John Cheever - Falconer

It was an August day; a dog day. Rome and Paris would be empty of everyone but tourists» and even the Pope would be taking it easy in Gandolfo. After the methadone line, Farragut went out to cut the big lawn between the education building and cellblock A. He got the mower and the gas tank out of the garage and joked with the Mad Dog Killer. He started the motor with a rope pull, which brought on memories of outboard motors on mountain lakes in the long ago. That was the summer when he had learned to water-ski, not at the stern of an outboard, but at the stern of a racer called a Gar-Wood. He had Christianized over the high starboard wake-bang-onto a riffled and corrugated stretch of water and then into the dropped curtain of a rain squall. "I have my memories," he said to the lawn mower. "You can’t take my memories away from me." One night he and a man named Tony and two girls and a bottle of Scotch raced eight miles down the lake at lull throttle-you couldn’t have heard thunder-to the excursion boat pier, where there was a big clock face under a sign that said: THE NEXT EXCURSION TO THE NARROWS WILL BE AT…They had come to steal the big clock face. It would look great in somebody’s bedroom along with the YIELD sign and the DEER CROSSING treasure. Tony was at the helm and Farragut was the appointed thief. He vaulted the gunwale and began to pull at the clock face, but it was securely nailed to the pier. Tony passed Farragut a wrench from the toolbox and he smashed the supports with this, but the noise woke some old watchman, who limped after him while he carried the clock face to the Gar-Wood. "Oh, stop," the old man shouted in his old man's voice. "Stop, stop, stop. Why do you have to do this? Why do you have to destroy everything? Why do you have to make life hard for old men like me? What good is it, what good is it to anybody? What are you doing except to disappoint people and make people angry and cost people money? Stop, stop, stop. Just bring it back and I won't say nothing. Stop, stop…" The noise of the motor, when they escaped, overwhelmed the old man's voice, but Farragut would hear it, more resonant than the Scotch and the girl, for the rest of that night and, he guessed, for the rest of his life. He had described this to the three psychiatrists he had employed. "You see, Dr. Gaspoden, when I heard the old man shouting 'Stop, stop,' I understood my father for the first time in my life. When I heard this old man shouting 'Stop, stop,' I heard my father, I knew how my father felt when I borrowed his tails and went in to lead the cotillion. The voice of this old stranger on a summer night made my father clear to me for the first time in my life." He said all this to the lawn mower.

The day was shit. The air was so heavy that he would put visibility at about two hundred yards. Could it be exploited for an escape? He didn't think so. The thought of escape reminded him of Jody, a remembrance that had remained very light-hearted since he and Jody had passionately kissed goodbye. The administration and perhaps the archdiocese had finessed Jody's departure and he was not even a figure in prison mythology. DiMatteo, the chaplain's dude, had given Farragut the facts. They had met in the tunnel on a dark night when Farragut was leaving the Valley. It was no more than six weeks after Jody's flight. DiMatteo showed him a newspaper photograph of Jody that had been sent to him in the mail. It was Jody on his wedding day-Jody at his most beautiful and triumphant. His stunning brightness shone through the letterpress of some small-town newspaper. His bride was a demure and pretty young Oriental and the caption said that H. Keith Morgan had that day married Sally Chou Lai, the youngest daughter of Ling Chou Lai, president of the Viaduct Wire Factory where the groom was employed. There was nothing more and Farragut wanted nothing more. He laughed loudly, but not DiMatteo, who said angrily, "He promised to wait for me. I saved his life and he promised to wait for me. He loved me-oh, God, how he loved me. He gave me his golden cross." DiMatteo lifted the cross out of the curls on his chest and showed it to Farragut. Farragut's knowledge of the cross was intimate-it may have borne his tooth marks-and his memories of his lover were vivid, but not at all sad. "He must have married her for her money," said DiMatteo. "She must be rich. He promised to wait for me."

Farragut's mowing of the lawn was planned. Roughly halfway around the circumference of the lawn he reversed his direction so the grass, as it fell, would not heap, dry and discolor. He had heard or read somewhere that cut grass fertilized living grass, although he had observed that dead grass was singularly inert. He walked barefoot because he got better purchase with the soles of his naked feet than he did in prison-Issue boots. He had knotted the laces of his boots and hung them around his neck so they wouldn't be stolen and cut into wrist-watch straps. The contrite geometry of grass-cutting pleased him. To cut the grass one followed the contour of the land. To study the contour of the land-to read it as one did on skis-was to study and read the contour of the neighborhood, the county, the state, the continent, the planet, and to study and read the contour of the planet was to study and read the nature of its winds as his old father had done, sailing cat boats and kites. Some oneness was involved, some contentment.

When he had finished the big lawn he pushed the mower back to the garage. "They got a riot at The Wall," said the Killer, stooped above a motor and speaking over his shoulder. "It come over the radio. They got twenty-eight hostages, but it's that time of year. Burn your mattress and get your head broken. It's that time of year.

Farragut jogged up to his eel lb lock. There was a pleasant stillness there at that hour. Tiny was watching a game show on TV. Farragut stripped off his clothes and washed the sweat off his body with a rag and cold water. "And now," the TV announcer said, "let's take another look at the prizes. First we have the sterling-silver-plated eight-piece Thomas Jefferson coffee service." This was cut into and while Farragut was drawing on his pants, another announcer-a thick-featured young man with yellow hair-said, solemnly: "Inmates at the upstate prison of Amana, commonly known as The Wall, have rioted and are holding anywhere from twenty-eight to thirty prison officers as hostages, threatening to cut their throats if their demands are not met. Prison Superintendent John Cooper-I’m sorry-Rehabilitation Facility Superintendent Cooper has agreed to meet the inmates in neutral territory and is awaiting the arrival of Fred D. Emison, head of the State Department of Correction. Stay tuned for further news." The show cut back to a display of more prizes.

Farragut looked at Tiny. His face was white. Farragut cased the cellblock. Tennis, Bumpo and the Stone were in. The Stone was unplugged so that meant that three of them knew. Ransome and Chicken Number Two came in and both of them gave him a look. They knew. Farragut tried to guess what would happen. Any sort of congregation would be forbidden, he guessed, but he guessed that at the same time any provocative disciplines would be sidestepped, how would be the first congregation, but when the chow bell rang Tiny opened the cell doors and they headed for the corridor. "Did you hear that on TV?" Tiny asked Farragut. "You mean about the Thomas Jefferson eight-piece sterling-silver-plated coffee service?" asked Farragut. Tiny was sweating. Farragut had gone too far. He was a lightweight. He had blown it. Tiny might have nabbed him then, but he was frightened and Farragut was free to go down to chow, chow was regulation, but Farragut looked into every face he saw to judge whether or not they knew. He put it at twenty percent. The stir in the mess hall was, he thought, immeasurable, and there were several explosions of hysterical gaiety. One man began to laugh and couldn't stop. He was convulsive. They were given very generous servings of pork in a flour sauce and half a canned pear. "ALL INMATES WILL RETURN TO CELLBLOCK AFTER CHOW FOR FURTHER ANNOUNCEMENTS. ALL INMATES WILL RETURN TO CELLBLOCK AFTER CHOW FOR FURTHER ANNOUNCEMENTS." He would have bet on that. Almost everything counted on the next ten minutes, and in the next ten minutes they got them all, so far as Farragut knew, back into their cells. Clang.