Falconer+-+John+Cheever

Falconer 160
“I’m dying, Zeke, I’m dying,” said Chicken Number Two. “I can
feel that I’m dying, but it ain’t done my brain no harm, it ain’t
done my brain no harm, it ain’t done my brain no harm, it ain’t
done my brain no harm.” He slept.
Farragut remained where he was. He heard music and voices from
the radios and the TV. There was still some light in the window.
Chicken Number Two woke suddenly and said, “You see, Zeke, I
ain’t afraid of dying at all. I know that sounds lying and when
people used to say to me that because they had already tasted
death they weren’t afraid of death I figured they were talking with
no class, no class at all. It seemed to me that you didn’t have any
quality when you talked like that, it was like thinking you looked
beautiful in a mirror—this shit about being fearless before death
ain’t got no quality. How could you say you were fearless about
leaving the party when it’s like a party, even in stir—even franks
and rice taste good when you’re hungry, even an iron bar feels
good to touch, it feels good to sleep. It’s like a party even in
maximum security and who wants to walk out of a party into
something that nobody knows anything at all about? If you think
like that you ain’t got no class. But I feel I’ve been around longer
than fifty-two years. I know you think I’m younger. Everybody
does, but I’m really fifty-two. But take you, for instance. You ain’t
never done nothing for me. And then take the Cuckold, for
instance. He’s done everything for me. He gets me my smokes, my
paper, my outside food and I get along with him fine, but I don’t
like him. What I’m trying to say is that I ain’t learned all I know
through experience. I ain’t learned through experience at all. I like
you and I don’t like the Cuckold and it’s that way all down the line
and so I figure I must come into this life with the memories of
some other life and so it stands that I’ll be going into something
else and you know what, Zeke, you know what, I can hardly wait
to see what it’s going to be like, I can hardly wait. I don’t want to
sound like one of those freaks who ain’t got no class, one of those
freaks who go around saying that since they have tasted death they