Cool Hand Luke Part 15

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DRAGLINE FINISHED HIS STORY. HE TOOK A last drag on his b.u.t.t and flipped it away, drawing up his knees and shifting his feet, the shackles rattling quietly, m.u.f.fled by the sand and the dust. Fingering the center link, Dragline looked down at the ground. And I knew that his mind had at last relaxed, had let him forget about Luke. Instead he was wondering how much longer it would be before that link finally broke; remembering that the Captain had said that Drag would have to wear those chains until he wore them out.

And he was probably thinking of his own Time, his bad luck and his errors. For if he hadn't agreed to run with Luke that day he would have been home by now. His original sentence was finished a month ago but now he is working on that brand new Five Spot for larceny of State property; in other words, for stealing the tool truck.

But the movement of Dragline's chain was the only sound as the Bull Gang sat there, unmoving, our gestures and expressions awkward and fixed. Our throats were tight, our mouths were dry, our heads were ringing with the melody and the hymn called Cool Hand Luke.

Yet we tried to appear casual and tough as our eyes swept over the flimsy shack of a church. We studied the shifting concrete foundation blocks which held the building off the ground, the floor buckling between them. We examined the warped walls, the boards all dried out and cracked with streaks of old paint barely visible in the grain of the wood. We stared at the window which had a gray piece of weather-beaten cardboard inserted in the place of one of the panes. But that blank square spoke with such an eloquent simplicity that to us it had become as solemn as a window of stained gla.s.s reflecting a complex of infinities.

Inside, the choir was still singing. We could hear the swish and the roar of a pa.s.sing truck back on the road. We could hear the voices of some little colored kids laughing and screaming at each other while swinging through the limbs of a distant mulberry tree. The piano went banging on, the trumpet muted and tremulous. But most of all we listened to the cunning notes of a sly banjo echoing from deep within the shadowed obscurity.

Then we began to get tense, began to stretch and shift our feet. Koko took off his cap and wiped his face with it, put it on his head, pulled it over his left ear, then pulled it over his right ear. He took it off again and mauled it with his hands, putting it on once more, the bill pulled down low over his eyes.

Rabbit and Jim came over and began to carry the bean pot and the bread box and the crate of aluminum dinner plates back to the tool truck. Rabbit went around to the guards and collected their buckets and the orange crates. Together they began to roll up the tarps and put out the coffee fire.

Somebody stood up and went over for a drink of water just before Rabbit took the bucket away. Men began snapping open the lids of their tobacco cans and rolling up their last minute smokes. I began to stretch. I knocked the ashes out of my pipe, filled it again and lit it. I shook the sand out of my shoes and put them back on.

I glanced over and saw Boss G.o.dfrey sit up with a yawn, covering his mouth with the back of his fist as he stretched. With deliberate, probing fingers he dug the big watch out of his pocket and held it in his hand. Yet I couldn't say for certain that he actually looked at it. He didn't turn his head nor nod. His face revealed no expression. And where his eyes should have been I could only see the glittering surfaces of his gla.s.ses and the reflection of ourselves captured therein, a reduced image of the Bull Gang sprawled in a huddle, Dragline sitting in the center.

Boss G.o.dfrey took a cigar out of his shirt pocket. He bit off the end and spat it on the ground. Then he put the cigar in his mouth and lit it. But I didn't know if his movements were profound and thoughtful or whether they were lazy and careless. After a long moment, as though he had forgotten all about work, convicts and Time, finally there was a deep, disinterested growl rumbling from his chest.

Aw right. Let's go git it. It's that time.

We all stood up, clutching our yo-yos and waiting as Boss Paul, Boss Kean and the other guards began walking off to strategic positions that gave them a good field of fire. There was a moment's hesitation and then all together, without even a signal, we began to wade through the shifting hot sand towards the road and the ditch. We fell into formation and began swinging our yo-yos back and forth, slowly at first, our hands and arms stiff and cramped, yo-yoing the gra.s.s on both sides of the road, the guards scattered, stationed at the cardinal points of the compa.s.s. Our easy rhythm began to loosen up, our freshly sharpened yo-yos slicing through the weeds, the soft swishing lulling us once again back to our reverie.

We began our thinking and planning. We imagined, we pretended and we remembered. As we worked our way past the little cemetery next to the church I glanced over at the pathetic graves with their crosses of ordinary lumber, the small lumps of stones, the wilting flowers stuck into mayonnaise jars of water, the stained and weathered photographs incased in gla.s.s and fitted in frames.

And as we pa.s.sed I couldn't help but think of the dead body of Cool Hand Luke. I knew that by the time the officials got around to notifying his relatives he was already buried, carried out the Main Gate and around the corner of the triple fences of Raiford, interred in that convicts' cemetery which is known to one and all as Gopher Ridge.

I knew that they must have placed a white wooden cross at his grave lettered in black paint with the name Lloyd Jackson and a serial number. And I also knew that before long the paint would crack and peel in the sun and the rains would level the mound of loose sand. Sooner or later the base of the cross would rot and the truck would be hauling in some more boxes and would accidentally knock the cross over, the tires pressing it into the sand.

In a few more minutes the voices singing in the church behind us became dimmer and finally lost in the roar and the whistle of the pa.s.sing traffic. We worked our way past the sign that read "Lake County Fire Control Headquarters"-then another sign shaped like a huge badge. Farther on we pa.s.sed a parked green truck that belonged to the forest rangers. Then we cut away the weeds that grew around a concrete anchor for one of the wire stays that supported the watchtower. Again I counted the flights of steps that zigzagged drunkenly up across the sky and towards the eyes hidden there in the clouds. Fifteen.

Then we worked our way past a rusty barbed wire fence, the lightwood posts rotted away at the bottom and leaning at exhausted angles, held up by the very wire they were meant to support. Fifty feet farther on we hit a bare patch of sterile sand on the edge of which was a dead oak tree, the limbs broken off, the stumps hung with a few thin wisps of moss, one side of the trunk charred black from a gra.s.s fire leaving a thick, wrinkled scab of charcoal.

The hours pa.s.sed. We had our Smoking Period and then went back to work. The sun dipped towards the horizon, reflected in a blinding glare from beneath the black hat of the Man With No Eyes. Far away over his shoulder we could still see the watchtower raised up into the clouds.

It got later. We began to steal impatient glances at the Walking Boss, waiting for his growl which would permit us to put away our tools and load up into the cage truck. But he said nothing. Slowly he sauntered up the road behind us, swinging his cane as we yo-yoed past a cow pasture and then a small grove of grapefruit trees and then a Pepsi Cola sign.

Cool Hand Luke was Donn Pearce's first novel, published by Scribners in 1965. Mr. Pearce wrote the original filmscript for the well known movie based on his novel and is also the author of two later novels, was Donn Pearce's first novel, published by Scribners in 1965. Mr. Pearce wrote the original filmscript for the well known movie based on his novel and is also the author of two later novels, Pier Head Jump Pier Head Jump and and Dying in the Sun. Dying in the Sun. He has been a machinist's helper, safecracker, convict, third mate in the He has been a machinist's helper, safecracker, convict, third mate in the Merchant Marine, and is currently a private investigator in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida.