Cool Hand Luke - Donn Pearce [57]
When he finished his strip he climbed up to the road. He was the last man, the rest of us already loaded up. Smiling in his own secret way, he walked down the road to the tool truck and passed up his bush axe to Rabbit who was shivering impatiently in the rain. Then he walked towards the door in the cage that yawned open, ready to swallow him down as it had already swallowed the rest of us.
Beside that gaping hole stood Boss Godfrey leaning against the bars. His face was turned towards the sky, his mirrored glasses reflecting the dark gray clouds of the storm as the lightning beat down on the earth in swift, punishing strokes like the terrible Walking Stick of the man with no eyes.
15
AGAIN, THE WEEKEND ROLLED AROUND. That Sunday, about eleven in the morning, the Yard Man opened the gate and came into the Building, walking with that slumped shoulder way of his, his back bent, his chest caved in, his head lowered. On the porch he paused to look up at Gator from under his eyebrows and over his glasses, his false teeth clicking and moving from side to side in his jaws.
Where’s Luke?
He’s inside, Boss. Playin‘ poker.
The Yard Man went inside. Rabbit was dealing, Luke and a few others picking up their cards and studying their developing hand. Everyone else glanced up at the Yard Man as he stood there by the table. But not Luke. He was whistling a tuneless rhythm through his teeth, idly rearranging the cards in his hand.
Without a word, the Yard Man dropped a telegram on the blanket, turned and shuffled away.
Luke looked at the telegram which had already been opened and read. He stared at it, threw in his cards, got up and went to his bunk. A few minutes later we heard Luke’s banjo. He was playing very softly, picking out the slow melody of an old hymn on one string.
Koko found out what was the matter. He went over to Luke’s bunk and found him sitting on the floor, his bare feet tucked up beneath his drawn-up legs. He picked at his banjo, tears streaming down his face and over his bare chest. Koko looked at the telegram lying there on the floor. Luke’s mother had died early that morning from a sudden heart attack.
For the rest of the day the Building was hushed. Radios were turned low, voices were subdued. There was no horseplay, no yelling, no laughter. Luke was left alone to brood by himself, the rest of us knowing what it was like to be on the inside while our families celebrated and suffered, struggled and mourned without us. Luke could send no flowers, pay no homage, convey no sense of his presence to the rest of his family.
All afternoon he sat on the ground behind the Building, seeking what little privacy he could get, slowly picking out that same church hymn on the same single string. Boss Kean was on duty that weekend, stationed on the rear gun platform beside the laundry shed just outside the corner of the fence. He sat there with his legs crossed, the double-barreled shotgun across his lap, chewing his quid as he stared at Luke with a frown.
When the new week began on Monday the whole Bull Gang was tense and anxious. Everyone moved with a clumsy and hopeless concentration on his work. At Smoking Period everyone sat or lay on the slope of the ditch, looked down at the ground, sifted sand through his fingers or played with twigs. We were actually relieved when it was time to go back to work, feeling better with our tools in our hands.
Boss Godfrey walked slowly up and down the road, idly swinging his Walking Stick with the handle hooked over one finger. At the far end of the line he would pause, swing his Stick at a piece of trash or a clump of dirt and then slowly begin sauntering back again.
At the end of the day when we unloaded and lined up on the sidewalk to be shaken down we could see that the light bulb over the open door to the Box was burning. And there was a night shirt draped over the top of the latticework screen.
Desperately