Falconer+-+John+Cheever

Falconer 138
around the streets, because everybody knows that we eat babies,
fuck old women up the ass and burn down hospitals full of
helpless cripples. Who would ever want to get out of a nice place
like this?”
“Hey, Farragut, come down and play cards with the Stone,” said
Ransome. “Let Farragut out, will you, Walton? The Stone wants to
play cards with Farragut.”
“I will if you’ll shut up,” said Walton. “I got to pass this exam. You
promise to shut up?”
“We promise,” said Ransome.
Farragut’s cell door opened and he went down the block to the
Stone’s, carrying his chair. The Stone was smiling like a fool, which
he may have been. The Stone handed him the pack of cards and he
dealt them out, saying, “One for you and one for me.” Then he
fanned out his hand, but that many cards were bulky and a dozen
fell to the floor. When he stopped to pick them up he heard a
voice, not a whisper but a normal voice, tuned to a minimum
volume. It was the Glass Ear—the two-hundred-dollar hearing aid
—tuned to a radio frequency. He saw the four batteries in their
canvas-covered corset lying on the floor and the plastic, fleshcolored
orifice from which he guessed the voice came. He picked
up his cards and began to slap them out on a table, saying, “One
for you and one for me.” The voice said, “Registration for
continuing education classes in conversational Spanish and
cabinetmaking will be open from five to nine on Monday through
Friday at the Benjamin Franklin High School, situated on the
corner of Elm and Chestnut Streets.” Then Farragut heard piano
music. It was the dreariest of the Chopin preludes—that prelude
they use in murder films before the shot is fired; that prelude that
was expected to evoke for men of his day and earlier the image of a
little girl with braids, confined for some cruel hour to a bleak
room, where she was meant to produce the bleat of impuissant
waves and the sad stir of falling leaves. “The latest news from The