Falconer+-+John+Cheever

Falconer 24
together, we watched the World Series and drank beer together
although neither of us likes beer, not in this country. That was the
year Lomberg, whatever his name was, missed a no-hitter by half
an inning. You cried. I did too. We cried together.”
“You had your fix,” she said. “We couldn’t do that together.”
“But I was clean for six months,” he said. “It didn’t make any
difference. Cold turkey. It nearly killed me.”
“Six months is not a lifetime,” she said, “and anyhow, how long
ago was that?”
“Your point,” he said.
“How are you now?”
“I’m down from forty milligrams to ten. I get methadone at nine
every morning. A pansy deals it out. He wears a hairpiece.”
“Is he on the make?”
“I don’t know. He asked me if I liked opera.”
“You don’t, of course.”
“That’s what I told him.”
“That’s good. I wouldn’t want to be married to a homosexual,
having already married a homicidal drug addict.”
“I did not kill my brother.”
“You struck him with a fire iron. He died.”
“I struck him with a fire iron. He was drunk. He hit his head on
the hearth.”
“All penologists say that all convicts claim innocence.”
“Confucius say…”
“You’re so superficial, Farragut. You’ve always been a lightweight.”
“I did not kill my brother.”