It had been an unusual day, the Bull Gang a.s.signed to one of those odd ch.o.r.es that the Captain invents from time to time to keep us occupied. We had had a very long ride that morning, all the way up to Mineola. Then we were lined up on both sides of Route Number Twenty-five from the pavement to the edge of the right of way. At Boss G.o.dfrey's signal we moved forward, bending over to pick up every sc.r.a.p of trash, every cigarette package, beer can, bottle and paper bag. We walked and we bent over and we dumped our handfuls of trash in regular piles for the trustees to burn as they followed along. It was a long, hard day at full gallop, the guards following along beside and behind us. By the time we were ordered to load up into the cage truck we had reached the Polk County line, eighteen miles away.

But along about eleven o'clock an open red Jaguar had come roaring by, the driver wearing horn-rimmed gla.s.ses and a beret, turning his head to grin back at us as he deliberately tossed a newspaper over his shoulder. The pages separated in the wind and tumbled loosely along the shoulder of the road, rustling and crinkling as it followed the direction of the departing car. And it was my luck to be the one to come across the front page, cursing my delivery boy, bending over to grab it up along with my other souvenirs of the tourist season. But then my eye caught the headline: War Hero Becomes Parking Meter Bandit I hesitated. This was a new type of crime to me and I was immediately intrigued. Quickly I got hold of the other sheets, folded them together as best I could without falling behind the advancing line and held the paper up in the air as I called out to the nearest guard, Boss Paul! Puttin' it in my pocket here!

Aw right, Sailor. Put it in your pocket.

At noon we had our beans in an orange grove. I put the newspaper in proper order and stretched it out on the ground, reading it as I ate. Some copy editor had played up the "before and after" angle. Two photographs were printed side by side; the one a formal military portrait, the kind we all sent home during the war, face scrubbed, tanned and shiny, uniform correct, hat squared, chest out and bedecked with bits of colored ribbon and metal badges-the other the picture of a drunk peering through the bars, hair dishevelled, shirt open and dirty. But instead of sticking to his role of the Scowling Criminal, the ex-soldier was smiling directly into the camera, one eye closed in a sly wink.

I read the story and then read it again, translating it by sight as I scanned the lines, filling in the obvious gaps, shrinking the exaggerations, deducting the halftruths and the prejudices, correcting the misinformation about things I knew of and trying to imagine the truth of the things I didn't, the facts that were unstated, the events that were undescribed, the elements that were ignored or those taken out of context and slanted by clever wording to give a predetermined impression.

But I smiled as I read the story. I liked the face of this Lloyd Jackson, twenty-eight, born in Birmingham, Alabama, infantry veteran of three major campaigns during the big war, the one that established the Four Freedoms once and for all. He was a holder of two Purple Hearts, a Bronze Star and a Silver Star. But he had no Good Conduct Medals. He had been given company punishment on a number of occasions and had served sixty days in a disciplinary battalion for going AWOL. After three and a half years of service, three years of which were overseas, he was discharged as a private.

I showed the paper to Dragline who read it with a studied frown, his lips sagging loose and open. Koko came over and squatted beside him, his eyes wide, his grin broad and nervous. Koko began to insert bits of information and interpretations of his own, embellishing the story out loud. Dragline growled at him a couple of times but it did no good.

Shut up, w.i.l.l.ya? Ah'm readin'.

Yeah. I know. I'm readin' too.

Naw, you ain't. You're makin' it all up as you go.

I'm just sayin' how it really was.

How the h.e.l.l do you know how it was?

Aw, you can tell. This guy's c.u.n.t sent him a Dear John and so he started hittin' the bottle, see? Probably a little punchy too, from too much combat and all. And he was a tough b.a.s.t.a.r.d, you know? Wouldn't never take no s.h.i.t from n.o.body. So one night he got fed up with this Square John job he had and he- Jes shut up. Let me read the gawd d.a.m.n thing.

Come on Drag! Don't pull it away. I want to read too.

Well read then. And shut the h.e.l.l up.

So long before Jackson arrived at our camp, before he even knew what The Hard Road was, before he had even been tried and sentenced, he had already become a legend to the Bull Gang, his influence stirring our imaginations and quickening our hearts. For the rest of the afternoon we thought about him as we walked beside the highway stooping over to pick up trash, ignoring our aching backs, ignoring the roaring traffic, the sun, the guards, ignoring our fate and our Time.

It was as though we were casually strolling along Franklin Street in Tampa late one night after everything was closed up, no cars parked along the curbs, the sidewalks empty, the shop windows glowing with serene displays of luxuries appreciated by no one but ourselves. And we were drunk, all tanked up on beer and wine and whiskey and the whole town was soft and dim and lovely.

