The Green Mile(21)

'Well. I'll be shucked and boiled!' Bill exclaimed. 'Eats as neat as a parson on parish house Saturday night!'

'Looks more like a nigger eating watermelon to me,' Percy remarked, but neither guard paid him any mind. Neither did The Chief or The Pres, for that matter. The mouse finished the cracker but continued to sit, seemingly balanced on the talented coil of its tail, looking up at the giants in blue.

'Lemme try,' Bill said. He broke off another piece of cracker, leaned over the front of the desk, and dropped it carefully. The mouse sniffed but did not touch.

'Huh,' Bill said. 'Must be full.'

'Nah,' Dean said, 'he knows you're a floater, that's all.'

'Floater, am I? I like that! I'm here almost as much as Harry Terwilliger! Maybe more!'

'Simmer down, old-timer, simmer down,' Dean said, grinning. 'But watch and see if I'm not right.' He bombed another piece of cracker over the side. Sure enough, the mouse picked that one up and began to eat again, still ignoring Bill Dodge's contribution completely. But before it had done more than take a preliminary nibble or two, Percy threw his baton at it, launching it like a spear.

The mouse was a small target, and give the devil his due - it was a wickedly good shot, and might have taken "Willy's" head clean off, if its reflexes hadn't been as sharp as shards of broken glass. It ducked - yes, just as a human being would have - and dropped the chunk of cracker. The heavy hickory baton passed over its head and spine close enough so its fur ruffled (that's what Dean said, anyway, and so I pass it on, although I'm not sure I really believe it), then hit the green linoleum and bounced against the bars of an empty cell. The mouse didn't wait to see if it was a mistake; apparently remembering a pressing engagement elsewhere, it turned and was off down the corridor toward the restraint room in a flash.

Percy roared with frustration - he knew how close he had come - and chased after it again. Bill Dodge grabbed at his arm, probably out of simple instinct, but Percy pulled away from him. Still, Dean said, it was probably that grab which saved Steamboat Willy's life, and it was still a near thing. Percy wanted not just to kill the mouse but to squash it, so he ran in big, comical leaps, like a deer, stamping down with his heavy black workshoes. The mouse barely avoided Percy's last two jumps, first zigging and then zagging. It went under the door with a final flick of its long pink tail, and so long, stranger - it was gone.

'Fuck!' Percy said, and slammed the flat of his hand against the door. Then he began to sort through his keys, meaning to go into the restraint room and continue the chase.

Dean came down the corridor after him, deliberately walking slow in order to get his emotions under control. Part of him wanted to laugh at Percy, he told me, but part of him wanted to grab the man, whirl him around, pin him against the restraint-room door, and whale the living daylights out of him. Most of it, of course, was just being startled; our job on E Block was to keep rumpus to a minimum, and rumpus was practically Percy Wetmore's middle name. Working with him was sort of like trying to defuse a bomb with somebody standing behind you and every now and then clashing a pair of cymbals together. In a word, upsetting. Dean said he could see that upset in Arlen Bitterbucks eyes... even in The President's eyes, although that gentleman was usually as cool as the storied cucumber.

And there was something else, as well. In some part of his mind, Dean had already begun to accept the mouse as - well, maybe not as a friend, but as a part of life on the block. That made what Percy had done and what he was trying to do not right. Not even if it was a mouse he was trying to do it to. And the fact that Percy would never understand how come it wasn't right was pretty much the perfect example of why he was all wrong for the job he thought he was doing.

By the time Dean reached the end of the corridor, he had gotten himself under control again, and knew how he wanted to handle the matter. The one thing Percy absolutely couldn't stand was to look foolish, and we all knew it.

'Coises, foiled again,' he said, grinning a little, kidding Percy along.

Percy gave him an ugly look and flicked his hair off his brow. 'Match your mouth, Four-Eyes. I'm riled. Don't make it worse.'

'So it's moving day again, is it?' Dean said, not quite laughing... but laughing with his eyes. 'Well, when you get everything out this time, would you mind mopping the floor?'

Percy looked at the door. Looked at his keys. Thought about another long, hot, fruitless rummage in the room with the soft walls while they all stood around and watched him... The Chief and The Pres, too.

'I'll be damned if I understand what's so funny,' he said. 'We don't need mice in the cellblock - we got enough vermin in here already, without adding mice.'

'Whatever you say, Percy,' Dean said, holding up his hands. He had a moment right there, he told me the next night, when he believed Percy might just take after him.

Bill Dodge strolled up then and smoothed it over. 'Think you dropped this,' he said, and handed Percy his baton. 'An inch lower, you woulda broken the little barstid's back.'

Percy's chest expanded at that. 'Yeah, it wasn't a bad shot,' he said, carefully re-seating his headknocker in its foolish holster. 'I used to be a pitcher in high school. Threw two no-hitters.'

'Is that right, now?' Bill said, and the respectful tone of voice (although he winked at Dean when Percy turned away) was enough to finish defusing the situation.