The Mouse on the Mile 12 page

cell. Brutal looked at me and winked.

Late the next day, William Wharton, who was Billy the Kid to himself and never that bushwhacking

John Law Wild Bill Hickok, bought a moon-pie from Old Toot-Toot. Wharton had been expressly

forbidden any such commerce, but the afternoon crew was composed of floaters, as I think I have said,

and the deal went down. Toot himself undoubtedly knew better, but to him the snack-wagon was always

a case of a nickel is a nickel, a dime is a dime, I'd sing another chorus but I don't have the time.

That night, when Brutal ran his check-round, Wharton was standing at the door of his cell. He waited

until Brutal looked up at him, then slammed the heels of his hands into his bulging cheeks and shot a

thick and amazingly long stream of chocolate sludge into Brutal's face. He had crammed the entire

moon-pie into his trap, held it there until it liquefied, and then used it like chewing tobacco.

Wharton fell back on his bunk wearing a chocolate goatee, kicking his legs and screaming with laughter

and pointing to Brutal, who was wearing a lot more than a goatee. "Li'l Black Sambo, yassuh, boss,

yassuh, howdoo you do?" Wharton held his belly and howled. "Gosh, if it had only been ka-ka! I wish it

had been! If I'd had me some of that---"

"You are ka-ka," Brutal growled, "and I hope you got your bags packed, because you're going back down

to your favorite toilet."

Once again Wharton was bundled into the strait jacket, and once again we stowed him in the room with

the soft walls. Two days, this time. Sometimes we could hear him raving in there, sometimes we could

hear him promising that he'd be good, that he'd come to his senses and be good, and sometimes we could

hear him screaming that he needed a doctor, that he was dying. Mostly, though, he was silent. And he

was silent when we took him out again, too, walking, back to his cell with his head down and his eyes

dull, not responding when Harry said, "Remember, it's up to you." He would be all right for a while, and

then he'd try something else. There was nothing he did that hadn't been tried before (well, except for the

thing with the moon-pie, maybe; even Brutal admitted that was pretty original), but his sheer persistence

was scary. I was afraid that sooner or later someone's attention might lapse and there would be hell to

pay. And the situation might continue for quite awhile, because somewhere he had a lawyer who was

beating the bushes, telling folks how wrong it would be to kill this fellow upon whose brow the dew of

youth had not yet dried - and who was, incidentally, as white as old Jeff Davis. There was no sense

complaining about it, because keeping Wharton out of the chair was his lawyer's job. Keeping him safely

jugged was ours. And in the end, Old Sparky would almost certainly have him, lawyer or no lawyer.

6.

That was the week Melinda Moores, the warden's wife, came home from Indianola. The doctors were

done with her; they had their interesting, newfangled X-ray photographs of the tumor in her head; they

had documented the weakness in her hand and the paralyzing pains that racked her almost constantly by

then, and were done with her. They gave her husband a bunch of pills with morphine in them and sent

Melinda home to die. Hal Moores had some sick-leave piled up - not a lot, they didn't give you a lot in

those days, but he took what he had so he could help her do what she had to do.

My wife and I went to see her three days or so after she came home. I called ahead and Hal said yes, that

would be fine, Melinda was having a pretty good day and would enjoy seeing us.

"I hate calls like this," I said to Janice as we drove to the little house where the Mooreses had spent most

of their marriage.

"So does everyone, honey," she said, and patted my hand. "We'll bear up under it, and so will she."

"I hope so."

We found Melinda in the sitting room, planted in a bright slant of unseasonably warm October sun, and

my first shocked thought was that she had lost ninety pounds. She hadn't, of course - if she'd lost that

much weight, she hardly would have been there at all - but that was my brain's initial reaction to what my

eyes were reporting. Her face had fallen away to show the shape of the underlying skull, and her skin

was as white as parchment. There were dark circles under her eyes. And it was the first time I ever saw

her in her rocker when she didn't have a lapful of sewing or afghan squares or rags for braiding into a

rug. She was just sitting there. Like a person in a train-station.

