Day 10
THEY CALLED IT THE OLD THEATER because when they’d expanded the monster in the late seventies, they’d kept the stage area intact for theatrical events instead of replacing it with seats as in some renovated theaters. But in reality the brick building was more an arena than a theater, complete with facilities to accommodate any large-venue meeting as well as a variety of sporting events.
If you packed the main floor with folding chairs, the building sat ten thousand: three thousand on the wood floor, four thousand on the first tier of orange seats ringing the auditorium, and another three thousand on the upper tier, the latter referred to as the red seats, evidently the cheap seats. The seats ran in sections, each marked by lighted signs mounted above passageways that opened to the outer walkway. Except for the stage at the north end, it was a typical arena layout.
The stage stood five feet above the floor, cocooned in massive purple curtains that swept to either side, reminiscent of the oldest theaters. A gray carpet covered the floor, but it creaked when you walked on it, evidence of its age. An old upright piano sat alone on the west side of the stage, but otherwise it was bare tonight. Unless you counted the single mike stand, of course. It stood in the middle, facing the dim expanse like a lost tin soldier. On either side, stage exits, draped with the same purple cloth as the curtains, led backstage.
Jason stood on the large platform and scanned the auditorium, thinking that his part in this impossible show was not unlike a secret service agent, checking out a venue before the dignitaries arrived, in this case Caleb. He wasn’t sure exactly what he was checking the place for; maybe the odd character who might be an INS agent, although any INS agent he’d ever seen could as easily be any Joe Blow as an immigration agent. The authorities hadn’t come for Caleb yet, and for that Jason assumed he had either plain old bureaucracy or John Gardner to thank. But he wouldn’t put it past the agency to march in at any moment and demand custody of the boy.
The Greek knew how to crank up an event; that much was clear. It was no mistake that he had worked his way into one of the largest Greek Orthodox churches this side of the Atlantic. He was a businessman to the core, and Jason couldn’t help thinking the man was clearly misplaced. He belonged on Wall Street perhaps. Or in Hollywood. Then again, some churches weren’t so different from Wall Street or Hollywood.
At any rate, the Greek had done in twenty-four hours what should have taken two weeks. It had cost, of course, an entire Sunday’s offering at least. The facility alone ran five thousand dollars, and so little only because Nikolous had pulled out his nonprofit tricks and made some other undisclosed guarantees. Then there were the short-take radio ads that had played nonstop on a dozen Los Angeles stations, announcing a “free magic show guaranteed to blow the mind” at the Old Theater on Figueroa Street in downtown L.A. The ad mentioned healings, but only as a side note. They’d plastered a thousand neon orange posters up and down the surrounding streets, each with the caption A mind-blowing look at the impossible! stamped below a black-and-white shot of Caleb looking innocent and somewhat mysterious. In all, the costs had to have exceeded fifteen thousand dollars.
The fact sat in Jason’s skull like an undiagnosed tumor. It was fine that the Greek had gone to such lengths in an attempt to save Caleb, but the greedy snake wouldn’t have coughed up a single penny unless he expected returns. Big returns.
By the looks of it, Nikolous’s one-day advertising blitz had attracted a few thousand lost souls in search of something either free or spectacular on this Tuesday evening. The facility was about a third full.
They were from all walks of life, all ages, both genders, mostly seated on the main floor but scattered through the tiers as well. People in shorts, people in jeans, people in suits, people in dresses—the fans of magic. A scattering of physically handicapped in wheelchairs and walkers as well. And as far as Jason could tell they all had lizard eyes. Maybe because he was the only one on the stage right now, and they were trying to decide if this man dressed in blue jeans and a white pullover was the magic man who would blow their minds.
The center front row was occupied by the full mix. An older woman in a yellow dress who fanned herself with a folded neon poster sat beside a young girl in pigtails—her granddaughter perhaps. A man in his forties with toothpicks for arms and legs and jeans two inches too short sat by them. Two empty seats and then two teenagers with pants hanging a good foot below their crotches. The row was capped by a middle-aged man engrossed in a novel angled for optimum lighting. If any on the row were INS, it would be he.
Nikolous had taped off a thirty-by-sixty section on the left for the media. A half-dozen local reporters sat with recorders and notebooks, staring up at the competition and probably wondering what on earth NBC knew that they didn’t. Donna’s three-man crew had set up shop on a small step-up platform that elevated the camera tripod above any possible interference. A single cameraman sat behind the gaping lens aiming his contraption at Donna, who was speaking into a mike clipped to her blouse.
