[232] Hydrolysis is the metabolic process by which organic cocaine’s broken down into benzoylecgonine, methanol, ecgonine, and benzoic acid, and one reason not everybody is wired to enjoy Crosbulation is that the process is essentially toxic and can yield unpleasant neurosomatic fallout in certain systems: e.g. in Don Gately’s neurosystem, spider angiomas and a tendency to pluck at the skin on the backs of his hands, due to which tendency he’s always loathed and hated coke and most cokeheads; in Bruce Green’s system, binocular nystagmus and a walloping depression even while the coke-high’s still on that accounts for the tendency toward fits of weeping with his nystagmic face hidden in the crook of his big right arm; in Ken Erdedy an unstoppable rhinorrhagia that sent him to the Emergency Room both times he ever did cocaine; in Kate Gompert blepharospec-ticity and now instant cerebral hemorrhage because she’s on Parnate, an M. A.O.-inhibiting antidepressant; in Emil Minty a ballism so out-of-control he snorted Bing only once. Hemispasms of the oral labia are a common effect of coke-hydrolysis, one mild enough so that people can get them and still enjoy Bing very much; the spasming can range from a mild gnawing/writhing affect in Lenz, Thrale, Cortilyu, and Foss to an alternating series of Edvard Munch-Jimmy Carter-Paliaccí-Mick Jagger-like expressive contortions so severe that everyone in a room except for them is embarrassed. In former cokehead Calvin Thrust, hydrolysis had caused a priapism that led directly to his early choice of career. Randy Lenz also gets nystagmus, but of the right eye only, as well as vascular constriction, diuresis extremus, phosphenism, compulsive tooth-grinding, megalomania, phobophobia, euphoric recall, delusions of persecution and/or homicidal envy, sociosis, postnasal drip, a mild priapism that makes the diuresis a dicey and gymnastic affair, occasional acne rosea and/or rhinophyma, and — especially if there’s synergism from almost a whole pack of filterless Winstons and four cups of nipple-hardeningly strong and alkaline B.Y.P. coffee — confabulation concurrent with a manic garrulousness sufficient to cause lingual tendinitis, pulmonary phasece, and a complete inability to send from his presence anyone who seems at all willing to listen to him.
[233] A.k.a. lignocaine, xylocaine-L, a diethylamino-oxylidide compound used as a dental and maxillofacial anesthetic, the world’s best Bing-cut because it numbs and produces a bitter drip just like the Bingster, and also even temporarily heightens the rush of LV. coke, though if it’s ‘based it tastes nothing like oxidized coke, and it’s also more expensive than Manitol or B12 and harder to get because it’s prescription, meaning the orthodontist was a very popular fellow with dealers indeed.
[234] TRANSCRIPT-FRAGMENTS FROM INTERVIEW SERIES FOR PUTATIVE MOMENT MAGAZINE SOFT PROFILE ON PHOENIX
CARDINAL PROFESSIONAL PUNTER O. J. INCANDENZA, BY PUTATIVE MOMENT MAGAZINE SOFT-PROFILE WRITER
HELEN STEEPLY — NOVEMBER Y.D.A.U.
‘I’m not going to talk about why I don’t talk to the Moms anymore.’ ‘Q.’ ‘Or The Mad Stork’s adventures in the mental-health community, either.’
‘Q.’
‘We’re not off to a good start here, ma’am, no matter how lovely you’re looking in that pantsuit.’
‘Q.’
‘Because the question doesn’t mean anything is why. Insane is just like a catch-term, it doesn’t describe anything, it isn’t a reason for anything. The Stork was a full-blown demented alcoholic for the last three years of his life, and he put his head in the microwave, and I think just in terms of unpleasantness you’d have to be sort of insane to kill yourself in such a painful way. So but was he insane. In the last five years of his life he put together a tennis academy and got together a national-caliber coaching staff and U.S.T.A. accreditation and sanction and multi-Grid funding and set up the start of an endowment for E.T.A., and also came up with that new kind of window glass that doesn’t fog or smudge from people touching it or breathing on it and drawing little finger-oil faces on it, then sold it to Mitsubishi, and also managed the revenues from all his previous patents, plus of course drank himself blind on a daily basis and then needed at least two hours to sit there naked under a scratchy blanket and shake, and went around impersonating various kinds of health-care professionals during the periods he believed he was a health-care professional, from when he had the delirium-tremen-type career delusions, and in his spare time made in-depth documentaries and a dozen art-films that people are still writing doctoral theses on. So was he insane? It’s true, the New Yorker guy, the film guy who replaced the guy who replaced Rafferty, what was his name, it’s true he kept saying the films were like the planet’s most psychotic psyche working out its shit right there on the screen and asking you to pay to watch him. But you have to remember that that guy got third-degree burned by the whole Found Drama scam. That guy was one of the high-caliber critics who said in print that here Incandenza had put drama ahead three or four leaps in one visionary leap, and after The Stork finally couldn’t keep a straight face anymore and spilled the beans on NPR radio during a ‘Fresh Air’ dramaturgy-panel the New Yorker guy dropped from critical sight for like a year and then when he came back he had it in for Himself in a very big way, which is understandable.’
‘Q.’
‘What I started to say is if quote unquote sources you cannot name say the reason I’m not in contact is I claim the Moms is insane, well, what is insane supposed to mean. Do I trust her I do not. Do I want to be in association with her in any way — that is a neg. Do I think she’s irretrievably bats? One of her best friends is the E.T.A. counselor, Rusk, with doctorates in both Gender and Deviance. Does she think the Moms is bats?’
‘Q.’
‘The criteria I was analogizing to The Stork is does the Moms function. And the Moms functions and then some. The Moms careers through the day turboed and in fifth gear. You’ve got the assorted Deaning at E.T.A. You’ve got the full teaching load there. You’ve got accreditation reports and structuring both quadrivium and trivium three years ahead of time at the start of every year. You’ve got writing prescriptive linguistics books that come out every thirty-six months so you could set your watch by them. You’ve got grammatical conferences and conventions, which she doesn’t leave the grounds ever anymore but she’s there videophonically rain or shine for them all. You’ve got the Militant Grammarians of Massachusetts, which she co-founded with a couple quote cherished academic friends, also bats, where the M.G.M.s for instance go around to Mass, supermarkets and dun the manager if the Express Checkout sign says 10 ITEMS OR LESS instead of OR FEWER and so on. The year before The Mad Stork’s death the Orange Crush people had an ad on billboards and little magazine-fall-out cards that said CRUSH: WITH A TASTE THAT’S ALL IT’S O WN, with like a possessive /T¾ and I swear the M.G.M. squad lost their minds; the Moms spent five weeks going back and forth to NNY City, organized two different rallies on Madison Avenue that got very ugly, acted as her own attorney in the suit the Crush people brought, never slept, never once slept, lived on cigarettes and salad, huge salads always consumed very late at night, the Moms has a thing about never eating until it’s late.’
‘Q-’
‘Apparently it’s the noise, she can’t take urban noise, she says, is why Hallie says she hasn’t set glass-slipper-one off the Grounds in — you’d have to ask Hallie. The Volvo was already up on blocks when I was at college downtown. But I know she went to The Stork’s funeral, which was off the grounds. Now she’s got a tri-modem and videophony out the bazoo, though she’d never use a Tableau, I know.’