Cool Hand Luke

by Donn Pearce

  We were beside ourselves when we heard this part. We could see it all—the dogs milling about in the yard, yelping and coughing, the chickens squawking, cattle stampeding in the pasture; voices, curses, lights put on in the farmhouse. We could just picture Luke running off through the woods, singing as he went, his legs graceful and swift. When the thin silver of the crescent moon peeked out from the clouds we knew that Cool Hand had stopped to look aloft and grin—

  Yes sir, Boss! I see yuh up there!

  So it was really our own watchful eye that he had left behind in the dust, the shining, twisted center link of his chain lying there winking up in defiance at the outraged moon-eye of Boss Godfrey.

  22

  FOR THE NEXT FEW DAYS THE RUMORS FLEW thick and fast around the Camp, filtering down to us from the powers above. There were whispers, overheard conversations, lies and wishful thinking. Guards and trustees dropped a word with total unconcern, just as you would a butt, while we poor beggars scrambled to retrieve it. Guards were always telling things to the cooks, the trustees overhearing things from the walking bosses. And whenever Rabbit took up a Store Order there was always someone who wanted to buy the local paper which was carefully examined for some small, one-paragraph item in the back pages.

  Significant clues were made out of scraps of gossip, conclusions drawn from vagrant thoughts, theories projected on the basis of the thinnest news. Bit by bit we gathered it all together; the witnessed fact that a pair of overalls were known to be missing from a neighborhood clothesline. Not far away a house had been entered but only a shirt, a comb and a pair of shoes had been stolen. Simultaneously, forty miles distant, a .38 pistol, a thousand dollars in traveler’s checks, a box of condoms and a bottle of Scotch had been deftly removed from a hotel room. Elsewhere a burglar had broken into a hunting lodge in Ocala in order to use a razor—the culprit’s whiskers and grime left behind in the sink as evidence. And at that very moment a girl’s bicycle was being swiped in St. Petersburg, a sports car in Palm Beach, a Shetland pony in Tallahassee.

  Time and again we heard that Cool Hand had been caught—captured by a farmer, by a railroad brakeman while hopping a freight, by a thirteen-year-old boy hunting squirrels with a .22 rifle, a fat housewife who shot him in the leg while stealing chickens. They even said that he had tried to hitchhike a ride on Route 301 but the driver who picked him up turned out to be an off-duty detective who gracefully deposited him at the door of the county sheriff.

  But we knew that Luke had gotten away. After two days they called off the search, the Dog Boy sullen and glowering at us for weeks afterwards. It wasn’t long before three Newcocks arrived from Raiford and they straightened out Luke’s mattress and assigned his bed to someone else. And Koko began to teach himself how to play the banjo.

  Weeks passed. Then months. As we worked and ate and played we were always thinking of Luke. We imagined him out there in the Free World, lying on satin sheets, basking nude in an air-conditioned suite of rooms, drinking fine liqueurs and screwing only the most voluptuous of women, all of whom fell madly in love with him at the slightest touch.

  We argued as to how he was making a living. When he first drove by he wasn’t a professional thief but a year of living with the Family had taught him the tricks of many trades. So we wondered, inventing all sorts of fantastic exploits for the greater glory of his name. We imagined that he was slyly engaged in Dipping, Boosting, Pushing, Creeping, Heisting or Hanging Paper. Since it represented the very acme of his own ambitions, Dragline firmly believed that Luke was now a Hollywood pimp. But Koko, for the same reasons, was convinced he had gone to Paris and had become an International Jewel Thief. Others insisted he was a Gigolo, a Con Artist, a Gun Runner, a member of the Syndicate. Some of us, to be sure, thought that he had simply found himself a job. But this was sacrilege. That Luke should become a Square John was too much. Not Luke. Not our very own Cool Hand.

  And the Good Time rolled. After his escape was assured, we began to work with a renewed will. The guards were watchful and silent as we leaped into the mud and the bushes and the sand with a joyful frenzy, with our war cry growled and grunted up and down the line:

  Maybe we’re diggin‘ and dyin’. But Cool Hand is fuckin‘ and flyin’. So go hard, bastard. Go hard.

