The bond with Mario — attracto-repulsive gestalt, unnerved gregarity

texture · standing

• When: standing (YTSDB-YDAU)
• What: Mario is "an object of some weird attracto-repulsive gestalt for Charles Tavis," and treats his "possible half-uncle" with the "quiet deference he can feel [Tavis] wanting," staying out of his way for Tavis's sake (scene 071). Tavis is "unnerved into such gregarity around Mario it's awkward for all parties," so Mario doesn't explore his lit office when passing (154). The endnote apparatus sharpens the repulsion half: Tavis keeps "a distant but weirdly beady and obsessive eye on Mario, from whose lordotic presence in a room Tavis'd flee just as Avril was fleeing from the temptation of overlobbying Orin on B.U., such that for a few days when both Orin and Mario entered a room there'd be the sound of a tremendous collision in the hall outside as C.T. and Avril's flights' vectors met" (n98 pp. 1003-1004). The undercurrent — heightened by the open paternity thread (event 4) — is of a man made anxious by the very child he may have fathered and cannot quite face.