Home Random Page


CATEGORIES:

BiologyChemistryConstructionCultureEcologyEconomyElectronicsFinanceGeographyHistoryInformaticsLawMathematicsMechanicsMedicineOtherPedagogyPhilosophyPhysicsPolicyPsychologySociologySportTourism






The Mouse on the Mile 7 page

started. What I didn't realize was how many doors the act of writing unlocks, as if my Dad's old fountain

pen wasn't really a pen at all, but some strange variety of skeleton key. The mouse is probably the best

example of what I'm talking about - Steamboat Willy, Mr. Jingles, the mouse on the Mile. Until I started

to write, I never realized how important he (yes, he) was. The way he seemed to be looking for Delacroix

before Delacroix arrived, for instance - I don't think that ever occurred to me, not to my conscious mind,

anyway, until I began to write and remember.

I guess what I'm saying is that I didn't realize how far back I'd have to go in order to tell you about John

Coffey, or how long I'd have to leave him there in his cell, a man so huge his feet didn't just stick off the

end of his bunk but hung down all the way to the floor. I don't want you to forget him, all right? I want

you to see him there, looking up at the ceiling of his cell, weeping his silent tears, or putting his arms

over his face. I want you to hear him, his sighs that trembled like sobs, his occasional watery groan.

These weren't the sounds of agony and regret we sometimes heard on E Block, sharp cries with splinters

of remorse in them; like his wet eyes, they were somehow removed from the pain we were used to

dealing with. In a way - I know how crazy this will sound, of course I do, but there is no sense in writing

something as long as this if you can't say what feels true to your heart - in a way it was as if it was sorrow

for the whole world he felt, something too big ever to be completely eased. Sometimes I sat and talked to

him, as I did with all of them - talking was our biggest, most important job, as I believe I have said - and

I tried to comfort him. I don't feel that I ever did, and part of my heart was glad he was suffering, you

know. Felt he deserved to suffer. I even thought sometimes of calling the governor (or getting Percy to

do it - hell, he was Percy's damn uncle, not mine) and asking for a stay of execution. We shouldn't burn

him yet, I'd say It's still hurting him too much, biting into him too much, twisting in his guts like a nice

sharp stick. Give him another ninety days, your honor, sir. Let him go on doing to himself what we can't

do to him.

It's that John Coffey I'd have you keep to one side of your mind while I finish catching up to where I

started - that John Coffey lying on his bunk, that John Coffey who was afraid of the dark perhaps with

good reason, for in the dark might not two shapes with blonde curls - no longer little girls but avenging

harpies - be waiting for him? That John Coffey whose eyes were always streaming tears, like blood from

a wound that can never heal.

7.

So The Chief burned and The President walked - as far as C Block, anyway, which was home to most of

Cold Mountain's hundred and fifty lifers. Life for The Pres turned out to be twelve years. He was

drowned in the prison laundry in 1944. Not the Cold Mountain prison laundry; Cold Mountain closed in



1933. I don't suppose it mattered much to the inmates - wars is walls, as the cons say, and Old Sparky

was every bit as lethal in his own little stone death chamber, I reckon, as he'd ever been in the storage

room at Cold Mountain.

As for The Pres, someone shoved him face-first into a vat of dry-cleaning fluid and held him there. When

the guards pulled him out again, his face was almost entirely gone. They had to ID him by his

fingerprints. On the whole, he might have been better off with Old Sparky ... but then he never would

have had those extra twelve years, would he? I doubt he thought much about them, though, in the last

minute or so of his life, when his lungs were trying to learn how to breathe Hexlite and lye cleanser.

They never caught whoever did for him. By then I was out of the corrections line of work, but Harry

Terwilliger wrote and told me. "He got commuted mostly because he was white," Harry wrote, "but he

got it in the end, just the same. I just think of it as a long stay of execution that finally ran out."

