If this life often feels like the apocalyptic science fiction novels I read as a teen and twentysomething come true, what is also true is that we—disabled people—are the heroes, surviving it and helping everyone else know how to survive it.

He wasn't worthy of being Superman. He wasn't even worthy of being Brendan Fraser. And this feeling ate at him as the decade wore on, and he starred in movies he was less and less proud of, and his body deteriorated, and his marriage fell apart, and he kept thinking about what had happened to him in the summer of 2003: “The phone does stop ringing