The WETA broadcast meltdown — "lost his mind" — cause disputed

pivotal · 17 Nov YDAU

• When: 17 Nov YDAU (the WETA broadcast, ~1435h); recovered by 18 Nov; recounted at 20 Nov (scene 170)
• What: Wayne "lost his mind" on the school's WETA radio broadcast. Per the Academy's public account (scene 170, via Mario): "John Wayne had had a violent allergic reaction to a decongestant and had commandeered the WETA microphone and publicly embarrassed himself on Troeltsch's Tuesday broadcast," said "unkind things about various E.T.A. staff and administration," was taken to St. Elizabeth's overnight, and recovered fast enough to finish ahead of Stice in the next day's run. Per Pemulis's private knowledge (n324/n332), the true cause was accidental: Wayne, "rheumy-eyed and shiny-nostriled," took what he thought was Troeltsch's Seldane antihistamine but was in fact Pemulis's pilfered Tenuate (an amphetamine) — "the impact of the 'drine on Wayne's cherry-red and virgin bloodstream." On air (n332) Wayne did a devastating imitation of Tavis's rejection-fear seduction monologue and castigated his peers and instructors by name — on Hal: "by all appearances addicted to everything that is not tied down, cannot outrun him, and is fittable in the mouth" (Pemulis: "I'm remembering the word as insertable"); on the late JOI "so full of himself he could have shit limbs"; on faculty (Thode "a face like a pancake"). deLint's post-broadcast tribunal (Nwangi and Watson as window-dressing) grills Pemulis, who dares not admit the 'drine. KEPT AS PRINTED: the allergic-decongestant account and the accidental-amphetamine account are both in the text (event resolves neither).