  Then all our wildest fantasies were verified once and for all. Dragline’s uncle came to visit him one Sunday and gave him a sackful of groceries and a Movie Magazine. Later, back inside the Building, he flipped through the pages of the magazine and found a glossy, eight-byten photograph which had been sent by a clandestine mail route for special delivery. We all gathered round, our mouths sagging open. Koko and Dragline went berserk with happiness. They punched each other on the shoulder, hugged each other, danced and virtually screamed their curses of endearment right into each other’s grinning faces. Koko kept saying “oo-oo-oo,” over and over again, his lips pouted as though ready to whistle or ready to kiss something, his right hand shaking as though he had burned his fingers.

  There he was. Seated in a night club in New Orleans, he was dressed in a dark suit, a silk tie with a big Windsor knot, starched French cuffs with sparkling gold links. Behind him was a jazz band and a stripper who was doing her stuff. On the table were Free World butts, a lighter, a bucket of champagne, gleaming, long-stemmed glasses, a stack of green folding money casually strewn about. He had both arms spread around the bare shoulders of a blond and a brunette who cuddled up to him on either side, smiling eagerly into the camera, their bare bosoms bursting out of their evening gowns. In one hand he held up a champagne glass and in the other he held a spread hand of cards showing five aces. His handsome, barbered face wore a great big smile which seemed to be speaking to us through the handwritten words scrawled at the bottom of the photograph:

  Dear Boys;

  Playing it cool. Wish you were here.

  Love,

  Cool Hand Luke

  23

  IT SOON CAME TO BE KNOWN SIMPLY AS THE Picture—

  We would come in at night, exhausted and covered with mud, with sweat and mosquito bites, our pants sopping wet and stuck with sand spurs; feeling bored, depressed, lonely, feeling our Time would never come to an end and almost ready to take the Razor Blade Route. We would sit there slumped on the floor, not allowed to sit or lie down on our bunks while wearing dirty clothes yet too exhausted to get up and take a shower. Our muscles would be stiff and cramped, our heads aching and dizzy.

  In our language, to be depressed is to have the Black Ass. Which is to remember clean clothes, shined shoes, a double bed, a world containing forks, doorknobs, clocks and chairs, to remember friends, mistakes, days of old to taste a steak, a kiss—

  Then someone would begin to hum to himself, looking far away, his head leaned back against the wall, a forgotten cigarette in his fingers. A certain gleam would come into his eyes and he would get up and go over to Dragline’s bunk, kneeling down on the floor beside him to whisper fervently and hoarsely—

  Hey Drag. Let me look at The Picture. Come on. Lemme. Huh? Just for a few minutes. I wanna see Luke with that broad. That brunette. And that loot and that booze. And that other broad, shakin‘ her bare ass behind him.

  Aw, come on Babalugats. You don’t really want to look at that dirty ole picture, do yuh?

  Yeah. Yeah. I wanna. I wanna.

  But what for? It’s just one of them tourist postcard things. Like people send back home from Miami and places.

  I know. I know.

  So what good is it?

  It’s good. It’s good. I wanna look. Come on. O.K.? Huh?

  Well, ah don‘ know. It might give you bad ideas. It might even cause you to git a little rabbit in yore blood. Ah mean, it’s pretty dangerous stuff. An ’eff’n that mean ole Wicker Man over yonder was to see it—Why, he might even wanna take it away. Somebody might even git to go out and see Silver Springs for the rest of the night. Maybe fer two or three nights.

  “I’ll be careful. Whaddaya think? I’m stupid?
<
br />   Never mind that. ‘Portant thing is, how much would it be worth to take a peek at this here Picture? A quick peek ah’m talkin’ about. Not no memorizin‘ job.

  A cold drink?

  A cold drink? You mean one cold drink? To feast yore starvin‘ fishy li’l eyes on The Picture? A true vision of Paradise itself? With three of the Angels right there in plain sight a-playin‘ and a-friskin’ ‘round wif mah boy?

  A cold drink? Huh?

  Well—O.K. It’s a deal. One Pepsi, eff’n you please. Like pay in advance? One sweaty, chilly bottle right here in mah hot, li‘l hand?