"Melinda," my wife said warmly. I think she was as shocked as I was - more, perhaps - but she hid it

splendidly, as some women seem able to do. She went to Melinda, dropped on one knee beside the

rocking chair in which the warden's wife sat, and took one of her hands. As she did, my eye happened on

the blue hearthrug by the fireplace. It occurred to me that it should have been the shade of tired old limes,

because now this room was just another version of the Green Mile.

"I brought you some tea," Jan said, "the kind I put up myself. It's a nice sleepy tea. I've left it in the

kitchen."

"Thank you so much, darlin," Melinda said. Her voice sounded old and rusty

"How you feeling, dear?" my wife asked.

"Better," Melinda said in her rusty, grating voice. "Not so's I want to go out to a barn dance, but at least

there's no pain today. They give me some pills for the headaches. Sometimes they even work."

"That's good, isn't it?"

"But I can't grip so well. Something's happened ... to my hand." She raised it, looked at it as if she had

never seen it before, then lowered it back into her lap. "Something's happened ... all over me." She began

to cry in a soundless way that made me think of John Coffey. It started to chime in my head again, that

thing he'd said: I helped it, didn't I? I helped it, didn't I? Like a rhyme you can't get rid of.

Hal came in then. He collared me, and you can believe me when I say I was glad to be collared. We went

into the kitchen, and he poured me half a shot of white whiskey, hot stuff fresh out of some countryman's

still. We clinked our glasses together and drank. The shine went down like coal-oil, but the bloom in the

belly was heaven. Still, when Moores tipped the mason jar at me, wordlessly asking if I wanted the other

half, I shook my head and waved it off. Wild Bill Wharton was out of restraints - for the time being,

anyway - and it wouldn't be safe to go near where he was with a booze-clouded head. Not even with bars

between us.

"I don't know how long I can take this, Paul," he said in a low voice. "There's a girl who comes in

mornings to help me with her, but the doctors I say she may lose control of her bowels, and ... and ..."

He stopped, his throat working, trying hard not to cry in front of me again.

"Go with it as best you can," I said. I reached out across the table and briefly squeezed his palsied,

liverspotted hand. "Do that day by day and give the rest over to God. There's nothing else you can do, is

there?"

"I guess not. But it's hard, Paul. I pray you never have to find out how hard."

He made an effort to collect himself.

"Now tell me the news. How are you doing with William Wharton? And how are you making out with

Percy Wetmore?"

We talked shop for a while, and got through the visit. After, all the way home, with my wife sitting

silent, for the most part - wet-eyed and thoughtful - in the passenger seat beside me, Coffey's words ran

around in my head like Mr. Jingles running around in Delacroix's cell: I helped it, didn't I?

"It's terrible," my wife said dully at one point. "And there's nothing anyone can do to help her."

I nodded agreement and thought, I helped it, didn't I? But that was crazy, and I tried as best I could to put

it out of my mind.

As we turned into our dooryard, she finally spoke a second time - not about her old friend Melinda, but

about my urinary infection. She wanted to know if it was really gone. Really gone, I told her.

"That's fine, then," she said, and kissed me over the eyebrow, in that shivery place of mine. "Maybe we

ought to, you know, get up to a little something. If you have the time and the inclination, that is."

Having plenty of the latter and just enough of the former, I took her by the hand and led her into the back

bedroom and took her clothes off as she stroked the part of me that swelled and throbbed but didn't hurt

anymore. And as I moved in her sweetness, slipping through it in that slow way she liked - that we both

liked - I thought of John Coffey, saying he'd helped it, he'd helped it, hadn't he? Like a snatch of song

that won't leave your mind until it's damned good and ready.

Later, as I drove to the prison, I got to thinking that very soon we would have to start rehearsing for

Delacroix's execution. That thought led to how Percy was going to be out front this time, and I felt a

shiver of dread. I told myself to just go with it, one execution and we'd very likely be shut of Percy

Wetmore for good ... but still I felt that shiver, as if the infection I'd been suffering with wasn't gone at

all, but had only switched locations, from boiling my groin to freezing my backbone.

