene-102 monologue; the insulated vs. uninsulated doorknobs quietly index who Lateral Alice's Third Rail is protecting.

Notable passages (4)
  • p. ~550: "'Fear of linoleum?'" — Stice's twang puncturing Rusk's jargon; the comic register of the haunting's misdiagnosis.
  • pp. 552-553: the tableau paragraph ("John Wayne wore a football helmet... Mrs. Inc was the only one looking at him.") — the scandal rendered in flat itemized blocking; essential anthology passage for family-hamlet.
  • p. 553: "There was way less time passing in the office than there seemed to be." — Wallace's time-dilation one-liner for the unspeakable moment.
  • p. 553: "'I predict this'll take about two minutes at most,' Pemulis said, smiling." — the blackmail's opening line; hinge to n.324/n.332.

What links here Timeline events here (9) · Connected from (8) · Passages quoted here (17)

Timeline events here

Connected from

Passages quoted here