Cool Hand Luke (8 page)

The interrupted column resumed its counting. Then the right hand column started through the gate, drawing abreast of the left which was standing in place. Everyone stood still a few minutes, heads bared, cigarettes glowing. Yet everybody had exactly the same thought. Tramp. The new man's name would have to be Tramp.

The spotlights fixed on the poles surrounding the asphalt apron were glaring down at the parked squad trucks and glaring into our sleepy eyes. The guards were spaced all around us, trying to look alert for the Captain's benefit. From the kennels way behind the Building and behind the woodpile we could hear the bloodhounds barking for their breakfast. The yapping of Rudolph the puppy was unmistakable. And so was the deep baritone of Big Blue.

The Walking Bosses stood together about one step behind the Captain. Boss Peters held the nub of his missing arm with his hand. Boss Higgins squinted his eyes and scowled, his hand gripping his stomach which we knew was riddled with ulcers. Boss Palmer stared at us over his bifocals, grinned at nothing, leaning forward to spit and then shifting his quid as he pulled out his watch, replaced it, patted his pot belly and then hooked a thumb in his suspenders. Boss Godfrey stood relaxed, leaning heavily on his cane, taking the cigar out of his mouth with his other hand to roll it back and forth with the tips of his fingers.

Everybody waited. The Captain turned his head and spat.

All right, Boss Higgins. Take ‘em away.

The Walking Boss of the big Patch Squad signaled and the men stepped forward, the left hand column counting off by twos. Then the other Patch Squad counted off. Then Boss Palmer's Bull Gang. And then Boss Godfrey straightened up, replaced the cigar in his mouth and sauntered over to the rear of the cage truck, holding the edge of the gate with one hand. He gestured just once, a slight shift of his cane and then we started forward, two by two, mounting the steps and ducking inside as fast as we possibly could.

Bouncing and swerving over the ruts, we roared off into the darkness. We crossed our legs and shifted our feet, rolled up cigarettes and smoked. Rabbit climbed underneath the bench to lay on the floor on his back, pulled his cap over his face and fell asleep. Dynamite got down
on his knees, peering through the bars and trying to estimate where the job would be for the day.

But most of us were glum and silent, staring through the bars at the sleeping Free World outside. Occasionally a match was struck, illuminating a sad, serious face in the gloom.

Finally the truck pulled over on the shoulder and stopped. The gate was unlocked. We got out. Jim the Trustee handed down our tools and we started to work. Boss Godfrey walked up the road a bit, turned around and leaned on his cane. He stood there, watching us, silhouetted against the dawn, the sun rising up behind his body, right up through his head and out of the black night he wore for a hat. All day the sun rose high up into the sky while we, stripped to the waist, were seared by its burning rays. But we knew that sun was really the left eye of the Walking Boss just as his right eye is the moon.

ON JACKSON'S FIRST DAY ON THE ROAD WE were shoveling dirt up from the bottom of the ditch to fill in the washouts that the rains had worn along the edge of the pavement. When the slope of the embankment was too high to reach we would carry a shovelful of dirt up the slope and than walk back down to the bottom of the ditch for another shovelful. The Chain Men in the gang always stay on top, their shackles making it too difficult for them to clamber up and down. They brush down the piles and
clumps of earth, using the edges of their shovels which they sweep as though they were brooms.

Back and forth and up and down we moved with the same monotonous regularity as pismire ants carrying their grains of sand. And this is exactly why this job is always referred to as piss anting.

But unless the terrain is especially hilly we are always able to reach the pavement by pitching the dirt. Each man took a sector of about ten feet. He threw up enough dirt to do the job and then would fill in the holes, that is, he would bevel in the edges of the holes he had dug in the ditch bottom. Then he would move up to the head of the line, leapfrogging the men in front of him.

