Falconer+-+John+Cheever

Falconer 142
“Jiggle it, jiggle it, jiggle it, for Christ’s sake.” Then he heard the
voice of a woman, not, he thought in the expansiveness of
cannabis, the voice of a young woman or an old one, neither the
voice of beauty nor of plainness—the voice of a woman who
might sell you a package of cigarettes anywhere in the world.
“Hi, people! This is Patty Smith, anchorwoman for Eliot Hendron,
who, as you may not know, has been overwhelmed by the events
of the last half hour. The Wall has been repossessed by state
troops. The administration petition with a plea for further time
was burned by the inmates’ committee at six A.M. The inmates
agreed to the plea for further time but to nothing else. There
appear to have been preparations for the execution of the hostages.
The gas attack began at six-eight, followed two minutes later by
the order to fire. Firing lasted six minutes. It is too early to
estimate the number of the dead, but Eliot, my partner and the last
eyewitness in yard K, estimated them as at least fifty dead and fifty
dying. Troopers have stripped the living of their clothes. They now
lie naked in the rain and the mud, vomiting from the effects of CS-
2. Excuse me, ladies and gentlemen, excuse me.” She was crying. “I
guess I’ll have to join Eliot in the infirmary.”
“Sing us a song, Chicken Number Two,” said Ransome. “Oh, sing
us a song.”
There was a wait while Chicken shook off a little of the cannabis,
reached for his guitar and struck four strong chords. Then he
began to sing. His voice was reedy, sophisticated in its bluegrass
flatness, but flat and reedy, it had the coarse grain of bravery. He
sang:
If the only song I can sing is a sad song,
I ain’t going to sing at all.
If the only song I can sing is a sad song,
I ain’t going to sing at all.
I ain’t going to sing about the dead and the dying,