Cool Hand Luke (3 page)

Aw right. Let's smoke ‘em up.

Back came the reply with a sharp, high note of exuberance resounding from all directions—

Yes
suh!

Eagerly we dug into our sweaty pockets and took out the battered, rusty pipe tobacco cans that we all carry on our hips. But inside is the sharp and bitter, iodineflavored State tobacco that is issued to us once a week. Pressed down on top is a book of cigarette papers and a small box of wooden matches. Some of us squatted on our haunches, West Florida style. Some of us sat, knelt or lay down flat on our backs. We rolled our smokes or stuffed our pipes, the clever ones always keeping two or three rolled up in advance in their tobacco cans so that no time at all would be lost. The wealthy ones didn't have to bother since they always smoke Free World tailor-mades.

For fifteen minutes we rested, drinking in the smoke. Again and again we went over the details of the adventure with the Diamond Back, describing every aspect to each other, every gesture, expression and emotion. We envied Stupid Blondie's luck, ridiculed Cottontop's idiocy, poked mild and careful fun at Dragline's tripping over his own shackles. And then again we picked up the threads of our stories and our lies exactly where we had
left off, as though we hadn't been interrupted by several hours of labor in the sun.

But again there was a difference. There was a certain restraint in our voices, occasional glances of respect and awe in Dragline's direction.

Soon we felt restless. We knew the time had come, our eyes discreetly following the Walking Boss, waiting for that gesture. When he reached for his watch we all tensed. But he put it back again, unconcerned, looking off at we knew not what. And then when we least expected it, his voice growled out to us, deep, slow and lazy, cadenced and intoned like a song.

Aw—right—. It's that time.

Stiffly we stood up, lighting that last smoke we are permitted to carry and snapping shut the lids of our cans and putting them away. Stretching, making the first few, meaningless swings at nothing to limber up, mechanically our arms resumed the rhythmic swing of the day, the sweat again beginning to flow, our eyes once again fixed on that spot just in front of our toes.

BOSS GODFREY STROLLED ALONG THE EDGE of the pavement swinging his Walking Stick, a heavy cane made of hickory with which he points when giving orders and makes those little gestures that reveal to us his mood and with which, from time to time, he beats us.

Boss Godfrey is much bigger than any of us. He is nearly six feet six inches tall and weighs at least two hundred and forty pounds. Like the guards, he is dressed in the same faded green uniform of the State, a large spot of
sweat showing between his shoulder blades and under each arm in a larger ring of dried salt. And like the guards, he also wears a cowboy hat, weather-beaten and out of shape with stains of hair oil showing around the band. But their hats are all various shades of gray. His hat is black.

Slowly he walked along the edge of the road from the head of the line to the rear and then back again. Gesturing with his Walking Stick, he would order the flags and the trucks to be moved up by the trustees. Occasionally he would mutter a command. Once he pointed his Stick right at me and then aimed it towards the rear of the gang.

Sailor. Drop back and catch that clump of wire grass over yonder.

Yes suh, Boss. Boss
Kean!
Boss
Paull
Gettin‘ back here and catchin' this here wire grass!

Aw right, Sailor. Go back and git it.

After doing what I was told I walked back to my place. Boss Godfrey was again ambling towards the head of the line, his back turned to me, swinging his Stick from side to side and puffing on a cigar. Then he let go with a standard bean fart. A little one. The hungry kind. And once again I wondered about Boss Godfrey and the other guards, speculating about their reality as human beings. But all I could do was observe them askance and at a distance, assuming that they must respond to the influences of food and rest, the state of their bowels and their loves. The well-being of the Free Men is something we convicts always worry about. Just as at one time we were quite
concerned with the moods of our judges. Yet to us the Free Men must always remain as flat forms, shallow silhouettes cut out and pasted against the wall of the sky.

There are the rumors. Boss Godfrey used to be a Greyhound bus driver. His family was one of the pioneers of the Florida Territory even before it was taken over from Spain. His wife ran away. He squandered away a large cattle inheritance from his father. His girlfriend is a waitress in a juke joint near Vero Beach.

