Cool Hand Luke - Donn Pearce [43]
Then came that historic event branded on the collective memory of the camp, the incident which would be whispered about, rhymed and sung, subtracted, divided and multiplied into the pure, ultimate form of legend.
About three o‘clock in the afternoon, a sixteen-year-old girl got off a school bus and came walking along the edge of the highway with her books in her arms, walking right through the middle of the Bull Gang as sassy as could be. She strutted by with swinging hips, with quivering breasts and eyes that pretended to look elsewhere, a saucy expression only half concealed in the deliberate pout of her lips.
Several impossibilities happened with staggering rapidity. The girl turned up the driveway, crossed the front lawn and entered the house. But in five minutes she came out again, wearing a scanty, two-piece bathing suit. With complete unconcern for the seventeen convicts and four Free Men not a hundred feet away who watched her with dizzy rapture, she spread a blanket on the lawn and languidly stretched out for a sun bath.
Dragline’s mouth hung wide open, his shovel forgotten in his hands. Koko kept up a pretense of working, hissing a warning to Drag.
Watch it man. Boss Godfrey’ll be on your ass.
Fuck ‘em all. Je—esus Christ! Would yuh look at that!
Careful Drag. You’re gonna get chucked in the Gator as sure as hell, Eyeballin‘ that way.
Fuck ‘em, ah say. Let ’em put me in the Box if they want. Ah done found mah woman. Jes as soon as ah gits outta this here joint ah’m comin‘ back here and marry up wif her. You see if ah don’t.
I thought you were gonna marry Rita Hayworth.
Ah can always commit bigamy, cain’t ah? Like that guy Blackie? That’s one thing ah wouldn’t mind doin‘ Time for.
Then Boss Godfrey saw what it was that had paralyzed the squad. He walked down to the ditch bottom and leaned against a telephone pole standing next to the driveway, nervously swinging his Stick and glaring at us. But the shovels moved reluctantly. Even the guards were staring.
Then Boss Godfrey himself turned his head to look. As though they were all wired together, seventeen heads automatically turned with his in obedience to a single, universal thought. He looked back again. We looked at our shovels again. At the end of the line, Koko, Luke and Dragline stood motionless, brazenly violating the strictest rules of The Hard Road.
Then the girl reached behind her back and untied her brassiere strap. Lying on her stomach and propped up on her forearms, she pretended to read a movie magazine. Cursing violently, Dragline whipped away his Eyeballing glasses, threw them on the ground and jumped on them with wrath.
Damn them things! They’re blockin‘ the scenery.
Luke muttered incoherently, his hands nervous on his shovel handle, Koko gazing with fixed enchantment, his shovel making ridiculous, meaningless motions in the sand.
Drag! Look! She’s lookin‘ down in between her tits!
Ah see. Ah see. Oh no—no! Now she’s scratchin‘ her behind! Oh, Lawd! What are you doin’ up there? You tryin‘ to kill me? Look! She’s grinnin’ at me! She’s grinnin‘ right at me!
What are you talkin‘ about, Fat Boy? How do you know she’s not grinnin’ right at me?
Are you nuts? She knows a sure ‘nough he-man when she sees one. Now look. She’s sittin’ up and holdin‘ the brassiere with one hand!
I got eyes. I can see.
Ah got eyes too. But they’re gonna drop out any minute now. Christ! One of the cups slipped down. Ah cain’t stand it no more! Ah’m creamin‘ in mah jeans!
What a tease! What a no-good, god damn tease!
Don’t call mah fiancée a tease. You wanna git knocked on your silly lookin‘ ass? Look. There she goes inside. Goodbye darlin’. Goodbye Lucille.
Lucille? How do you know her name’s Lucille?
A gal like that? With a ass and a pair of knockers like she’s got? She jest gotta be named Lucille. That’s all.
Then it was over. The girl tired of her game, stood up and went back inside the house, her buttocks wriggling with