Her voice rose just above the cacophony of background voices. “That was my interview with Dr. Patricia Caldwell earlier this afternoon. As you may have gathered, the incident at UCLA occurred over a week ago and it wasn’t taped, but let me assure you, it was most remarkable. Tonight for the first time we will see little Caleb on camera, and if the past is any indication, we may be in for a mind-bending ride. Let me assure you, there are no secret wires or hidden cameras or trick boxes that we’ve all associated with illusionists. There is only Caleb. But then Caleb is not so ordinary; I think you’ll see that. Trust me, this is one show you don’t want to miss. Jeff, back to you.”
So they had decided to shoot the event live? Nikolous had told them it would be taped and shown on the late news if the producers gave it a thumbs-up. Jason saw the small dish mounted behind the camera and he had his answer. They were at least prepared to go live, if events warranted. Donna had her clout, no doubt about that.
He quickly stepped to his right and ducked behind the curtains backstage. Nikolous stood by some huge canvas backdrops (presumably left over from a production) talking to one of the stagehands he’d assembled from his church.
Caleb sat on a folding chair beside Leiah, who stood over him like a protective hen. She had one hand on his shoulder and the other one at her mouth, biting nervously on a fingernail. She saw Jason and he watched the relief settle over her like a cool shower.
They’d dressed Caleb in long black slacks and a white short-sleeve dress shirt, complete with a brass-buckled belt and a red bow tie. His shoes were new too—black leather tie-ups. His hair fell to his shoulders, and his eyes peered up at Jason like pools of deep ocean water.
A thin sheen of sweat glistened on his upper lip; otherwise there was no sign that the boy was nervous.
“You ready for this, Caleb?”
The boy didn’t respond, and Jason looked up at Leiah. “It looks like they’re shooting it live,” he said quietly.
“Live? But what if—”
“I’m sure they’ll only go to it if . . . things work out.” He noted a tremor in his right hand, and he shoved his hands in his pockets. “Don’t worry; it’s all going to work out.”
“It feels insane,” she said. “What if the Immigration Service is out there waiting for him?”
“I think they’d come back here, don’t you? We’re okay,” he said with as much confidence as he could muster. In truth the INS was completely unpredictable. The NSA was even worse.
“So basically it comes down to whether or not he . . .” She let the statement trail off, and he gave her a reassuring smile.
“Pretty much.”
They’d both had their worlds rocked yesterday, sitting on the couch with Caleb, and neither one quite knew what to do with the experience, he thought. They had talked about it briefly and agreed on one thing: what they had felt was not a figment of their imagination. Caleb’s simple song had somehow infected them. It hadn’t overpowered them; it wasn’t as if they had wept without the power to walk away. But it had been very persuasive to say the least.
If either of them had harbored any lingering doubt about the boy’s power, they’d dismissed it yesterday. The only question that remained was whether Caleb really could turn the power on and off at will, as if it were a fire hose.
By the looks of it they were about to find out.
“Prepare the boy,” Nikolous said, approaching, hands clasped behind his back. He would emcee the event in grand style, and he obviously fancied the part. He was all black. Shiny black hair, black mustache, black double-breasted suit, black shoes . . . and if you got in there with the right instrument, you would find a heart to match, Jason thought.
“And I don’t have to remind you what this evening means,” he said, and then turned to his right-hand man—the tall, skinny butler-type from the offices who now shadowed Nikolous, radio in hand. “Tell them to start the music and dim the lights.”
The man spoke quickly into his walkie-talkie, and within seconds the lights eased down. A low-pitched note rumbled through the auditorium. The ambient noise beyond the stage walls fell as those gathered took their seats. He heard someone cough in the direction of NBC’s setup, and he wondered if it was Donna.
Nikolous pulled the side curtain open and hooked it on the wall. From where they stood, Jason had a clear view of the stage and roughly half of the auditorium, including the camera now under power and winking green. The low, sustained note grew to a bone-trembling volume, and a hush settled over them all.
Nikolous pulled at his lapels, hiked up his shoulders one last time, and strode out onto the stage. Immediately a white circle of light popped on him and followed him to the mike stand. The stand was set low, to Caleb’s height, and Nikolous lifted the cordless microphone out of its stand.
