Falconer+-+John+Cheever

Falconer 100
beaches and graves and other matters he had unearthed in seeking
the meaning of his friendship, he had completely overlooked the
conspiratorial thrill of seeing his beloved escape.
Tiny called the lockup for eight and made the usual jokes about
beauty sleep and meat-beating. He said, of course, that he wanted
his men to look beautiful for the cardinal. He pulled the light
switch at nine. The only light was the television. Farragut went to
bed and to sleep. The roar of the toilet woke him and then he
heard thunder. At first the noise pleased and excited him. The
random explosions of thunder seemed to explain that heaven was
not an infinity but a solid construction of domes, rotundas and
arches. Then he remembered that the flier had said that in case of
rain the ceremony would be canceled. The thought of a
thunderstorm inaugurating a rainy day deeply disturbed him.
Naked, he went to the window. This naked man was worried. If it
rained there would be no escape, no cardinal, no nothing. Have
pity upon him, then; try to understand his fears. He was lonely.
His love, his world, his everything, was gone. He wanted to see a
cardinal in a helicopter. Thunderstorms, he thought hopefully,
could bring in anything. They could bring in a cold front, a hot
front, a day when the clearness of the light would seem to carry
one from hour to hour. Then the rain began. It poured into the
prison and that part of the world. But it lasted only ten minutes.
Then the rain, the storm, swept mercifully off to the north and just
as swiftly and just as briefly that rank and vigorous odor that is
detonated by the rain flew up to and above where Farragut stood
at his barred window. He had, with his long, long nose, responded
to this cutting fragrance wherever he had been—shouting,
throwing out his arms, pouring a drink. Now there was a trace, a
memory, of this primitive excitement, but it had been cruelly
eclipsed by the bars. He got back into bed and fell asleep, listening
to the rain dripping from the gun towers.