Cool Hand Luke - Donn Pearce [48]
As it happened, Koko fancied himself as a guitar player, occasionally strumming out a few awkward chords on a beat-up guitar that he had bought for three dollars, an alligator wallet and twenty-four haircuts on the cuff from a man who was going home.
Then Dragline ran outside to fumble through his locker for the rusty harmonica he had found in a ditch one day, coming back into the Building already huffing and puffing on it, his toothless gums and lips wrapped around it within the cup of his hands. Luke slowly ran his fingers over the strings, turning the pegs, the strings answering his touch with the strident yawps of chaos but then gradually allowing themselves to sweeten.
Slowly, very slowly, he began to pick out a few chords, stopping to flex his fingers and shake his hand from the wrist. Then he started. And once again we were far more than just amazed. Because Luke could play that thing. He was a master.
Koko’s simple chords and Dragline’s country-boy harmonica were nothing to what Luke could do to that banjo, his fingers beginning to loosen up, the memory of his former skills returning, fondling every chord with a certainty, a subtle strength and delicacy. Quickly he skipped from one thing to another, playing fragments of songs, picking out runs and scales, playing brief snatches of Dixieland jazz, spirituals and mountain hymns, long and complicated virtuoso pieces in the Blue Grass style.
Since the laws of silence were always enforced in the evenings by the Floorwalker, we could only hear Luke’s music on the weekends. He would sit on the floor crosslegged by his bunk, his feet and his chest both bare, his eyes closed and his head tilted backwards, a tiny smile on his lips which were parted just enough to reveal the white of his teeth. And as Luke fondled those vibrant threads his face underwent a transformation, his hard and youthful handsomeness beginning to assume a glow. Slowly he became two selves, his hands undertaking a life of their own while the rest of him drifted away.
And he would sing, his voice droning as if inspired by some distant source, his flying fingers going on with their melody. Then he might repeat what he just said. Or make noises, throw in odd words which were not meant to be sentences but which kept up the syncopated rhythm of his voice, half-talking in a mocking chant that alternated in pitch and intensity and became a kind of song, a kind of Talking Blues of a style and nature all his own.
For the first time we began to learn something of Luke’s past. In little snatches we caught disconnected glimpses of his life. But when accompanied by the banjo it all made sense. He was never really performing nor was he telling a story. It was more like thinking aloud, explaining it all to himself.
Come on you little fellas and gather around and your Uncle Luke will tell you all about the war. You remember the war. The big war. When everything went boom boom. And it also went—bang bang. And sometimes even—ka-zowie!
But just remember. You gotta play it cool.
Course I had to kill a couple fellas here and there. Killin‘ was my job. And my daddy always used to tell me to do a real good job. Him bein’ a preacher and all, carryin‘ the Word, I always did what my daddy said. Got to be pretty good at it. Got promoted. Got to be a corporal.
But you gotta be cool. That’s part of the job.
Bein‘ a preacher’s son and bein’ one of the good guys I just naturally had to have me a lot of faith. A drink now and then didn’t hurt none neither. Pretty tough fella. Pretty brave. Pretty good shot too.
But better’n that. I was pretty damn cool.
So the war went on and we went here and we went there. We’d walk awhile and we’d dig holes awhile. Then we’d walk a little more. Then we’d sit and we’d wait and they’d put