Cool Hand Luke (7 page)

Carr was growling, so low he was almost inaudible. He spoke out of the corner of his mouth, his voice deliberately deep and grating, his lips pursed together, his eyes flitting around the Building so as not to miss a trick of what was going on.

Carr laid down the law:

There will be no Loudtalking in the Building. There will be no playing Grab Ass. The First Bell is at five minutes to eight and everyone will get on his bunk for a count. Right away. The Last Bell is at eight o‘clock. After that there will be no talking at all. The lights are never turned out in the Building. So you can read if you want to after the Last Bell. But there will be no smoking in bed. If
you want to smoke you will sit up with both legs over the edge of the bunk. Anyone caught smoking while lying down will spend a night in the Box.

In Raiford you only get one sheet. Here you get two. Every week you switch the top sheet to the bottom and turn the bottom sheet in to the Laundry Boy. Then you put the clean sheet on top. Anybody who turns in the wrong sheet will spend a night in the Box.

The Building will not look like a Greek whorehouse. Everyone's ass will be covered with shorts or with a towel. No one will sit on his bunk with dirty pants on. Anyone caught sitting on his bunk with his pants on will spend a night in the Box.

Those who drop a butt on the floor or even a match, spend a night in the Box. If you buy a coke at the Juke and do not bring back the bottle—if you do any Loudtalking—if you check out in the morning without taking
all
your personal junk with you—you spend a night in the Box.

If there are any questions, you see Carr.

These Newcocks had arrived just before the men they were to replace had gone home. Therefore the Family was temporarily overpopulated and the Yard Man had had three extra bunks and mattresses brought in by the trustees. Under Carr's supervision the new men rigged up the bunks above the top tiers of other bunks in order to form triple deckers. They tossed up the mattresses, pillows and bedding and climbed up the precarious structure to make up their beds for the night.

And then one of them took off his shirt, revealing a large eagle tattooed in red and blue ink across the expanse of his chest. Stupid Blondie and Stupidest Blondie both crowded around, eagerly admiring the art work as the Newcock grinned. But as the new man took off his shirt he had also taken off his name. Whatever name he had used before he arrived was totally forgotten and from then on he was known to one and all as Eagle.

Feeling a little more confident, Eagle and the other Newcock went to the Juke to buy candy bars and cokes. Jabo the Cook has the concession to the camp store which is a large wooden box filled with all sorts of Free World goodies plus a bucket of ice and a few cases of cold drinks shoved under his bunk.

But as I glanced up over the book I was reading I could see Jackson sitting on the edge of his bunk, his head bent forward to duck under the ceiling. He had a towel wrapped around his middle and his legs were crossed. Calmly he was rolling a smoke with State tobacco, at the same time looking over what was going on in the Building.

Squinting his eyes and cocking his head he studied the poker game in progress which is the personal concession of the Floorwalker who cuts each pot ten percent. Carr pays the dealer a certain percentage and there is no doubt in our minds that he must also pay off the Captain. Every night, for at least an hour after the Last Bell, the poker game continues, the bets made in whispers, the coins clinking quietly on top of a folded blanket, the cards rustling as they are shuffled, riffled, cut and put together.

In other corners men were talking together in low murmurs, others writing letters home or to the lawyer or to the Parole Board, explaining how they had been completely rehabilitated and were now anxious to begin a new life. Others were reading. Some men were already asleep. Babalugats was still clowning around, imitating Donald Duck. Some were busily lacing up the edges of a new wallet, holding the needle in their teeth as they quickly pulled the five yards of leather lace through one of the punched holes. The chain stitch takes an average of forty-five minutes and the standard rate of pay is ten cents per wallet.

I kept watching Jackson. There was something in the way he held his head and the way he held his cigarette. And I knew that he would always stay under the gun as long as he was here. He was intelligent and he was unafraid. This meant that the Free Men would be down on him from the very beginning. Not only that. There was that smile.

