The Green Mile Read online

  "Come to bed," my wife said at last. "Come to bed with me, Paul."

  So I did, and we made love, and when it was over she went to sleep. As I lay there watching the moon grin and listening to the walls tick--they were at last pulling in, exchanging summer for fall--I thought about John Coffey saying he had helped it. I helped Del's mouse. I helped Mr. Jingles. He's a circus mouse. Sure. And maybe, I thought, we were all circus mice, running around with only the dimmest awareness that God and all His heavenly host were watching us in our Bakelite houses through our ivy-glass windows.

  I slept a little as the day began to lighten--two hours, I guess, maybe three; and I slept the way I always sleep these days here in Georgia Pines and hardly ever did then, in thin little licks. What I went to sleep thinking about was the churches of my youth. The names changed, depending on the whims of my mother and her sisters, but they were all really the same, all The First Backwoods Church of Praise Jesus, The Lord Is Mighty. In the shadow of those blunt, square steeples, the concept of atonement came up as regularly as the toll of the bell which called the faithful to worship. Only God could forgive sins, could and did, washing them away in the agonal blood of His crucified Son, but that did not change the responsibility of His children to atone for those sins (and even their simple errors of judgement) whenever possible. Atonement was powerful; it was the lock on the door you closed against the past.

  I fell asleep thinking of piney-woods atonement, and Eduard Delacroix on fire as he rode the lightning, and Melinda Moores, and my big boy with the endlessly weeping eyes. These thoughts twisted their way into a dream. In it, John Coffey was sitting on a riverbank and bawling his inarticulate mooncalf's grief up at the early-summer sky while on the other bank a freight-train stormed endlessly toward a rusty trestle spanning the Trapingus. In the crook of each arm the black man held the body of a naked, blonde-haired girlchild. His fists, huge brown rocks at the ends of those arms, were closed. All around him crickets chirred and noseeums flocked; the day hummed with heat. In my dream I went to him, knelt before him, and took his hands. His fists relaxed and gave up their secrets. In one was a spool colored green and red and yellow. In the other was a prison guard's shoe.

  "I couldn't help it," John Coffey said. "I tried to take it back, but it was too late."

  And this time, in my dream, I understood him.

  8

  AT NINE O'CLOCK the next morning, while I was having a third cup of coffee in the kitchen (my wife said nothing, but I could see disapproval writ large on her face when she brought it to me), the telephone rang. I went into the parlor to take it, and Central told someone that their party was holding the line. She then told me to have a birdlarky day and rang off . . . presumably. With Central, you could never quite tell for sure.

  Hal Moores's voice shocked me. Wavery and hoarse, it sounded like the voice of an octogenarian. It occurred to me that it was good that things had gone all right with Curtis Anderson in the tunnel last night, good that he felt about the same as we did about Percy, because this man I was talking to would very likely never work another day at Cold Mountain.

  "Paul, I understand there was trouble last night. I also understand that our friend Mr. Wetmore was involved."

  "A spot of trouble," I admitted, holding the receiver tight to my ear and leaning in toward the horn, "but the job got done. That's the important thing."

  "Yes. Of course."

  "Can I ask who told you?" So I can tie a can to his tail? I didn't add.

  "You can ask, but since it's really none of your beeswax, I think I'll keep my mouth shut on that score. But when I called my office to see if there were any messages or urgent business, I was told an interesting thing."

  "Oh?"

  "Yes. Seems a transferral application landed in my basket. Percy Wetmore wants to go to Briar Ridge as soon as possible. Must have filled out the application even before last night's shift was over, wouldn't you think?"

  "It sounds that way," I agreed.

  "Ordinarily I'd let Curtis handle it, but considering the . . . atmosphere on E Block just lately, I asked Hannah to run it over to me personally on her lunch hour. She has graciously agreed to do so. I'll approve it and see it's forwarded on to the state capital this afternoon. I expect you'll get a look at Percy's backside going out the door in no more than a month. Maybe less."

