Falconer+-+John+Cheever

Falconer 158
asked him if it was hard to get on Trial and Error and he said no,
he thought he could arrange it. So he called me a few days later
and said he thought they could use me on Trial and Error the next
day. It’s a live show and I was to get to the studio at five for
makeup and so forth. It’s one of those shows where you pay
forfeits and what you had to do that night was to walk over a water
tank on a tightrope. They gave me a suit of clothes because I’d get
wet and I had to sign all sorts of releases. So I got into this suit and
went through the first part of the show, smiling all the time at the
cameras. I mean I was smiling at Carrie. I thought that for once
she might be looking at my smile. Then I climbed up the ladder to
the tightrope and started walking over the pool and fell in. The
audience didn’t laugh too uproariously so they taped in a lot of
laughter. So then I got dressed and came home and shouted, ‘Hey,
hey, did you see me on television?’ She was lying on a sofa in the
living room by the big set. She was crying. So then I thought I’d
done the wrong thing, that she was crying because I looked like
such a fool, falling into the tank. She went on crying and sobbing
and I said, ‘What’s the matter, dear?’ and she said, ‘They shot the
mother polar bear, they shot the mother polar bear!’ Wrong show.
I got the wrong show, but you can’t say that I didn’t try.”
When he got up to collect their glasses he moved the curtain at the
window where he sat and Farragut saw that behind the curtain
were two empty vodka bottles. That might account for his stolid,
seafaring walk, his thick speech and his air of stupid composure.
So with his wife sobbing in the kitchen and his poor daughter
crazy and his son in jail, Farragut asked, “Eben, why do you live
like this?”
“Because I love it,” said Eben. Then he bent down, raised the old
Turkey carpet and kissed it with his wet mouth.
“I know one thing,” shouted Farragut. “I don’t want to be your
brother. I don’t want anyone on the street, anywhere in the world,
to say that I look like you. I’ll be any kind of a freak or addict