Cool Hand Luke - Donn Pearce [20]
But there is a system. And I could tell that Jackson was sitting over there observing the system.
After the showers everyone smoked and talked. But the voices were kept low, scarcely above a murmur. The Newcocks responded to this restrained atmosphere with caution. The first two whispered to themselves but Jackson said nothing at all. The radios were playing but with the volume so low that several heads were pressed close to the loudspeaker. The toilets were all occupied and other men lounged nearby, waiting for a chance to go. The smell was terrible but we were accustomed to it, the men in the showers and those writing letters at the table paying no attention.
Carr, the Floorwalker, was pacing up and down the room, rolling with his bearlike swagger, his 230-pound body rocking from side to side, his arms and shoulders swinging. But his feet were noiseless, wearing crepe soled shoes. Angrily he scowled, glaring at no one and at nothing, moving his cigar from one side of his mouth to the other, plowing right through the middle of a huddle of convicts and scattering them like October leaves.
Aw right. Let’s have a little quiet in here. Otherwise a couple of you guys will spend the rest of the night out in the Gator.
I saw Jackson give a hard look at Carr, probably incensed at the idea of a convict giving orders to other convicts. Yet he gave no sign. Only his eyes moved, following Carr a few minutes and then looking at the other men.
After everyone was out of the shower and things had settled down a little bit, Carr called the Newcocks together for a talk. But we just went on with our affairs, making wallets, reading, listening to a radio, sitting in for a few hands at the poker table.
Carr was growling, so low he was almost inaudible. He spoke out of the corner of his mouth, his voice deliberately deep and grating, his lips pursed together, his eyes flitting around the Building so as not to miss a trick of what was going on.
Carr laid down the law:
There will be no Loudtalking in the Building. There will be no playing Grab Ass. The First Bell is at five minutes to eight and everyone will get on his bunk for a count. Right away. The Last Bell is at eight o‘clock. After that there will be no talking at all. The lights are never turned out in the Building. So you can read if you want to after the Last Bell. But there will be no smoking in bed. If you want to smoke you will sit up with both legs over the edge of the bunk. Anyone caught smoking while lying down will spend a night in the Box.
In Raiford you only get one sheet. Here you get two. Every week you switch the top sheet to the bottom and turn the bottom sheet in to the Laundry Boy. Then you put the clean sheet on top. Anybody who turns in the wrong sheet will spend a night in the Box.
The Building will not look like a Greek whorehouse. Everyone’s ass will be covered with shorts or with a towel. No one will sit on his bunk with dirty pants on. Anyone caught sitting on his bunk with his pants on will spend a night in the Box.
Those who drop a butt on the floor or even a match, spend a night in the Box. If you buy a coke at the Juke and do not bring back the bottle—if you do any Loudtalking—if you check out in the morning without taking all your personal junk with you—you spend a night in the Box.
If there are any questions, you see Carr.
These Newcocks had arrived just before the men they were to replace had gone home. Therefore the Family was temporarily overpopulated and the Yard Man had had three extra bunks and mattresses brought in by the trustees. Under Carr’s supervision the new men rigged up the bunks above the top tiers of other bunks in order to form triple deckers. They tossed up the mattresses, pillows and bedding and climbed up the precarious structure to make up their