by Donn Pearce
And this is the way you saw us that Friday as we began to approach the civilized frontiers of the Free World. You sat on the porches of your farmhouses and on the patios of your split-levels, drinking iced drinks and fanning yourselves, resting in the shade to alleviate the effects of the hundred and five degree heat wave that had overwhelmed central Florida for that whole week. You sat in your shiny new cars and waited in the line that formed up behind the trustee with the red flag. The tank truck went by empty. Soon a large dust cloud appeared down the road and began to drift towards you. Within that cloud you could see us, a gang of half-naked, laughing demons dancing an exuberant ballet of labor. We came closer. You could hear the tinkling shackles on the legs of the Chain Men. You saw the rolling cage, the melodrama of armed guards, the vertical white stripes on the sides of our sopping wet pant legs, the numbers painted on our buttocks.
Luke was right there in the lead. His chest was streaked with mud and sweat and spattered drops of tar, his shovel twinkling and flashing with a paroxysm of energy. The guards and the convicts began to pass. And behind that column came the tall, obscure figure of the Walking Boss; the Man in the Black Hat; the Man With No Eyes; Boss Godfrey himself advancing through the grit and the mists while creating miracles with his Stick; pointing (blop) here (splat) there (splop) and strolling over the landscape on a huge gray carpet of sand that unrolled majestically beneath his feet.
11
ALL THAT SPRING WE WORKED OUR WAY back and forth across the frontiers, the verticals and diagonals of our section of The Hard Road. And it was yo-yo, shovel and bush axe all the way—up and down the whole of Lake County and along the edges of Orange County and Sumter County, from the big towns of Leesburg, Tavares and Apopka to the tiny villages of Zellwood, Crow’s Bluff, Lady Lake, Okahumpka, Umatilla, Astatula and Howey-in-the-Hills.
Then they sent us out on Eyeball Boulevard which is really Route Number 441. For a week we graded the shoulders, cutting down the excess dirt formed by the gradual settling of the pavement and shaving off the sods of grass that had accumulated, both forming pools of water on the highway whenever it rained, like the rims of a saucer. Measuring the required angles with levels and surveyor’s rulers, using stakes and lines, we cut down the shoulders with our shovels until we had achieved a precise angle to the slope.
Or on the other hand we would sometimes find washouts caused by the heavy summer rains and we would throw up dirt from the ditch bottoms. Then following along behind us would come the Fine Graders who put the finishing touches on the slope, shaving it down with great exactitude, handling their razor-sharp shovels like fine instruments to leave the earth square and perfectly smooth and decorated with a useless but handsome layer of sand expertly thrown over the finished sector to make it as perfect as a billiard table.
And the Fine Graders of the Bull Gang were the Terrible Trio; Koko, Dragline and Luke. They were the ones with the skill and the strength and above all with the status that entitled them to this position of authority. And along with their responsibilities went the privilege of Eyeballing, a license discreetly exercised and never granted officially but a tangible right nevertheless.
The rest of us did the heavy work, breaking the ground for the aristocrats in the rear. But we too were able to take advantage of the wonders and the beauties of Eyeball Boulevard. Years of practice had taught us the art and a certified eyeballer can be staring at his feet and shoveling all day in a perfect frenzy. But all the while he is staring into the burnished pan of his shovel which catches the reflection of a chrome plated hub cap whirling by on the road. And in that infinite glimpse he catches the spinning vision of a distant window behind his back, in the frame of which there is the flash of a polished doorknob reflecting around the edge of a doorway to capture on its rounded surface the distorted image of a woman removing her housecoat and putting on a brassiere.
For a whole week we worked on Eyeball Boulevard. There were sentimental lumps in our chests, in our throats and in our pants as our eyes watered with frustration. Yet we showed not a sign, stoic, calm, concentrating on our labors, pretending to be unaware of the fancy homes, the enticing billboards, Cadillacs, kids, gardens, blonds and brunettes, restaurants, bars, sport clothes—everything. But secretly and discreetly our eyeballs bulged and strained. Every passing car was inspected for raised skirts, shorts, halters and low-cut dresses.
