Falconer+-+John+Cheever

Falconer 106
stopped, but the chopper went on playing its geodetic survey of
the surrounding terrain—the shining, lost and beloved world.
The cardinal’s helicopter landed at La Guardia, where two large
cars were waiting. Jody had seen cars like this in the movies and
nowhere else. His Eminence and the monsignor took one. The
acolytes filled the second. Jody’s excitement was violent. He was
shaking. He tried to narrow his thinking down to two points. He
would get drunk. He would get laid. He held to these two points
with some success, but his palms were sweaty, his ribs were
running with sweat and sweat ran down his brows into his eyes.
He held his hands together to conceal their shaking. He was afraid
that when the car reached its destination he would be unable to
walk as a free man. He had forgotten how. He imagined that the
paving would fly up and strike him between the eyes. He then
convinced himself that he was playing a part in a miracle, that
there was some congruence between his escape and the will of
God. Play it by ear. “Where are we going?” he asked one of the
others. “To the cathedral, I guess,” he said. “That’s where we left
our clothes. Where did you come from?” “Saint Anselm’s,” said
Jody. “I mean how did you get to the prison?” “I went out early,”
Jody said. “I went out on the train.”
The city out of the car windows looked much wilder and stranger
than beautiful. He imagined the length of time it would take—he
saw time as a length of road, something measured by surveyors’
instruments—before he could move unself-consciously. When the
car stopped he opened the door. The cardinal was going up the
steps of the cathedral and two of the people on the sidewalk knelt.
Jody stepped out of the car. There was no strength at all in his legs.
Freedom hit him like a gale wind. He fell to his knees and broke
the fall with his hands. “Shit, man, you drunk?” the next acolyte
asked. “Fortified wine,” said Jody. “That wine was fortified.” Then
his strength returned, all of it, and he got to his feet and followed
the others into the cathedral and to a vestry much like any other.