7.

"Come on," Brutal told Delacroix the following evening. "We're going for a little walk. You and me and

Mr. Jingles."

Delacroix looked at him distrustfully, then reached down into the cigar box for the mouse. He cupped it

m the palm of one hand and looked at Brutal with narrowed eyes.

"Whatchoo talking about?" he asked.

"It's a big night for you and Mr. Jingles," Dean said, as he and Harry joined Brutal. The chain of bruises

around Dean's neck had gone an unpleasant yellow color, but at least he could talk again without

sounding like a dog barking at a cat. He looked at Brutal. "Think we ought to put the shackles on him,

Brute?"

Brutal appeared to consider. "Naw," he said at last. "He's gonna be good, ain't you, Del? You and the

mouse, both. After all, you're gonna be showin off for some high muck-a-mucks tonight."

Percy and I were standing up by the duty desk, watching this, Percy with his arms folded and a small,

contemptuous smile on his lips. After a bit, he took out his horn comb and went to work on his hair with

it. John Coffey was watching, too, standing silently at the bars of his cell. Wharton was lying on his

bunk, staring up at the ceiling and ignoring the whole show. He was still "being good," although what he

called good was what the docs at Briar Ridge called catatonic. And there was one other person there, as

well. He was tucked out of sight in my office, but his skinny shadow fell out the door and onto the Green

Mile.

"What dis about, you gran' 'fou?" Del asked querulously, drawing his feet up on the bunk as Brutal undid

the double locks on his cell door and ran it open. His eyes flicked back and forth among the three of

them.

"Well, I tell you," Brutal said. "Mr. Moores is gone for awhile - his wife is under the weather, as you may

have heard. So Mr. Anderson is in charge, Mr. Curtis Anderson."

"Yeah? What that. got to do with me?"

"Well," Harry said, "Boss Anderson's heard about your mouse, Del, and wants to see him perform. He

and about six other fellows are over in Admin, just waiting for you to show up. Not just plain old bluesuit

guards, either. These are pretty big bugs, just like Brute said. One of them, I believe, is a politician all the

way from the state capital."

Delacroix swelled visibly at this, and I saw not so much as a single shred of doubt on his face. Of course

they wanted to see Mr. Jingles; who would not?

He scrummed around, first under his bunk and then under his pillow. He eventually found one of those

big pink peppermints and the wildly colored spool. He looked at Brutal questioningly, and Brutal

nodded.

"Yep. It's the spool trick they're really wild to see, I guess, but the way he eats those mints is pretty

damned cute, too. And don't forget the cigar box. You'll want it to carry him in, right?"

Delacroix got the box and put Mr. Jingles's props in it, but mouse he settled on the shoulder of his shirt.

Then he stepped out of his cell, his puffed-out chest leading the way, and regarded Dean and Harry. "You

boys coming?"

"Naw," Dean said. "Got other fish to fry. But you knock em for a loop, Del - show em what happens

when a Louisiana boy puts the hammer down and really goes to work."

"You bet." A smile shone out of his face, so sudden and so simple in its happiness that I felt my heart

break for him a little, in spite of the terrible thing he had done. What a world we live in - what a world!

Delacroix turned to John Coffey, with whom he had struck up a diffident friendship not much different

from a hundred other deathhouse acquaintances I'd seen.

"You knock em for a loop, Del," Coffey said in a serious voice. "You show em all his tricks."

Delacroix nodded and held his hand up by his shoulder. Mr. Jingles stepped onto it like it was a platform,

and Delacroix held the hand out toward Coffey's cell. John Coffey stuck out a huge finger, and I'll be

damned if that mouse didn't stretch out his neck and lick the end of it, just like a dog.

