The Green Mile(30)

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 crack-headed 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.'