All morning long the shovels of the Bull Gang were making shiny arcs with graceful and rhythmic swings of muscled arms and twists of bodies. Clumps of dirt sailed through the air in lazy parabolas. The Chain Man held his shovel blade behind the washout, using it for a backstop. I kicked my shovel into the ground, bent back the handle over my knee and with that timing all of us have developed, the clod of dirt flew off like a projectile to splat against the Chain Man's shovel. He held it there and in quick succession I threw up three more. He began to brush it all smooth and I filled in my holes, yelled out to the guards and moved on up to the head of the line.

But Jackson and Eagle were shoveling like mad and getting nowhere. Not having the right balance and leverage, they were only able to throw the dirt a few feet. They tried harder. Their chests panting, their pitches became
wilder and more frantic. Patiently we demonstrated the proper technique and when the new men couldn't keep up we would stay back and help them with their sector. And from time to time the new men would have to resort to piss anting the dirt up the slope while we merely tossed it up, shoveling away at perfect ease.

The sun got higher and hotter. Everyone took off his jacket and shirt and left it on the edge of the road for Rabbit. But when the pasty white skins of the Newcocks were exposed to the sun they began to get a blistering burn. The sweat got in their eyes. They had headaches and their vision blurred. They felt like they were going to vomit, beginning to stagger with wobbling knees. By the time Smoking Period came around both of them were nearly bear caught.

But somehow everyone always makes the day. And at last it was over. Boss Godfrey pulled out his watch and growled a word and everyone surged towards the tool truck, handing up their shovels to Jim and Rabbit and then clambering into the cage truck. The Walking Boss locked the gate and we headed back to Camp.

The truck was in an uproar. As far as the rest of us were concerned it had been an easy day. We laughed and joked, lit up smokes and wondered what there would be for supper. We sorted out our jackets and shirts and put them on, some of us dropping to our knees to lean on the bench and look out through the bars of angle iron to eyeball at the passing scenery. The Newcocks just sat there, slumped in an exhausted heap, their hands blistered, their backs burned, their muscles cramped and stiff.

But the rest of us were tense and excited as we rolled through the teeming Negro section of town, eyeballing like mad at the black girls strolling by on the sidewalk or sitting on the front porches. Half under our breaths we gasped out our frenzied comments and appraisals, gripping each other by the arm or poking with our elbows to bring attention to a sassy hip or a huge breast bulging out of a thin cotton dress. Hoarsely we swore with outraged frustration whenever there was a smile or a winked response to the row of dirty white faces peering wild eyed from the depths of our rolling cage.

Back at Camp we unloaded, were lined up and shaken down and then counted in through the gate. After supper we all jammed in together in the shower. The Newcocks were a bit reluctant to enter into the community bath but Jackson calmly strolled right into the middle of it all, soap in hand.

And then we saw his scars. He had several jagged shrapnel wounds on both legs. There was a long grooved mark that went down his left side, skipped a few inches at his waist and then continued down the side of his buttock. We admired his wounds but said nothing. He was still a Newcock.

For the rest of that week we piss anted the Clay Pit Road. Every night the Newcocks took a shower and stumbled to bed, their backs and legs and arms and hands stiff, blistered and sunburned.

And then Saturday. All day a guard sat on each gun platform at the corners of the fence and we had the run of the yard. The Building reverberated with whoops and
yells. We let off steam. We blew our tops. Dirty clothes were flung over the fence beside the kitchen and clean ones taken off the pegged board where they had been hung by the Laundry Boy.

Everyone shaved, combed his hair, strolled about barefooted to give his feet a chance to breathe, glorious in our fresh, clean, wrinkled clothes. The wallet industry boomed; floats and backs, side pockets and liners cut out of sheepskins and calf skins, glued with rubber cement, punched and laced and then shipped out to the Free World.

But there was still extra energy to spare. Wrestling matches were staged periodically, the two combatants rolling over the floors and banging against the frames of the bunks, each one trying to take the pants off the other one, the victor galloping up and down the Building waving the trophy in the air as the shamefaced and bare-assed loser pursued him.

Outside on the lawn there might be boxing. Inside there was certainly a crap game in the shower stall and a poker game at the table. Radios blared out at full volume. In the middle of the floor two Chain Men would be jitterbugging, barefooted and barechested, their feet leaping and turning this way and that as their shackles jingled frantically over the floor boards, tinkling with a frenzied joy. And as the Chain Men did their dance, others stood around and clapped their hands in rhythm to the mad, jazzy sounds.

