Cool Hand Luke - Donn Pearce [83]
He was down in the French Quarter one night, roaring drunk when a cop approached him down the sidewalk, swinging his club. Luke went berserk. With a scream he took a swing at the cop, kicking at him, knocking him down and rolling with him into the gutter. Civilian bystanders subdued him with difficulty, pulling him off the patrolman and holding him until the wagon arrived.
He was given thirty days. But at the City Stockade they took his fingerprints and sent them in to the F.B.I. in Washington for a routine check. When they found out who he was they suspended the rest of his sentence. But they extradited him back to Florida immediately.
So that was it. We hung our heads, angry and disappointed. The First Bell rang and we prepared ourselves for bed, stretching out for a restless night of grappling with our visions. Luke had been recaptured, put in chains and thrown right back into the ditch with the rest of us. And then quite calmly he had told us that there was really no other world but this.
Out on the Road the next day we went to work as we always did. But before Smoking Period came around Boss Godfrey walked right up to Luke.
What were you lookin‘ at that there car for?
What car, Boss?
Don’t you sass me! You hear? Didn’t the Cap’n tell you to git your mind right?
With a whistling cut he brought his Walking Stick down sharply on Luke’s head. Luke bent over, dropping his shovel and groaning with pain.
Did you say somethin‘ Luke? Huh? Answer me, damn it!
Again the Stick came down, blood spurting from reopened cuts, new bruises beginning to appear on his shaven white skull. The rest of us kept right on shoveling, our heads bowed, our eyes on the ground.
Now pick up that shovel and git back to work. Ah ain’t gonna put up with your fuckin‘ off no more. You hear?
That night they put him in the Box. After that the same procedure was followed every day. For no reason at all he was beaten and if there were moans or tears he was hit again. But if Luke made no outcry he was struck anyway for not answering promptly. Luke got weaker. He was barely able to finish out each day, his heavily shackled feet dragging in the dust. Every night he was denied his supper and locked up in the Box.
Again his beard grew. His body and clothes became filthy, his head encrusted with dried blood, his shaved and sunburned scalp a solid mass of bruises and cuts. But on the third night, from out of the darkness and from out of the depths of his wooden tomb, we could hear Luke singing that old mountain song called Little Liza Jane. We lay in our bunks listening, his voice making us tingle all over.
Every morning, five minutes before the First Bell and just after the other Chain Men had already been awakened, the door to the Building was opened and they brought in Luke in his nightshirt, holding his clothes heaped in his arms, his unsupported shackles dragging across the floor. There was no time to shave or take a shower. He barely had time to go through the complicated maneuvers of putting on his pants over his chains and fixing up his rig of harness and strings before the Second Bell.
Then the week was over. Luke had made it. Even if they kept him in the Box all weekend at least he would have a chance to rest. And on Saturday morning they brought him into the Messhall and let him eat his breakfast.
But afterwards the Yard Man was waiting for him just outside the Messhall door. He took him over to the corner of the fence in front of the gun platform. Boss Paul was on guard and smiling. Boss Godfrey was there with his Walking Stick. A shovel stood leaning against the fence. There was a long pause. No one said anything. Then Boss Godfey strolled forward and with the point of his Stick he drew two long parallel lines on the ground. Turning to Cool Hand he jabbed at the ground with his cane.
Luke? You see that ditch? That’s mah ditch. You see that dirt? That’s your dirt. Now git you gawd damn dirt outta mah ditch!
And with that Boss Godfrey brought his Stick down hard on Luke’s head. Jaws flexing and eyes watering,