Cool Hand Luke - Donn Pearce [79]
There he was. Seated in a night club in New Orleans, he was dressed in a dark suit, a silk tie with a big Windsor knot, starched French cuffs with sparkling gold links. Behind him was a jazz band and a stripper who was doing her stuff. On the table were Free World butts, a lighter, a bucket of champagne, gleaming, long-stemmed glasses, a stack of green folding money casually strewn about. He had both arms spread around the bare shoulders of a blond and a brunette who cuddled up to him on either side, smiling eagerly into the camera, their bare bosoms bursting out of their evening gowns. In one hand he held up a champagne glass and in the other he held a spread hand of cards showing five aces. His handsome, barbered face wore a great big smile which seemed to be speaking to us through the handwritten words scrawled at the bottom of the photograph:
Dear Boys;
Playing it cool. Wish you were here.
Love,
Cool Hand Luke
23
IT SOON CAME TO BE KNOWN SIMPLY AS THE Picture—
We would come in at night, exhausted and covered with mud, with sweat and mosquito bites, our pants sopping wet and stuck with sand spurs; feeling bored, depressed, lonely, feeling our Time would never come to an end and almost ready to take the Razor Blade Route. We would sit there slumped on the floor, not allowed to sit or lie down on our bunks while wearing dirty clothes yet too exhausted to get up and take a shower. Our muscles would be stiff and cramped, our heads aching and dizzy.
In our language, to be depressed is to have the Black Ass. Which is to remember clean clothes, shined shoes, a double bed, a world containing forks, doorknobs, clocks and chairs, to remember friends, mistakes, days of old to taste a steak, a kiss—
Then someone would begin to hum to himself, looking far away, his head leaned back against the wall, a forgotten cigarette in his fingers. A certain gleam would come into his eyes and he would get up and go over to Dragline’s bunk, kneeling down on the floor beside him to whisper fervently and hoarsely—
Hey Drag. Let me look at The Picture. Come on. Lemme. Huh? Just for a few minutes. I wanna see Luke with that broad. That brunette. And that loot and that booze. And that other broad, shakin‘ her bare ass behind him.
Aw, come on Babalugats. You don’t really want to look at that dirty ole picture, do yuh?
Yeah. Yeah. I wanna. I wanna.
But what for? It’s just one of them tourist postcard things. Like people send back home from Miami and places.
I know. I know.
So what good is it?
It’s good. It’s good. I wanna look. Come on. O.K.? Huh?
Well, ah don‘ know. It might give you bad ideas. It might even cause you to git a little rabbit in yore blood. Ah mean, it’s pretty dangerous stuff. An ’eff’n that mean ole Wicker Man over yonder was to see it—Why, he might even wanna take it away. Somebody might even git to go out and see Silver Springs for the rest of the night. Maybe fer two or three nights.
“I’ll be careful. Whaddaya think? I’m stupid?
Never mind that. ‘Portant thing is, how much would it be worth to take a peek at this here Picture? A quick peek ah’m talkin’ about. Not no memorizin‘ job.
A cold drink?
A cold drink? You mean one cold drink? To feast yore starvin‘ fishy li’l eyes on The Picture? A true vision of Paradise itself? With three of the Angels right there in plain sight a-playin‘ and a-friskin’ ‘round wif mah boy?
A cold drink? Huh?
Well—O.K. It’s a deal. One Pepsi, eff’n you please. Like pay in advance? One sweaty, chilly bottle right here in mah hot, li‘l hand?