Suddenly a pick-up truck came zooming down the street. A sign on the door of the cab read "Acme Plumbing Service." But Jackson was driving it h.e.l.l-for-leather, as though it were a scout car entering a bombarded city on the heels of the retreating enemy. He jammed on the brakes, the rear end swinging around. Then he sat there, staring through the grime of the windshield, the street lights and traffic signals glowing through the dimness of his intoxicated mind.

All he could see were the green benches and the parking meters s.p.a.ced along the curbs. He realized that they were advancing, marching forward in open ranks, a battalion of emaciated soldiers with ugly faces beneath odd-shaped foreign helmets. And across the forehead of every one of them was tattooed in red letters the word VIOLATION.

Jackson shut his eyes, opened one of them and squinted. Then he tried squinting the other eye. Leaning his elbow on the steering wheel and resting his chin in his hand he pondered the tactical situation. Had he done a violation? Did he dare make a violation? Had a violation been committed against him? And how does it come about, these G.o.d d.a.m.ned violations? Is a violation done to you-are they made-or do you commit them? And he growled deep down in his throat. He opened the door, put one foot on the running board and leaned out, yelling down Franklin Street.

Look out, you b.a.s.t.a.r.ds. You can't challenge me that-a-way. I got a pa.s.s. Signed by the old Provost Marshal himself. Yeah. Ole Chicken s.h.i.t Williams. Ker Ker-nel Chicken s.h.i.t, I mean.

He got back in the cab and gripped the wheel with both hands, lowering his head and glaring through the windshield.

Look at 'em. f.u.c.kin' b.a.s.t.a.r.ds. All lined up and blinkin' their bloodshot eyes at me. In a perfect enfilade position too. If I had me a BAR-. I'll show 'em though. Violation, huh? I'll show 'em some real real violations. violations.

Putting the truck in gear, he started forward with a jerk, stalled the motor, cursed out loud and started it again. Roaring ahead for half a block, he slammed on the brakes, skidded to a stop and leaped out of the cab, the motor still running as he dashed over to the curb, spit at one of the parking meters and fumbled in his pocket for a ring of keys. There was a big metal tool box bolted to the side of the truck just behind the cab. Jackson leaned forward to put the key in the padlock, lost his balance, swore and kicked the door of the box. He tried it again, got it open and noisily turned over the heap of tools inside, a clattering pile of wrenches, hammers, taps, dies and star chisels. He found the pipe cutter, pulled it out of the clanking heap and slammed the door of the tool box.

Trying to hold himself erect, he marched forward, his shoulders slanted over to one side as he stumbled over the curb holding the heavy tool in his hand. He stood in front of one of the meters that had a square sign attached to the pipe that supported it, listing in green letters the regulations about parking in that spot. Jackson grinned, then scowled with cunning malice.

O.K. Mister General, you son of a b.i.t.c.h. Sir. You think you can straighten everything out with an old beat-up silver dollar with a peppermint stripe ribbon hangin' on it? Is that it? Speak up, manl Chin in! Chest out! Count cadence, loud and clear. So you gave me your f.u.c.kin' medal and now everything's just copacetic. Well, I gotta cut your G.o.d d.a.m.ned head off. It's a matter of principle. It's my G.o.d d.a.m.ned patriotic duty. But don't worry. They'll give you the Medal of Honor. For sure. Posthumorously. With crossed t.u.r.ds on a field of gold.

Jackson clamped on the pipe cutter, screwed it up tight, pulled it around two or three times, tightened up the adjusting handle a bit more and turned it again. In less than half a minute the meter came loose in his hands and he threw it into the back of the truck.

O.K. Load up, General. The convoy's movin' up. We gotta make contact with the enemy before dawn.

Jackson staggered up to the next parking meter.

O.K. Helen. Off comes that pretty little head.

Quickly he adjusted the pipe cutter, made two jerking turns, missed when he grabbed for the handle and staggered backwards a few steps. He wobbled back and forth a little, got his bearings and wagged his finger at the next meter in line.

Don't worry sergeant. I'll be with you in a minute. Stand at ease there while I settle a domestic situation over here.

Breaking out in a sweat in the hot, sticky air, his breathing became labored, his voice hoa.r.s.e with the ferocity of his exertions.

O.K. Kitten. Sorry to do this. But I lost my head over you. Now it's your turn.

