Cool Hand Luke (19 page)

And there was Society Red, down on his hands and knees, working away with a rusty hacksaw blade on the hole he was cutting through the floor.

I joined the chorus, not knowing the words but just letting some kind of noise come out. Desperately I tried to catch somebody's eye, but everyone was industriously beating out the rhythm of the song, the disarrayed blankets
of the lower bunks pulled down and touching the floor, the solid wall of muscled brown skin blocking the view of the Wicker Man and the Floorwalker.

So I wet my throat with lemonade and I stomped my foot and sang. Whenever the broken piece of hacksaw blade hit a nail the screech made my hair stand on end. But there was always a spontaneous chord on the musical instruments played just a little off-key, everyone's voice strident and loud, our faces red with effort.

Oh, they say you are leaving this valleeeee—

We will miss your bright eyes and sweet smiii—iiiile—

Back and forth paced Carr, the floor of the Building trembling with his weight. And the Wicker Man began to add to the din by working on the silver ring he was making, beating on the rim of a quarter with the back of a tablespoon. One by one the radios would pause for a commercial but we went on with our songs—

If I had the wings of an angel—

Over these prison walls I would fly-y-y-y-y—

Then the Wicker Man stopped tapping with his spoon, pulled out his watch and looked at it, ponderously rose to his feet and opened the switch that shut off all the radios. He shuffled out on the porch, took down the iron bar from the top of one of the rafters and hit the old brake drum that hangs suspended from a wire.

Abruptly we finished our singing, our voices tapering off in ragged confusion as the final words ended in a mumble of innocence—

—g‘wine to run all night, g'wine to run all day—

There was a last tinkle of banjo notes and we were through, Carr plowing through the middle of the dispersing crowd, growling out of the corner of his mouth,

First Bell. Let's get to bed. You done had your fun.

Men scurried from bunk to bunk to borrow books and tobacco from each other. There was the last minute rush to the toilets. Shoes clumped on the floor.

The movement subsided. Everyone was either sitting on the edge of his bunk or lying down. From my vantage point I could look across the room and see Luke lying on his upper bunk, the sheet pulled up to his chin. Koko was on the lower adjacent bunk, propped up on one elbow and looking back at me with owlish eyes. In the space between, where the hootenanny had been held, a loose pile of clothing completely covered the neat square hole in the floor.

Five minutes later the Wicker Man got up and went out. We could hear his feet scraping on the porch. We waited. Again the gong was sounded, Carr picking up the reverberation and growling in his gruff manner, his cigar trailing smoke as he rolled down the center of the silent Building.

Last
bell!
Last
Bell!!

Carr moved slowly up one side of the room and down the other, counting the men on their bunks. Then we heard his deep grumble as he spoke to the Wicker Man.

Fifty-four, Boss.

Fifty-four. Aw right, Carr.

As late as it was, Dragline was still reading, his nightly array of paper-back novels spread out over his bunk, a half-dozen of them opened to certain penciled sections that dealt with fornication, defloration, prostitution and perversion. Drag's eyes were bulging as they flitted back and forth across the pages, skimming over the superficial details describing characterizations and scenes, the useless dialogue and lame philosophizing, impatiently flipping the pages to reach the next heavily marked section. After a few minutes he would lay down one book and pick up the next, always able to keep the continuity of the different narratives arranged in his mind in perfect order.

He lay there making gasping sounds in his throat, holding the book in both hands with a trembling grip as his tongue rolled around the perimeter of his toothless mouth. Carr walked by, smiling that grim, stiff, patronizing smile. Dragline waved at him anxiously and then in pantomimed exaggeration he brought the open pages of the book close to his face, his eyes popping, his tongue panting excitedly.

With massive dignity the Floorwalker approached Dragline's bunk, smiling broadly at the hysterical antics as Drag twisted and turned knocking three or four books onto the floor. Then he knelt down and indulgently took the offered book, beginning to read a section emblazoned with scribbled stars and Xs and wavy lines.

What you got there, Drag? muttered Carr. You
done bought yourself another one of them fuck-books?

Carr relit his cigar and began reading. He began to grin.

Gettin‘up, Carr.

Yeah.

