The A.F.R. search the Antitoi shop
he and Marathe had counselled all along that the F.L.Q. displays of the Entertainment and the wheelchaired man were probably the hoax, instilling of terror only. The fact of the displays which featured wheelchairs, a smack to the testicles of A.F.R.—this was ignored.
Context
The wheelchair as credential and brand: the rival F.L.Q.'s hoax street-displays feature "the wheelchaired man" because the wheelchair is the A.F.R.'s insignia — terror-value borrowed from the fauteuil the way a flag gets borrowed. Fortier registers the appropriation as a bodily insult ("a smack to the testicles") and disciplines himself to ignore it. Even the organization's enemies understand that in this book the chair is not equipment but identity.