The Mouse on the Mile

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 skull, 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 clear 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.