Falconer+-+John+Cheever

Falconer 50
trout lines and moorings—and he could coil a garden hose with
an authority that seemed to Farragut princely. Dance—excepting a
German waltz with a pretty woman—the old man thought
detestable, but dance best described his performance on a boat.
The instant he dropped the mooring he began a performance as
ordained, courtly and graceful as any pavane. Line squalls, luffing
sails, thunder and lightning never broke his rhythm.
O heroin, be with me now! When Farragut was about twenty-one
he began to lead the Nanuet Cotillion. The Nanuet landed in the
New World in 1672. The leader of the expedition was Peter
Wentworth. With his brother Eben away, Farragut was, after his
drunken and cranky father, the principal male descendent of
Wentworth, and so he led the cotillion. It had been a pleasure to
leave the gas tanks to Harry—a spastic—and dress in his father’s
tails. This was again the thrill of living in a border principality and
of course the origin of his opium eating. His father’s tails fitted
perfectly. They were made of black broadcloth, as heavy as the
stuff of an overcoat, and Farragut thought he looked great in tails.
He would drive into the city in whichever car was working, lead
some debutante, chosen by the committee for her wealth and her
connections, down to the principal box, and bow to its occupants.
Then he would dance all night and get back to the gas pumps in
the morning.
The Farraguts were the sort of people who claimed to be sustained
by tradition, but who were in fact sustained by the much more
robust pursuit of a workable improvisation, uninhibited by
consistency. While they were still living in the mansion, they used
to have dinner at the club on Thursdays and Sundays. Farragut
remembered such a night. His mother had brought the car under
the porte-cochere. The car was a convertible called a Jordan Blue
Boy that his father had won in a raffle. His father wasn’t with them
and was probably on his catboat. Farragut got into the Blue Boy,
but his brother remained on the carriage step. Eben was a
handsome young man, but his face that night was very white. “I