The I.-Day-Eve Orin-Hal call (p. 1010)
‘I haven’t seen wheel one in days. I’m thinking possibly this was a kind of very shy sort of fan club of people without legs that look up to me—’ ‘Grotesque entendre, O.’ ‘—as, like, the ultimate leg. They use different ruses to follow me around and never come close or say anything because they’re really shy because they don’t have legs. So now my mind’s resting easier.’
Context
Orin's self-soothing theory of his wheelchaired watchers, half-right in the worst way: they are legless, they are using ruses, and the punter's leg is what they're interested in (they reach him at 184, and it isn't autographs). Hal's "Grotesque entendre" flags the theme's whole dark-comic register — leglessness as fandom, right up until the wheelchairs close in. (Note "wheel one" for "hide nor hair": the chair has replaced the body part in the idiom.)