Falconer+-+John+Cheever

Falconer 131
cashmere sweaters, silk shirts, sable hats, needlepoint bed slippers
and large jewels suitable for a man. He saw himself in the curious
spectrum of color photography being taken out of an envelope by
his wife and his son in the hallway at Indian Hill. He saw the rug,
the table, the bowl of roses reflected in the mirror as they regarded
their shame, their bad penny, their fouled escutcheon, their
nemesis posed in stunning color beside a truly beautiful tree!
There was a long, battered table in the corridor, with forms to be
filled out that must have been manufactured in the street by some
intelligent agent. The form explained that one photograph would
be mailed cost-free to a recipient designated by the inmate. The
recipient should be a member of the family, but common-law
wives and homosexual unions were acceptable. A second print and
the negative would be delivered to Falconer, but any duplicates
would be made at the inmate’s own expense. Farragut printed:
“Mrs. Ezekiel Farragut. Indian Hill. Southwick, Connecticut.
06998.” He printed a form for the Stone, whose name was Serafino
DeMarco and whose address was in Brooklyn. Then he stepped
into the brightly lighted room with the presents and the tree.
The irony of Christmas is always upon the poor in heart; the
mystery of the solstice is always upon the rest of us. The inspired
metaphor of the Prince of Peace and his countless lights,
overwhelming the maddening and the threadbare carols, was
somewhere here; here, on this asshole August afternoon the legend
still had its stamina. Their motives were pure enough. Mrs.
Spingarn genuinely loved her son and grieved at his cruel and
unnatural end. The guards genuinely feared disorder and death.
The inmates would fleetingly feel that they had a foot in the
faraway street. Farragut looked above this spectacle to the rest of
the classroom. There was an empty blackboard and above this an
alphabet written in a Spencerian hand long, long ago. The
penmanship was very elegant, with loops, hoops, tails, followthroughs
and a crossed t like an acrobat’s bow. Above this was an
American flag with forty-two stars, the white stripes dyed by time