But we really don't know. We don't know how old he is or where he lives. We don't know where he's from nor what he thinks or believes. All we know is that he is beginning to get a pot belly and wears sideburns and is a fantastic marksman with a rifle. He has little wrinkles on his forehead and on the back of his dark brown neck. And probably in the corners of his eyes. Yet we don't even know that.

The other guards have eyes of men. They have isosceles triangles of blue fire. Hollow eyes of iron. Brooding rips and tears and glints of green and brown. But the Walking Boss seems to have no eyes at all, keeping them completely covered with opaque sunglasses, the kind that have a brightly polished surface of one-way mirrors.

Boss Godfrey reached the head of the advancing column. He turned around and stood a moment, watching us. Slowly he began walking back. With a covert glance I looked up from my work as he drew close to me. And there in his eyes I could see the reduced twin reflections of the Bull Gang, the guards strung out with their shotguns at
various angles—over their shoulders, at high port, dangling in their hands or cradled in the crook of one arm—and we convicts herded together in the middle, our heads lowered and our eyes averted, our yo-yos flashing from side to side.

LATER IN THE MORNING THE COUNTRYSIDE around us began to change. Houses became scarcer. Marsh grass became more common, growing out of small ponds on both sides of us. The road was very straight, built on a high causeway of fill with steep shoulders that dropped down into drainage ditches overgrown with bushes. Our yo-yos had very little to do here and the Bull Gang began to move more rapidly over the ground, cutting down the occasional clumps of dog fennels and
patches of weeds and then going on at a fast walk, moving in single file along the narrow tops of the shoulders.

Off to our right, coming out of the scattered secondgrowth pines and scrub oaks, we saw the row of poles supporting the arcs of high tension power lines. Later we could see the embankment of the railroad tracks. It drew closer to the road and then began to follow it on a parallel course.

It had been a long time since we had last worked on the Rattlesnake Road but we recognized the landmarks. On the left there was a small house all by itself built out of pale green stucco in the pseudo-Mediterranean style that was common during the great Florida land boom of the twenties. Then we saw the creek up ahead, the fish camp, the wooden drawbridge and its sister, the railroad trestle built of heavy, black pilings and creosoted cross-timbers.

For a moment we hesitated at the foot of the bridge until all the men had gathered together. At a signal from Boss Godfrey we started across, following the guard who took the lead, walking backwards a few paces and then turning around, twisting his neck to look over his shoulder. We followed along, herded by the guards behind us.

On the other side of the creek the railroad began to curve away from the road, bending away behind the Negro general store, an old and dilapidated wooden shack. Beyond the store was the railroad station consisting of a bare wooden platform. On the other side was a nameless,
unincorporated village of about a dozen unpainted shacks with rusty, corrugated roofs.

Again the country began to change, getting dry and sandy, scrub oaks growing in small groves mixed with patches of scrawny-looking pines. About a half mile beyond the bridge the road began to curve to the right, following the right of way of the Atlantic Coast Line. Slowly we worked our way around the bend. And then up ahead of us, emerging out of the trees that blocked the horizon, we could see the watchtower of the forest rangers.

Nothing was out of the ordinary except that everything was deliberately ordinary. Rabbit was ahead of us, carrying the red warning flag further forward like an advance scout carrying the guidon of a squad of troops. Boss Kean shifted his double barreled shotgun from his left shoulder to his right shoulder. Boss Paul held the repeater in the crook of his arm, looking at the Bull Gang and smiling. Boss Godfrey relit his cigar and strolled along the edge of the road, swinging his cane by the handle with one finger.

But softly, with the gentleness of grass fragments floating over our heads to settle down on our shoulders, there was a single word among the whisperings of tools slashing through the weeds, the scuff of footsteps and the rattling of chains, the traffic swishing along beside us.

Luke.

We could tell it was nearly noon by the position of the sun and by the feeling in our stomachs. There wasn't
much grass to cut and we kept moving at a comfortable pace, our yo-yos making easy, idle motions, swishing away at little or nothing as we herded down the road.