  Finally Dragline would permit himself to be cajoled into taking out the Movie Magazine from under his mattress, to look over and see what Carr and the Wicker Man were doing and then slip it to Babalugats who leaned against the wall and held the magazine up against his knees, pretending to be engrossed in reading. For a long time he would sit there without moving. Slowly his face would begin to relax, a smile of rapture spreading through the dirt and the sunburn, his eyes flitting here and there as he drank in the glory, the beauty and the sanctity of that very private view of the Free World.

  24

  IT HAPPENED ABOUT FOUR MONTHS LATER. We were working on the Dead Tree Road which was named after an enormous and macabre dead oak tree covered with moss, one side of the trunk blackened from some ancient brush fire. It stood in the center of an open prairie of marsh grass, an isolated giant, its gnarled limbs threatening and spectral.

  We spent the whole morning piss anting the washouts along the edge of the pavement. The slope of the shoulder was steep and difficult and we clambered up and down with monotonous patience. About an hour after Bean Time the Captain’s black and yellow Chevrolet drove up. He got out and sauntered towards Boss Godfrey, a pistol stuck in his belt over his stomach, one hand in his pocket, jingling his change.

  The Walking Boss yelled out for all of us to line up close together in the bottom of the ditch. Puzzled, we did as we were told, taking off our caps in acknowledgement of the Captain’s presence, leaning on the handles of our shovels. We looked at each other, at the shotgun guards who had moved in close, at the Walking Boss and the Captain standing there on the edge of the road staring down at us with their hands on their hips.

  Then the Captain turned and waved. Two trustees got out of the Chewie and came forward carrying tools. Between them, wearing handcuffs and brand new convict clothes, walked Cool Hand Luke.

  We stared. Some of us cursed under our breaths. Some men shut their eyes while others hung their heads. They made Luke stand on the edge of the road while the trustees knelt down and began to rivet a pair of shackles on his ankles. Luke stood facing us, motionless and inscrutable while the hammers were tapping at his heels. And after the trustees finished putting on the shackles, to our confoundment, they began to put on a second pair.

  When the trustees were finished they stepped aside. The Captain unlocked the handcuffs and put them in his hip pocket. There was a pause and then he stepped behind Luke’s back, pulled the pistol from his belt and brought the barrel right down on his head. Luke fell forward, face down in the dirt, his hobbled legs kicking and squirming. The Captain growled to the trustees and they pulled Luke to his knees, each one holding him by an outstretched arm.

  Three times the pistol cracked on his skull as blood spurted over his face and neck and dripped from his lolling head onto the sand. Impulsively some of us shifted forward but the guards aimed their shotguns right at us, their fingers on the triggers. Grabbing Luke by the hair and snatching his head backwards, the Captain punched him in the face with his other hand. Grunting and panting, he struck again and again, cursing through clenched teeth.

  You son of a bitch you! You shit eatin‘ mother fucker! You run one time and you got yourself a set of chains. Huh? You done run twice and now you got two sets of chains. Don’t try to git yourself a third set. Huh? You hear? Ah’m warnin’ yuh! You’d better git your god damn mind right! Git it right. Or else!

  With a final blow, Luke’s head was flung forward. He hung there by the arms, limp, sagging, held up by the trustees who turned their faces with sickened grimaces, unable to look at him, unable to look at each other. And we stood there staring up at Cool Hand’s body that was crucified against the sky, his bleeding head bowed toward us.

  Behind him stood Boss Godfrey, his black hat outlined on the cloudy heavens beyond, his mirrored glasses catching the full rays of the sun and reflecting them down upon us, the eyes of the Walking Boss becoming two balls of blinding celestial fire.

  At a grunted command, the trustees dropped Luke forward, face down in the dirt. The Walking Boss kicked him in the ribs and thighs and sent him whirling down the slope towards us, spinning in a whirl of rattling chains, a cloud of dust and a spatter of gore to come to rest in an anguished heap at our feet. Then he growled down at us, his voice deep and gritted with menace.

  All right. There he is. There’s your Cool Hand Luke. If you all don’t want to end up just like him, you’d all better git your minds right. Ah mean right! Rabbit! Go fetch a bucket of water and throw it on this smart-ass bastard. And git another shovel from the tool truck. A new one.