"Come on, Del, quit lingerin," Brutal said. "These folks're settin back a hot dinner at home to watch your

mouse cut his capers." Not true, of course Anderson would have been there until eight o'clock on any

night, and the guards he'd dragged in to watch Delacroix's "show" would be there until eleven or twelve,

depending on when their shifts were scheduled to end. The politician from the state capital would most

likely turn out to be an office janitor in a borrowed tie. But Delacroix had no way of knowing any of that.

"I'm ready," Delacroix said, speaking with the simplicity of a great star who has somehow managed to

retain the common touch. "Let's go." And as Brutal led him up the Green Mile with Mr. Jingles perched

there on the little man's shoulder, Delacroix once more began to bugle, "Messieurs et mesdames!

Bienvenue au cirque de mousie!" Yet, even lost as deeply in his own fantasy world as he was, he gave

Percy a wide berth and a mistrustful glance.

Harry and Dean stopped in front of the empty cell across from Wharton's (that worthy had still not so

much as stirred). They watched as Brutal unlocked the door to the exercise yard, where another two

guards were waiting to join him, and led Delacroix out, bound for his command performance before the

grand high poohbahs of Cold Mountain Penitentiary. We waited until the door was locked again, and

then I looked toward my office. That shadow was still lying on the floor, thin as famine, and I was glad

Delacroix had been too excited to see it.

"Come on out," I said. "And let's move along brisk, folks. I want to get two run-throughs in, and we don't

have much time."

Old Toot-Toot, looking as bright-eyed and bushytailed as ever, came out, walked to Delacroix's cell, and

strolled in through the open door. "Sittin down," he said. "I'm sittin down, I'm sittin down, I'm sittin

down."

This is the real circus, I thought, closing my eyes for a second. This is the real circus right here, and we're

all just a bunch of trained mice. Then I put the thought out of my mind, and we started to rehearse.

8.

The first rehearsal went well, and so did the second. Percy performed better than I could have hoped for

in my wildest dreams. That didn't mean things would go right when the time really came for the Cajun to

walk the Mile, but it was a big step in the right direction. It occurred to me that it had gone well because

Percy was at long last doing something he cared about. I felt a surge of contempt at that, and pushed it

away. What did it matter? He would cap Delacroix and roll him, and then both of them would be gone. If

that wasn't a happy ending, what was? And, as Moores had pointed out, Delacroix's nuts were going to

fry no matter who was out front.

Still, Percy had shown to good advantage in his new role and he knew it. We all did. As for me, I was too

relieved to dislike him much, at east or the time being. It looked as if things were going to go all right. I

was further relieved to find that Percy actually listened when we suggested some things he could do that

might improve his performance even more, or at least cut down the possibility of something going

wrong. If you want to know the truth, we got pretty enthusiastic about it - even Dean, who ordinarily

stood well back from Percy - physically as well as mentally, if he could. None of it that surprising, either,

I suppose - for most men, nothing is more flattering than having a young person actually pay attention to

his advice, and we were no different in that regard. As a result, not a one of us noticed that Wild Bill

Wharton was no longer looking up at the ceiling. That includes me, but I know he wasn't. He was looking

at us as we stood there by the duty desk, gassing and giving Percy advice. Giving him advice! And him

pretending to listen! Quite a laugh, considering how things turned out!

The sound of a key rattling into the lock of the door to the exercise yard put an end to our little

postrehearsal critique. Dean gave Percy a warning glance. "Not a word or a wrong look," he said. "We

don't want him to know what we've been doing. It's not good for them. Upsets them."

Percy nodded and ran a finger across his lips in a mum's-the-word gesture that was supposed to be funny

and wasn't. The exercise-yard door opened and Delacroix came in, escorted by Brutal, who was carrying

the cigar box with the colored spool in it, the way the magician's assistant in a vaudeville show might

carry the boss's props offstage at the end of the act. Mr. Jingles was perched on Delacroix's shoulder.

And Delacroix himself? I -tell you what - Lillie Langtry couldn't have looked any glowier after

performing at the White House. "They love Mr. Jingles!"

