Read Online Falconer by John Cheever - Free Book Online

asked—impetuously, because the laconism cultivated by the Farraguts was ceremonial and tribal and one seldom asked questions. His mother sighed and served the red flannel hash with poached eggs. Farragut had already faulted and so he went on: “But where is Dad?” he asked. “I’m not sure,” his mother said. “When I came downstairs to make supper he handed me a long indictment enumerating my failures as a woman, a wife and a mother. There were twenty-two charges. I didn’t read them all. I threw it into the fire. He was quite indignant. He said that hewas going to Nagasakit and drown himself. He must have begged rides since he didn’t take the car.” “Excuse me,” said Farragut, quite sincerely. No sarcasm was intended. Some of the family must have said as much as they lay dying. He got into the car and headed for the beach. That’s how he remembered that he was not sixteen, because there was a new policeman in the village of Hepworth, who was the only one who might have stopped him and asked to see his license. The policeman in Hepworth had it in for the family for some reason. Farragut knew all the other policemen in the villages along that coast.
    When he got to Nagasakit he ran down to the beach. It was late in the season, late in the day, and there were no bathers, no lifeguards, nothing at all but a very weary swell from what was already a polluted ocean. How could he tell if it contained his father, with pearls for eyes? He walked along the crescent of the beach. The amusement park was still open. He could hear some music from there, profoundly unserious and belonging very much to the past. He examined the sand to keep from crying. There had been that year a big run on Japanese sandals and also a run on toy knights in armor. There were, left over from the summer, many dismembered knights and odd sandals mixed in the shingle. Respiratory noises came from his beloved sea. The roller coaster was still running. He could hear the clack of the cars on the rail joints and also some very loud laughter—a sound that seemed wasted on that scene. He left the beach. He crossed the road to the entrance of the amusement park. The facade marked a period in the Italian emigration. Workmen from Italyhad built a wall of plaster and cement, painted it the saffrons of Rome, and decorated the wall with mermaids and scallop shells. Over the arch was Poseidon with a trident. On the other side of the wall the merry-go-round was turning. There was not a passenger on it. The loud laughter came from some people who were watching the roller coaster. There was Farragut’s father, pretending to drink from an empty bottle and pretending to contemplate suicide from every rise. This clowning was successful. His audience was rapt. Farragut went up to the razorback who ran the controls. “That’s my father,” he said, “could you land him?” The smile the razorback gave Farragut was profoundly sympathetic. When the car carrying his father stopped at the platform, Mr. Farragut saw his son, his youngest, his unwanted, his killjoy. He got out and joined Farragut, as he knew he must. “Oh, Daddy,” said Farragut, “you shouldn’t do this to me in my formative years.” Oh, Farragut, why is you an addict?
    In the morning Tiny brought him four large tomatoes and he was touched. They tasted grievously of summer and freedom. “I’m going to sue,” he told Tiny. “Can you get me a copy of Gilbert’s criminal code?” “I can try,” said Tiny. “Mishkin has one, but he’s renting it out at four cartons a month. You got four?” “I can get them if my wife ever comes,” said Farragut. “I’m going to sue, Tiny, but you’re not whom I’m after. I want to see Chisholm and those other two assholes eating franks and beans for four years with a spoon. And maybe I can. Will you testify?” “Sure, sure,” said Tiny. “I will if I can. I don’t like the way Chisholm gets his kicks out of watching men in withdrawal. I’ll do