by Donn Pearce
You hongry Luke? How ‘bout a nice, hot cathead? Big eater like you must be hongry. Been four days. Ah reckon this would taste mighty good right about now. But damn. Wait a minute. Little ole Rudolph here looks pretty hongry too. Cain’t mistreat a pore, innercent hound that a-way. Tell you what. Why don’t we split it with the pooch? O.K.?
The Yard Man grinned and broke the biscuit in half. He held one piece in his left hand. He held the other up over Rudolph as he barked and wagged his tail, sat on his haunches and gazed up at the tempting tid bit.
Come on, Rudolph. Speak to me, baby. Come on now. Be good. Speak to me. Speak! Speak!
Rudolph barked, turned his head and gazed sideways up at the biscuit. Then he stood up as the Yard Man fed it to him, eagerly gulping it down as he was patted on the ribs with hollow slaps.
The Yard Man turned to Luke.
Well, Luke. Here’s your piece. Better eat it slow. There won’t be no more till tomorrow.
Squinting his eyes into narrow, concentrated slits, Luke growled in a low, even voice.
Might as well give Rudolph the other half too, Boss. I just ain’t much hungry.
The Yard Man pushed the side of his lower plate deeply into his left cheek.
Gawd damn you! Ah’ll fix yore fuckin‘ ass! But good! Rudolph! Here. Here, boy. Boss Kean? You watch this man close. He’s a trouble maker and has been known to be plannin’ escape attempts. If he tries anything a-tall, you know the Law.
Furiously, the Yard Man slumped away towards the Captain’s Office, his shoulders hunched forward, his head down. In five minutes he came back with an aluminum bowl of Epsom salts. He stood a minute looking at Luke, his dried and wrinkled face grimaced into a mask.
Drink this, bastard. And don’t tell me you ain’t thirsty. Ah know you’re thirsty. And Boss Kean here knows you’re thirsty too.
Luke drank the salts straight down with no expression at all and handed back the bowl. Then they locked the Box again. For three more days.
The rest of us went on with our routines. That was a Friday. That morning we went out on the Road and made the day but the weekend passed with tense expectation. We did the usual things but there was a difference, an atmosphere of sullen helplessness hanging over the Camp. Nothing was ever said about Luke. Not out loud. But we were all thinking the same thing.
And about the Box what is there to say? During the day the sun beats down on the metal roof. You try to entertain yourself with thoughts, with attempts to decipher the meanings of the sounds outside—the squeaks and bangs, doors slamming, voices, the movement of trucks. At intervals you drink from the can of water. Occasionally you will chin yourself up and gaze through the narrow grating at the top of the wall for a quick peek outside. Several times a day the laxatives will force you to sit on the chamber pot, the hot, close air overwhelming you with the stench of your own guts.
At night you lie on your back, trying to concentrate on anything at all that will take your thoughts away from the cramps in your belly, lying there at the bottom of a black pit, the dimensions of which are exactly those of a grave. The grating above you is shining from the light of the bulb outside, the chain link mesh just as silvery and delicate as the web of a spider.
You lie there and shiver and listen to the whine of the insects. Monstrous waves begin to surge in and out, drowning you with every change of the tide. Spouts of sand drift in from no matter where, choking you in the hourglass of time of which you are in the expended portion.
On Monday morning, just before the First Bell, we heard the door to the Building being unlocked. Carr and the Wicker Man opened and closed the gate to the Chute and there was Luke, standing in his night shirt with his shoes and his clothes in his arms and with a week’s growth of whiskers on his face.
After allowing him to go into the Messhall and have breakfast they took him back into the Building for a one day Lay-in. The Yard Man and a trustee went through the same procedure as for any convict who is too sick to go out on the Road. Except that they didn’t give Luke the usual prescription of two Brown Bombers and a bowl of hot Epsom salts. Moving his bunk next to the toilets within reach of the water faucet, they padlocked a tenfoot chain around his ankle. The other end was padlocked to the frame of his bunk. During the day the trustees brought him some beans and corn bread and when we returned that night he had already been unchained. He ate supper with us in the Messhall and later he shaved and took a bath and fell into bed.
