Clipperton appears at the E.T.A. portcullis, seeking counsel

pivotal · YW (2002), a rainy warm late A.M. two days before the Clays

• When: YW (2002), two days before the Continental Jr. Clay-Courts
• What: Instead of Indy, Clipperton appears at E.T.A.'s front-gate portcullis, in a flap-frayed trench coat, toe-abraded sneakers, and a five-day beard, carrying no sticks or gear — not even the Glock's case — and pleads for entry and counsel over the gate's intercom, "in a terrible way" being the attendant's intercom diagnosis; the cold-eyed part-time portcullis attendant, from the halfway place down the hill, later told people back there that the spectral trench-coated figure had given him "sobriety's worst fantods, so far." Mario sways down the path, interfaces with Clipperton through the portcullis bars, and personally petitions Lateral Alice Moore, prorector Cantrell, and finally the Headmaster to admit Clipperton under a special nonplay codicil. J. O. Incandenza — "not quite strictly sober" but lucid, and holding "a very low melting-point of compassion for traumas connected with early success" — lets him in over Cantrell's and Schtitt's objections, once it is clear Clipperton wants only a few private minutes with Incandenza Sr.