“Ladies and gentlemen, I thank you for joining us on this fine evening. You are the few brave enough to believe, and for that you will see what few have ever witnessed. I promise you.” Nikolous had already decided that the boy was going to perform; that much was obvious.
“You will see no magic tonight.” A few objections peppered the auditorium. “No, no magic. What you will see is a psychic phenomenon never before seen, much less caught on camera. There will be no mastery of illusion or sleight of hand. There will only be real flesh and blood, doing what real flesh and blood could not possibly do. Unless of course you are a small boy with exceptional powers. Unless you are Caleb. Or unless you are with Caleb. Because if you are with Caleb, the rules change.”
The air felt charged with static. Caleb stared at the Greek and the sweat had spread to his forehead. A flash of doubt shot through Jason’s mind. What if he did fail? What if he walked out there and just froze up? It would be a death sentence. Perhaps in more ways than they imagined.
“So then, let me present to you for the first time”—Nikolous lifted a hand toward the side entrance, and Jason’s stomach cinched to a knot—“a boy who will destroy your sense of reason . . .” He paused and then announced in full volume, “Caleb.”
The audience hesitated as the name reverberated around the arena. A smattering of applause broke out.
Leiah led Caleb forward to the side curtain and knelt beside him. Nikolous approached from the microphone. They were to send him out after Nikolous had cleared the stage.
“Listen to me, Caleb,” Leiah said. “They won’t hurt you. When I tell you, go out like we talked about, okay? Don’t be afraid.” She ran a hand through his hair and kissed his cheek. “Jason and I will be right here.”
Nikolous arrived. “Go,” he whispered.
Leiah aimed Caleb for the microphone and let him go.
At first the boy did not move, and Jason thought his fears were being realized; the boy had frozen. But then Caleb took a step, albeit a slow one on legs that were now quivering. His hands hung loosely by his sides, and he quaked like a willow in the wind.
Leiah reached for him, but Jason grabbed her arm.
The boy walked toward the single chrome mike stand, and they held their collective breath. The spotlight blazed, and he hesitated for just a moment before completing the long walk to the microphone. The applause had died, and now only the atmospheric organ music throbbed in a low bass.
Caleb reached the microphone and faced it. He stood stock-still. Nothing happened. He shifted uneasily on his feet and stared out.
“What’s he doing?” Nikolous rumbled quietly.
Caleb looked at them once, looked back at the audience, and then simply walked back toward them without uttering a word.
He had frozen.
Leiah rushed out and guided the boy the last few feet. “What’s wrong, dear?”
“What are you doing?” Nikolous whispered harshly. They huddled around him in near panic. Soft rumbles rippled through the audience.
Jason took Caleb by the shoulders. “It’s okay, Caleb. You only need to do what you can do, okay? What happened?”
“He froze!” Nikolous said. “Holy—”
“Shut up!”
Jason turned back to the boy. “Caleb, remember what we—”
“They’re gone,” Caleb said.
“They’re gone? Who’s gone?”
“The people are gone,” he said.
“He can’t see past the spotlight!” Leiah said.
Nikolous bolted up and snapped at the butler. “The lights! Tell the fools to shut down the spotlight! He can’t see past the lights. Use backlights!”
The skinny man snapped the order into his radio.
A loud clunk sounded and the lights died. A soft amber light swelled from above and cast golden hues over the stage.
Nikolous patted his forehead with a folded napkin, smoothed his mustache, and marched out to the microphone. “Ladies and gentlemen, pardon us, but it seems the boy could not see with the bright lights. Thank you for your patience.” He walked back with long strides.
“Are you okay, Caleb?” Leiah asked. “You really don’t have—”
“You’ll be fine, Caleb,” Jason interrupted, kneeling by him. What was Leiah thinking? The boy’s own survival depended on this. “Go on,” he said, but the encouragement fell flat.
Caleb turned from them and started the long trek out to the microphone a second time. He was putting on a brave front, but he could neither hide the sweat that beaded his little face, nor the tremor that clung stubbornly to his bones. He reached center stage and faced the crowd. Three thousand sets of lizard eyes held him in their stares. The organ drew long, low, eerie notes.
And nothing happened.
