Falconer+-+John+Cheever

Falconer 110
stop,” the old man shouted in his old man’s voice. “Stop, stop,
stop. Why do you have to do this? Why do you have to destroy
everything? Why do you have to make life hard for old men like
me? What good is it, what good is it to anybody? What are you
doing except to disappoint people and make people angry and cost
people money? Stop, stop, stop. Just bring it back and I won’t say
nothing. Stop, stop….” The noise of the motor, when they
escaped, overwhelmed the old man’s voice, but Farragut would
hear it, more resonant than the Scotch and the girl, for the rest of
that night and, he guessed, for the rest of his life. He had described
this to the three psychiatrists he had employed. “You see, Dr.
Gaspoden, when I heard the old man shouting ‘Stop, stop,’ I
understood my father for the first time in my life. When I heard
this old man shouting ‘Stop, stop,’ I heard my father, I knew how
my father felt when I borrowed his tails and went in to lead the
cotillion. The voice of this old stranger on a summer night made
my father clear to me for the first time in my life.” He said all this
to the lawn mower.
The day was shit. The air was so heavy that he would put visibility
at about two hundred yards. Could it be exploited for an escape?
He didn’t think so. The thought of escape reminded him of Jody, a
remembrance that had remained very light-hearted since he and
Jody had passionately kissed goodbye. The administration and
perhaps the archdiocese had finessed Jody’s departure and he was
not even a figure in prison mythology. DiMatteo, the chaplain’s
dude, had given Farragut the facts. They had met in the tunnel on
a dark night when Farragut was leaving the Valley. It was no more
than six weeks after Jody’s flight. DiMatteo showed him a
newspaper photograph of Jody that had been sent to him in the
mail. It was Jody on his wedding day—Jody at his most beautiful
and triumphant. His stunning brightness shone through the
letterpress of some small-town newspaper. His bride was a demure
and pretty young Oriental and the caption said that H. Keith
Morgan had that day married Sally Chou Lai, the youngest