Cool Hand Luke - Donn Pearce [71]
This went on for a week. Luke was living on just two meals a day; a breakfast of thin grits, one egg, a couple of catheads; a dinner of corn bread and beans. But as far as anyone could tell, this didn’t bother Luke any. He just ate more beans than he usually did, cut down on his smoking and learned how to be comfortable sleeping in the Box.
But since Luke was never allowed to come into the Building we never had a chance to talk to him. Finally we couldn’t stand it any longer. So in spite of the Heat, a few of us gathered around him at Bean Time.
Cool Hand lay there stretched out on the ground, leaning his back against the trunk of a gigantic live oak tree that shaded the entire Bull Gang with its canopy of gnarled, twisted branches and its festoons of Spanish moss. He took a long, thoughtful drag on his cigarette, stared up into the leaves overhead and in a matter-of-fact voice, he told us all about it.
For three nights and two days the chase had gone on. Luke would run and dodge the dogs and then lay down for short naps, his instinct telling him when to wake up and start running again. He lived on oranges he picked in the groves, vegetables he swiped from gardens and ate raw, water he drank from the ponds. But in the end he decided he was going to have to steal a car.
Coming to the outskirts of a town, he hid in a clump of palmettos, examining the rows of houses in the new development. He was still wearing his convict clothes and the posse was getting close. He was nearly cut off from the woods and was facing the prospect of trying to run through the streets of a residential area.
Then a woman drove up and parked her car in a front yard, getting out and carrying a baby into the house. Luke ran across the street and got in. The keys were still in the ignition lock and he started up and drove away.
Not until later did he realize that the back seat was loaded with groceries. Eagerly he ate white bread, cookies, butter in huge mouthfuls, sugar right out of the bag. He ate raisins, sardines, an apple, a banana—goodies some of us haven’t tasted in years.
So anyhow. It’s a good thing that woman took the baby out first. You know? Instead of the groceries? Otherwise they’d of had me up on a kidnappin‘ rap. That really would be somethin’. As it is I’ll probably get more Time. For swipin‘ the car. They told me they’re gonna bring me up on charges for that.
Off the ground at last, Luke roared away in the car to escape the immediate area. Then he drove off the main highway and went up a lonely dirt trail, just two grooved ruts winding through the woods. He parked under some trees and then curled up and went to sleep, getting his first real rest in days. He didn’t wake up until long after dark, ate some more of the woman’s groceries and then began driving back to the highway.
Behind a juke joint that was going in full swing he found some cars parked away from the glare of the bright neon lights out front. He swiped a license plate from one of them and used it to replace the one on the hot car, getting in and heading straight for the Alabama State line.
Luke was clever. He stayed on back roads, guided by a road map he found in the glove compartment of the car. He knew he could only count on a few hours before his ruse would be discovered but he was careful not to attract any attention by driving too fast.
But what Luke didn’t know was that in the state of Florida the first number of a license plate signifies the county in which it is registered. And if the car is above a certain weight the first number is followed by a lower case “w.” Inadvertently he had swiped the wrong kind of plate, taking it from a Buick sedan and putting it on a two-door Ford.
Cool Hand kept heading north and west, wondering how long his gasoline would hold out. By three in the morning he was in Pensacola, pulled up behind a semi-trailer waiting for a red light. And then a police car came out of a side street on a routine patrol