John Balaban Now, forty-five years old, as maple leaves spiral past my attic window, I weep as I write this. Weep for Mr. Long, whose young wife went blind and crazy before she died a slow death with a head full of slivers, weep for the deafened boy who suffered alone without his parents, weep for the beautiful little girl who would lose her burned arm, weep for her napalmed mother, who would probably die or survive as a monster.