Up ahead of us we could see the church. It still looked the same; a square frame shack supported on concrete pillars about a foot and a half above the ground, the paint nearly gone, the metal roof showing streaks of rust, the walls buckled and out of line. On one side of the building was a leaning brick chimney. There was a steeple in front but it had no bell, the hexagonal peak covered with weathered cedar shingles, dried out and split by the years and by the sun. On one side of the church yard was a tiny cemetery. On the other side, under some trees, were a few picnic benches made of old, sagging boards laid over two stacks of cement building blocks. The front yard was of loose, dry sand and there was a jalopy Ford in the middle of it, the paint gone, one fender missing.

The Walking Boss spoke to the trustees and they drove off with the trucks. We could see them park across the road from the church. Rabbit and Jim began to get things ready for Bean Time, stretching out the tarpaulins in the best of the shady spots under the scrub oak trees next to the church yard. Beside the tarps they put the lunch buckets of the Free Men and the crates which they used for seats. In the center of the ring of stations set up for the guards, they stretched out a smaller tarp, just big enough for the bean pot, the wooden chest holding the corn bread, the jar of cut-back molasses and the orange
crate holding the big aluminum plates. And they started a fire and put on a can of water to boil coffee for the Free Men.

We were working quickly now, knowing for sure just how far we would have to go, anxious to knock off and get our beans. But as we drew closer we could hear singing coming from the church. Since today was Thursday it must have been a practice session for the choir. A tinny piano could be heard and a banjo and what was probably a trumpet. The voices were strident and hoarse, quavering in and out of harmony as they urgently pleaded and cajoled the Almighty with their gospel rhythms of passive ecstasy.

Drawing abreast of the parked trucks, the yo-yos lost their enthusiasm. We waited for the signal, reluctant to go beyond our food. Aimlessly we shuffled through the thick, hot sand, cutting away at nothing, mowing an invisible lawn.

Boss Godfrey walked up and down, casually swinging his Stick. Eventually he dug into his watch pocket with deliberate, clumsy fingers. Then he growled out:

Aw right. Let's eat them beans.

Back came the fierce, unanimous cry:

Yes
SUH!

Breaking formation we slowly herded across the road, waddling through the thick sand of the church yard towards our dinner. We threw down our tools, lit up a fast smoke, got a plate and stood in line, kneeling down beside the bean pot as Stupid Blondie served up a brick of soggy
corn bread and poured molasses over it and Onion Head ladled out the watery boiled white beans.

But our faces were solemn as we stood in line, our heads turned towards the small rectangle of weather-beaten cardboard that had been inserted in one of the church windows to replace a broken pane. And as we each bent over for our rations we knelt in a kind of pagan genuflection. This was sacred ground to us and making us eat here was a deliberate act of heresy. For this was the very spot where they finally caught up with Dragline and with his buddy Cool Hand Luke.

AFTER WE FINISHED OUR BEANS WE sprawled in huddled groups in the shade of the scrub oaks. Rabbit had brought all our shirts and jackets from the cage truck and piled them on the ground. We sorted through the heap, identifying our own things by the big black numbers printed on the back and spreading them out like blankets. I got up and waded through the sand to get a drink from the water bucket and then I flopped down to take off the heavy, metal-shod State shoes and examine
the latest cuts inflicted by my yo-yo. I massaged my feet and scratched the ant bites. The sweat and the dirt of the day had made mud inside my shoes, my feet shiny and smooth from the callouses worn by bare leather. Then I lay back and lit my pipe, using the shoes for a pillow and wriggling my toes in the air.

The others were dipping corn bread in the bean juice and the molasses remaining on their plates. Rubbing their spoons in the sand and putting them back in their pockets, they returned the plates to Onion Head who stacked them in the boxes. But I lay back and closed my eyes, listening to Blondie sharpening his yo-yo with the file from the tool truck and listening to the drone and accents of Dragline's voice as he started another story.

I lay there sucking on my pipe, pretending that I was never going to have to get up. The sand under my back felt like a tropical beach. Or like the thick pile carpet of a penthouse boudoir. I listened to the roar and the swish of the traffic going by on the road and I thought of those better days to come, of that time when I would at last be free to resume my life of secret poetry, bizarre crimes, nocturnal adventures scattered here and there.