The Green Mile(54)

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 f**k your ass**le than your sister's pu**y, 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.