Lyle and Mario: referrals, Caffeine-Free Diet Cokes, and the aesthetic-case pipeline

texture · UNDATED (standing)

• When: UNDATED — the standing Lyle-Mario alliance
• What: Mario is "the object of a strange and maybe kind of cliquey affection from Lyle the Spandexed sweat-guru," bringing him Caffeine-Free Diet Cokes "to cut the diet's salt"; Lyle "sometimes finds younger E.T.A.s referred to him by Lyle on really ticklish matters of injury and incapacity and character and rallying-what-remains," and Mario "never much knows what to say." Schacht too is "historically tight with Mario and with Lyle" (scene 065), going to the weight room even on off-days. Mario is also the one who "unable to understand Lyle's replies" when he tries to raise his confusion about real-vs-embarrassing feeling (scene 117), and who reports the Eschaton-debacle fallout to "good old Lyle" (scene 154) — the human relay between Lyle and the wider Academy.