Falconer+-+John+Cheever

Falconer 125
another and the thin, bitter voice of a third. “Stand at attention by
your doors or you’ll get the hose and you’ll get it like a bunch of
sticks with nails in them, you’ll get it like stones, you’ll get it like a
rod of iron. Put out your fire, Chicken, and get it through your
heads that you men is powerless. This place is surrounded with
armed troops from all over the state. We got the power to scatter
your fire wherever you light it. You is powerless. Now put out your
mattress, Chicken, and sleep in your own mess. Blow out their
lights, Tiny. Sweet dreams.”
They were gone, the door closed and it was dark. Chicken was
whimpering. “Don’t sleep, nobody, don’t nobody close their eyes.
You close your eyes they’ll kill you. They’ll kill you in your sleep.
Don’t nobody go to sleep.”
In the blessed dark Farragut got his copper wire and his toilet
paper roll and began to build his radio. How beautiful the wire
seemed, a slender, clean, gold-colored tie to the world of the living,
from which he seemed to hear, now and then, the clash of men,
the roar of men tearing at one another’s heads. It came and went
and he dismissed it as an illusion, compared at least to the
splendor of building, out of paper and wire, some bond or lock or
shining buckle that could fasten two worlds. When it was done he
sighed like a gratified lover and mumbled: “Praise be to Thee, O
Lord.” Chicken was still whimpering: “Don’t go to sleep, nobody.
Nobody goes to sleep.” Farragut slept heavily.
When Farragut woke he saw through the poor light and the dark
sky that the weather had not changed. A thunderstorm or a strong
northwest wind might break it or it might taper off into a ten-hour
rain and a slow clearing. He saw, at the window, that Chisholm
had lied. There were no troops around the walls. Had there been
troops there he would have heard the noise, he would have felt the
stir of troops. There was nothing, and he felt disappointed.
Perhaps there were no troops to spare. The heaviness of the air was