altogether, and their wheelchairs had been pushed out onto the red-brick patio 
overlooking the gardens, under the shade of a broad, dark Philadelphia cedar.
   John was the most recently disabled. Next to him sat a twelve-year-old black boy 
called Toussaint who had contracted polio when he was seven months old, and had never 
known what it was like to walk. Toussaint was fine-featured and handsome and flip, and 
could play the acoustic guitar better than anyone John had ever heard.
   There was Billy, overweight and bespectacled and clownish. Billy had once been thin 
and good-looking, but when he was eighteen he had overturned his secondhand TransAm and 
damaged his spinal column. He had been lucky not to lose his sight, too, because both of 
his eyes had come out of their sockets.
   Billy was twenty-four. He would never dance, would never make love. He had nothing to 
look forward to but operations and chess and more operations, and an occasional part-time 
job working a lathe at Conrail. But Billy was always funny, always facetious. There was 
Dean, who had lost both legs at Long Binh, and whose demeanor was permanently sour. Mean 
Dean, Toussaint had christened him. Mean Dean was thirty-six now, and smoked tiny, damp, 
hand-rolled cigarettes, perpetually sucking at three or four strands of tobacco with 
drawn-in cheeks. His eyes were as blank as pebbles. He rarely uttered more than two or 
three words at a time, and John had never seen him smile.
   Lastly there was a young Korean, So Che-u, small-featured and oddly old-looking, with 
a close-shaved scalp and pointed ears, like Yoda. So Che-u's father owned a chain of 
Korean eateries throughout the Northeast, the Yi Dynasty Restaurants. Che-u had been born 
quadriplegic, and although he had been trained through years of therapy not to twist and 
writhe in constant athetosis, he was unable to willfully move any part of his body except 
his neck. He could paint, however, using bamboo brushes that he held between his teeth, 
and he wrote with the aid of an electronic typewriter. He wrote short, sad, mysterious 
letters, to nobody in particular, which he never mailed.
   Billy was telling a joke, while the rest of them sat in their wheelchairs with their 
eyes closed against the warm summer sun. The cedar berries, blue and bitter, bobbed in 
the southwesterly breeze.
   This guy walks into a brothel and pulls out a big roll of money and says, "Give me the 
ugliest girl you got." Well, the Madame says, "Mister, for that money, you can have the 
very best." But he says, "Listen, lady, I'm not horny, I'm homesick." '
   John gave a short laugh, just to be polite, but none of the others did. They had 
obviously heard the story before, or else they had read the same men's magazines in which 
Billy had found it. Mean Dean leaned sideways and spat tobacco juice into the pebbles 
that surrounded the cedar.
   'Did you ever hear the one about the singing dick?' Billy wanted to know.
   But Toussaint said, 'Do you know what I feel like? I feel like a big plate of charred 
barbecued ribs, with hush puppies and buttered greens.'
   'I could do with a cold beer,' said Billy. 'And a nude woman with huge bazookas 
rubbing my back.'
   'I'd settle for a stroll around the block,' John put in.
   Che-u gave them a lopsided smile. 'Wishful thinking, fellows. What you're going to get 
is Salisbury steak and instant mashed potatoes, a bed-bath from Sister Perpetua, and a 
whole night of lying flat on your back until somebody remembers that you're still alive 
and condescends to move you around.'
   John said, 'You know, being so helpless - that's hit me harder than anything else. And 
the way you have to keep politely reminding people to do things for you.'
   Mean Dean relit his miniature cigarette with a huge, flaring Zippo. 'It gets wors,',' 
he remarked laconically.
   'You become totally invisible.' said Billy. 'Little by little, you vanish. First of 
all your family and friends stop visiting you so frequent, and even when they do turn up 
they spend most of their time talking to each other like you weren't there.'
   'Going out in the street, man, that's the worst,' Toussaint told John.
   That's right,' put in Che-u. 'Even when somebody is kind enough to wheel you out for a 
walk, people in the street hurry past you as if you don't exist. They talk to your nurse, 
sure. But they won't even look down at you sitting there. Occasionally they might talk 
about you, but they never ask you questions direct. I've even had people spell out words 
to my nurse cause they thought I wouldn't be able to understand what they were saying. 
Like, "Does he have very long to L-I-V-E?'"
   Billy nodded. 'You know, that time Sister Xavier took me to see the flower show, some 
woman did that exact same thing to me. She was primping up this display of daisies, and 
she leaned right over in front of me and said, "I suppose he needs to wear a 
D-I-A-P-E-R." And I piped up and said, "Ma'am, I can use the doings as good as anyone 
else. I can sit on the seat without falling off and if it's an old-fashioned toilet I can 
pull the chain with my teeth. All I need is somebody like you with nice soft 
flower-arranger's hands to wipe my ass when I'm finished." And she stared at me like I 
was terrible and crazy, and how did I dare to embarrass her like that? Me, a cripple.'
   'Well,' said Che-u, smiling 'you just have to be philosophical. In our society, 
physical perfection counts for so much.'
   'Bullshit,' put in Billy. 'Physical perfection counts for everything.'
   'I never realized that handicapped people felt so bitter,' John remarked.
   'Bitter?' said Dean. 'Handicapped people are never bitter! They sing and they smile 
and they shout out praise the Lord! Just like the darkies in the Deep South. And just 
like the darkies in the Deep South, they're banned from buses and restaurants and 
theaters, and they're treated like they're only half-human. But that doesn't stop them 
smiling and singing, because if they stopped smiling and singing then they wouldn't be 
treated like they're even half-human. No, sir! Handicapped people aren't bitter, 
excepting amongst themselves, and in private, when they hide their faces and curse God.'
   It was the longest speech that Dean had made in a week, and it silenced everyone. John 
closed his eyes. 
   He heard the wind, the rustle of the cedar tree, the traffic. Toussaint picked up the 
guitar and began to play a delicate, complicated melody, full of regret. John began to 
wonder what kind of world this was that he had entered.
   His eyes were still closed when someone laid a hand on his shoulder and said, 'Mr. 
Woods? John?'
   He squinted up against the brightness. It was Sergeant Thaddeus Clay, in mirror 
sunglasses and a snap-brim hat, with his twin brother standing close behind him.
   'John, may I talk to you in private for a while?'
   John was devastated to hear that Jack and Nancy Felling had been murdered. He sat in 
his wheelchair and trembled with grief. Thaddeus Clay must have warned Sister Perperua 
that he was bringing John some catastrophic news, because she came in almost immediately 
and offered him a sedative. John shook his head. He couldn't control his body, but he 
wanted to stay completely in control of his mind.
   He felt as if he had been pitched into an ice-cold ocean. Gasping, breathless, 
struggling to keep his head above water.
   Thaddeus said, 'Your son's been taken to the Graduate Hospital suffering from shock. 
I'm afraid that Chief Molyneux now regards him as the prime suspect. We'll be questioning 
him later today. He can't be tried for homicide, of course, but there's a strong 
possibility that he could be committed into psychiatric care.'