Throughout his life a case study underachiever, Sully--people still remarked--was nobody's fool, a phrase that Sully no doubt appreciated without ever sensing its literal application--that at sixty, he was divorced from his own wife, carrying on halfheartedly with another man's, estranged from his son, devoid of self-knowledge, badly crippled and virtually unemployable--all of which he stubbornly confused with independence.