The liaison as leverage: Pemulis blackmails Avril over "some sort of major-sport interlude with John Wayne"

pivotal · 17 Nov YDAU

• When: 17 Nov YDAU (the same pre-match window as the meltdown, Pemulis POV)
• What: Pemulis reveals how he and Hal "escaped on-spot urinalysis only because Pemulis implied to Mrs. Incandenza that he'd tell the Incster about Avril having some sort of major-sport interlude with John Wayne" — Avril being "a coldly-biding-her-time-not-to-be-fucked-with administrative figure." Pemulis also floats a mocking leaflet announcing "a joint John Wayne/Dr. Avril Incandenza arithmetic presentation... on how 17 can actually go into 56 way more than 3.294 times" — the liaison rendered as an open E.T.A. rumor. This is the liaison's operational payoff: Wayne's secret with Avril becomes Pemulis's shield, and cements that the affair is known (or knowable) to at least Pemulis and the rumor-mill, though apparently not to C.T.