The Wicker Man got out of his chair, scraping his feet as he opened the door and went outside to the porch. He took an iron rod and hit the brake drum that dangles by a piece of wire from the rafters overhead. As the gong reverberated Carr swaggered back and forth between the bunks, calling out with his low and ominous growl—

First Bell. First Bell. Let's git to bed.

Everyone scurried about the room with his last minute preparations for the night. Books and magazines were borrowed, pants removed, toilets visited. In a few
minutes there was quiet, everyone on his bunk, either lying down or smoking with his legs swung over the edge. But the poker game continued without interruption. Here and there bedsprings were squeaking. Shoes clumped on the floor. Chains rattled. Then silence. Again the Wicker Man went outside and hit the brake drum.

Last Bell. Last Bell.

Carr slowly walked up one side of the Building and back on the other, carefully counting. Then he went over to the Wicker.

Fifty-three, Boss. And one in the Box.

Fifty-three. O.K. Carr.

Bunks and springs squeaked as someone rolled over. The dealer riffled the deck of cards. The silence was broken by a low unintelligible growl. Carr answered the growl with another that matched the intonation and pitch of the first.

Gittinup.

Yeaaaahhhh.

A Chain Man rose from his bunk, catching up his shackles with his string and hook, wrapping a towel around his waist and moving towards the toilets with quick, short, hip-swinging steps. The shackle rattled just once as he sat himself on the throne. In a moment there were other growls.

eeeyaaa!

aaaah!

GIDDYAP

YEEAP

Gettin‘ up, Carr.

No. Full house.

I turned over, moving my head so that the bunk above cast a shadow over my eyes from the light bulb on the ceiling. Then I glanced over to my right and saw Jackson still sitting where he was, legs crossed, one arm across his chest with his hand supporting the opposite elbow, his thumb and first finger holding his cigarette while the other fingers were loosely curled in a masculine gesture of the debonair.

For a moment I tried to think back to what it was like to spend my own first night here. I remembered that the bulb was a torture to my eyes. I was conscious of the whispered giggles from the poker table, the sounds of the Wicker Man puttering in his cage, the growls for permission to get up. And there were the smells—the hot, stale air, the smell of burning coal, dirty clothes, sweat, shoes, the odor of shit. And then someone would roll over and the whole precarious apparatus of bunks would sway and creak in response.

Someone let go with a long, delayed, incredibly loud bean fart. Carr answered,

Yeeeaaahhhh!

Carr laughed, which for him is to silently snort blasts of air through his nose. The culprit sat up in bed to grin with impish victory at the assembled world. But the Wicker Man spoke up, using his Free Man's prerogative to speak in a normal voice, which sounded like a yell in the muteness of the Building:

THAT FELLER'S GONNA NEED A DOSE OF SALTS, AIN'T HE?

It's just them beans, Boss, answered Carr, placatingly.

Then I slept, shielding my eyes with my pillow. Once I woke up and saw Carr playing solitaire at the table, the poker game broken up, the gamblers sent to bed. Again I slept until next I heard the cooks and trustees being awakened. They dressed. First the gate and then the door were unlocked, opened, closed and locked again. An hour later the Chain Men were getting their early call so they would have time to put on their pants.

Trying to muffle the noise, they sat on the floor busily working at the involved procedure. At night they always take off their pants in such a way that one leg is turned inside out and pulled over the other. In the morning the whole thing is gradually worked beneath the ankle ring and pulled over the right leg. Then the outer pant leg is pulled down, leaving the other one in place. The left leg is reversed and pulled down over the right foot and then over the chain and then back up the left leg. After they rigged up their harness and strings they went over to the faucet to wash their faces and brush their teeth.

I lay there for ten minutes, drowsy, reluctant to wake up. Yet I couldn't help but be aware of the tinkle of shackles, the scrape and thud of shoes, the splatter of the water from the faucet. Then the Wicker Man got up and opened the door. I waited. Then he hit the brake drum with the iron bar. Swiftly Carr walked up and down
the Building, making sure there were no sleepy heads.

First Bell. Sheets and rolls. First Bell. Let's go.