On Tuesday he went out on the Road, stiffly clambering into the truck with the rest of us, sitting on the bench in his usual place and silently smoking as much as he could. When we reached the job and the cage was unlocked he climbed out of the truck with difficulty, limping a little bit as he went over to the tool truck and got his shovel from Jim. For the rest of the day Luke took it easy. He was weak and his old wounds were bothering him. He did just enough work to keep up with the slowest man, conserving what strength he had left.
And all day Boss Godfrey stood on the shoulder of the road, leaning on his Walking Stick, staring down at Luke laboring in the bottom of the ditch. When he moved up Boss Godfrey strolled along with him, resuming his pose as Luke went back to work.
That night Luke ate a light supper. We knew that his stomach had shrunk and that he was more tired than he was hungry. After taking a shower he went straight to his bunk, falling asleep immediately.
The next morning he was slow in getting up and getting dressed, moving with great effort. He was the last one to come out of the Messhall and join the huddled groups standing near the porch, their cigarettes glowing in the darkness and making fast red arcs to hesitate and brighten and reveal a face isolated amid the dark forms.
We went through the procedure of lining up and being counted by the Yard Man, counting off out loud as we went through the gate. The spotlights revealed the morning scene of trucks, guards and walking bosses. We stood there half asleep, listening to the barking of the dogs. The Captain took a long drag on his butt and began spitting drily through pursed lips.
Aw right, Boss. Move‘em out.
We began counting off by two’s, loading up into the cage truck, Cool Hand Luke bringing up the rear. Boss Godfrey held the edge of the gate with one hand as we scrambled inside and took our places. Luke raised his foot to mount the steps, hesitated and reached for the edge of the door. Painfully he pulled himself up to the first step. But he was too slow. We could see the Captain watching. And Boss Godfrey also knew that the Captain was watching. For in the complex hierarchy of the Chain Gang every boss has another boss, the purely eternal rising on high right up through the Captain and even beyond until it ultimately reaches the Great White Father himself, who reigns supreme in Tallahassee.
Boss Godfrey lashed out with a high kick, his foot catching Luke on the upper part of his thigh. Swiftly the Walking Stick landed three times on his shoulders and back with loud whacking noises, Luke’s shoes banging and scraping on the steps as he struggled to climb inside.
But instead of moving forward and taking his place Cool Hand turned around in the doorway and stared down at Boss Godfrey, looking directly into the shining silver of his anonymous eyes with an expression of defiance.
Boss Godfrey threw a punch right at Luke’s belly which he barely avoided by stepping back. Boss Godfrey reached in his hip pocket for his blackjack and mounted the steps. Inside the truck there was pandemonium. Again and again the Walking Boss swung his blackjack. There was a wild scramble of arms and legs, scraping feet and rattling chains, a melee of struggling bodies as all of us tried desperately to get out of the way. Luke fell to the floor and rolled away, trying to crawl under the bench and cover his head with his arms to ward off the blows. Boss Godfrey kicked and punched, his big body hampered by the closeness of the cage and the crush of bodies, panting as he cursed at Luke,
Damn you smart ass bastard! Who the fuck do you think you are? Showin‘ your ass around here? Huh? Ah’ll teach you some gawd damn respect. Right now.
Luke ended up
under one of the benches, his face to the wall, Boss Godfrey giving him one or two final kicks before stamping out of the cage and down the steps, slamming the gate shut and locking it, leaping into the cab and roaring away.
16
BUT BY THE TIME THE FOURTH OF JULY came around everything had settled down. Boss Godfrey didn’t have such a hard-on for Luke anymore and gradually the Heat began to cool off. He did his work and ate his beans. He shot the bull, cracked jokes and played the Dozens. Every night he sat up and played poker and on Saturday morning he took out his banjo, tuning up the strings and starting the weekend by flailing out a vigorous Lonesome Road melody.
In the Chain Gang the Fourth of July has always been the big holiday of the year. Perhaps the idea is to instill in all of us a burning love of country. And hence a love for law and order. In any case, Independence Day is a very big deal. Nobody worked. Jabo the Cook mixed up twenty-five gallons of lemonade in a big wooden barrel and had two trustees carry it into the Building. In the afternoon a truck came back from town with a load of watermelons and they issued out a half-melon to every man in Camp.
It was a Glorious Fourth all right. All day long the radios blasted away. We boxed and wrestled and played Grab Ass, four Chain Men jitterbugging in the middle of the floor, stamping their feet, leaping and twirling, their shackles jingling and tinkling away in frantic celebration.