Caleb had been at the microphone twenty uneventful seconds, staring dumbly at the crowds, when the music suddenly stopped, midrefrain, as if someone had bumped the needle on a record. A loud static sounded for a moment and then total silence. Someone snickered in the crowd. Things were not proceeding as planned.
Nikolous cursed in Greek under his breath, grabbed the butler by the arm, and jerked him toward the deeper shadows. The skinny man stumbled and would have fallen but for the other’s grip. “Get someone in a wheelchair up there!” Nikolous snapped. “Tell them to grab one of the ill ones and get them on the stage immediately!”
The butler barked his order into the radio, loudly enough for at least the first dozen rows to hear. Fortunately he spoke in Greek.
Caleb looked their way, clearly at a loss. Leiah paced and gnawed at her fingers, and Jason thought she might run out and collect the boy at any moment. He glanced toward the NBC crew and saw that they’d crossed their arms and were shifting uneasily. The camera’s green light blinked steadily; they were still on camera, though he doubted very much that they were live. Back at the studios, the anchor, presumably a good-looking fellow named Jeff, was probably talking about the smog alert that day or some other tidbit that preempted this fiasco.
Jason felt the drumming of his own heart, and he wiped his palms. It could be his own son, Stephen, out there, dying in front of the crowd. He and Ailsa had ignored their better judgment and agreed to put little Stephen onstage at the church once. It was before ALS had crippled him beyond standing; before the saints had decided they would rid his little boy of the disease if they had to beat it out of him. The pastor had interviewed him, and Stephen had frozen.
Like Caleb.
A surge of remorse swept through Jason’s chest, and he ground his molars. If the stakes were not what they were, he would go out there and tell them all what they could do with their lizard eyes.
Then again, for the most part the crowd stared quietly at this small boy, who stood innocently on the stage before them. He wasn’t blowing their minds, to be sure, but he was pulling at their sympathies, Jason thought. Otherwise there would be catcalls and whistles.
A commotion on the far side caught his attention. Three stagehands had a wheelchair-bound man in his midtwenties hoisted shoulder-high and were jogging him down the left side at a frightening clip. They’d evidently found a willing participant in response to Nikolous’s demand. He was paraplegic by the look of his spindly legs that flopped about uncontrolled as they ran. If the man agreed to a trip up front, Jason doubted he’d bargained for the route his bearers had chosen.
The young man began to protest loudly ten yards from the stage, but by then it was already too late. The three men hoisted the red sports chair over the lip of the stage and pushed the paraplegic out onto the floor without aim. The chair rolled across the stage and stopped with its back to Caleb, twenty feet from where Jason and Leiah stood.
The man’s left leg had fallen out of its rest and hung like a loose wire capped with its black shoe. His face turned white with mortification, and his lips wrinkled in a sudden fit of anger. He grabbed at his wheels and spun his chair around to face the boy, ignoring his loose leg for the moment.
Silence swept through the arena, until Jason could hear only his own pulse and the gentle murmur of the air units high above. The crowd shifted forward on their seats or raised on their tiptoes for a better view. Jason felt Leiah’s hand circle his elbow and squeeze. She was trembling. Maybe it was just his arm trembling.
For a moment he thought the paraplegic might rush Caleb, but he didn’t. He just faced him, like a gunfighter with his hands on either wheel. The boy looked back, but he didn’t turn. Beyond them the television camera flashed a steady green, and Donna had a mike to her unmoving lips. For an eternity it stayed just like that.
And then Caleb turned to face the man in the wheelchair. Neither moved. From the back of the arena it might have looked like a confrontation, a standoff of some kind. But up close it was a melding, Jason thought. They were looking into each other’s eyes, and what they saw was slowly making the rest of their surroundings fall away.
If the boy had been frozen a minute ago, he was now thawed. Jason watched him for a few seconds before realizing that Caleb was actually crying. The amber light glinted off thin trails that ran down each cheek. His wide eyes seemed to droop, and he tilted his head ever so slightly. Caleb stared at the man with a kindness and empathy Jason had never seen. He swallowed and fought to control his emotions.
The young man’s hair was short, standing straight up an inch, and it was suddenly quivering. His entire body began to shake. A single restrained sob escaped him, and it echoed through the auditorium like a gunshot. Heat washed down Jason’s spine. The lady on the front row with the fan whispered a teary, “Lord, have mercy on him.”
