Cool Hand Luke - Donn Pearce [63]
Last bell! Last Bell!!
Carr moved slowly up one side of the room and down the other, counting the men on their bunks. Then we heard his deep grumble as he spoke to the Wicker Man.
Fifty-four, Boss.
Fifty-four. Aw right, Carr.
As late as it was, Dragline was still reading, his nightly array of paper-back novels spread out over his bunk, a half-dozen of them opened to certain penciled sections that dealt with fornication, defloration, prostitution and perversion. Drag’s eyes were bulging as they flitted back and forth across the pages, skimming over the superficial details describing characterizations and scenes, the useless dialogue and lame philosophizing, impatiently flipping the pages to reach the next heavily marked section. After a few minutes he would lay down one book and pick up the next, always able to keep the continuity of the different narratives arranged in his mind in perfect order.
He lay there making gasping sounds in his throat, holding the book in both hands with a trembling grip as his tongue rolled around the perimeter of his toothless mouth. Carr walked by, smiling that grim, stiff, patronizing smile. Dragline waved at him anxiously and then in pantomimed exaggeration he brought the open pages of the book close to his face, his eyes popping, his tongue panting excitedly.
With massive dignity the Floorwalker approached Dragline’s bunk, smiling broadly at the hysterical antics as Drag twisted and turned knocking three or four books onto the floor. Then he knelt down and indulgently took the offered book, beginning to read a section emblazoned with scribbled stars and Xs and wavy lines.
What you got there, Drag? muttered Carr. You done bought yourself another one of them fuck-books?
Carr relit his cigar and began reading. He began to grin.
Gettin‘up, Carr.
Yeah.
Coon got up from his bunk and shuffled to the john. He flushed the bowl and went back to bed.
In rapid succession, three men asked to get up. Absorbed in the book, Carr answered them without raising his eyes. The Wicker Man was busy, dipping some fresh snuff and whittling on a piece of wood.
And then Dragline turned his head and looked across the room at Luke. Dragline winked.
Already dressed, Luke threw back the sheet and quietly crept out of bed. At the same time two johns were flushed. Another man asked to get up. Without looking, Carr answered out of the side of his mouth.
Yeah.
I could see it all from where I lay, covering my face with my arm and pretending to be asleep but peeking out from beneath my elbow all the while. I watched Luke as he climbed down from the bunk and slid his legs through the hole in the floor, wriggling his hips through and then kneeling on the ground with only his head, shoulders and arms protruding. Koko looked on with blinking eyes and a grin, hugging himself in ecstasy beneath the covers. Luke smiled and saluted. By watching his lips I could see what he whispered just before he ducked away.
So long Koko. Don’t forget now. Play it cool.
Luke was gone, just like that, crawling away beneath the Building which is supported by concrete pillars a few feet above the ground. Around the Building is an eighteen-inch strip of the usual chain link fence material. But that same afternoon Luke and his accomplices had found a blind spot at the corner of the Building unseen by the guards and had managed to loosen some nails and wire.
I had to choke down a giggle. The traditional way to escape from the Chain Gang is to go out on the Road and wait until the guard’s mind is distracted and then dive into the bushes and run for your very life. But that would have been too easy for Luke. He had to do it the hard way and make history by escaping from the Building itself.
Everything seemed perfectly normal. There were snores. The Wicker Man was whittling. Carr was over by Dragline’s bunk, absorbed in the fuck-book. But all the while Cool Hand was crawling away on his hands and knees, emerging out into the yard and the night with only the six-foot