Falconer+-+John+Cheever

Falconer 163
his grave was no more than the plain smell of canvas; the smell of
some tent.
The men who came to get him must have worn rubber soles
because he didn’t hear them come in and didn’t know they were
there until he felt himself being lifted up off the floor and carried.
His breath had begun to wet the cloth of his shroud and his head
had begun to ache. He opened his mouth very wide to breathe,
afraid that they would hear the noise he made and more afraid
that the stupid animalism of his carcass would panic and that he
would convulse and yell and ask to be let out. Now the cloth was
wet, the wetness strengthened the stink of rubber and his face was
soaked and he was panting. Then the panic passed and he heard
the opening and the closing of the first two gates and felt himself
being carried down the slope of the tunnel. He had never, that he
remembered, been carried before. (His long-dead mother must
have carried him from place to place, but he could not remember
this.) The sensation of being carried belonged to the past, since it
gave him an unlikely feeling of innocence and purity. How strange
to be carried so late in life and toward nothing that he truly knew,
freed, it seemed, from his erotic crudeness, his facile scorn and his
chagrined laugh—not a fact, but a chance, something like the
afternoon light on high trees, quite useless and thrilling. How
strange to be living and to be grown and to be carried.
He felt the ground level off at the base of the tunnel near the
delivery entrance and heard the guard at post number 8 say,
“Another Indian bit the dust. What do you do with No Known
Relatives or Concerned?” “NKRC’s get burned cheap,” said one of
the carriers. Farragut heard the last prison bars open and close and
felt the uneven footing of the drive. “Don’t drop him, for Christ’s
sake,” said the first carrier. “For Christ’s sake don’t drop him.”
“Look at that fucking moon, will you?” said the second carrier.
“Will you look at that fucking moon?” They would be passing the
main entrance then and going toward the gate. He felt himself
being put down. “Where’s Charlie?” said the first carrier. “He said