Good While Before, A

Pat, a Vietnam vet finished with marriage and booze, gets his dose of society sitting alone and dry at the local bar. One afternoon, watching a pre-season Red Sox game, he ends up next to a group of loudmouth writers gathered around a man in a wheelchair. The writers get under Pat’s skin, and he says something lousy to the big-shot cripple who, it turns out, is also a big-shot writer. The man laughs and tells Pat to come up to the house where he and his group discuss writing. Pat goes for the hell of it and for the chance of a new friend, not suspecting the cripple has a soldier’s heartbreaking agenda.