Falconer+-+John+Cheever

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Falconer 114 he approached the squad room he heard a radio. “Inmates have demanded an injunction against physical and administrative reprisals and a general amnesty,” he heard. Then the radio was cut. They had either heard him or timed his arrival. Four officers were sitting around a radio in the squad room. There were two quarts of whiskey on the desk. The looks they gave him were blank and hateful. Marshack—he had small eyes and a shaven skull—gave him two pieces of paper. Farragut went down the hall to his office and slammed shut the glass-and-chicken-wire door. As soon as his door was closed he heard the radio again. “Sufficient force is available to recapture the institution at any time. The question is whether the lives of twenty-eight innocent men is a weighty enough ransom to purchase amnesty for nearly two thousand convicted criminals. In the morning…” Farragut looked up and saw Marshack’s shadow on the glass door. He slammed open a desk drawer, ripped out a ditto sheet and put it as noisily as possible into the machine. He watched the shadow of Marshack slide down the glass to where he could, crouched, see through the keyhole. Farragut shook the papers vigorously and read the messages, written in pencil in a child’s scrawl. “All personnel is to show top strength in all gatherings. No strength, no gatherings.” That was the first. The second read: “Louisa Pierce Spingarn, in memory of her beloved son Peter, has arranged for interested inmates to be photographed in full color beside a decorated Christmas tree and to have said photographs…” Marshack opened the door and stood there, the executioner, the power of endings. “What is this, Sergeant?” Farragut asked. “What is this thing about a Christmas tree?” “I don’t know, I don’t know,” said Marshack. “She’s a fucking dogooder, I guess. They cause all the trouble. Efficiency is all that matters and when you don’t get efficiency you get shit.” “I know,” said Farragut, “but what’s this all about a Christmas tree?”
Falconer 115 “I don’t know the whole story,” Marshack said, “but this broad, this Spingarn, had a son who I think died in prison. Not in this country but in someplace like India or Japan. Maybe it was in some war. I don’t know. So she thinks about prisons a lot and she goes to some mark in the Department of Correction and she gives them this money so that you assholes can be photographed in full color standing beside a Christmas tree and then have these pictures mailed to your families if any of you got families, which I doubt. It’s a terrible waste of money.” “When did she make this arrangement?” “Oh, I don’t know. A long time ago. Years ago, maybe. Somebody just remembered about it this afternoon. It’s just something to keep you assholes busy. Next thing they’ll have needle-threading contests with cash prizes. Cash prizes for the boob who shits the biggest turd. Cash prizes for anything, just to keep you busy.” Marshack sat on the edge of the desk. Why, Farragut wondered, did he shave his skull? Nits? A shaved skull was associated in Farragut’s mind with Prussians, cruelty and executioners. Why should a prison guard aim at this? On the evidence of his shaved skull Farragut guessed that if Marshack were on the barricades at The Wall he would gun down a hundred men with no excitement and no remorse. The shaved skulls, Farragut thought, will always be with us. They are easily recognized but impossible to alter or cure. Farragut longed fleetingly for class structures and benighted hierarchies. They could exploit the shaved heads. Marshack was stupid. Stupidity was his greatest usefulness; his vocation. He was very useful. He was indispensable at greasing machinery and splicing BX cables and he would be a courageous and fierce mercenary in some border skirmish if someone more sophisticated gave the order to attack. There would be some universal goodness in the man—he would give you a match for your cigarette and save you a seat at the movies—but there was no universality to his lack of intelligence. Marshack might respond to the sovereignty of
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FALCONER JOHN CHEEVER
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Falconer 3 Copyright Falconer Copyr
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Falconer 5 eForeword During a writi
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Falconer 7 Falconer
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Falconer 9 but was manacled to nine
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Falconer 11 the guard. But all of t
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Falconer 13 They went up a sloping
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Falconer 15 Farragut’s first visi
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Falconer 17 “What,” she asked,
