Fundraiser day: the window-flesh report, the pre-exhibition ritual, and the Wightman-girls watch

texture · 20 Nov YDAU

• When: 20 November YDAU (blizzard/gala day) — morning at V.R.5, then the immediately-pre-exhibition locker room; the girls-watch runs from the preceding evening
• What: In the morning Freer appears at the V.R.5 doorway where Hal lies wallowing — still in "the weird unitard he slept in," which draws sarcastic whistles down the hall — to ask, genuinely rattled, about the strip of forehead-flesh, eyebrows, and bits of nose on the upstairs hall window (the residue of Stice's detachment from the frozen glass); he feels at his own forehead, shudders, and follows off. That same window vigil had Stice, stuck and helpless through the night, ranking Freer with Pemulis among the discoverers he most dreaded ("And let's don't even mention that son of a bitch Freer."). In the pre-exhibition locker room Freer is one figure in the autopilot ritual — among those filling a pouch with fuller's earth, trying to touch his toes — as the squads prep for the Québec junior teams, whose Jr. Wightman girls he and Struck have been keenly anticipating for "broadening intercultural relations," keeping tabs on an F.A.A. link since supper the night before. The book's last image of him: stretching, groomed, and scheming.