E.T.A. boy, Arizona Wildcat, career prorector: the body and the smile

texture · STANDING — bio predates the story

• When: STANDING — biographical background; his playing years predate the novel's action, the prorectorship spans YDAU and the following YG
• What: deLint is a former E.T.A. student who matriculated to the University of Arizona tennis squad — a fact the Arizona Deans recite at Hal's interview, where he attends in his official capacity as "Academy prorector Mr. A. deLint" — and returned to Enfield as a career staffer heading the platoon of eight-or-nine postgraduate prorectors who serve two years for room, board, and travel. (E.T.A.'s first generation predates him: in the Himself era "Schtitt didn't yet have deLint.") Physically he is among the book's most exactly drawn adults: lightly pockmarked, thick yellow hair in an anchorman's helmety style, a hypertensive flush, close-set lightless eyes — and a smile so notoriously bad it functions as his signature across scenes, the face coming apart into cheerless shards.