After supper we checked into the Building in the usual manner but instead of the eight o‘clock bell that would have ordinarily sent us all to bed in absolute silence, we were allowed to stay up until midnight and make all the noise we wanted.
Each of the four radios was tuned to a different station, hillbilly music wailing and screeching at full volume. At the same time the Terrible Trio was hard at work, Luke’s banjo, Koko’s old, beat-up guitar and Dragline’s harmonica all going at once, banging out a melody all their very own. The Family seemed to have a preference for the live orchestra and gradually men began to gather in a tight knot in the space between the two double bunks where Luke and Koko slept.
They stood shoulder to shoulder around an inner ring of men who sat on the floor, the entire congregation stamping their feet, clapping their hands and singing their lungs out.
Sleep was out of the question. So was reading. I finally gave up and went over to the barrel and with a dipper I filled up a Pepsi Cola bottle with lemonade. Shuffling barefooted towards the hootenanny, I stepped aside to avoid the ponderous bulk of the Floorwalker as he went swaggering by, his massive shoulders rolling from side to side, his cigar going, his eyes sharp as he scowled at his evening charges. Up and down the Building he paced away the hours, Carr, the Floorwalker; half-convict and half-Free Man, as stem and mighty as the Colossus of Rhodes, straddling the fence of crime while we ordinary vessels sailed in and out between his legs.
I went over to the celebrating crowd, taking a long swallow of lemonade and looking over Little Greek’s shoulder at the orchestra within the inner circle. And there stood Cool Hand Luke in the very epicenter of it all, barechested, his banjo going hell bent for election, his eyes closed, that secret smile carved into his lips.
And there was Society Red, down on his hands and knees, working away with a rusty hacksaw blade on the hole he was cutting through the floor.
I joined the chorus, not knowing the words but just letting some kind of noise come out. Desperately I tried to catch somebody’s eye, but everyone was industriously beating out the rhythm of the song, the disarrayed blankets of the lower bunks pulled down and touching the floor, the solid wall of muscled brown skin blocking the view of the Wicker Man and the Floorwalker.
So I wet my throat with lemonade and I stomped my foot and sang. Whenever the broken piece of hacksaw blade hit a nail the screech made my hair stand on end. But there was always a spontaneous chord on the musical instruments played just a little off-key, everyone’s voice strident and loud, our faces red with effort.
Oh, they say you are leaving this valleeeee—
We will miss your bright eyes and sweet smiii—iiiile—
Back and forth paced Carr, the floor of the Building trembling with his weight. And the Wicker Man began to add to the din by working on the silver ring he was making, beating on the rim of a quarter with the back of a tablespoon. One by one the radios would pause for a commercial but we went on with our songs—
If I had the wings of an angel—
Over these prison walls I would fly-y-y-y-y—
Then the Wicker Man stopped tapping with his spoon, pulled out his watch and looked at it, ponderously rose to his feet and opened the switch that shut off all the radios. He shuffled out on the porch, took down the iron bar from the top of one of the rafters and hit the old brake drum that hangs suspended from a wire.
Abruptly we finished our singing, our voices tapering off in ragged confusion as the final words ended in a mumble of innocence—
—g‘wine to run all night, g’wine to run all day—
There was a last tinkle of banjo notes and we were through, Carr plowing through the middle of the dispersing crowd, growling out of the corner of his mouth,
First Bell. Let’s get to bed. You done had your fun.
Men scurried from bunk to bunk to borrow books and tobacco from each other. There was the last minute rush to the toilets. Shoes clumped on the floor.
The movement subsided. Everyone was either sitting on the edge of his bunk or lying down. From my vantage point I could look across the room and see Luke lying on his upper bunk, the sheet pulled up to his chin. Koko was on the lower adjacent bunk, propped up on one elbow and looking back at me with owlish eyes. In the space between, where the hootenanny had been held, a loose pile of clothing completely covered the neat square hole in the floor.
Five minutes later the Wicker Man got up and went out. We could hear his feet scraping on the porch. We waited. Again the gong was sounded, Carr picking up the reverberation and growling in his gruff manner, his cigar trailing smoke as he rolled down the center of the silent Building.
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 fence between him and freedom.