Coon got up from his bunk and shuffled to the john. He flushed the bowl and went back to bed.

In rapid succession, three men asked to get up. Absorbed in the book, Carr answered them without raising his eyes. The Wicker Man was busy, dipping some fresh snuff and whittling on a piece of wood.

And then Dragline turned his head and looked across the room at Luke. Dragline winked.

Already dressed, Luke threw back the sheet and quietly crept out of bed. At the same time two johns were flushed. Another man asked to get up. Without looking, Carr answered out of the side of his mouth.

Yeah.

I could see it all from where I lay, covering my face with my arm and pretending to be asleep but peeking out from beneath my elbow all the while. I watched Luke as he climbed down from the bunk and slid his legs through the hole in the floor, wriggling his hips through and then kneeling on the ground with only his head, shoulders and arms protruding. Koko looked on with blinking eyes and a grin, hugging himself in ecstasy beneath the covers. Luke smiled and saluted. By watching his lips I could see what he whispered just before he ducked away.

So long Koko. Don't forget now. Play it cool.

Luke was gone, just like that, crawling away beneath the Building which is supported by concrete pillars a few feet above the ground. Around the Building is an eighteen-inch strip of the usual chain link fence material. But that same afternoon Luke and his accomplices had found a blind spot at the corner of the Building unseen by the guards and had managed to loosen some nails and wire.

I had to choke down a giggle. The traditional way to escape from the Chain Gang is to go out on the Road and wait until the guard's mind is distracted and then dive into the bushes and run for your very life. But that would have been too easy for Luke. He had to do it the hard way and make history by escaping from the Building itself.

Everything seemed perfectly normal. There were snores. The Wicker Man was whittling. Carr was over by Dragline's bunk, absorbed in the fuck-book. But all the while Cool Hand was crawling away on his hands and knees, emerging out into the yard and the night with only the six-foot fence between him and freedom.

I lay there without moving, wondering who was next. I didn't think that Koko wanted to go because he had already accumulated too much extra Time with his previous escape attempts. And everyone knew that Dragline was still waiting for his parole to come through. But I had no idea of who else was in on the deal nor was there any way of knowing how many men might try to seize on an unexpected opportunity. I shut my eyes, suppressing a giggle as I saw a magnificent panorama of escape, the entire
Family deciding to try a mass break for freedom with everyone streaking off into the darkness and the confusion in a dozen different directions. But as for myself I knew that I could never make it. The idea of running away from it all was one that I had long since given up as hopeless.

Then Society Red sat up and swung his legs over the edge of his bunk.

Giiiyaaa!

eeaaa!

After going off to the toilets, urinating, flushing the bowl and sleepily ambling back to his bunk, Society Red picked up his clothes and shoes wrapped up in a tight package, silently crossed the room and ducked down through the hole. In another minute Blackie followed the same procedure as Dragline eagerly flipped through the pages of another book and shoved it under Carr's nose. Meanwhile Koko lay there on his side watching the parade. I could see him itching and squirming, waging a tremendous battle with temptation, the escape hatch to freedom yawning wide open right beside him. And I knew just how he felt. In spite of everything I too was beginning to feel those ancient notions stirring inside myself.

Then there was a rattling noise outside. The six-foot fence proved to be difficult to get over, the brackets on top of the steel posts supporting the barbed wire making climbing very hard. In the process of grabbing for hand holds and toe tolds Cool Hand's shoes slipped and scraped against the chain link netting. The Wicker Man heard the sound and raised his head to listen, his unrestrained
voice booming out loud in the disciplined silence of the Building.

HEY CARR! WHAT'S THAT OUTSIDE?

Koko had just been sliding one leg out from under the covers when the alarm was sounded. Swiftly he withdrew it and rolled over, turning his back on the whole affair. Carr threw down the book and ran over to the window, shading his eyes and trying to look out beneath the propped-up wooden shutters. He was just in time to catch a glimpse of Luke running off into the orange groves, revealed in the dim glare of the small spotlights fitted on top of the truck garage.

Hey! Somebody's out there, Boss!

The two men under the Building were trapped. Blackie tried to retreat, crawling back to poke his head up through the hole. Carr spotted him, rushing over all out of breath, grabbing him by the arm and heaving, yelling out to the Wicker Man.

