Falconer+-+John+Cheever

Falconer 54
undefeated basketball team here. I’m off tomorrow, but I’ll see
you the day after. Oh, Farragut, why is you an addict?”
When the bandages were taken off Farragut’s skull, he found, of
course, that his head had been shaven, but there were no mirrors
around the infirmary and he didn’t have his appearance to worry
about. He tried with his fingers to count the stitches on his skull,
but he could not keep an accurate count. He asked the orderly if
he knew how many there were. “Oh, sure, sure,” the orderly said.
“You got twenty-two. I went to cellblock F to get you. You was
lying on the floor. Tony and I got the stretcher and brought you
up to the operating room.” The fact that he, Farragut, had it in his
power to send Chisholm, the deputy warden, to prison appeared
to him as an unchallengeable fact. The image of the deputy warden
eating franks and rice with a spoon appeared to him with the
windless serenity of a consummated obsession. It was simply a
question of time. His leg was in a cast, he had been told, because
he had torn the cartilage in his knee. That he had twice before torn
the cartilage in his knee in skiing accidents was something that he
was absolutely incapable of remembering. He would limp for the
rest of his life and he was profoundly gratified to think that the
deputy warden had made an entertainment of his death throes and
left him a cripple.
“Tell me again,” Farragut asked the orderly. “How many stitches
were there in my skull?” “Twenty-two, twenty-two,” said the
orderly. “I already told you. You bled like a pig. I know what I’m
talking about because I used to kill pigs. When Tony and I went
down to your cellblock there was blood all over the place. You was
lying on the floor.” “Who else was there?” asked Farragut. “Tiny,
naturally,” said the orderly. “Chisholm, the deputy warden, and
Lieutenant Sutfin and Lieutenant Tillitson. Also there was a dude
in cell lock. I don’t know who he was.” “Would you repeat what
you’ve just said to a lawyer?” asked Farragut. “Sure, sure—it’s
what I saw. I’m a truthful man. I say what I see.” “Could I see a
lawyer?” “Sure, sure,” said the orderly. “They come in once or