Substitute father: the Mario friendship — the sidecar, the walks, the ice-cream, the candor

pivotal · UNDATED (standing relationship; ~YDAU)

• When: UNDATED (standing; the eighteen-year-old-Mario present is ~YDAU)
• What: The one kid at E.T.A. whose company Schtitt seeks out — "in fact pretty much the one person with whom Schtitt speaks candidly, lets his pedagogical hair down" — is the visibly damaged, born-listener Mario Incandenza, who rides in the sidecar of Schtitt's F.R.G.-era BMW cycle up the conditioning-run hills and walks with him "of a warm evening" to get gourmet ice cream while Schtitt savors his pipe and talks doctrine and Mario listens. (They tear downhill on the BMW to Evangeline's Low-Temperature Confections, Schtitt "leaning forward like a skier," his white scarf whipping Mario's face, scene 137.) Schtitt is "not close to his prorectors" and treats deLint and Thode "with a formality that's almost parodic." Because "bullshit often tends to drop away around damaged listeners," Mario gets to hear "deep beliefs revealed, diary-type private reveries indulged out loud." Mario is "an enormous fan of Gerhardt Schtitt, whom most of the other E.T.A. kids regard as probably bats."