  He expected me to be pleased with this news, and had a right to expect it. He had taken time out from tending his wife to expedite a matter that might otherwise have taken upwards of half a year, even with Percy's vaunted connections. Nevertheless, my heart sank. A month! But maybe it didn't matter much, one way or the other. It removed a perfectly natural desire to wait and put off a risky endeavor, and what I was now thinking about would be very risky indeed. Sometimes, when that's the case, it's better to jump before you can lose your nerve. If we were going to have to deal with Percy in any case (always assuming I could get the others to go along with my insanity--always assuming there was a we, in other words), it might as well be tonight.

  "Paul? Are you there?" His voice lowered a little, as if he thought he was now talking to himself. "Damn, I think I lost the connection."

  "No, I'm here, Hal. That's great news."

  "Yes," he agreed, and I was again struck by how old he sounded. How papery, somehow. "Oh, I know what you're thinking."

  No, you don't, Warden, I thought. Never in a million years could you know what I'm thinking.

  "You're thinking that our young friend will still be around for the Coffey execution. That's probably true--Coffey will go well before Thanksgiving, I imagine--but you can put him back in the switch room. No one will object. Including him, I should think."

  "I'll do that," I said. "Hal, how's Melinda?"

  There was a long pause--so long I might have thought I'd lost him, except for the sound of his breathing. When he spoke this time, it was in a much lower tone of voice. "She's sinking," he said.

  Sinking. That chilly word the old-timers used not to describe a person who was dying, exactly, but one who had begun to uncouple from living.

  "The headaches seem a little better . . . for now, anyway . . . but she can't walk without help, she can't pick things up, she loses control of her water while she sleeps . . ." There was another pause, and then, in an even lower voice, Hal said something that sounded like "She wears."

  "Wears what, Hal?" I asked, frowning. My wife had come into the parlor doorway. She stood there wiping her hands on a dishtowel and looking at me.

  "No," he said in a voice that seemed to waver between anger and tears. "She swears."

  "Oh." I still didn't know what he meant, but had no intention of pursuing it. I didn't have to; he did it for me.

  "She'll be all right, perfectly normal, talking about her flower-garden or a dress she saw in the catalogue, or maybe about how she heard Roosevelt on the radio and how wonderful he sounds, and then, all at once, she'll start to say the most awful things, the most awful . . . words. She doesn't raise her voice. It would almost be better if she did, I think, because then . . . you see, then . . ."

  "She wouldn't sound so much like herself."

  "That's it," he said gratefully. "But to hear her saying those awful gutter-language things in her sweet voice . . . pardon me, Paul." His voice trailed away and I heard him noisily clearing his throat. Then he came back, sounding a little stronger but just as distressed. "She wants to have Pastor Donaldson over, and I know he's a comfort to her, but how can I ask him? Suppose that he's sitting there, reading Scripture with her, and she calls him a foul name? She could; she called me one last night. She said, 'Hand me that Liberty magazine, you cocksucker, would you?' Paul, where could she have ever heard such language? How could she know those words?"

  "I don't know. Hal, are you going to be home this evening?"

  When he was well and in charge of himself, not distracted by worry or grief, Hal Moores had a cutting and sarcastic facet to his personality; his subordinates feared that side of him even more
than his anger or his contempt, I think. His sarcasm, usually impatient and often harsh, could sting like acid. A little of that now splashed on me. It was unexpected, but on the whole I was glad to hear it. All the fight hadn't gone out of him after all, it seemed.

  "No," he said, "I'm taking Melinda out square-dancing. We're going to do-si-do, allemand left, and then tell the fiddler he's a rooster-dick motherfucker."

  I clapped my hand over my mouth to keep from laughing. Mercifully, it was an urge that passed in a hurry.

  "I'm sorry," he said. "I haven't been getting much sleep lately. It's made me grouchy. Of course we're going to be home. Why do you ask?"

  "It doesn't matter, I guess," I said.

  "You weren't thinking of coming by, were you? Because if you were on last night, you'll be on tonight. Unless you've switched with somebody?"

  "No, I haven't switched," I said. "I'm on tonight."