It was a wild, impossible week. Miracles occurred every day. From the orange juice canning plant at Plymouth all the way to Apopka, three miles up the road, we worked our way through the suburbs of Paradise. By a stroke of luck four Newcocks had arrived just in time to take the Heat off the rest of us who in the meantime weren’t missing a thing.
Because we know all about those beauties way out there that you don’t even suspect. The traffic lights on a rain-swept Free World street that are like emeralds and rubies. The ordinary citizen strolling into a bank for some change who walks with the ponderous righteousness of a Caesar. A fat, homely woman walking a dog on a leash who becomes in the wink of a passing eye a voluptuous Diana out on the hunt. Oh, the beer signs! The grocery stores! Shoes shining there in the window!
Early on Tuesday afternoon the entire squad was herded across the road to do some work on the other side. For a moment we stood there in a cluster, waiting for the signal to cross while the guards shifted their positions. The traffic was thick and had slowed to a crawl as we stood there peeking through the windows of the Buicks, Chewies and Fords, looking at bulging bosoms, thighs, bellies swelling against the cloth of bright colored summer dresses.
Then a convertible crawled by in the congestion and stopped behind a truck. We didn’t move. Our faces revealed no expression. But we could have reached out and touched the voluptuous blond who sat there cringing in the stare of our eyes, tugging at the hem of her skirt to pull it down below her knees.
The car began to move again, a succession of semitrailers, pickups and busses taking its place. There was a gap in the traffic, we were given the signal, crossed the road and resumed our work. But for a full fifteen minutes our heads reeled with the memory of the vision, our nostrils clogged with the lingering odor of perfume, of whiskey, the smell of her sex and skin that had wafted out to us in a cloying, strangulating aroma. There wasn’t a word in the Bull Gang as we went on with our chores. But we were busily inhaling, analyzing those various scents that contrasted so strongly with the hot, dirty, sweaty smells of our own world—lipstick, rouge, face powder, fresh clean skin, eau de cologne and Canadian Club.
Dragline said it; for all of us.
Damn. Damn. Ah been chain gangin‘ so long ah’m gittin’ so’s ah kin sniff jes like a bloodhound.
The following day Dragline appeared out on the road wearing a cracked, broken pair of sunglasses that he had picked up somewhere in a ditch. One arm was gone and he had attached that side to his ear with a piece of string. Luke grinned at him and drawled,
Well, lookee here. Ole Clark Gable’s joined up with us. In disguise. But damn if it don’t look just like my old friend, Fat Boy.
Dragline scowled back at him.
Man, you got no ‘magination a-tall. These here are mah Eyeballin’ glasses. Like Boss Godfrey’s got. Ah’m a-gonna play peekaboo at all that young pussy struttin‘ up and down the road. With these here things on none of them fuckin’ shotgun guards can tell which a-way ah’m a-lookin‘. Get it, you ignoramus?
Then came that historic event branded on the collective memory of the camp, the incident which would be whispered about, rhymed and sung, subtracted, divided and multiplied into the pure, ultimate form of legend.
About three o‘clock in the afternoon, a sixteen-year-old girl got off a school bus and came walking along the edge of the highway with her books in her arms, walking right through the middle of the Bull Gang as sassy as could be. She strutted by with swinging hips, with quivering breasts and eyes that pretended to look elsewhere, a saucy expression only half concealed in the deliberate pout of her lips.
Several impossib
ilities happened with staggering rapidity. The girl turned up the driveway, crossed the front lawn and entered the house. But in five minutes she came out again, wearing a scanty, two-piece bathing suit. With complete unconcern for the seventeen convicts and four Free Men not a hundred feet away who watched her with dizzy rapture, she spread a blanket on the lawn and languidly stretched out for a sun bath.
Dragline’s mouth hung wide open, his shovel forgotten in his hands. Koko kept up a pretense of working, hissing a warning to Drag.
Watch it man. Boss Godfrey’ll be on your ass.
Fuck ‘em all. Je—esus Christ! Would yuh look at that!
Careful Drag. You’re gonna get chucked in the Gator as sure as hell, Eyeballin‘ that way.
Fuck ‘em, ah say. Let ’em put me in the Box if they want. Ah done found mah woman. Jes as soon as ah gits outta this here joint ah’m comin‘ back here and marry up wif her. You see if ah don’t.