Koko is the camp barber. On weekends he takes the
trash can and lays a board over it for a seat. He puts a towel around your neck and goes to work with a pair of old, worn-out clippers and a pair of dull scissors. If you have a quarter you give it to him. Otherwise you owe it to him. If you are one of those who never gets a money order from home then he does it free.

Sunday dinner is a luxury. We have beef stew and canned peaches. But at supper we revert right back to beans and corn bread.

The following week the new men dragged their way through the days, panting and stumbling along the ditch bottom as we dug and carried and pitched, filled in the holes, moved up and then dug and carried and pitched. The skins of the Newcocks reddened and peeled, blistered and bled. The blisters on their hands broke open and stung in the brine of their own sweat.

But the Newcocks dug and died alone. For we hadn't yet decided. We were still watching their gestures and listening to their voices, studying the way they held their heads and looked us in the eye. We taught them all the complicated laws and rules of this Fatherland of ours. But we still had our own work partners, our own circles during Smoking Period and Bean Time.

Every day at noon Rabbit comes around and takes up a Store Order from the guards and those convicts who have the money. Boss Godfrey and Rabbit drive off in one of the trucks and return in twenty minutes or so with the Pepsi Colas, the milk and crackers, the Free World cigarettes and candy bars. And also the girlie magazines and
the paper-backed Fuck Books with their wondrous tales of seduction, perversion, rapes and romance that we will read after the Last Bell, our greedy eyes scanning over the wonders of the written dream.

But on Tuesday the new men were given a demonstration of the marksmanship of Boss Godfrey. He has a sharpshooter's rifle which is his own personal weapon and which he keeps in the cab of the cage truck. But to prevent any possibility of armed escape, he keeps the clip of cartridges and the bolt in his pocket.

The time for taking the Store Order came. Boss Godfrey and Rabbit drove off. In about a half hour we could see the truck rattling and bouncing up the road at better than forty miles an hour. High over the open fields to our right a white crane was flying in the opposite direction. Suddenly we saw the rifle poke out the window of the cab. Without aiming, simply pointing the barrel in the precise direction of his will, Boss Godfrey fired.

The crane jerked in mid-air, a handful of feathers exploding into the wind. Without even fluttering it plummeted down into a patch of palmettos, falling with a smooth, limp trajectory of white, as though Death himself had spoken.

We stood there, our shovels forgotten in our hands. And then Jackson opened up for the first time. With a soft mutter only heard by those of us who were near him, he exclaimed with mock astonishment,

Uhhh hmmm! That man Luke can sure shoot!

With a little smile, he stabbed his shovel in the ground, kicked it, bent the handle over his knee and
tossed a clod of dirt. Ears was still standing up on the shoulder of the road, his mouth agape, holding his shovel behind a washout. He jerked awake when the clump of dirt landed square and solid against his shovel blade with a whack.

So the days went on. We built our Time. Jackson and the others began to harden. Their skin was turning dark and their hands were getting calloused. Their muscles began to swell. The Newcocks began to lose the awe of their surroundings and were more at home, accustomed to the routines.

Gradually Jackson began to change. Slowly he revealed a sardonic sense of humor that seemed to include everything. He could laugh at the movements of the ants on the ground, at the sun, at the traffic on the road. And whenever the Bull Gang would be standing by waiting for orders Jackson would pull his cap down over his eyes, lean on his shovel and drawl under his breath.

Well now. Come on. Shoot, Luke. Let's go here.

Jackson began to sit in on the poker games in the evening, staying on after the Last Bell until Carr broke up the game. And it turned out that he was an excellent gambler. You never had the slightest idea of what he was going to do next. He would sit there and ante up for half an hour without playing out a hand and then suddenly he would call a bet purely on his nerve. He might raise you on sheer bluff. Or he might be holding a dead lock. But whatever it was that he was holding in his hand he would still look you right in the eye and smile.