Cool Hand Luke - Donn Pearce [13]
But along about eleven o‘clock an open red Jaguar had come roaring by, the driver wearing horn-rimmed glasses and a beret, turning his head to grin back at us as he deliberately tossed a newspaper over his shoulder. The pages separated in the wind and tumbled loosely along the shoulder of the road, rustling and crinkling as it followed the direction of the departing car. And it was my luck to be the one to come across the front page, cursing my delivery boy, bending over to grab it up along with my other souvenirs of the tourist season. But then my eye caught the headline:
War Hero Becomes Parking Meter Bandit
I hesitated. This was a new type of crime to me and I was immediately intrigued. Quickly I got hold of the other sheets, folded them together as best I could without falling behind the advancing line and held the paper up in the air as I called out to the nearest guard,
Boss Paul! Puttin‘ it in my pocket here!
Aw right, Sailor. Put it in your pocket.
At noon we had our beans in an orange grove. I put the newspaper in proper order and stretched it out on the ground, reading it as I ate. Some copy editor had played up the “before and after” angle. Two photographs were printed side by side; the one a formal military portrait, the kind we all sent home during the war, face scrubbed, tanned and shiny, uniform correct, hat squared, chest out and bedecked with bits of colored ribbon and metal badges—the other the picture of a drunk peering through the bars, hair dishevelled, shirt open and dirty. But instead of sticking to his role of the Scowling Criminal, the ex-soldier was smiling directly into the camera, one eye closed in a sly wink.
I read the story and then read it again, translating it by sight as I scanned the lines, filling in the obvious gaps, shrinking the exaggerations, deducting the halftruths and the prejudices, correcting the misinformation about things I knew of and trying to imagine the truth of the things I didn’t, the facts that were unstated, the events that were undescribed, the elements that were ignored or those taken out of context and slanted by clever wording to give a predetermined impression.
But I smiled as I read the story. I liked the face of this Lloyd Jackson, twenty-eight, born in Birmingham, Alabama, infantry veteran of three major campaigns during the big war, the one that established the Four Freedoms once and for all. He was a holder of two Purple Hearts, a Bronze Star and a Silver Star. But he had no Good Conduct Medals. He had been given company punishment on a number of occasions and had served sixty days in a disciplinary battalion for going AWOL. After three and a half years of service, three years of which were overseas, he was discharged as a private.
I showed the paper to Dragline who read it with a studied frown, his lips sagging loose and open. Koko came over and squatted beside him, his eyes wide, his grin broad and nervous. Koko began to insert bits of information and interpretations of his own, embellishing the story out loud. Dragline growled at him a couple of times but it did no good.
Shut up, willya? Ah’m readin‘.
Yeah. I know. I’m readin‘ too.
Naw, you ain’t. You’re makin‘ it all up as you go.
I’m just sayin‘ how it really was.
How the hell do you know how it was?
Aw, you can tell. This guy’s cunt sent him a Dear John and so he started hittin‘ the bottle, see? Probably a little punchy too, from too much combat and all. And he was a tough bastard, you know? Wouldn’t never take no shit from nobody.