By the time Willie stands on tip-toe to reach for the unreachable star, Willie, Sara, and Margie have reached a state of high hilarity. I just can’t see what’s so funny.

Now they’re calm, still apparently waiting for something.

And the world will be better for this.

That one man—

Willie’s cue. He stands up—

Scorned and covered with scars …

He half salutes and half bows, like a celebrity being recognized in the audience of The Ed Sullivan Show. (“Now appearing on Broadway, one man, scorned and covered with scars.”)

Sara’s wiping her eyes with a crumpled napkin. “Wait till you see Senator B. J. McNeill do that celebrity wave. Willie’s got it perfect.”

The song continues

… with his last ounce of COURAGE …

But the ending is lost. The laughter has become hysterical. Sara’s red-faced, choking, as close to a spaz attack as she can get. Again I wish they hadn’t dragged me to this table.

Mr. Bob looks to us with the sternest disapproval before turning to the choir. “Encore.”

The choirmaster raises his arms.

“What’ll it be, do you think?” Sara asks.

“What the World Needs Now Is Love, Sweet Love,” Margie whispers. Sara nods and Willie gives Margie an appreciative poke on the back.

No. It isn’t “What the World Needs Now.” With the first notes, I think I see Willie’s face light up with devilish mirth. “Look out.”

“Oh, shit, I should’ve known.” Sara rests her chin on the table like a long-suffering tired old hound.

“When you walk through a storm…” This time they listen silently, waiting, waiting for something that doesn’t come until the big ending.

“WALK ON, WALK ON, with hope in your heart, and…”

Willie takes Sara’s hands and my hands and joins them in his own. With death-sentence solemnity, he speaks the next line: “You’ll never walk alone.”

Sara ham-acts a face of great distress, a face hearing very bad news for the first time.

Willie sings loud, right in our faces. “You’ll NEVER WALK alone!”

I laugh.

The other routine annoyed me, but this one—I have to laugh. I have to laugh because there’s no way to keep calm with that hideous face singing right into mine, that weird knobby leathery hand so alive, so warm, squeezing mine. But I laugh too, to express something I’m just beginning to feel: that walking is something you can mock. Not walking as an ordinary means of getting around, but Walking as a big dramatic idea, Walking as a metaphor for strivings of all kinds. When I gave up my childhood struggle to walk, it felt like a failure of something much greater—a failure of courage, of character, of faith. Yesterday Sara suggested that walking might be a matter of choice. Today it’s a joke. A joke so funny I can’t stop laughing.

*   *   *

I laugh through the ripple of applause for the chorus, laugh through the dispersal of the herd, and laugh as we move toward the cabin. I barely notice that Carole is particularly nonplussed and Sue is looking daggers at Sara.