"the malefic Ann Kittenplan hung out to dry" — the blame discourse; the Spodek question

texture · 11 Nov YDAU

• When: 11 Nov YDAU — the Tunnel Club's consensus that afternoon; Chu's rumor relay that evening
• What: In the aftermath, Kittenplan is the consensus scapegoat. The Tunnel Club — hoping their rodent-sighting coup might blunt reprisals against the Big Buddies — agrees that nobody "would much mind seeing the malefic Ann Kittenplan hung out to dry in a serious way" (scene 129). The same evening LaMont Chu, recounting to Mario what he had been "filling Lyle in on" downstairs, reports the rumors have "Kittenplan and some of the Big Buds" getting blamed and disciplined; sorting the fair from the unfair, "Pemulis and Kittenplan I can see," versus his conscience-trouble over the merely-spectating Struck or Hal — and he adds "Kittenplan's Bud is Spodek, and she wasn't even out there": on this page's ruled reading, Kittenplan's Big Buddy Carol Spodek bears no spectator-culpability, having not even been out at the game (see Dating notes for the ruling and the alternate reading).