Free Cool Hand Luke by Donn Pearce Page B

Free World.
    But there was still extra energy to spare. Wrestling matches were staged periodically, the two combatants rolling over the floors and banging against the frames of the bunks, each one trying to take the pants off the other one, the victor galloping up and down the Building waving the trophy in the air as the shamefaced and bare-assed loser pursued him.
    Outside on the lawn there might be boxing. Inside there was certainly a crap game in the shower stall and a poker game at the table. Radios blared out at full volume. In the middle of the floor two Chain Men would be jitterbugging, barefooted and barechested, their feet leaping and turning this way and that as their shackles jingled frantically over the floor boards, tinkling with a frenzied joy. And as the Chain Men did their dance, others stood around and clapped their hands in rhythm to the mad, jazzy sounds.
    Koko is the camp barber. On weekends he takes the
trash can and lays a board over it for a seat. He puts a towel around your neck and goes to work with a pair of old, worn-out clippers and a pair of dull scissors. If you have a quarter you give it to him. Otherwise you owe it to him. If you are one of those who never gets a money order from home then he does it free.
    Sunday dinner is a luxury. We have beef stew and canned peaches. But at supper we revert right back to beans and corn bread.
    The following week the new men dragged their way through the days, panting and stumbling along the ditch bottom as we dug and carried and pitched, filled in the holes, moved up and then dug and carried and pitched. The skins of the Newcocks reddened and peeled, blistered and bled. The blisters on their hands broke open and stung in the brine of their own sweat.
    But the Newcocks dug and died alone. For we hadn’t yet decided. We were still watching their gestures and listening to their voices, studying the way they held their heads and looked us in the eye. We taught them all the complicated laws and rules of this Fatherland of ours. But we still had our own work partners, our own circles during Smoking Period and Bean Time.
    Every day at noon Rabbit comes around and takes up a Store Order from the guards and those convicts who have the money. Boss Godfrey and Rabbit drive off in one of the trucks and return in twenty minutes or so with the Pepsi Colas, the milk and crackers, the Free World cigarettes and candy bars. And also the girlie magazines and
the paper-backed Fuck Books with their wondrous tales of seduction, perversion, rapes and romance that we will read after the Last Bell, our greedy eyes scanning over the wonders of the written dream.
    But on Tuesday the new men were given a demonstration of the marksmanship of Boss Godfrey. He has a sharpshooter’s rifle which is his own personal weapon and which he keeps in the cab of the cage truck. But to prevent any possibility of armed escape, he keeps the clip of cartridges and the bolt in his pocket.
    The time for taking the Store Order came. Boss Godfrey and Rabbit drove off. In about a half hour we could see the truck rattling and bouncing up the road at better than forty miles an hour. High over the open fields to our right a white crane was flying in the opposite direction. Suddenly we saw the rifle poke out the window of the cab. Without aiming, simply pointing the barrel in the precise direction of his will, Boss Godfrey fired.
    The crane jerked in mid-air, a handful of feathers exploding into the wind. Without even fluttering it plummeted down into a patch of palmettos, falling with a smooth, limp trajectory of white, as though Death himself had spoken.
    We stood there, our shovels forgotten in our hands. And then Jackson opened up for the first time. With a soft mutter only heard by those of us who were near him, he exclaimed with mock astonishment,
    Uhhh hmmm! That man Luke can sure shoot!
    With a little smile, he stabbed his shovel in the ground, kicked it, bent the handle over his knee and
tossed