So he went. He left the motor of the truck running, the door open, the headlights illuminating his work. One after the other he proceeded south down the main shopping district of the town. Methodically he piled the meters together along the curb and every so often went back to drive up the truck, throwing in the meters with a tremendous bang and clatter, pausing every now and then to look down at the trophy in his hands, shake it and mutter, Well, Colonel Chicken s.h.i.t. Sounds like you got a screw loose here and there. Better have you examined. Can't have no Section Eights runnin' around in this outfit. Right?

Down the sidewalk a city cop came sauntering along his beat, twirling his club. He saw the truck of one of the munic.i.p.al maintenance people up ahead, tested the door of a bank building, a clothing store and then a jewelry shop. When he came abreast of the maintenance man he muttered a friendly, Evenin'.

Howdy, answered the man who went on with his work. The cop walked on a few feet and then turned to watch the proceedings. The man grunted as he turned the cutter with jerking pulls, putting his shoulders behind it and catching the meter as it came loose. Then he began singing the old hillbilly song, Little Liza Jane.

The cop stood by, swinging his club and watching. But it was a late hour for a city employee to be working. On the other hand a good deal of maintenance work is done at night. But why are they removing the parking meters on Franklin Street? Lord only knows what the Big Wheels will decide to do next. Seems like they'd say somethin' anyhow so's a body'd know what was goin' on. But what was goin' on?

Hey fella. What are you doin' anyway?

Jackson continued with his work, pulling the cutter around with smooth, even jerks and tightening the handle every so many turns. Without looking at the cop, he answered: I'm cuttin' off this parkin' meter. What does it look like?

Oh. Yeah. But-who are you?

I'm Lloyd Jackson.

Yeah-but who are are you? you?

I dunno. You might say I was a parkin' meter bandit.

Jackson walked right past the cop, threw the meter into the back of the truck and walked up to the next in line. The cop shuffled his feet.

Listen. I think maybe you'd better come with me.

I can't. I ain't finished this block yet.

Yeah, but you can come back. You can always come back later. I gotta check this here deal.

How come? What's there to check?

Well-never mind. Come on. Let's go.

If you say so-officer-sir. Here. Hold this.

Jackson handed the cop the pipe cutter and walked around to the front of the truck. The cop took the offered tool, staring down at it in his hands.

Hey, what are you doin'?

I gotta park my truck don't I? I ain't gonna leave the motor runnin' for some thief to just come and help himself.

Before the cop knew what was happening, Jackson was in the cab. He shifted gears, gunned the motor and roared down the street at top speed.

Hey! Stop! Come back here! Halt! Halt! Halt! Halt!

The cop dropped the pipe cutter and yanked out his pistol. He aimed up at the sky and squeezed the trigger. Nothing happened. Then he squeezed again and yelled out his challenge, his voice loud and echoing down the empty street.

Halt! In the name of the In the name of the Law! Law!

Looking at his pistol, he snapped off the safety and started to aim at the fleeing truck. But this time he squeezed the trigger too quickly. The gun went off with a tremendous noise, the window of a second story dentist's office collapsing in a rattle of gla.s.s fragments.

Quickly the cop began firing. The bullets cracked and whined as they ricocheted off the street, the curb, and then a "No Parking" sign. Jackson turned a corner, just in time for the last bullet to hit the front left tire. The steering wheel wrenched itself out of his hands, the truck bouncing over the curb and across the sidewalk, crashing with a splintering roar through the plate gla.s.s window of a closed restaurant, crushing tables and chairs and finally coming to rest after jarring the end of the counter out of place and tearing the fastenings out of the floor.

The cop came running up, out of breath, fumbling with trembling fingers as he tried to reload his pistol and run at the same time. He dropped several bullets along the way, swore, started to pick them up, hesitated, ran on. Coming to the restaurant, he cautiously stepped inside, his shoes crunching on broken gla.s.s, crouching carefully as he approached the truck.

There was a long pause. Then the door to the cab clicked open and Jackson slowly and laboriously climbed out, humming under his breath.

Stop! Stay right where you are!

Jackson ignored the cop. It was as though he hadn't heard him as he fumbled in his pocket for some change, rubbed his nose with his fingers and gingerly felt the cut on his forehead. He looked at the blood on his fingertips, tasted it with his tongue and then wiped it off on his pants.

Staggering ever so slightly and favoring his left leg, he went over to the juke box in the corner and dropped in a quarter, hesitating over the b.u.t.tons as he scanned the t.i.tles. But the cop insisted.

Hey! Come on, you!

Jackson punched one b.u.t.ton after another, frowning and squinting his eyes as he considered each of his selections. The cop was shaking with frustrated rage.

Come on! G.o.d d.a.m.n it! You're under arrest! Get 'em up!