The bare heels of the Family hit the floor all at once. It was pandemonium. Beds squeaked and swayed, shoes clumped, toilets flushed and gurgled, the faucet trickled as a crowd of men took their turns. All the beds were made up and personal belongings gathered together to be taken outside and stowed in the lockers. Shoe laces were tied and pockets stowed with the necessities of the day. And then the Family was gathered in a silent crowd in front of the gate, smoking and waiting, Carr blocking the exit with his body, facing the crowd with a belligerent scowl which everyone sleepily ignored.

Outside, the guards had taken their places on the gun platforms. The Wicker Man unlocked the gate, went out on the porch and unlocked the outer door. There was a pause. And then exactly five minutes after the First Bell had rung, there was the sound of the Second Bell. Carr swung the gate and door open and stepped aside as the men poured out in a rushing tumult of clumping feet and rattling chains, their voices counting off loud and clear as they went out, each one with a different tone and pitch, each one with a different soul—

(one) TWO Three “Four” FIVE Six! seven?

Like little children the Newcocks imitated our every move. We tolerated their ignorance with proper dignity, correcting their mistakes and giving advice with gestures and quiet hisses.

It was pitch black outside and cold. Everyone scampered to his locker to put things away. But since there aren't nearly enough lockers to go around the Newcocks had to find someone willing to share his space. Then there was the line in front of the Messhall door. Cigarettes glowed among the shifting silhouettes, phantoms which giggled, cursed and groaned. The line shuffled forward, the voices stilled and the butts put out as another form entered the glowing rectangle of the door, the silhouette of each man suddenly illuminated to those of us still out in the yard.

Inside there was waiting a cup of hot, black water, thin grits, a slab of fat back, catheads and one greasy, cold egg. But the faces of the Newcocks reflected their surprise. In Raiford you are served a tiny portion of powdered eggs once a week. And there is a sign on the messhall wall that has been there for as long as anyone can remember,

“No Eggs Today.”

We ate in a hurry, going outside to wash our spoons under the faucet in the yard and putting them away in our pockets. Quickly we lighted up smokes again, inhaling deeply. We stood in groups and huddles. In a few minutes we began to form a double line that was arranged according to the four squads. Again the Newcocks were advised, hissed, gestured and recruited into one or the other of the two Bull Gangs. Eagle was drafted into the big Bull Gang by Stupid Blondie who had fallen madly in love with the tattoo on his chest. The other Newcock went with the
little Bull Gang, the one which has Boss Palmer for a Walking Boss and is more or less composed of fuck-ups and hoosiers. But Jackson lingered on the porch, smoking and waiting with the other men. At the last minute he strolled over and got at the end of the big Bull Gang, calmly, as though confident he had made the right choice.

The Yard Man came through the gate, closing it behind him and standing there for a minute with his shoulders hunched under his old leather jacket, his false teeth working back and forth, clicking audibly within the death's head of his face. Then he walked up to the back of the line and snarled out,

Aw right, gawd damn it. Straighten out them lines.

There was silence. The lines straightened. Hats were bared but cigarettes remained in place. Then the Yard Man walked forward, counting silently. At the gate he spoke through the fence.

Forty-three Cap'n. One in the Box.

Forty-three. All right, Boss. Let ‘em out.

The Captain stood motionless with his hands in his pockets. His windbreaker sports jacket was zippered up to his throat, the collar up around the back of his neck. The brim of his Panama hat was pulled over his eyes. He stood there and spat three or four times.

The Yard Man opened the gate and stepped to one side. The left hand column began to file through, each man turning his head to count over his shoulder as clearly as he could so the man behind him wouldn't misunderstand.

—seventeen Eighteenl NINETEEN (twenty)—

But the Newcock in Boss Palmer's squad began to stutter.

—twenty—uh—twenty—TWENTY—

Swiftly the Yard Man kicked him square in the butt, grabbing him by the sleeve and pulling him back to the gate.

Git back here, damn yore sorry ass! You ain't allowed to be no lazy, raggety ass tramp no more. You hear? You gotta straighten up. But quick. Now git back here and give the right count.

—uh—uh—

Twenty-
one!