There was a quiet time for us in E Block, once The Pres was gone. Harry and Dean were temporarily

reassigned, and it was just me, Brutal, and Percy on the Green Mile for a little bit. Which actually meant

just me and Brutal, because Percy kept pretty much to himself. I tell you, that young man was a genius at

finding things not to do. And every so often (but only when Percy wasn't around), the other guys would

show up to have what Harry liked to call "a good gab." On many of these occasions the mouse would

also show up. We'd feed him and he'd sit there eating, just as solemn as Solomon, watching us with his

bright little oilspot eyes.

That was a good few weeks, calm and easy even with Percy's more than occasional carping. But all good

things come to an end, and on a rainy Monday in late July - have I told you how rainy and dank that

summer was? - I found myself sitting on the bunk of an open cell and waiting for Eduard Delacroix.

He came with an unexpected bang. The door leading into the exercise yard slammed open, letting in a

flood of light, there was a confused rattle of chains, a frightened voice babbling away in a mixture of

English and Cajun French (a patois the cons at Cold Mountain used to call da bayou), and Brutal

hollering, "Hey! Quit it! For Chrissakes! Quit it, Percy!"

I had been half-dozing on what was to become Delacroix's bunk, but I was up in a hurry, my heart

slugging away hard in my chest. Noise of that kind on E Block almost never happened until Percy came;

he brought it along with him like a bad smell.

"Come on, you fuckin French-fried faggot!" Percy yelled, ignoring Brutal completely. And here he came,

dragging a guy not much bigger than a bowling pin by one arm. In his other hand, Percy had his baton.

His teeth were bared in a strained grimace, and his face was bright red. Yet he did not look entirely

unhappy. Delacroix was trying to keep up with him, but he had the legirons on, and no matter how fast

he shuffled his feet, Percy pulled him along faster. I sprang out of the cell just in time to catch him as he

fell, and that was how Del and I were introduced.

Percy rounded on him, baton raised, and I held him back with one arm. Brutal came puffing up to us,

looking as shocked and nonplussed by all this as I felt.

"Don't let him hit me no mo, m'sieu," Delacroix babbled. "S'il vous plait, s'il vous plait!"

"Let me at im, let me at im!" Percy cried, lunging forward. He began to hit at Delacroix's shoulders with

his baton. Delacroix held his arms up, screaming, and the stick went whap-whap-whap against the

sleeves of his blue prison shirt. I saw him that night with the shirt off, and that boy had bruises from

Christmas to Easter. Seeing them made me feel bad. He was a murderer, and nobody's darling, but that's

not the way we did things on E Block. Not until Percy came, anyhow.

"Whoa! Whoa!" I roared. "Quit that! What's it all about, anyway?" I was trying to get my body in

between Delacroix's and Percy's, but it wasn't working very well. Percy's club continued to flail away,

now on one side of me and now on the other. Sooner or later he was going to bring one down on me

instead of on his intended target, and then there was going to be a brawl right here in this corridor, no

matter who his relations were. I wouldn't be able to help myself, and Brutal was apt to join in. In some

ways, you know, I wish we'd done it. It might have changed some of the things that happened later on.

"Fucking faggot! I'll teach you to keep your hands off me, you lousy bum-puncher!"

Whap! Whap! Whap! And now Delacroix was bleeding from one ear and screaming. I gave up trying to

shield him, grabbed him by one shoulder, and hurled him into his cell, where he went sprawling on the

bunk. Percy darted around me and gave him a final hard whap on the butt - one to go on, you could say.

Then Brutal grabbed him - Percy - I mean - by the shoulders and hauled him across the corridor.

I grabbed the cell door and ran it shut on its tracks. Then I turned to Percy, my shock and bewilderment

at war with pure fury. Percy had been around about several months at that point, long enough for all of us

to decide we didn't like him very much, but that was the first time I fully understood how out of control

he was.

He stood watching me, not entirely without fear - he was a coward at heart, I never had any doubt of that

- but still confident that his connections would protect him. In that he was correct. I suspect there are

people who wouldn't understand why that was, even after all I've said, but they would be people who

only know the phrase Great Depression from the history books. If you were there, it was a lot more than

a phrase in a book, and if you had a steady job, brother, you'd do almost anything to keep it.

