Residents Out There: Kate Gompert, Ruth van Cleve, and the Poor Tony purse-snatch

texture · Sat 14 Nov YDAU (2009), ~2200-2225h

• When: Saturday 14 Nov YDAU (2009), ~2200-2225h
• What: The House's own policy propelling its residents into the dangerous world outside it: it is Ruth van Cleve's first day off new residents' three-day House Restriction, and she may hit an out-of-Enfield NA meeting only under the senior-resident escort mechanism — which is how four-nights-sleepless Kate Gompert, deep in It, comes to be walking her back along Prospect just south of Inman Square. There the withdrawal-wracked Poor Tony Krause (perceived as a red-coated "apparition") snatches their string purses and, when Kate's macramé strap holds, swings her Crack-the-Whip into a lightpost, concussing her; van Cleve gives chase. The supervised-escort policy's worst case — a resident physically harmed in the world while doing exactly what the House requires — realized; the chase braids into the same night's other predator-plots (Lenz stalking two Chinese women, scenes 142/148) in Little Lisbon's alleys, which now belong to the A.F.R. (scene 144). See the AA&R thread and the Poor Tony material.