Delacroix proclaimed. "They laugh and cheer and clap they hands!"

"Well, that's aces," Percy said. He spoke in an indulgent, proprietary way that didn't sound like the old

Percy at all. "Pop on back in your cell, old-timer."

Delacroix gave him a comical look of distrust, and the old Percy came busting out. He bared his teeth in

a mock snarl and made as if to grab Delacroix. It was a joke, of course, Percy was happy, not in a serious

grabbing mood at all, but Delacroix didn't know that. He jerked away with an expression of fear and

dismay, and tripped over one of Brutal's big feet. He went down hard, hitting the linoleum with the back

of his head. Mr. Jingles leaped away in time to avoid being crushed, and went squeaking off down the

Green Mile to Delacroix's cell.

Delacroix got to his feet, gave the chuckling Percy a single hate-filled glance, then scurried off after his

pet, calling for him and rubbing the back of his head. Brutal (who didn't know that Percy had shown

exciting signs of competency for a change) gave Percy a wordless look of contempt and went after Del,

shaking his keys out.

I think what happened next happened because Percy was actually moved to apologize - I know it's hard

to believe, but he was in an extraordinary humor that day. If true, it only proves a cynical old adage I

heard once, something about how no good deed goes unpunished. Remember me telling you about how,

after he'd chased the mouse down to the restraint room on one of those two occasions before Delacroix

joined us, Perry got a little too close to The Pres's cell? Doing that was dangerous, which was why the

Green Mile was so wide - when you walked straight down the middle of it, you couldn't be reached from

the cells. The Pres hadn't done anything to Percy, but I remember thinking that Arlen Bitterbuck might

have, had it been him Percy had gotten too close to. just to teach him a lesson.

Well, The Pres and The Chief had both moved on, but Wild Bill Wharton had taken their place. He was

worse-mannered than The Pres or The Chief had ever dreamed of being, and he'd been watching the

whole little play, hoping for a chance to get on stage himself. That chance now fell into his lap, courtesy

of Percy Wetmore.

"Hey, Del!" Percy called, half-laughing, starting after Brutal and Delacroix and drifting much too close

to Wharton's side of the Green Mile without realizing it. "Hey, you numb shit, I didn't mean nothin by it!

Are you all ri-"

Wharton was up off his bunk and over to the bars of his cell in a flash - never in my time as a guard did I

see anyone move so fast, and that includes some of the athletic young men Brutal and I worked with later

at Boys' Correctional. He shot his arms out through the bars and grabbed Percy, first by the shoulders of

his uniform blouse and then by the throat. Wharton dragged him back against his cell door. Percy

squealed like a pig in a slaughter-chute, and I saw from his eyes that he thought he was going to die.

"Ain't you sweet," Wharton whispered. One hand left Percy's throat and ruffled through his hair. "Soft!"

he said, half-laughing. "Like a girl's. I druther fuck your asshole than your sister's pussy, I think." And he

actually kissed Percy's ear.

I think Percy - who had beat Delacroix onto the block for accidentally brushing his crotch, remember -

knew exactly what was happening. I doubt that he wanted to, but I think he did. All the color had drained

from his face, and the blemishes on his cheeks stood out like birthmarks. His eyes were huge and wet. A

line of spittle leaked from one comer of his twitching mouth. All this happened quick - it was begun and

done in less than ten seconds, I'd say.

Harry and I stepped forward, our billies raised. Dean drew his gun. But before things could go so much

as an inch further, Wharton let go of Perry and stepped back, raising his hands to his shoulders and

grinning his dank grin. "I let im go, I 'us just playin and I let im go," he said. "Never hurt airy single hair

on that boy's purty head, so don't you go stickin me down in that goddam soft room again."