The color was fading out of Percy's face a little by then, but his cheeks were still flushed, and his hair,

which was usually swept back and gleaming with brilliantine, had tumbled over his forehead.

"What in the Christ was that all about?" I asked. "I have never - I have never! - had a prisoner beaten

onto my block before!"

"Little fag bastard tried to cop my joint when I pulled him out of the van," Percy said. "He had it coming,

and I'd do it again."

I looked at him, too flabbergasted for words. I couldn't imagine the most predatory homosexual on God's

green earth doing what Percy had just described. Preparing to move into a crossbar apartment on the

Green Mile did not, as a rule, put even the most deviant of prisoners in a sexy mood.

I looked back at Delacroix, cowering on his bunk with his arms still up to protect his face. There were

cuffs on his wrists and a chain running between his ankles. Then I turned to Percy "Get out of here," I

said. "I'll want to talk to you later."

"Is this going to be in your report?" he demanded truculently. "Because if it is, I can make a report of my

own, you know."

I didn't want to make a report; I only wanted him out of my sight. I told him so.

"The matter's closed," I finished. I saw Brutal looking at me disapprovingly, but ignored it. "Go on, get

out of here. Go over to Admin and tell them you're supposed to read letters and help in the package

room."

"Sure." He had his composure back, or the crackheaded arrogance that served him as composure. He

brushed his hair back from his forehead with his hands - soft and white and small, the hands of a girl in

her early teens, you would have thought - and then approached the cell. Delacroix saw him, and he

cringed back even farther on his bunk, gibbering in a mixture of English and stewpot French.

"I ain't done with you, Pierre," he said, then jumped as one of Brutal's huge hands fell on his shoulder.

"Yes you are," Brutal said. "Now go on. Get in the breeze!"

"You don't scare me, you know," Percy said. "Not a bit!" His eyes shifted to me. "Either of you." But we

did. You could see that in his eyes as clear as day, and it made him even more dangerous. A guy like

Percy doesn't even know himself what he means to do from minute to minute and second to second.

What he did right then was turn away from us and go walking up the corridor in long, arrogant strides.

He had shown the world what happened when scrawny, half-bald little Frenchmen tried to cop his joint,

by God, and he was leaving the field a victor.

I went through my set speech, all about how we had the radio - Make Believe Ballroom and Our Gal

Sunday, and how we'd treat him jake if he did the same for us. That little homily was not what you'd call

one of my great successes. He cried all the way through it, sitting huddled up at the foot of his bunk, as

far from me as he could get without actually fading into the corner. He cringed every time I moved, and I

don't think he heard one word in six. Probably just as well. I don't think that particular homily made a

whole lot of sense, anyway.

Fifteen minutes later I was back at the desk, where a shaken-looking Brutus Howell was sitting and

licking the tip of the pencil we kept with the visitors' book. "Will you stop that before you poison

yourself, for God's sake?" I asked.

"Christ almighty Jesus," he said, putting the pencil down. "I never want to have another hooraw like that

with a prisoner coming on the block."

"My Daddy always used to say things come in threes," I said.

"Well, I hope your Daddy was full of shit on that subject," Brutal said, but of course he wasn't. There was

a squall when John Coffey came in, and a fullblown storm when "Wild Bill" joined us - it's funny, but

things really do seem to come in threes. The story of our introduction to Wild Bill, how he came onto the

Mile trying to commit murder, is something I'll get to shortly; fair warning.

"What's this about Delacroix copping his joint?" I asked.

Brutal snorted. "He was ankle-chained and ole Percy was just pulling him too fast, that's all. He stumbled

and started to fall as he got out of the stagecoach. He put his hands out same as anyone would when they

start to fall, and one of them brushed the front of Percy's pants. It was a complete accident!"

"Did Percy know that, do you think?" I asked. "Was he maybe using it as an excuse just because he felt

like whaling on Delacroix a little bit? Showing him who bosses the shooting match around here?"

