From cokehead to porn performer: the priapism that chose the career

texture · UNDATED (backstory, pre-recovery)

• When: UNDATED — Thrust's using-and-working years, well before his Ennet House era ("a young Calvin Thrust" in the cartridge Gately once saw)
• What: The novel's pharmacology apparatus files Thrust under the strange side-effects of cocaine hydrolysis: in "former cokehead Calvin Thrust," the metabolic process "had caused a priapism that led directly to his early choice of career." The career itself is attested from several angles: scene 054 styles him "a former NYC porn actor," scene 056 refers to his "formerly professional porn-cartridge-performer's Unit" (event 5), and Gately once saw a cheap bootleg cartridge of a young Thrust "having sex with a lady with only one arm on what looked like a crude homemade trapeze" — low-quality lighting and production values, and Gately, in and out of a Demerol-nod at the time, was "98% sure" of the identification. No studio, director, title, or stage name for any of this work is given anywhere in the source text (see Dating notes on the Incandenza-filmography question).