Percy Wetmore darted across the Green Mile and cringed against the barred door of the empty cell on the

other side, breathing so fast and so loud that it sounded almost like sobbing. He had finally gotten his

lesson in keeping to the center of the Green Mile and away from the frumious bandersnatch, the teeth

that bite and the claws that catch. I had an idea it was a lesson that would stick with him longer than all

the advice we'd given him after our rehearsals.

There was an expression of utter terror on his face, and his precious hair was seriously mussed up for the

first time since I'd met him, all in spikes and tangles. He looked like someone who has just escaped being

raped.

There was a moment of utter stop then, a quiet so thick that the only sound was the sobbing whistle of

Percy's breathing. What broke it was cackling laughter, so sudden and so completely its own mad thing

that it was shocking. Wharton, was my first thought, but it wasn't him. It was Delacroix, standing in the

open door of his cell and pointing at Percy. The mouse was back on his shoulder, and Delacroix looked

like a small but malevolent male witch, complete with imp.

"Lookit him, he done piss his pants!" Delacroix howled. "Lookit what the big man done! Bus' other

people wid 'is stick, mais oui some mauvais homme, but when someone touch him, he make water in 'is

pants jus' like a baby!"

He laughed and pointed, all his fear and hatred of Percy coming out in that derisive laughter. Percy stared

at him, seemingly incapable of moving or speaking. Wharton stepped back to the bars of his cell, looked

down at the dark splotch on the front of Percy's trousers - it was small but it was there, and no question

about what it was - and grinned. "Somebody ought to buy the tough boy a didy," he said, and went back

to his bunk, chuffing laughter.

Brutal went down to Delacroix's cell, but the Cajun had ducked inside and thrown himself on his bunk

before Brutal could get there.

I reached out and grasped Percy's shoulder. "Percy-" I began, but that was as far as I got. He came to life,

shaking my hand off. He looked down at the front of his pants, saw the spot spreading there, and blushed

a dark, fiery red. He looked up at me again, then at Harry and Dean. I remember being glad that Old

Toot-Toot was gone. If he'd been around, the story would have been all over the prison in a single day.

And, given Percy's last name-an unfortunate one, in this context - it was a story that would have been

told with the relish of high glee for years to come.

"You talk about this to anyone, and you'll all be on the breadlines in a week," he whispered fiercely. It

was the sort of crack that would have made me want to swat him under other circumstances, but under

these, I only pitied him. I think he saw that pity, and it made it worse with him - like having an open

wound scoured with nettles.

'"What goes on here stays here," Dean said quietly. "You don't have to worry about that."

Percy looked back over his shoulder, toward Delacroix's cell. Brutal was just locking the door, and from

inside, deadly clear, we could still hear Delacroix giggling. Percy's look was as black as thunder. I

thought of telling him that you reaped what you sowed in this life, and then decided this might not be the

right time for a scripture lesson.

"As for him - " he began, but never finished. He left, instead, head down, to go into the storage room and

look for a dry pair of pants.

"He's so purty," Wharton said in a dreamy voice. Harry told him to shut the fuck up before he went down

to the restraint room just on general damned principles. Wharton folded his arms on his chest, closed his

eyes, and appeared to go to sleep.

9.

The night before Delacroix's execution came down hotter and muggier than ever - eighty-one degrees by

the thermometer outside the Admin readyroom window when I clocked in at six. Eighty-one degrees at

the end of October, think of that, and thunder rumbling in the west like it does in July. I'd met a member

of my congregation in town that afternoon, and he had asked me, with apparent seriousness, if I thought

such unseasonable weather could be a sign of the Last Times. I said that I was sure not, but it crossed my

mind that it was Last Times for Eduard Delacroix, all right. Yes indeed it was.

Bill Dodge was standing in the door to the exercise yard, drinking coffee and smoking him a little smoke.

He looked around at me and said, "Well, lookit here. Paul Edgecombe, big as life and twice as ugly."

"How'd the day go, Billy?"

"All right."

"Delacroix?"

"Fine. He seems to understand it's tomorrow, and yet it's like he don't understand. You know how most

Date: 2015-12-17; view: 559