Brutal nodded slowly. "Yeah. I think that was probably it."

"We have to watch him, then," I said, and ran my hands, through my hair. As if the job wasn't hard

enough. "God, I hate this. I hate him."

"Me, too. And you want to know something else, Paul? I don't understand him. He's got connections, I

understand that, all right, but why would he use them to get a job on the Green fucking Mile? Anywhere

in the state pen, for that matter? Why not as a page in the state senate, or the guy who makes the

lieutenant governor's appointments? Surely his people could've gotten him something better if he'd asked

them, so why here?"

I shook my head. I didn't know. There were a lot of things I didn't know then. I suppose I was naive.

8.

After that, things went back to normal again ... for awhile, at least. Down in the county seat, the state was

preparing to bring John Coffey to trial, and Trapingus County Sheriff Homer Cribus was pooh-poohing

the idea that a lynch-mob might hurry justice along a little bit. None of that mattered to us; on E Block,

no one paid much attention to the news. Life on the Green Mile was, in a way, like life in a soundproof

room. From time to time you heard mutterings that were probably explosions in the outside world, but

that was about all. They wouldn't hurry with John Coffey; they'd want to make damned sure of him.

On a couple of occasions Percy got to ragging Delacroix, and the second time I pulled him aside and told

him to come up to my office. It wasn't my first interview with Percy on the subject of his behavior, and it

wouldn't be the last, but it was prompted by what, was probably the clearest understanding of what he

was. He had the heart of a cruel boy who goes to the zoo not so he can study the animals but so he can

throw stones at them in their cages.

"You stay away from him, now, you hear?" I said. "Unless I give you a specific order, just stay the hell

away from him."

Percy combed his hair back, then patted at it with his sweet little hands. That boy just loved touching his

hair. "I wasn't doing nothing to him," he said. "Only asking how it felt to know you had burned up some

babies, is all." Percy gave me a round-eyed, innocent stare.

"You quit with it, or there'll be a report," I said.

He laughed. "Make any report you want," he said. "Then I'll turn around and make my own. Just like I

told you when he came in. We'll see who comes off the best."

I leaned forward, hands folded on my desk, and spoke in a tone I hoped would sound like a friend being

confidential. "Brutus Howell doesn't like you much," I said. "And when Brutal doesn't like someone, he's

been known to make his own report. He isn't much shakes with a pen, and he can't quit from licking that

pencil, so he's apt to report with his fists. If you know what I mean."

Percy's complacent little smile faltered. "What are you trying to say"

"I'm not trying to say anything. I have said it. And if you tell any of your ...friends ... about this

discussion, I'll say you made the whole thing up." I looked at him all wide-eyed and earnest. "Besides,

I'm trying to be your friend, Percy. A word to the wise is sufficient, they say. And why would you want

to get into it with Delacroix in the first place? He's not worth it."

And for awhile that worked. There was peace. A couple of times I was even able to send Percy with

Dean or Harry when Delacroix's time to shower had rolled around. We had the radio at night, Delacroix

began to relax a little into the scant routine of E Block, and there was peace.

Then, one night, I heard him laughing.

Harry Terwilliger was on the desk, and soon he was laughing, too. I got up and went on down to

Delacroix's cell to see what he possibly had to laugh about.

"Look, Cap'n" he said when he saw me. "I done tame me a mouse!"

It was Steamboat Willy. He was in Delacroix's cell. More: he was sitting on Delacroix's shoulder and

looking calmly out through the bars at us with his little oildrop eyes. His tail was curled around his paws,

and he looked completely at peace. As for Delacroix - friend, you wouldn't have known it was the same

man who'd sat cringing and shuddering at the foot of his bunk not a week before. He looked like my

daughter used to on Christmas morning, when she came down the stairs and saw the presents.

"Watch dis!" Delacroix said. The mouse was sitting on his right shoulder. Delacroix stretched out his left

arm. The mouse scampered up to the top of Delacroix's head, using the man's hair (which was thick

enough in back, at least) to climb up. Then he scampered down the other side, Delacroix giggling as his

tail tickled the side of his neck. The mouse ran all the way down his arm to his wrist, then turned,

scampered back up to Delacroix's left shoulder, and curled his tail around his feet again.