The juke box burped, swallowed and groaned. It began to come alive with glowing, bubbling colors. Levers clicked, gears meshed, a disc was removed from a rack visible through the gla.s.s front, placed on the table and started turning. The playing arm moved over, setting the needle in the proper groove. Then a quartet of gospel singers began a vigorous hymn accompanied by a complicated harmony of banjos and guitars picking and strumming in the background.

Oh Lawd! Ah'm a-comin', a-comin' to that Angel La-and!

Snapping his fingers and shaking his lowered head with ecstasy, Jackson shuffled over the broken gla.s.s and splintered wood, dancing out onto the sidewalk as the cop followed behind him with his pistol, tremulous and agitated.

And so Jackson committed his very own crime and was brought before the wrath of the Law. He left behind him an anguished chorus of forlorn voices praying over an abandoned city as he danced his way heel and toe right over the debris and into his cell.

7.

IT WAS ABOUT THREE WEEKS AFTER THAT when Boss Paul showed Rabbit an item in the Orlando paper about the trial of a man called Lloyd Jackson. And of course we heard all about it that night in the Building. The article repeated the story that I had found in the bottom of the ditch and went on to list the details of his army record.

The court-appointed lawyer entered a formal plea of guilty and Lloyd Jackson was sentenced to two years at hard labor at Raiford.

Today in the church yard I lay back and remembered how it was when I was sent up from the county jail, a long chain of us handcuffed together and put into the panel delivery truck that is known as the Newc.o.c.k Bus. There was that long, hot ride up to Raiford, the two lines of men facing each other, knees almost touching. Some managed to be wild and carefree, with the same horseplay and slaphappy jokes of fresh conscripts going into the army or a busload of freshmen going off to school. Others were silent and smoked in sullen brooding. Others craned their necks to peer through the wire mesh barrier that separated us from the driver and guard in order to get their last few precious glimpses of the Free World. Everyone was hot and thirsty, terrified and ashamed. The years of our Time rang in our heads like bells. The realization of the sufferings to come sat on our stomachs like heavy weights. Yet all we could do was sit there, thinking back over the past and trying once again to beat that old prisoner's game of determining at just what point we made our big mistake.

It is an ordinary day like any other when you take the Newc.o.c.k Bus up to Raiford. The sun shines, the motor roars, the wheels bounce over every crack in the road. The billboards sell their beer and cigarettes and people drive by in their cars. But the big difference is when you reach for your matches and smokes and you have to drag another man's hand with your own over to your pocket and as you strike a match and lean into the flame there are four hands framing your face.

Raiford- Gleaming white walls set in a triple spider's web of shining, galvanized chain link fences. Long lines of men coming down the roads from the fields, haggard, in filthy wrinkled uniforms, half of them unshaved, all of them gaunt and hopeless. They limp and drag their feet, they saunter and swagger, they stroll and clump and march. But their heads turn as the truck pa.s.ses by and they see the eyes peering through the small barred window in the back door. And in those lines of men you can see the faces dampened by the sour suns of years and years-faces made of mud, out of straw, kneaded by trampling battalions of misfortune.

How long has it been now since I pa.s.sed through the River Gate and rolled by the railroad siding to stop in front of the Rock at that precise hour when the gangs were coming in for their supper? And the band was sitting in a pavilion in the Visitor's Park, playing a rousing military march. And voices echoed among the cells and the corridors, hands gripping the bars and the windows, faces peering down at the huddle of men in civilian clothes with dead-white faces getting the handcuffs removed from their wrists.

Newc.o.c.ks! Newc.o.c.ks!

Fresh meat over here!

You'll be sorr-eeeeeee!

So all of us knew just how Lloyd Jackson felt and what he had to do during those weeks of initiation. He was tested and interviewed, photographed, fingerprinted and examined, cla.s.sified, inoculated and numbered. Every morning he marched out the gate with the Eight Spot to work with a grubbing hoe in the surrounding bean fields. On Sat.u.r.day night he saw the movie in the auditorium. On Sunday he saw the baseball game.

Early one morning his name was called out by the Captain of the Rock. The Turnkey let him out of the Bull Pen on G-Floor and he and two other men were escorted by a Runner to the office of the Captain of the Guard. There they played around with papers, took away all the extra prison clothing they had and loaded them up into the Hard Road Bus.

Again Lloyd Jackson was taken away, the driver stopping at the River Gate and picking up his pistol from the guard room. Then they went on, bouncing over the dips and b.u.mps of the narrow asphalt road that goes for eleven miles to the town of Starke, and then down Route 441 through the very center of the state, pa.s.sing Gainesville and then Ocala. When one of the men told the driver he had to urinate, the delivery truck was pulled over and parked on the side of the road. There was a two inch hole in the floor and they put a funnel into the hole, taking turns getting down on their knees.

