Little Buddy in John Wayne's V.R.5 group for the plateaux talk

texture · 3 Nov YDAU, before dinner

• When: 3 Nov YDAU, the Big Buddy period between showers and communal dinner.
• What: Two curves down the hall from Hal's group, McKenna sits Indian-style on the floor of V.R.5 as one of the Canadian John Wayne's four Little Buddies — with LaMont Chu, "Sleepy T.P." Peterson, and Brian van Vleck — Wayne being "the most sought-after Big Buddy at E.T.A.," for whom "You have to apply for Wayne as Buddy by random drawing." Chu, referring to index cards while Wayne stands against the door, relays Wayne's doctrine of plateaux and the three types who wash out on the road to mastery (the "Despairing type," the "Obsessive type," the "Complacent type"). McKenna has no individual line; he is one of "the other kids" who yell the not-quite-in-sync "Geronimo!" at each type's bailing point. The event fixes his cohort, his luck of the draw, and his seat at the academy's mentoring machinery.