5PHILADELPHIA, WEDNESDAY, 14 AUGUST 1968—Tony reviewed it, reheard it, relived it. The hallway, the ward, painted two-tone drab, gray above putrid green, government SOP. “I want em to cut em off the rest of the way.” Rick’s voice. An inversion layer had settled over the city, had clamped down the humidity, locked in the exhausts and odors, echoed back the cacophony of sirens and horns and trucks, trains, cars, construction, kids screeching, irate women, men, workers, mothers, and rock ’n’ roll. Inversion layer condensing it all into the gully of the hospital grounds, ramming it through the barred windows of the basement ward, barred as if a prison.
The first whiff had knocked the zeal from him, knocked the jive from his step even before he entered. His thought of singing, “I’m - A - Mag -
