Falconer

Opium had helped Farragut recall with serenity the fact that he had not been sixteen the first time his father threatened to commit suicide. He was sure of his age because he didn't have a driver's license. He came in from pumping gas to find the supper table set for two. "Where's Dad?" he 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 fla

When he got to Nagasaki, he ran down lo 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 ru

In the morning Tiny brought him tour 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 what I can." "The case seems very simple to me," said Farragut. "I was sentenced to prison by the people of the state and the nation. Medicine was prescribed for me, during my imprisonment, by three estimable members of the medical profession. This medicine was denied me by the deputy warden, a man employed by the people to supervise my penance. He then declared my predictable death throes to be an entertainment. It's that simple."

"Well, you can try," said Tiny, "Ten, fifteen years ago a fellow who got beat up sued and they gave him a lot of skin grafts. And when they knocked out Freddy the Killer's teeth he sued and they gave him two new sets of teeth. He never wore them except when we had turkey. Freddy was a great basketball star, but that was long before your time. Twenty-five, twenty-four years ago we had an undefeated basketball team here. I'm off to morrow, but I'll see you the day after. Oh, Farragut, why is you an addict?"

When the bandages were taken off Farragut's skull, he found, of course, that his head had been shaven, but there were no mirrors around the infirmary and he didn't have his appearance to worry about. He tried with his fingers to count the stitches on his skull, but he could not keep an accurate count. He asked the orderly if he knew how many there were. "Oh, sure, sure," the orderly said. "You got twenty-two. I went to cellblock F to get you. You was lying on the floor. Tony and I got the stretcher and brought you up to the operating room." The fact that he, Farragut, had it in his power to send Chisholm, the deputy warden, to prison appeared to him as an unchallengeable fact. The image of the deputy warden eating franks and rice with a spoon appeared to him with the windless serenity' of a consummated obsession. It was simply a question of time. His leg was in a cast, he had been told, because he had torn the cartilage in his knee. That he had twice before torn the cartilage in his knee in skiing accidents was something that he was absolutely incapable of remembering. He would limp for the rest of his life and he was profoundly gratified to think that the deputy warden had made an entertainment of his death throes and left him a cripple.

"Tell me again," Farragut asked the orderly. "How many stitches were there in my skull?" "Twenty-two, twenty-two," said the orderly. “I already told you. You bled like a pig. I know what I'm talking about because I used to kill pigs. When Tony and I went down to your cellblock there was blood all over the place. You was lying on the floor." "Who else was there?" asked Farragut. "Tiny, naturally," said the orderly. "Chisholm, the deputy warden, and Lieutenant Sutfin and Lieutenant Tillitson. Also there was a dude in cell lock. I don't know who he was." "Would you repeat what you've just said to a lawyer?" asked Farragut. "Sure, sure-it's what I saw. I'm a truthful man. I say what I see." "Could I see a lawyer?" "Sure, sure," said the orderly. "They come in once or twice a week. There's a Committee for the Legal Protection of Inmates. The next time one comes in I'll tell him about you."

A few days later a lawyer came over to Farragut's bed. His hair and his beard were so full that Farragut couldn't judge his age or his face, although there was no gray in his beard. His voice was light. His brown suit was worn, there was mud on his right shoe and two of his fingernails were dirty. The investment in his legal education had never been recouped. "Good morning," he said, "let's see, let's see. I'm sorry to be so slow, but I didn't know that you wanted the law until the day before yesterday." He carried a clipboard with a thick file of papers. "Here are your facts," he said. "I think I've got everything here. Armed robbery. Zip to ten. Second offense. That's you, isn't it?" "No," said Farragut. "Burglary?" the lawyer asked. "Breaking and entering with criminal intent?" "No," said Farragut. "Well, then, you must be second-degree homicide. Fratricide. You attempted escape on the eighteenth and you were disciplined. If you'll just sign this release here, no charges will be brought." "What kind of charges?" "Attempted escape," said the lawyer. "You can get seven years for that. But if you sign this release the whole thing will be forgotten." He passed Farragut the clipboard and a pen. Farragut held the board on his knees and the pen in his hand. "I didn't attempt escape," he said, "and I have witnesses. I was in the lower tier of cellblock F in the sixth lock-in of a maximum-security prison. I attempted to leave my cell, driven by the need for prescribed medicine. It an attempt to leave one's cell, six lock-ins deep, in a maximum-security prison constitutes an attempted escape, this prison is a house of cards."