Falconer+-+John+Cheever

Falconer 77
Now watch me smile. See? I look real happy—don’t I, don’t I,
don’t I?—but if you’ll notice, I keep my eyes wide open so I won’t
get disgusting wrinkles all around the edges like you have and
when I open my mouth I open it very, very wide so that it won’t
destroy the beauty of my cheeks, their beauty and smoothness.
This teacher from the university tells us to smile, smile, smile,
smile, but you go around smiling all the time like he teaches us to,
you get to look like a very old person, a very old and haggard
person who nobody wants anything to do with especially in the
line of banking investments.”
When Jody talked scornfully about the Fiduciary University,
Farragut’s attitude seemed parental, seemed to express some
abiding respect for anything that was taught by an organization,
however false the teaching and however benighted the
organization. Listening to Jody describe the Fiduciary University
as shit made Farragut wonder if disrespect was not at the bottom
of Jody’s criminal career and his life in prison. He felt that Jody
should bring more patience, more intelligence, to his attacks on
the university. It may have been no more than the fact that the
word “fiduciary” seemed to him to deserve respect and inspire
honesty; and in its train were thrift, industry, frugality and honest
strife.
In fact, Jody’s attacks on the university were continuous,
predictable and, in the end, monotonous. Everything about the
school was wrong. The teacher was ruining his face with too broad
and committed a smile. The spot quizzes were too easy. “I don’t
do no work,” Jody said, “and I always get the highest marks in the
class. I got this memory. It’s easy for me to remember things. I
learned the whole catechism in one night. Now, today we had
Nostalgia. You think it’s got something to do with your nose. It
don’t. It’s what you remember with pleasure. So what you do is
your homework on what the potential investor remembers with
pleasure and you play on his pleasant memories like a fucking
violin. You not only stir up what they call Nostalgia with talk, you