Tunnel detail: rhymes for Traub, the condom find, and opening the fridge

texture · 11 Nov YDAU, 1625h

• When: 11 Nov YDAU, 1625h, on the semi-punitive sub-14 trash detail 26 meters below the Hal-Stice exhibition.
• What: Listed as "Tim ('Sleepy T.P.') Peterson" among "the bulk of the ambulatory sub-14 male Eschatonites," Peterson is the detail's utility man. He makes its most memorable find — "Sleepy T.P. finds two bright Trojan wrappers just off the prorectors' hallway-tunnel," then "the vermiform gleam of an actual condom" (poor Blott is made to bag it). When Gopnik's punch leaves little Traub weeping and threatening to quit, "Peterson and Gopnik try to distract and amuse Traub into staying and not retreating back up to Nwangi and making a high-pitched stink" — the two alternating roles, first Gopnik rhyming "while Peterson shines his flashlight on the clipboard for Chu," then "Peterson to Traub, while Gopnik holds the light: 'Eighteen-year-old top-ranked John Wayne / Had sex with Herr Schtitt on a train'" and so on, "which the slightly older kids find more entertaining than Traub does." He gripes with Gopnik "that the cartridge-cases' sharp edges put holes in their Glad bags"; he is a named signatory of the Club's grand scheme ("Plus a confirmed feral-hamster sighting, Chu and Gopnik and 'S.T.P.' Peterson have agreed, could well distract the Headmaster's office from post-Eschaton reprisals" against the Big Buddies); and when the expedition finds the abandoned fridge it is Peterson who first "trains his light on the midsized brown fridge" and asks the fatal question — "Sleepy T.P. turns around. 'Who smells a, like, a like decay-element?'" Chu's plan settles his fate: "'Me and Gop'll light it up, Peterson opens it.'" His protest ("Why me?") is met with "You're closest, Sleeps" — and the scene ends in the shrieking rout the opened fridge sets off.