"I'll be damned," Harry said.

"I train him to do that," Delacroix said proudly. I thought, In a pig's ass you did, but kept my mouth shut.

"His name is Mr. Jingles."

"Nah," Harry said goodnaturedly. "It's Steamboat Willy, like in the pitcher-show. Boss Howell named

him."

"It's Mr. Jingles," Delacroix said. On any other subject he would have told you that shit was Shinola, if

you wanted him to, but on the subject of the mouse's name he was perfectly adamant. "He whisper it in

my ear. Cap'n, can I have a box for him? Can I have a box for my mous', so he can sleep in here wit me?"

His voice began to fall into wheedling tones I had heard a thousand times before. "I put him under my

bunk and he never be a scrid of trouble, not one."

"Your English gets a hell of a lot better when you want something," I said, stalling for time.

"Oh-oh," Harry murmured, nudging me. "Here comes trouble."

But Percy didn't look like trouble to me, not that night. He wasn't running his hands through his hair or

fiddling with that baton of his, and the top button of his uniform shirt was actually undone. It was the

first time I'd seen him that way, and it was amazing, what a change a little thing like that could make.

Mostly, though, what struck me was the expression on his face. There was a calmness there. Not serenity

- I don't think Percy Wetmore had a serene bone in his body - but the look of a man who has discovered

he can wait for the things he wants. It was quite a change from the young man I'd had to threaten with

Brutus Howell's fists only a few days before.

Delacroix didn't see the change, though; he cringed against the wall of his cell, drawing his knees up to

his chest. His eyes seemed to grow until they were taking up half his face. The mouse scampered up on

his bald pate and sat there. I don't know if he remembered that he also had reason to distrust Percy, but it

certainly looked as if he did. Probably it was just smelling the little Frenchman's fear, and reacting off

that.

"Well, well," Percy said. "Looks like you found yourself a friend, Eddie."

Delacroix tried to reply-some hollow defiance about what would happen to Percy if Percy hurt his new

pal would have been my guess - but nothing came out. His lower lip trembled a little, but that was all. On

top of his head, Mr. Jingles wasn't trembling. He sat perfectly still with his back feet in Delacroix's hair

and his front ones splayed on Delacroix's bald looking at Percy, seeming to size him up. The way you'd

size up an old enemy.

Percy looked at me. "Isn't that the same one I chased? The one that lives in the restraint room?"

I nodded. I had an idea Percy hadn't seen the newly named Mr. Jingles since that last chase, and he

showed no signs of wanting to chase it now.

"Yes, that's the one," I said. "Only Delacroix there says his name is Mr. Jingles, not Steamboat Willy.

Says the mouse whispered it in his ear."

"Is that so," Percy said. "Wonders never cease, do they?" I half-expected him to pull out his baton and

start tapping it against the bars, just to show Delacroix who was boss, but he only stood there with his

hands on his hips, looking in.

And for no reason I could have told you in words, I said: "Delacroix there was just asking for a box,

Percy. He thinks that mouse will sleep in it, I guess. That he can keep it for a pet." I loaded my voice

with skepticism, and sensed more than saw Harry looking at me in surprise. "What do you think about

that?"

"I think it'll probably shit up his nose some night while he's sleeping and then run away," Percy said

evenly, "but I guess that's the French boy's lookout. I seen a pretty nice cigar box on Toot-Toot's cart the

other night. I don't know if he'd give it away, though. Probably want a nickel for it, maybe even a dime."

Now I did risk a glance at Harry, and saw his mouth hanging open. This wasn't quite like the change in

Ebenezer Scrooge on Christmas morning, after the ghosts had had their way with him, but it was damned

close.

Percy leaned closer to Delacroix, putting his face between the bars. Delacroix shrank back even farther. I

swear to God that he would have melted into that wall if he'd been able.