Eventually the Bus left the main highway, following a narrow State road until coming to the clay road that goes through the orange groves. At the turn-off there was a small, neatly lettered white sign- S.R.D. Camp #93.

The Bus stopped on the asphalt ap.r.o.n. The driver got out and stretched, walking stiffly towards one of the white-painted frame buildings. The convicts inside whispered to each other, their feet shifting awkwardly, peering out through the grated windows at the lawns, the fences, the sidewalk.

There was a long wait. Then the driver returned with a fat man wearing a Panama hat, a short sleeved sport shirt and pastel blue slacks. The fat man made continuous spitting movements with his lips as though trying to spit out an invisible grain of tobacco. In the background stood a man with deeply tanned skin and vacant eyes, on the alert and tense. In his hand dangled a pump action shotgun.

The driver looked at the guard who nodded his head. Unlocking the door, the driver stood aside and the men climbed out, awkward and stiff and blinking. At a command they lined up, trying not to look the fat man in the eye. They waited, clutching the paper bags and cigar boxes which contained their worldly goods. The Captain spat three times, producing nothing but tiny jets of air. Without looking at any of them, he read their names off a list, the men answering, careful to say "sir."

Then the Yard Man came up, his shoulders hunched and thin, his lined and wrinkled face tight and cruel over the protruding bones of his skull. He wiggled his jaw and shifted his false teeth back and forth, staring with cold eves at the Newc.o.c.ks.

I can still remember how it felt to sit there in the empty Building, looking around and waiting for something to happen. Everyone does the same thing. He sits and smokes and stares here and there, walking up and down the Building a few times between the rows of empty bunks. Without really meaning to, he counts them. Fifty-one. But he feels like a trespa.s.ser, like Goldilocks, knowing that some other man sleeps in every one of those bunks. Another man who gets tired and hungry and who worries. Another man who has committed a felony and who is building Time.

The Building is built of wood. The windows are only square holes without any gla.s.s, covered over with chain link fence material and also with fly screen. Outside there are heavy shutters propped up by sticks. The room itself is a large rectangle with an alcove on one side which has a floor of concrete and in which is located the big iron coal stove, a urinal, four toilets and the shower. The shower is in the corner, a large area part.i.tioned off by a low curb of concrete. There is a small, cracked mirror and one faucet. There are also two wooden tables with benches, the kind they have in the parks for picnics. Directly opposite this alcove is the Wicker, the basket-turret where an armed guard sits up all night keeping watch over all the little things we do. There is no privacy whatever in the Building. Just as there are no wash basins nor cups. You drink, wash, shave and brush your teeth beneath the one faucet in the shower stall.

The Newc.o.c.ks sat on the benches of the two tables. They waited. Trustees came in from the kitchen from time to time. They took showers or went to the john. But actually they came in to size up the Newc.o.c.ks and to get the latest news from the Rock.

Later the Yard Man came inside the Wicker and shoved a wad of clothes through a small slot in the screen down at the bottom next to the floor. The clothes were numbered with India ink. The pants were of the standard Raiford variety but the shirts and the jackets were of much heavier material. They were also given striped bill caps and heavy work shoes, the heels rimmed with steel. After sorting out the clothes according to the laundry numbers a.s.signed them, they changed and shoved the things they wore back through the slot. They were each issued a big, battered tablespoon and told to keep it with them always. If they should lose it the Yard Man would issue another one. But first you must spend the night in the Box.

Later the guard was relieved by the Wicker Man whose regular job is to sit up all night with his shotgun and pistol, standing guard over the sleeping Building. He is round and immensely fat, his small eyes peering at the Newc.o.c.ks over rimless gla.s.ses. He has short, tottering legs and a hard, tight mouth that has never smiled, squeezed in between his flabby jowls.

Outside, the Newc.o.c.ks saw a black and yellow truck driving up with a thick crowd of convicts in the back. The guards dismounted, spreading out to the sides. At a signal the men scrambled down and lined up along the sidewalk, heads bared to the Captain who was in his rocking chair, one foot propped up against a column of the porch, turning his head to spit with a dry puff of air.

Meanwhile the Wicker Man had come inside the Building with a sawed-off piece of broom handle. Beginning a hard, repet.i.tious tapping on the floor, he banged the stick on each and every board to sound it for possible saw cuts. He tottered about on his clumsy legs, banging on the walls, the shutters, sc.r.a.ping the stick across the window mesh.