I thought you were gonna marry Rita Hayworth.
Ah can always commit bigamy, cain’t ah? Like that guy Blackie? That’s one thing ah wouldn’t mind doin‘ Time for.
Then Boss Godfrey saw what it was that had paralyzed the squad. He walked down to the ditch bottom and leaned against a telephone pole standing next to the driveway, nervously swinging his Stick and glaring at us. But the shovels moved reluctantly. Even the guards were staring.
Then Boss Godfrey himself turned his head to look. As though they were all wired together, seventeen heads automatically turned with his in obedience to a single, universal thought. He looked back again. We looked at our shovels again. At the end of the line, Koko, Luke and Dragline stood motionless, brazenly violating the strictest rules of The Hard Road.
Then the girl reached behind her back and untied her brassiere strap. Lying on her stomach and propped up on her forearms, she pretended to read a movie magazine. Cursing violently, Dragline whipped away his Eyeballing glasses, threw them on the ground and jumped on them with wrath.
Damn them things! They’re blockin‘ the scenery.
Luke muttered incoherently, his hands nervous on his shovel handle, Koko gazing with fixed enchantment, his shovel making ridiculous, meaningless motions in the sand.
Drag! Look! She’s lookin‘ down in between her tits!
Ah see. Ah see. Oh no—no! Now she’s scratchin‘ her behind! Oh, Lawd! What are you doin’ up there? You tryin‘ to kill me? Look! She’s grinnin’ at me! She’s grinnin‘ right at me!
What are you talkin‘ about, Fat Boy? How do you know she’s not grinnin’ right at me?
Are you nuts? She knows a sure ‘nough he-man when she sees one. Now look. She’s sittin’ up and holdin‘ the brassiere with one hand!
I got eyes. I can see.
Ah got eyes too. But they’re gonna drop out any minute now. Christ! One of the cups slipped down. Ah cain’t stand it no more! Ah’m creamin‘ in mah jeans!
What a tease! What a no-good, god damn tease!
Don’t call mah fiancée a tease. You wanna git knocked on your silly lookin‘ ass? Look. There she goes inside. Goodbye darlin’. Goodbye Lucille.
Lucille? How do you know her name’s Lucille?
A gal like that? With a ass and a pair of knockers like she’s got? She jest gotta be named Lucille. That’s all.
Then it was over. The girl tired of her game, stood up and went back inside the house, her buttocks wriggling with one last, tantalizing twist. And the vision was gone.
We could hardly wait for Smoking Period so we could consult with each other, all of us wondering if it had been real or if we had all been bear-caught. We also wondered how many of us would have to spend a night or two in the Box.
That school girl had no idea of the extent of the power she wielded over us with the tyranny of her body. For weeks her detailed image remained in our memory. That very night the mere thought of her swinging hips sent all of us rolling over in our bunks to lay on our sides, surreptitiously playing with ourselves with sly, innocent movements.
With great care we tried to keep the double bunks from swaying and informing the man above or below us of our lust, writhing in shame at being compelled to make love to our own hard and calloused fists. Fretfully we grappled with the elusiveness of our fantasies as all around us other bunks were shuddering with an apparently sourceless energy. Our souls coiled and uncoiled within us, wafting upwards in ethereal wisps to tangle with the unclean odors of shoes and sweat and the smell of shit coming from the johns.
Here and there could be heard that drawn-out sound. Not the growl and the whinnying triumph of masculine orgasm nor the quiet moan of satiated passions nor even a sigh of peace, but merely the lightest breathing, held in, checked, smothering a heart that was beating, spasmodic and muffled.
Then a strangled cry:
Gettin‘ up here, Carr!
Yeah. Aw right. Get up.
The bulbs were still burning as incandescent suns orbiting through the pit of snores. Men turned over on creaking beds, the sheets tangled in leg chains. Softly Carr padded back and forth in his crepe soled shoes, his heavy face grim and brooding, chewing on another cigar, reliving every detail of the actions, the emotions and hopes that had led him to that heist job in Jacksonville which had doomed him to fifteen years of sleeplessness.
Outside in the darkness I could hear the hounds. And Big Blue’s baritone reached me as he howled at the full moon. I sat up in bed.