The paraplegic’s hands fell off his wheels and hung limply. His whole body began to convulse with sobs and the boy just stared at him, weeping silently. The man suddenly dropped his head back and sagged in his chair. His mouth gaped, and he wept without air in a torturous silence. When he came to the end of himself, he gasped loudly and sobbed again, long and silent.
Caleb closed his eyes, spread his arms out, and tilted his head to face the ceiling. His mouth opened in a silent cry. And then he closed his mouth and spoke a single word in his mother tongue. “Hara.”
Yes.
Jason felt a pulse rush through his body with that word. As if the boy had detonated a small bomb on stage and its concussion had slammed through his body. He caught his breath. Then it was gone.
Gasps and cries of alarm filled the auditorium. The NBC crew were look- ing around in a stupor. Donna was frantically mouthing something to the man behind the camera, and he ducked his head back to the eyepiece. They were going live. Beside him Leiah released a sob.
The boy lowered his head and strode purposefully to the man, a grin splitting his face now. He had that look, the one of desperate eagerness that Jason had seen at the convention hall. The paraplegic met the boy’s onrush as if they’d agreed it was a good thing. By the time Caleb reached the man, he’d picked up good speed. He slid a good four feet on his shiny new black shoes before coming to a stop and grasping the man’s hands.
They clasped each other’s hands, and Caleb was speaking in Ge’ez. Their bodies shook as if an electric current had juiced them up. The man suddenly gasped and held his breath. His left leg—the loose one without a shred of muscle—shot straight out and stuck there with the shoe flopped to one side. The man took his eyes off Caleb and stared at it, aghast.
They all watched that leg, and there could be no mistaking the matter— it was changing. Growing. Getting fatter. The blue slacks lost their stick look and swelled. The shoe snapped straight, and in a span of ten seconds the paraplegic’s leg looked like any leg outfitted in blue slacks.
Caleb was laughing. A child at play.
The cheap seats had nearly emptied, and the audience flooded the floor now. Mutters of exclamation and astonishment rippled through the arena.
Caleb began to hop up and down with excitement. He suddenly yanked on the man’s arm and pulled him from the chair.
But the man did not stand.
Jason watched in horror as they fell together—Caleb backward and the man on top of him, sprawling like tangled newborn colts.
Cries of alarm erupted about the stadium. Angry shouts of protest.
Caleb and the man rolled over once and then the boy sprang to his feet. He began to hop again as if it were all part of a great game. The man looked up at him, drew his feet under his body, and stood slowly on wobbly legs.
That shut the crowd up.
A grin cracked the young man’s face. A chuckle. He took a step forward. Then another. He gripped his legs and felt through the cloth, and they watched like hound dogs, in breathless silence.
The man suddenly threw back his head and let out a bloodcurdling scream. “Yaaaahoooo!”
Even Jason jumped.
The jubilant man, now with full use of his legs, began to yell and jump with Caleb. “My legs, my legs, my legs!” he repeated over and over. He picked the boy up and squeezed him tight and then spun in circles. Caleb giggled in high pitch and Jason laughed with them. It was infectious.
Suddenly the boy was on his seat and the man leapt for his red chair. He picked it up, swung it around once, and hurled it through the air. It smashed into the back wall and clattered noisily to the floor. Caleb leapt to his feet and began to hop again.
They were like two children. They were two children, for all meaningful purposes, dancing this dance of theirs while three thousand people gaped in awe. A general roar filled the place. Voices of praise, voices of amazement, voices of doubt, voices of outrage—the voice of humanity all mixed together in one messy ball.
“Praise the Lord! Praise the blessed Lord!” the old woman in the front row cried.
“It’s a sham! That’s nothin’ but a sham,” the skinny nerd next to her said, but he was staring nonetheless. The two teenagers watched the stage with wide eyes. The whole place was on its feet and shouting in confusion.
But the boy was ecstatic.
He ran around the healed man, who was bouncing like a pogo stick, and the volume of outcry rose.
What had happened this far was enough to spawn a thousand interesting debates over coffee, but what happened next made Caleb a household name.
Jason didn’t know if it was all the noise or simply the boy’s enthusiasm that triggered his next move, but one second Caleb was rounding the man, and the next he was rushing the front of the stage. His aqua eyes were fired with excitement, and he still grinned mischievously.