I got one of ‘em Boss! They cut a hole right through the god damn floor! Right through the fuckin'
floor!
But I got one of ‘em! Its' this Blackie bastard!

And Blackie hung there in the Floorwalker's grip, dangling like a stricken marionette stuck in the trap door of a stage show.

The Wicker Man ran outside on the porch and beat the hell out of the brake drum, giving a loud and frantic alarm. Then he stumbled around the Building with a flashlight and his pistol just in time to catch Society Red before he jumped off and ran, a towel wrapped round his waist,
his clothes and shoes in his hands, posed on top of the fence like a bird.

The rest of us were snoring like mad. Butter wouldn't melt in our mouths. But I for one had to bite a wad of sheet and cover my face to keep from bursting out with laughter. And Dragline didn't even bother to pretend, his great belly and chest jiggling up and down as he breathed in harsh, smothered gasps of mirth.

Lights went on in the Guard Shack. Feet scraped and pounded here and there on wooden floors and porches. The gate squeaked, doors banged, motors started. The dogs were barking and howling in hysterics, trying to tear down the fence to their pen. Back and forth across the yard we could hear voices giving orders, asking questions, muttering; the protests, the shouts, the curses and the screams—

Somebody got away! He's out there in the groves!

Go git the dogs! Quick! And the Dog Boy!

Call up the Highway Patrol!

How about the Sheriff?

Who the hell was it?

Who the hell do you think it was? It's that crazy son of a bitch from Alabama. Cool Hand Luke.

NOBODY GOT MUCH SLEEP THAT NIGHT. There were too many things going on. Everyone lay there, trying his best to appear innocent and yet craning his neck to catch every detail of the show.

Carr dragged Blackie back through the hole in the floor, twisted his arm behind his back and marched him over to the poker table where he forced him to sit down on the bench. Carr waited, looking down towards one end of the Building and then the other end, both fists balled up
and placed on his hips, his face screwed up in a scowl that warned us all to stay where we were.

In a few seconds the Wicker Man unlocked the outside door and shoved Society Red inside the Chute. Out in the yard Boss Brown stood in his underwear, blinking his eyes and holding his shotgun with tense desperation. Society Red was brought inside and placed next to Blackie, the two of them sitting there with the hanging heads of naughty children.

Carr paced up and down, his expression ferocious. The Wicker Man was fondling his gun with nervous gestures, his enormous belly jiggling up and down as he panted, still trying to catch his breath. And yet right in the middle of it all, a man actually asked to get up. It was Cottontop.

Kin ah git up now, Carr?

Carr just stopped and looked at him.

Ah gotta take a leak, Carr.

Yes, Mister Cottontop. Yes sir. You can git up. Take your leak. But make it damn fast. And damn careful. Otherwise you'll be leakin‘ like a lawn sprinkler.

We all watched as the white-headed, pink-skinned albino got out of bed, wrapped his towel around his waist and shuffled off to the toilets, his head tilted back, his puffy eyelids half closed, his face composed and unconcerned. He urinated in a bowl and flushed it, turning around and heading back, oblivious to all the eyes, the tension, unaware that every one of us was holding his breath, ready to roll out of bed and fall to the floor in an
instant, knowing that if Cottontop were to make a sudden dive for the hole the room would be full of explosions, smoke and scattered shot.

Out in the darkness the dogs were going berserk. They knew that something was happening and they barked and bayed and howled, impatient to be set out on the trail. The Dog Boy was already dressed and putting on his shoes, sitting on the edge of his single bunk which was placed right next to the Wicker as a protection from the rest of us.

Arrogantly the Dog Boy got up from his bed without a word to Carr, heavily scraping his feet on the bare boards as he crossed the floor to the john. He began to brush his teeth under the spigot. Then he rinsed his face and went over to the broken fragment of mirror to comb his hair with lingering strokes. Returning to his bunk, he put on his jacket, lit a cigarette and went over and stood by the gate to the Chute, resting his weight on one leg, his arms folded over his chest. He looked around at all of us, a sly smile on his lips as Carr handed him a folded sheet taken from Luke's bed.