Rufus Johnson declares the Bible’s proclamation that “The lame shall enter first,” and follows with “The lame’ll carry off the [not my] prey” (p.631). What makes us sick as readers is the realization that Norton has been, in a sense, “carried off” to “Heaven” by the lame Johnson, but has been “prey” to his own father. O’Conner’s story has the effect upon me that He did in that I found myself revolted by the treatment of “the child” by his father. This story is a little different from the other O’Conner stories that we’ve read. It seems more straight forward. She lays it all out for us with few ambiguities. I found myself looking for that typical O'Conner vision of allegorical significance. Each character seems to have a less distinct vision of their own, but I’ve settled upon O’Conner’s imagery as the most distinct and significant vision for myself as reader. It is that opening picture of Norton eating stale cake with peanut butter and katsup, only to regurgitate it, that gives image to my own revulsion to the situation. While Sheppard imparts his observation of Johnson eating garbage, he fails to recognize that his own son is eating garbage. O’Conner initially collapses Norton’s and Johnson’s characters just enough that we may recognize that there is little difference in the injustice of their individual sufferings and the need it invites. O’Conner does this in at least three ways. 1.) They both eat garbage. 2.) They are both presented as in some degree lame or hampered (Norton answers Johnson’s questions “lamely,” indicating the inability Sheppard sees in Norton. 3.) They are both abused, and although Norton’s abuse may not be considered in the physical nature that Johnson’s is, “He looked as if he had been hit in the mouth” (p. 597) indicates it is abuse none the less. If the rest is a little hard to catch, there is no missing the vomiting image that should signal to us that there is something very wrong and that lingers with us to the end of the story where we find that there are sickening consequences to stuffing ourselves with any kind of garbage. O’Conner spells it out for us completely then when Sheppared recognizes that “He has stuffed his own emptiness with good works like a glutton” and it is he who has been selfish. “He had ignored his own child to feed his vision of himself” (p.631). The visions each character has is significant to the story (Sheppards vission of himself as savior or angel; Johnson's vision of the devil, a sinner or as the lame and saved; Norton's vision of his mother in the stars and his ability to be there with her), but it is the lack of vision Sheppard has that makes his own visions a heap of garbage.