Falconer+-+John+Cheever

Falconer 52
himself. He must have begged rides since he didn’t take the car.”
“Excuse me,” said Farragut, quite sincerely. No sarcasm was
intended. Some of the family must have said as much as they lay
dying. He got into the car and headed for the beach. That’s how he
remembered that he was not sixteen, because there was a new
policeman in the village of Hepworth, who was the only one who
might have stopped him and asked to see his license. The
policeman in Hepworth had it in for the family for some reason.
Farragut knew all the other policemen in the villages along that
coast.
When he got to Nagasakit he ran down to the beach. It was late in
the season, late in the day, and there were no bathers, no
lifeguards, nothing at all but a very weary swell from what was
already a polluted ocean. How could he tell if it contained his
father, with pearls for eyes? He walked along the crescent of the
beach. The amusement park was still open. He could hear some
music from there, profoundly unserious and belonging very much
to the past. He examined the sand to keep from crying. There had
been that year a big run on Japanese sandals and also a run on toy
knights in armor. There were, left over from the summer, many
dismembered knights and odd sandals mixed in the shingle.
Respiratory noises came from his beloved sea. The roller coaster
was still running. He could hear the clack of the cars on the rail
joints and also some very loud laughter—a sound that seemed
wasted on that scene. He left the beach. He crossed the road to the
entrance of the amusement park. The façade marked a period in
the Italian emigration. Workmen from Italy had built a wall of
plaster and cement, painted it the saffrons of Rome, and decorated
the wall with mermaids and scallop shells. Over the arch was
Poseidon with a trident. On the other side of the wall the merrygo-round
was turning. There was not a passenger on it. The loud
laughter came from some people who were watching the roller
coaster. There was Farragut’s father, pretending to drink from an
empty bottle and pretending to contemplate suicide from every