"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."
"You'll need your coat," Farragut said.
"No, no, try it on. I got three raincoats. Moving around from place to place all the time, I don't lose stuff, I accumulate stuff, like I already got a raincoat at my sister's and a raincoat in the lost and found room at the Exeter House and this one I got on. And this one. That makes four. Try it on."
Farragut put his arms into the sleeves and settled the coal around his shoulders. "Perfect, perfect," exclaimed the stranger. "It's a perfect fit. You know, you look like a million dollars in that coat. You look like you just deposited a million dollars in the bank and was walking out of the bank, very slowly, you know, like you was going to meet some broad in a very expensive restaurant and buy her lunch. It's a perfect fit."
"Thank you very much," said Farragut. He stood and shook the stranger's hand. "I'm getting off at the next stop."
"Well, that's all right," said the stranger. "You got my telephone number. I'm in from ten to four, maybe a little later. I don't go out for lunch, but don't call meat my sister's."
Farragut walked to the front of the bus and got oil at the next stop. Stepping from the bus onto the street, he saw that he had lost his fear of falling and all other fears of that nature. He held his head high, his back straight, and walked along nicely. Rejoice, he thought, rejoice.
About the Author
During a writing career spanning forty years, John Cheever won a National Book Award, the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Critics Circle Award and an American Book Award. John Cheever among his eleven books was perhaps best known for his short stories dealing with upper middle class suburban life.
Falconer is set in a nightmarish prison where a convict named Farragut struggles to remain a man. Out of Farragut’s suffering and astonishing salvation, John Cheever crafted his most powerful work of fiction.
Saul Bellow wrote, "Farragut is splendid. It is rough, it is elegant, it is pure. It is also indispensable, if you earnestly desire to know what is happening to the human soul in the U.S.A. "
Falconer continues twenty-five years after its initial publication to be the best-selling of John Cheever's novels.
