Cool Hand

Herman strikes.

Nothin' Can Be a Pretty Cool Hand

Apparently my inner writer, Herman, and I are having a fundamental disagreement. He wants me to go and get some sleep and hit it hard some other day, but I am determined to stay up and to write something. I had every intention of pushing an new piece forward. It's a decent short story with some important observations, and I'd like to get it finished before history gets another chance to repeat itself. Don't ask me how long that takes. I suppose it happens multiple times a day, but you get the idea.

But I only fixed one stupid error, and then reached the place where I'd left it, hanging out there in the air where it's as useless as a blank sheet of paper. Or a blank computer screen, whatever. But there was nothing there to add. Herman was blocking, and the little fart isn't going to get his way. I can't allow it. Per my title, from one of my favorite movies Cool Hand Luke, I don't really need him.

And so, an image comes forth, one of a movie set. A cowboy actor, decked out in full cowboy garb including a ratty Stetson, is standing near the edge of the scene. He's not acting at all but instead has an easel before him, and a parchment pad on the easel. He's holding a six-shooter in his left hand, and with his right he's scribbling furiously with a piece of charcoal. The director steps up beside him and says, “I've got a movie to make! What're you doing??”

The actor replies, “I'm out of ammunition. I'm drawing a blank.”

Meanwhile, miles from the studio, a college football game is in full session. There's an alcohol-free policy in force, and anyone who might be carrying anything more voluminous than a hip flask can expect to be searched. Things just ain't what they used to be, you know? No more fifths of whiskey being chugged to the chants of fellow idiots, I mean students, in the end-zone student section. No more vomit that has to be vacuumed out of the urinals after the game. All of the booze that enters the stadium has to first be consumed outside the stadium, perhaps at one of the parking lot tailgating parties, which means you have to stay sober enough to walk all the way to your seat. Where's the fun in that?

So the more inventive of the fans, of course, students, have taken matters into their own hands. They have hoisted a quarter-keg of ice-cold brew all the way to the top row of seats from the west end of the stadium. It was a collaborative feat, with watchers for the guards, careful timing, boosting the heavy quarter-keg over the fence and tying the tap onto the side of the keg. Nylon rope dropped from the top tier and a pre-fashioned sling, and up it went, amazingly quickly for something that heavy. At this moment the keg has been tapped and the receiving miscreants, no longer interested in football, are lined up to fill paper cups with frothing draughts of cold beer. A stadium officer steps up behind the operator of the tap with an armed police officer at his side. “Ahem!” he growls in his deepest, most authoritative voice, “And just what do you think you are doing?”

The startled student, still holding the tap handle back and cups still receiving, turns his head and shoulders around and sheepishly replies, “I'm drawing a blank - um, a beer...Want one?”

All of which proves just one thing. I'm going to be late getting to work again tomorrow.

Screw you, Herman.

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