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Falconer 19 with his, deeply thrill
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Falconer 21 across his face. Her br
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Falconer 23 gamy; he thought that p
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Falconer 25 “Shall we change the
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Falconer 27 She had begun to have t
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Falconer 29 doing in Falconer. It w
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Falconer 31 class. And willingness,
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Falconer 33 churches, at some times
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Falconer 35 convicts, and there wer
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Falconer 37 It was half and half. H
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Falconer 39 outstripped the human s
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Falconer 41 planted with costly fir
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Falconer 43 avoid excitement. It se
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Falconer 45 water, wiped his ass on
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Falconer 47 Liechtenstein. His back
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Falconer 49 against the image of th
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Falconer 51 will not go to the club
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Falconer 53 rise. This clowning was
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Falconer 55 twice a week. There’s
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Falconer 57 at him,” said Farragu
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Falconer 59 much a citizen. As a ta
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Falconer 61 find a church. In the p
Page 65 and 66: Falconer 63 shoulder—and I lay on
Page 67 and 68: Falconer 65 “You are not the most
Page 69 and 70: Falconer 67 took the funicular up,
Page 71 and 72: Falconer 69 Farragut was still limp
Page 73 and 74: Falconer 71 fall, Farragut stood at
Page 75 and 76: Falconer 73 forty-five-thousand-dol
Page 77 and 78: Falconer 75 won’t stuff their wiv
Page 79 and 80: Falconer 77 Now watch me smile. See
Page 81 and 82: Falconer 79 you outside the infirma
Page 83 and 84: Falconer 81 University. He would be
Page 85 and 86: Falconer 83 mileage he could expect
Page 87 and 88: Falconer 85 once, when he got off t
Page 89 and 90: Falconer 87 ice cream and coffee. A
Page 91 and 92: Falconer 89 experience of alienatio
Page 93 and 94: Falconer 91 one another doesn’t g
Page 95 and 96: Falconer 93 money was. They took Ca
Page 97 and 98: Falconer 95 anything but did I know
Page 99 and 100: Falconer 97 remembered the panic he
Page 101 and 102: Falconer 99 As the day of the cardi
Page 103 and 104: Falconer 101 Farragut got what he h
Page 105 and 106: Falconer 103 target and out the doo
Page 107 and 108: Falconer 105 what we might compare
Page 109 and 110: Falconer 107 He took off his robe a
Page 111 and 112: Falconer 109 It was an August day;
Page 113 and 114: Falconer 111 daughter of Ling Chou
Page 115: Falconer 113 thought, immeasurable,
Page 119 and 120: Falconer 117 PETER, HAS ARRANGED FO
Page 121 and 122: Falconer 119 squares and put this i
Page 123 and 124: Falconer 121 only get into the show
Page 125 and 126: Falconer 123 churches where a beref
Page 127 and 128: Falconer 125 another and the thin,
Page 129 and 130: Falconer 127 his thighs and his che
Page 131 and 132: Falconer 129 “No, no, no,” said
Page 133 and 134: Falconer 131 cashmere sweaters, sil
Page 135 and 136: Falconer 133 flames and a rush of s
Page 137 and 138: Falconer 135 about your willingness
Page 139 and 140: Falconer 137 was just big enough to
Page 141 and 142: Falconer 139 Wall, or the Amana Pri
Page 143 and 144: Falconer 141 with palms. She rams t
Page 145 and 146: Falconer 143 I ain’t going to sin
Page 147 and 148: Falconer 145 Farragut had stolen an
Page 149 and 150: Falconer 147 worse and then she sug
Page 151 and 152: Falconer 149 believe it. Like there
Page 153 and 154: Falconer 151 intended for his last
Page 155 and 156: Falconer 153 from the back. They we
Page 157 and 158: Falconer 155 the room after a page
Page 159 and 160: Falconer 157 there’s your piano a
Page 161 and 162: Falconer 159 before I’ll be mista
Page 163 and 164: Falconer 161 got no fear, no fear a
Page 165 and 166: Falconer 163 his grave was no more
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Falconer 165 of some stair. The bla
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Falconer 167 At a distant corner un
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Falconer 169 Farragut put his arms
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