Mario's arachnoidal birth; JOI present, foreshadowing his own father's death

texture · UNDATED (B.S. era; a "metal-lit November evening")

• When: UNDATED; the surprise premature birth of the second son on "a metal-lit November evening in the seventh month of a hidden pregnancy," in the Back Bay brownstone
• What: Avril's water breaks on the brownstone staircase; JOI, "a bit ragged from an afternoon of Wild Turkey and low-temperature holography," thinks she is dying — and the narration flags that "his own father had dropped dead on a set of stairs" (the Tucson-stairway death of event 1). Mario is "more or less scraped out... like the meat of an oyster," terribly premature and withered, and is given the name of JOI's oculist grandfather (Mario Sr.). C.T. — visiting with his portable StairMaster — takes charge. [Attribution note: chiefly a Mario/Avril event; JOI is present and focalized in the stairway moment, and it seats the Wild Turkey / holography motif.]