Falconer+-+John+Cheever

Falconer 75
won’t stuff their wives or their kids into no rowboat and go down
the river to wave to old Daddy. So I ain’t got no future, Farragut,
and you ain’t got no future either. So let’s go down and wash up
for chow.”
Farragut was working then part-time with the greenhouse crew,
cutting lawns and hedges, and part-time as a typist, cutting ditto
sheets for the prison announcements. He had the key to an office
near the squad room and the use of a typewriter. He continued to
meet Jody at the water tower and later, when the afternoons got
cold, in his office. They had known one another a month when
they became lovers. “I’m so glad you ain’t homosexual,” Jody kept
saying when he caressed Farragut’s hair. Then, saying as much one
afternoon, he had unfastened Farragut’s trousers and, with every
assistance from Farragut, got them down around his knees. From
what Farragut had read in the newspapers about prison life he had
expected this to happen, but what he had not expected was that
this grotesque bonding of their relationship would provoke in him
so profound a love. Nor had he expected the administration to be
so lenient. For a small ration of cigarettes, Tiny let Farragut return
to the shop between chow and lockup. Jody met him there and
they made love on the floor. “They like it,” Jody explained. “At
first they didn’t like it. Then some psychologist decided that if we
got our rocks moved regularly we wouldn’t riot. They’ll let us do
anything if they think it will keep us from rioting. Move over,
Chicken, move over. Oh, I love you very much.”
They met two or three times a week. Jody was the beloved and
now and then he stood Farragut up so that Farragut had
developed a preternatural sensitivity to the squeak of his lover’s
basketball sneakers. On some nights his life seemed to hang on the
sound. When the classes in banking began, the two men met
always on Tuesdays and Thursdays and Jody reported on his
experience with the university. Farragut had boosted a mattress
from the shop and Jody had hustled a hot plate from somewhere,