Gittyap!
Eeeaahh!
I got up and wrapped the towel around my waist, walking barefooted to the toilets. The air was hot and thick with smells. Again I stared at the fly-specked cardboard sign tacked to the wall, reminding us forever of the Law.
Do not throw BUTS in URINOL. Anybody caught throwing buts in urinol and caught violating this order about buts will be put in BOX.
By order,
Yard Man.
I went back to bed, relieved, exhausted, lying back and avoiding that wet spot near the edge of the mattress. I stared up at the ceiling and the flakes of old paint peeling off, at the bare light bulbs, at the mattress above me sagging down with the weight of another prisoner.
Again a voice:
iiiiyyyyaaa!
aaahhh!
And I knew that it wasn’t over yet, for any of us. There was still more hope and disappointment way out there in the Free World where the traffic still swished and roared along restless highways. There was more battle to be given and lost, rewards to be sought and forsaken, more loves to be wooed and unrequited.
And I knew that Carr’s answer was for all of us, booming out in the Building and into the night, out among the fences, the guns and the stars—eeeaaahhh!
12
AND THAT’S WHAT THOSE OTHER VOICES seemed to be saying today in the church yard as we had our beans. They were singing their gospel hymns with a grating energy, a song that expressed as much despair as it did of hope and put off the whole question of salvation, confining themselves solely to matters of style.
While they were singing Dragline was still telling the story to the Bull Gang. A group of men lay on their sides and on their bellies, their heads all pointing towards him, the spokes of a fabled wheel that spun backwards through time and space. Drag muttered and whispered, glancing every so often at Boss Godfrey who lay on the tarp without moving, his Walking Stick at his side, his glasses reflecting the pale gray and blue of the clouds and the sky.
Ah’m tellin‘ yo’ll now. That crazy Luke son of a bitch jes couldn’t be beat. No how. He could work the hardest, eat the mostest, tell the biggest lies and sing the dirtiest songs. And fart? Man, it was like somethin’ done crawled up his ass and died. When he farted he made your eyes water and your teeth rot. The grass didn’t grow again for fifteen years at the place where he let go. These other guys, they couldn’t never keep up with old Luke. All but me. Ah jes said, “Sing it to me, sweet lips. Ah hear yuh talkin‘.” On account of he was mah boy. Mah ass-hole buddy.
I listened to what Drag was saying as I fille
d my pipe again and lit it, reaching down to scratch the red bug bites on my ankle. Again I shut my eyes. Stupid Blondie was no longer sharpening yo-yos but the traffic roared by on the road as always. And the music continued; the piano, the trumpet and the banjo. Yes. There was no doubt about it. Somewhere inside someone was playing a banjo. Just like the one that Luke always played.
His mother brought it with her when she came down to visit him one Sunday with his brother and his brother’s eight-year-old son. They had written him in advance that they were coming, starting out before dawn and scheduling their three hundred mile trip so they would arrive just before visiting time at noon.
Luke was nervous Sunday morning. He hadn’t seen his mother since he left Alabama several years before. She didn’t even know about his being in trouble until after he had been sent to Raiford and then transferred to The Hard Road, when he finally wrote a letter home. So Luke paced the floor, his face shaven, his hair combed, his clean clothes for the week pulled and rubbed in an attempt to get some of the wash wrinkles out.
A group of men idled on the front porch, sitting or standing, motionless, looking out over the fence at the clay road and the orange groves, the clump of small live oak trees in front of the Captain’s Office with the picnic table and the chairs set out in the shade underneath. It was hot and only the slightest breeze stirred the Spanish moss hanging in the live oaks. Boss Godfrey was the Walking Boss in charge of the Visitor’s Park that weekend. Boss Smith sat in a chair about twenty feet away, his legs crossed, his hands discreetly folded over the pistol laying in his lap.
A new car came up the road, a well dressed woman getting out as the trustee opened the door for her and helped her take out the sack of groceries. The trustee brought the sack over to Boss Godfrey who casually poked around inside and then waved it away. Walking over to the gate, Boss Godfrey called out,
Steve!
But Loudmouth Steve was inside the Building lying down on his bunk and reading a comic book. The loiterers on the porch raised up a cry,
