The substance-and-social circle: Comm.-Ave. clubs, the I-Day-Eve gala, the 1759 prank

texture · STANDING

• When: STANDING — habitual associations through YDAU; the gala's dated instance is 7 Nov YDAU (I-Day Eve)
• What: Axford belongs to the small set known to get high and known to know Hal gets high; Avril and Tavis know Hal drinks on weekend nights with Troeltsch or maybe Axford at clubs down on Commonwealth Ave. He is a fixture of the upperclass circle's special private day-before-Interdependence-Day ritualistic supper-out-and-trip-to-The-Unexamined-Life blowout-gala (Hal, Pemulis, Struck, Axford, Troeltsch, Schacht, sometimes Stice — the wider gala list, distinct from the smaller duBois-clearing subgroup, which Axford is not in; cf. the Jim Struck timeline). And he and Pemulis keep coming early to chalk a big gothic 1759 on the blackboard before Avril's Grammar-and-Meaning class, just to watch the Moms's lips disappear when she sees it.