He slid to a stop at the edge of the stage, scanned the audience with a single sweep of his head, and then threw his head back and sang to the sky.
The note that broke from his throat was pure and high, and it pierced the air like an arrow slicing though the fog.
It’s Ge’ez, Jason thought.
But it was all he thought, because the boy’s song seemed to spin his mind backward. The world fell into slow motion about him. Caleb was there, head jutted out to the crowd, eyes closed, singing with lips round like a Cheerio. The camera was winking green at him, and a thousand onlookers had their mouths open, but all of it seemed to have slowed to a crawl.
And the sound was gone.
Except for the song. Caleb’s notes filled his soul.
For a brief moment everything froze. And then something hit Jason’s chest and he crumpled to his knees, dazed and numb. He slumped against the stage entrance, fighting against a thick sea of energy. But his strength was gone. That was all.
But it wasn’t only him. Leiah lay facedown beside him, as though she were dead. A body nudged his heel, and he saw that it was Nikolous. The Greek was on his back.
Jason forced his head up. The man who’d tossed his wheelchair lay on his back, facing the ceiling for the second time. And the audience . . .
The audience was collapsing before his eyes!
Jason’s mind screamed with alarm, but his body didn’t flinch. He simply watched the madness unfold. It was like an invisible wave of raw power that started on the left and rolled across the auditorium, tossing whatever stood in its path to the floor. If they were standing, as many of them were, they crashed to their seats or crumpled to the floor. If they were seated, they slumped in their chairs. The wave approached the NBC camera, which had spun to face it. Donna staggered and then fell to her side as if unable to hold a large weight that had been dropped on her back. The cameraman slumped in his seat, jerking the camera badly. Jason watched as he slipped out of his seat and thumped to the floor. The wave took no more than two seconds to cover the auditorium.
And then there was absolute stillness.
From the corner of his eye, Jason saw the yellow light on the NBC dish and he knew they were live. The world was watching.
Caleb looked over the crowd and spoke in English. “You should not doubt the power of God.” Then he grinned again.
They heard it. Sure they did, because Jason heard it, clear as day.
Jason stood to his feet slowly. The world was still woozy; a warm contentment had settled in his mind. He thought it would be good to sit, so he eased himself out on the stage and sat. He swung his legs over the lip and faced the mess.
And it was that. A mess. Bodies lay strewn over each other where they had fallen. Half had pushed themselves to their feet, but few had found the resolve to stand. The old woman up front lay flat on her back, wearing a huge grin that made Jason smile. Her granddaughter sat at her feet staring up at Caleb with round eyes. The vocal nerd to their right had his face planted on the floor, and his hands and legs spread wide to either side. The two teenagers lay next to each other like twins, still oblivious to the world. And the businessman at the end of the row had somehow ended up with his feet on his chair and his back on the floor. He didn’t seem in a hurry to reverse the arrangement.
It was a mess. But it wasn’t a bad mess.
A woman had stood and was picking her way to the front. In her arms lay a young boy, perhaps three or four years of age. Even from where he was, Jason could see that the child’s legs were crippled. He’d seen legs like those before. A vise seemed to squeeze Jason’s chest.
She brought the child to the floor directly in front of Caleb, who watched her silently. The cameraman had managed to climb back on his stool, and he swung the camera back to the boy. Donna had pulled herself into a seat and was talking into a mike, dazed. She was telling them what had happened. Of course that was absurd, because she knew no more than Jason did about what had just happened.
Either way it had happened. That was the point. It had really happened, right in front of a camera hot-wired into twenty million homes.
And now another thing was happening. Now the mother was laying her child at the feet of Caleb, and the boy was looking desperate again. Caleb dropped to his knees, placed his hands on the child’s face, and muttered excitedly in Ge’ez.
Then he stood, stepped to one side adjacent to the child, and faced the crowd. Beside him the young child stirred and sat up, dazed. His mother began to wail. If Caleb noticed, he didn’t show it. He raised his hands to the crowd and spoke a long string of words in his own language.
Beside him the four-year-old stood up on quaking legs. Caleb lowered his hands and began to skip across the stage. The cries came from all across the auditorium, then sudden exclamations of surprise as those who had come with illness discovered that they were no longer ill. And those who came with debilitating handicaps were no more handicapped than the young man who’d thrown his wheelchair across the stage, or the young child who now walked in small circles while his mother wept uncontrollably.