"You got a nickel or maybe as much as a dime to pay for a cigar box, you lugoon?" he asked.

"I got four pennies,", Delacroix said. "I give them for a box, if it a good one, s'il est bon."

"I'll tell you what," Percy said. "If that toothless old whoremaster will sell you that Corona box for four

cents, I'll sneak some cotton batting out of the dispensary to line it with. We'll make us a regular Mousie

Hilton, before we're through." He shifted his eyes to me. "I'm supposed to write a switch-room report

about Bitterbuck," he said. "Is there some pens in your office, Paul?"

"Yes, indeed," I said. "Forms, too. Lefthand top drawer."

"Well, that's aces," he said, and went swaggering off.

Harry and I looked at each other. "Is he sick, do you think?" Harry asked. "Maybe went to his doctor and

found out he's only got three months to live?"

I told him I didn't have the slightest idea what was up. It was the truth then, and for awhile after, but I

found out in time. And a few years later, I had an interesting supper-table conversation with Hal Moores.

By then we could talk freely, what with him being retired and me being at the Boys' Correctional. It was

one of those meals where you drink too much and eat too little, and tongues get loosened. Hal told me

that Percy had been in to complain about me and about life on the Mile in general. This was just after

Delacroix came on the block, and Brutal and I had kept Percy from beating him half to death. What had

griped Percy the most was me telling him to get out of my sight. He didn't think a man who was related

to the governor should have to put up with talk like that.

Well, Moores told me, he had stood Percy off for as long as he could, and when it became dear to him

that Percy was going to try pulling some strings to get me reprimanded and moved to another part of the

prison at the very least, he, Moores, had pulled Percy into his office and told him that if he quit rocking

the boat, Moores would make sure that Percy was out front for Delacroix's execution. That he would, in

fact, be placed right beside the chair. I would be in charge, as always, but the witnesses wouldn't know

that; to them it would look as if Mr. Percy Wetmore was boss of the cotillion. Moores wasn't promising

any more than what we'd already discussed and I'd gone along with, but Percy didn't know that. He

agreed to leave off his threats to have me reassigned, and the atmosphere on E Block sweetened. He had

even agreed that Delacroix could keep Percy's old nemesis as a pet. It's amazing how some men can

change, given the right incentive; in Percy's case, all Warden Moores had to offer was the chance to take

a bald little Frenchman's life.

9.

Toot-Toot felt that four cents was far too little for a prime Corona cigar box, and in that he was probably

right - cigar boxes were highly prized objects in prison. A thousand different small items could be stored

in them, the smell was pleasant, and there was something about them that reminded our customers of

what it was like to be free men. Because cigarettes were permitted in prison but cigars were not, I

imagine.

Dean Stanton, who was back on the block by then, added a penny to the pot, and I kicked one in, as well.

When Toot still proved reluctant, Brutal went to work on him, first telling him he ought to be ashamed of

himself for behaving like such a cheapskate, then promising him that he, Brutus Howell, would

personally put that Corona box back in Toot's hands the day after Delacroix's execution. "Six cents might

or might not be enough if you was speaking about selling that cigar box, we could have a good old

barber-shop argument about that," Brutal said, "but you have to admit it's a great price for renting one.

He's gonna walk the Mile in a month, six weeks at the very outside. Why, that box'll be back on the shelf

under your cart almost before you know it's gone."

"He could get a soft-hearted judge to give im a stay and still be here to sing 'Should old acquaintances be

forgot,'" Toot said, but he knew better and Brutal knew he did. Old Toot-Toot had been pushing that

damned Bible-quoting cart of his around Cold Mountain since Pony Express days, practically, and he had

plenty of sources, better than ours, I thought then. He knew Delacroix was fresh out of soft-hearted


Date: 2015-12-17; view: 592


<== previous page | next page ==>
The Mouse on the Mile 6 page | The Mouse on the Mile 8 page
doclecture.net - lectures - 2014-2024 year. Copyright infringement or personal data (0.026 sec.)