Part 15 (1/2)

29.

DRAGLINE FINISHED HIS STORY. HE TOOK A last drag on his b.u.t.t and flipped it away, drawing up his knees and s.h.i.+fting his feet, the shackles rattling quietly, m.u.f.fled by the sand and the dust. Fingering the center link, Dragline looked down at the ground. And I knew that his mind had at last relaxed, had let him forget about Luke. Instead he was wondering how much longer it would be before that link finally broke; remembering that the Captain had said that Drag would have to wear those chains until he wore them out.

And he was probably thinking of his own Time, his bad luck and his errors. For if he hadn't agreed to run with Luke that day he would have been home by now. His original sentence was finished a month ago but now he is working on that brand new Five Spot for larceny of State property; in other words, for stealing the tool truck.

But the movement of Dragline's chain was the only sound as the Bull Gang sat there, unmoving, our gestures and expressions awkward and fixed. Our throats were tight, our mouths were dry, our heads were ringing with the melody and the hymn called Cool Hand Luke.

Yet we tried to appear casual and tough as our eyes swept over the flimsy shack of a church. We studied the s.h.i.+fting concrete foundation blocks which held the building off the ground, the floor buckling between them. We examined the warped walls, the boards all dried out and cracked with streaks of old paint barely visible in the grain of the wood. We stared at the window which had a gray piece of weather-beaten cardboard inserted in the place of one of the panes. But that blank square spoke with such an eloquent simplicity that to us it had become as solemn as a window of stained gla.s.s reflecting a complex of infinities.

Inside, the choir was still singing. We could hear the swish and the roar of a pa.s.sing truck back on the road. We could hear the voices of some little colored kids laughing and screaming at each other while swinging through the limbs of a distant mulberry tree. The piano went banging on, the trumpet muted and tremulous. But most of all we listened to the cunning notes of a sly banjo echoing from deep within the shadowed obscurity.

Then we began to get tense, began to stretch and s.h.i.+ft our feet. Koko took off his cap and wiped his face with it, put it on his head, pulled it over his left ear, then pulled it over his right ear. He took it off again and mauled it with his hands, putting it on once more, the bill pulled down low over his eyes.

Rabbit and Jim came over and began to carry the bean pot and the bread box and the crate of aluminum dinner plates back to the tool truck. Rabbit went around to the guards and collected their buckets and the orange crates. Together they began to roll up the tarps and put out the coffee fire.

Somebody stood up and went over for a drink of water just before Rabbit took the bucket away. Men began snapping open the lids of their tobacco cans and rolling up their last minute smokes. I began to stretch. I knocked the ashes out of my pipe, filled it again and lit it. I shook the sand out of my shoes and put them back on.

I glanced over and saw Boss G.o.dfrey sit up with a yawn, covering his mouth with the back of his fist as he stretched. With deliberate, probing fingers he dug the big watch out of his pocket and held it in his hand. Yet I couldn't say for certain that he actually looked at it. He didn't turn his head nor nod. His face revealed no expression. And where his eyes should have been I could only see the glittering surfaces of his gla.s.ses and the reflection of ourselves captured therein, a reduced image of the Bull Gang sprawled in a huddle, Dragline sitting in the center.

Boss G.o.dfrey took a cigar out of his s.h.i.+rt pocket. He bit off the end and spat it on the ground. Then he put the cigar in his mouth and lit it. But I didn't know if his movements were profound and thoughtful or whether they were lazy and careless. After a long moment, as though he had forgotten all about work, convicts and Time, finally there was a deep, disinterested growl rumbling from his chest.