  No one knows how Luke finished out the day. One of his eyes was completely shut, his lips swollen and cut, his nose out of shape. Blood came from everywhere, making his face a hideous red mask, his hair a red knitted helmet that soon turned to mud in the flying dust, finally congealing in the heat of the sun into a hard black crust.

  Dragline muttered and swore at the rest of us.

  Aw right. Let’s git with it. Let’s git mad at it.

  And the dirt flew. No longer did we crawl up and down the slope. Grunting and sweating, we pitched the dirt, the clumps arcing up in fast, neat accurate projectiles that exploded at the feet of the two Chain Men on top who brushed down the dirt with the edge of their shovels. Luke made nominal motions, weakly throwing the dirt as far up the slope as he could.

  Rabbit brought around the water bucket for a drink. As Luke raised the dipper to his bruised mouth Rabbit murmured to him encouragingly, his lips in a straight line, unmoving.

  We’re with ya boy. Take it easy now. It’s three thirty. You got about three hours more. But you’ll make it. I sneaked some aspirins into the dipper. Swallow ‘em down. But don’t let on. Or the Man’ll have my ass.

  Once Luke stumbled and fell to his knees, feebly shaking his head with confusion. Boss Godfrey started towards him, grasping his Walking Stick stiffly. But under the encouragement and the command of our hissed warnings, Luke managed to stand up again and start moving.

  At last we loaded up into the truck and started back to Camp, making a mattress on the floor with our shirts and jackets, laying Luke on his back and propping up his head, putting a cigarette into his mouth. There wasn’t anymore we could do until we got in except to sit there and keep hoping they wouldn’t put him in the Box. But they didn’t, allowing us to clean him up so that he wouldn’t be an embarrassing spectacle to the Free World traffic on the highways.

  First we led him into the shower by the hand and bathed him like a baby. Then Dragline and Koko worked on him all evening. And so did Carr, who revealed a hidden tenderness in the delicate way he used his own scissors and razor to carefully shave away the hair from Luke’s head and doctor the wounds. Other men dug into their lockers and found a leather chain harness that would fit around his calves. Koko massaged his neck and shoulders. Carr got him some more aspirins and carefully taped his broken nose.

  Then his one good eye glanced at the men gathered around him and his swollen, grotesque mouth feebly tried to smile.

  Whattaya say, boys? What’s new?

  His lips opening just enough for the words to come out, he managed to tell us what was new. For one thing he had just spent three months in a county jail awaiting trial. After that he was sent up to Raiford and reprocessed just like any other Newcock. Now he had a new serial number. And he had a new sentence—three more years for stealing the woman�
�s car and her groceries during his first escape. And for breaking and entering and stealing some Free World clothes during his last escape—ten more years.

  We were silent. But Luke didn’t seem the least upset, bearing the weight of his Time with absolute cheer. Then someone tried to change the subject. What we really wanted to hear were the details of his adventures. We wanted to know how he got away and how he beat the dogs. Where did he hide out and how did he make a living out in the Free World? How many girls did he lay? What capers did he pull? And how did he finally get knocked off?

  Slowly he began murmuring the story, pausing for a swallow of Pepsi Cola and a drag on his cigarette. He told us how he swiped a horse out of the farm yard where he had cut his chain with an axe, riding him bareback for a couple of miles and then letting him go, jumping on a freight train that had stopped for water and riding it until dawn. Just before daylight he broke into a garage and cut off his shackle rings with a hacksaw. He found a razor, a pair of overalls and a welder’s cap in the men’s room where he shaved and washed up and changed clothes. Dressed as a mechanic he hitched rides back to Alabama and managed to sneak home. His brother gave him some money and bought him a ticket on the Greyhound bus. After making a short, surreptitious visit to his mother’s grave, he went to New Orleans where he changed his name and got a job on the outskirts of town as a plumber’s helper. And that’s where he stayed, living quietly and playing it cool.

  Koko became agitated, his fingers trembling as he held the Movie Magazine, glancing down at the cover.

  Aw, come on, Luke. Tell us the rest of it. How about all them broads? And them big scores you made?