Cool Hand Luke - Donn Pearce [36]
But Luke managed to gulp down the last three eggs in exactly thirty-three seconds, the final gulp no more than two seconds ahead of the deadline while Koko was dancing a delirious, barefooted flamenco and Dragline was screaming encouragement into his ear.
Eat it there boy. Bite it. Gnaw on it. Git mad at the gawd damn things. That’s it. Chew. Chew. Chew!
Then Luke collapsed. With a groan he folded his arms on top of the table and rested his head on them, his belly sagging downward, hard as concrete, watermelon smooth, grotesque.
Society Red let out a howl.
No! Wait a minute! No dice! He didn’t swallow that last egg. I’m telling you. He didn’t swallow it!
He didn’t, huh? growled Dragline. Why, you city slicker son of a bitch, you. Ah’ll prove it. Come over here.
Angrily Dragline lifted Luke’s head by the hair, forcing his mouth open with his fingers while a group of witnesses stared down his throat to their final satisfaction. Then Luke’s head dropped back to his arms, his fingers clutching at the mounds of egg shells scattered all over the poker table.
The Camp went insane. Angrily we losers stomped up and down, cursing wildly and incoherently. There were screams, sad songs and weeping. But the Syndicate was in celebration, gleefully collecting their winnings, gloating, happily punching each other on the shoulders and waltzing around the Building. Ceremoniously, they each took one of the left-over eggs and began eating them with loud, deliberate smacking of their lips, with big grins and ostentatious pats of their bellies. Then Dragline took the very last egg and brought it over to Society Red who was sitting on his bunk, smoking a cigarette.
Here you are, Society. Number fifty-four. You might as well have this one. You sure did pay enough for it.
Listlessly, Society Red took the egg and held it in his hand, sitting there, staring at it, saying nothing.
And for long moments there were small knots of men who loitered near the poker table staring with silent reverence and disbelief at Cool Hand’s cramped, agonized form. But we had seen it. We knew it for sure. Never before had anyone ever eaten like that. And never before, by any means whatever, had anyone managed to break the entire Camp. We were penniless. There wasn’t a poker game for a whole month. Arguments dangled in mid-air, unwagered. Pepsi Colas and candy bars were unsold. For we had been taken. We had been given the Slow Con.
And with slumped shoulders and shaking heads, with dazed eyes, with bewilderment and with despair, sadly and lovingly we muttered—
Cool Hand Luke.
10
IT WAS A MONDAY. ANOTHER MONDAY. And again the Bull Gang went out on the Road to begin another week. The tool truck and the cage truck bounced and rattled over the highways and over the secondary routes maintained by the State until they made that certain turn that brought us to Bear-Caught Avenue.
We stared at each other in bewilderment as the truck made its way over the lonely, narrow road that winds through the empty countryside, We jolted and swayed over the low sandy hills and past the sparse orange groves, trying to think of what kind of work needed to be done out there. The bushes had already been cut in the ditches, piled up in heaps, dried out and then burned. The rainy season was over and there were no washouts that needed to be filled. Nor was there any yo-yoing to be done.
For sixteen miles we drove through the woods and the prairies and the uncultivated fields. It was already hot, the thick vegetation blocking off any breezes and also throwing off its own heat.
And way out there in the middle of nowhere many a good man has been bear-caught, which is to be stricken with heat exhaustion and sunstroke. Your muscles cramp, your mouth is dry, your face is cold and yet sweating, your stomach knotted and nauseous. You are dizzy and your vision is blurred. You are weak. You stagger. Even your voice is affected and becomes a mere croak.
So we looked