Falconer+-+John+Cheever

Falconer 130
gray, whose flesh hung slack on his bones, whose only trespass on
life was a flat guitar and a remembered and pitiful air of “I don’t
know where it is, sir, but I’ll find it, sir,” and whose name was
known nowhere, nowhere in the far reaches of the earth or in the
far reaches of his memory, where, when he talked to himself, he
talked to himself as Chicken Number Two.
The chow bell rang past one and they got the order for single file at
ten paces and went down the tunnel past the guards, who looked
sicker. Chow was two sandwiches, one with cheese and the other
with nothing but margarine. The KP was a stranger and wouldn’t
talk. A little after three, back in their cells, they were ordered to the
education building, and single file, ten paces apart, they went there.
The education building was no longer much used. Budget cuts
and a profound suspicion of the effects of education on a criminal
intelligence had put out most of its lights and left it a ghostly
place. On their left, unlighted, was the ghostly typewriter
classroom, where eight huge, ancient and unused machines
gathered dust. There were no instruments in the music room, but
there was a clef, a staff and some notes drawn on the blackboard.
In the dark history class, lighted only from the hall, Farragut read
on the blackboard: “The new imperialism ended in 1905 to be
followed by…” That could have been written ten or twenty years
ago. The last classroom on the left was lighted and there was a stir
there and over Ransome’s and Bumpo’s shoulders Farragut could
see two bright lights on skeletal poles beamed at a plastic fir tree,
blazing with ornaments. Beneath the tree were square and
rectangular boxes, wrapped professionally with colored paper and
brilliant ribbons. The intelligence or the craft of the hand that had
set this scene filled Farragut with the deepest admiration. He
listened for the clash of men, the sirens, the roar of mortal
enemies, tearing at one another’s heads, but this was gone,
conquered by the balm of the plastic tree, glittering with crown
jewels and surrounded by treasure. He imagined the figure he
would cut, standing in his white shirt beside the boxes filled with