Cool Hand Luke - Donn Pearce [41]
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