Dr. Wo's revenge: the poisoned hotshot kills C on the Copley blowergrate

pivotal · 24/25 Dec YDPAH, night into Christmas morning

• When: late Christmas Eve into early Christmas morning, 24/25 Dec YDPAH — Chinatown (Hung Toys), then the hot-air blowergrate behind the Copley Square library
• What: C leads the crew to the dealer only he knows — "Cs' the one that knows Wo" — with Poor Tony stationed down the block (Poor Tony dimly recalls "some type deal where Dr. Wo might of got slightly got over on"). In Hung Toys C does the talking, spinning Wo a cover story; Wo takes a long time behind the curtain while C, jonesing, voices the fear that a subservient might spot Poor Tony outside and rat him as their acquaintance. Wo returns with three bundles and gives the scene's quiet death sentence, a breach of his own protocol: "and Wo never sits down at the booth with the skeet it isnt' done in his comerce" — sitting down, smiling, to ask after "goodold Poor Tony" and Susan T. Cheese. C disavows them in the ugliest available terms — "C he says PT is a fucking dicksucking fag queer and a proven cheeseater" (p. 0133), the crew "didnt’ crew with fags since aprox the autum period," "C is pouring mucis and tryng to smile cusually" — and Wo, laughing, sends Poor Tony "his quite best regards and wish him prosparity and a thousand blisses." (The Orangeline ride down carries one more C datum, as printed: "yrstruly and C almost end up raping a older type nurse in a white nurses’ uniform and coat on the train but we dont’," p. 0132 — the surplus violence idling even in transit.) At the blowergrate, Poor Tony conspicuously fails to whine about booting last (his tell); the narrator, catching it, purposely cooks slow; C — "so eggerly dopesick he doesnt' notice any thing past keeping the lighter lit," Shivers worst of the three, fastest cook — ties off and boots first. "It started the instantly C undid the belt and booted up we knew allready": high-pitched screaming, heels pounding the grate, Poor Tony's feather boa stuffed in his mouth, blood from mouth and nose, an eye popping out on "a blue string" to hang "looking at the fag Poor Tony" — "And C turned lightblue and bit thru the snakes' head and died for keeps". The mechanism, revealed in the telling's buried confession: "Later with Cs' map elemonaded Poor Tony later conceited admitting Susan T. Cheese helped a Worcester fag get over on Wo for a fronted bundle in autum is why. And all three bundles Wo give us in slope news was Hotshots. Laced." What the lacing was is only theorized, never established: "yrstruly I and PT thearized it was Drano with the blue like glittershit," with the narrator's own hedge "it was laced what ever it was" — held open, as printed. The survivors leave "the decesed body C" in an empty library dumpster (his head making "a fucked up sound when it hit the empty bottom") to avoid a sure pinch at their known blowergrate; Poor Tony weeps, vows to get clean, asks to be boosted over the dumpster's edge to retrieve his feather boa from C's mouth — and shortly "departed for green pastures and ate cheese." (All spellings as printed.)