The all-night libation sessions: the odd couple

texture · UNDATED (JOI's late E.T.A. years, "newly outfitted" weight room)

• When: UNDATED — "the newly outfitted E.T.A. weight room," JOI's alcoholic late period, before his YTSDB death
• What: Lyle and JOI were "the odd couple of libations," down in the weight room on the towel dispenser til all hours — Lyle with his Caffeine-Free Diet Coke, Incandenza with his Wild Turkey — Mario "literally standing by" (often asleep upright in his police lock) in case the ice ran out. JOI would pour his heart out: one night Mario woke to hear his father say that "if he had to grade his marriage he'd give it a C–." Lyle, tipsy himself once JOI's pores began "to excrete the bourbon," would read Incandenza Blake aloud "in the voices of various cartoon characters," which Himself "eventually started regarding as deep." Lyle, the narration notes, "tends to take data pretty much as it comes."