John Cheever - Falconer

He was outside the gate or anyhow near the gate. The watchtowers were unarmed at that hour, but there was the moon to worry about. His life hung on the light of the moon and a secondhand car. The distributor would fail, the carburetor would flood, and they would go off together looking for tools while Farragut escaped. Then he heard another voice: "You want a beer?" "You got one?" asked the carrier unenthusiastically, and Farragut heard them walk away.

By bracing his shoulders and his arms, he checked the stress points in his shroud. The warp of the canvas was reinforced with rubber. The neck or crown of the shroud was heavy wire. He got the razor blade out of his pocket and began to cut, parallel to the zipper. The blade penetrated the canvas, but slowly. He needed time, but he would not pray for time or pray for anything else. He would settle for the stamina of love, a presence he felt like the beginnings of some stair. The blade fell from his fingers onto his shirt and in a terrified and convulsive and clumsy lurch he let the blade slip into the sack. Then, groping for it wildly, he cut his fingers, his trousers and his thigh. Stroking his thigh, he could feel the wetness of the blood, but this seemed to have happened to someone else. With the wet blade between his fingers, he went on cutting away at his bonds. Once his knees were free he raised them, ducked his head and shoulders from under the crown and stepped out of his grave.

Clouds hid the light of the moon. In the windows of a watch house he could see two men. One of them drank from a can. Near where he had lain was a pile of stones, and trying to judge what his weight would be in stones, he put a man's weight into the shroud so that they would feed stones in the fire. He walked quite simply out of the gates into a nearby street that was narrow and where most of the people would be poor and where most of the houses were dark.

He put one foot in front of the other. That was about it. The streets were brightly lighted, for this was at that time in our history when you could read the small print in a prayer book in any street where the poor lived. This scrupulous light was meant to rout rapists, muggers and men who would strangle old women of eighty-two. The strong light and the black shadow he threw did not alarm him, nor was he alarmed by the thought of pursuit and capture, but what did frighten him was the possibility that some hysteria of his brain might cripple his legs. He put one foot in front of the other. His foot was wet with blood, but he didn't care. He admired the uniform darkness of the houses. No lights burned at all-no lights of sickness, worry or love-not even those dim lights that burn for the sake of children or their sensible fears of the dark. Then he heard a piano. It could not, that late at night, have been a child, but the fingers seemed stiff and ungainly and so he guessed it was someone old. The music was some beginner's piece-some simple minuet or dirge read off a soiled, dog-eared piece of sheet music-but the player was someone who could read music in the dark since the house where the music came from was dark.

The wall of buildings gave way to two empty lots where the houses had been razed and seized upon as a dump in spite of the NO DUMPING and FOR SALE signs. He saw a three-legged washing machine and the husk of a car. His response to this was deep and intuitive, as if the dump were some reminder of his haunted country. He deeply inhaled the air of the dump although it was no more than the bitterness of an extinguished fire. Had he raised his head, he would have seen a good deal of velocity and confusion as the clouds hurried past the face of a nearly full moon, so chaotically and so swiftly that they might have reminded him, with his turn of mind, not of fleeing hordes but of advancing ranks and throngs, an army more swift than bellicose, a tardy regiment. But he saw nothing of what was going on in heaven because his fear of falling kept his eyes on the sidewalk, and anyhow there was nothing to be seen there that would be of any use.

Then way ahead of him and on the right he saw a rectangle of pure white light and he knew he had the strength to reach this though the blood in his boot now made a noise. It was a laundromat. Three men and two women of various ages and colors were waiting for their wash. The doors to most of the machines hung open like the doors to ovens. Opposite were the bull's-eye windows of drying machines and in two he could see clothes tossed and falling, always falling-falling heedlessly, it seemed, like falling souls or angels if their fall had ever been heedless. He stood at the window, this escaped and bloody convict, watching these strangers wait for their clothes to be clean. One of the women noticed him and came to the window to see him better, but his appearance didn't alarm her at all, he was pleased to see, and when she had made sure that he was not a friend, she turned to walk back to her machine. At a distant corner under a.street light he saw another man. This could be an agent from the Department of Correction, he guessed, or given his luck so far, an agent from heaven. Above the stranger was a sign that said: BUS STOP. NO PARKING. The stranger smelted of whiskey and at his feet was a suitcase draped with clothes on hangers, an electric heater with a golden bowl shaped like the sun and a sky-blue motorcycle helmet. The stranger was utterly inconsequential, beginning with his lanky hair, his piecemeal face, his spare, piecemeal frame and his highly fermented breath. "Hi," he said. "What you see here is a man who is been evicted. This ain't everything I own in the world. I'm making my third trip. I'm moving in with my sister until I find another place. You can't find nothing this late at night. I ain't been evicted because of nonpayment of rent. Money I got. Money's one thing I don't have to worry about. I got plenty of money. I been evicted because I'm a human being, that's why. I make noises like a human being, I close doors, I cough sometimes in the night, I have friends in now and then, sometimes I sing, sometimes I whistle, sometimes I do yoga, and because I'm human and make a little noise, a little human noise going up and down the stairs, I'm being evicted. I'm a disturber of the peace."

"That's terrible," said Farragut.

"You hit the nail on the head," said the stranger, "you hit the nail on the head. My landlady is one of those smelly old widows- they're widows even when they got a husband drinking beer in the kitchen-one of those smelly old widows who can't stand life in any form, fashion or flavor. I'm being evicted because I'm alive and healthy. This ain't all I own, by a long shot. I took my TV over on the first trip. I got a beauty. It's four years old, color, but when I had a little snow and asked the repairman to come in, he told me never, never turn this set in for a new one. They don't make them like this anymore, he said. I le got rid o: the snow and all he charged me was two dollars. He said it was a pleasure to work on a set like mine. It's over to my sister's now. Christ, I hate my sister and she hates my guts, but I'll spend the night there and find a beautiful place in the morning. They have some beautiful places on the south side, places with views of the river. You wouldn't want to share a place with me, would you, if I found something beautiful?"

"Maybe," said Farragut.

"Well, here's my card. Call me if you feel like it. I like your looks. I can tell you got a nice sense of humor. I'm in from ten to four. I sometimes come in a little later, but I don't go out for lunch. Don't call me at my sister's. She hates my guts. Here's our bus."

The brightly lighted bus had the same kind and number of people-for all he knew, the same people-that he had seen in the laundromat. Farragut picked up the heater and the motorcycle helmet and the stranger went ahead of him with his suitcase and his clothes. "Be my guest," he said over his shoulder, paying Farragut's fare. He took the third seat on the left, by the window, and said to Farragut, "Sit here, sit down here." Farragut did. "You meet all kinds, don't you?" he went on. "Imagine calling me a disorderly person just because I sing and whistle and make a little noise going up and down the stairs at night. Imagine. Hey, it's raining," he exclaimed, pointing to the white streaks on the window. "Hey, it's raining and you ain't got no coat. But I got a coat here, I got a coat here I think'll fit you. Wait a minute." He pulled a coat out of the clothes. "Here, try this on."