Mario's night walk past Ennet House (p. 592)
what was unpleasant was that Mario was the only one at the big table whose laugh was a happy laugh; everybody else sort of looked down like they were laughing at somebody with a disability.
Context
Pemulis's Dial-a-Prayer-for-atheists joke at lunch, and the simile turns the scene's lens back on itself: the E.T.A. table treats sincerity the way people treat disability — the ashamed, looked-down, don't-stare reflex from Joelle's wine-tasting party. Mario, who actually has the disability, is the only one whose laugh is happy; the "disability" everyone else is managing is his unembarrassed realness.