The binge: Count Faxula, "goddamn lie," and the convulsion

pivotal · Fackelmann finale (~4 yrs before YDAU)

• When: the marathon binge over the final days/nights before the raid
• What: Fackelmann and Gately went "on a hell of a tear" — "It became the ICBM of binges." (177) — cooking up and shooting for days under a recursive loop of flame-footage Fax liked, time distended "as if the time were honey." Deflecting every remark, Fackelmann answered nearly everything — questions included — with a soft "That's a goddamn lie" — which Gately turned into a game ("Fax. The Faxter. Count Faxula." — "Goddamn lie"). Kite slipped out before dawn with all his hardware, "not knowing Gately now knew he knew Fackelmann already to be dead." Pamela came and went; the phone and door-buzzer rang and rang, ignored. Fackelmann wet and soiled himself, had a small convulsion, bounced back to his version of functional, and told the shadow of his own hand it was "witnessing the birth of an empire." Gately finally fell and grayed out. (Gately-altitude overlap: Gately's timeline (event 21).)