  "It wouldn't be a good idea, anyway. Not the way she is right now."

  "Maybe not. Thanks for your news."

  "You're welcome. Pray for my Melinda, Paul."

  I said I would, thinking that I might do quite a bit more than pray. God helps those who help themselves, as they say in The Church of Praise Jesus, The Lord Is Mighty. I hung up and looked at Janice.

  "How's Melly?" she asked.

  "Not good." I told her what Hal had told me, including the part about the swearing, although I left out cocksucker and rooster-dick motherfucker. I finished with Hal's word, sinking, and Jan nodded sadly. Then she took a closer look at me.

  "What are you thinking about? You're thinking about something, probably no good. It's in your face."

  Lying was out of the question; it wasn't the way we were with each other. I just told her it was best she not know, at least for the time being.

  "Is it . . . could it get you in trouble?" She didn't sound particularly alarmed at the idea--more interested than anything--which is one of the things I have always loved about her.

  "Maybe," I said.

  "Is it a good thing?"

  "Maybe," I repeated. I was standing there, still turning the phone's crank idly with one finger, while I held down the connecting points with a finger of my other hand.

  "Would you like me to leave you alone while you use the telephone?" she asked. "Be a good little woman and butt out? Do some dishes? Knit some booties?"

  I nodded. "That's not the way I'd put it, but--"

  "Are we having extras for lunch, Paul?"

  "I hope so," I said.

  9

  I GOT BRUTAL AND DEAN right away, because both of them were on the exchange. Harry wasn't, not then, at least, but I had the number of his closest neighbor who was. Harry called me back about twenty minutes later, highly embarrassed at having to reverse the charges and sputtering promises to "pay his share" when our next bill came. I told him we'd count those chickens when they hatched; in the meantime, could he come over to my place for lunch? Brutal and Dean would be here, and Janice had promised to put out some of her famous slaw . . . not to mention her even more famous apple pie.

  "Lunch just for the hell of it?" Harry sounded skeptical.

  I admitted I had something I wanted to talk to them about, but it was best not gone into, even lightly, over the phone. Harry agreed to come. I dropped the receiver onto the prongs, went to the window, and looked out thoughtfully. Although we'd had the late shift, I hadn't wakened either Brutal or Dean, and Harry hadn't sounded like a fellow freshly turned out of dreamland, either. It seemed that I wasn't the only one having problems with what had happened last night, and considering the craziness I had in mind, that was probably good.

  Brutal, who lived closest to me, arrived at quarter past eleven. Dean showed up fifteen minutes later, and Harry--already dressed for work--about fifteen minutes after Dean. Janice served us cold beef sandwiches, slaw, and iced tea in the kitchen. Only a day before, we would have had it out on the side porch and been glad of a breeze, but the temperature had dropped a good fifteen degrees since the thunderstorm, and a keen-edged wind was snuffling down from the ridges.

  "You're welcome to sit down with us," I told my wife.

  She shook her head. "I don't think I want to know what you're up to--I'll worry less if I'm in the dark. I'll have a bite in the parlor. I'm visiting with Miss Jane Austen this week, and she's very good company."

  "Who's Jane Austen?" Harry asked when she had left. "Your side or Janice's, Paul? A cousin? Is she pretty?"

  "She's a writer, you nit," Brutal told him. "Been dead practically since Betsy Ross basted the stars on the first flag."

  "Oh." Harry looked embarrassed. "I'm not much of a reader. Radio manuals, mostly."

  "What's on your mind, Paul?" Dean asked.

  "John Coffey and Mr. Jingles, to start with." They looked surprised, which I had expected--they'd been thinking I wanted to discuss either Delacroix or Percy. Maybe both. I looked at Dean and Harry. "The thing with Mr. Jingles--what Coffey did--happened pretty fast. I don't know if you got there in time to see how broken up the mouse was or not."

  Dean shook his head. "I saw the blood on the floor, though."

  I turned to Brutal.

  "That son of a bitch Percy crushed it," he said simply. "It should have died, but it didn't. Coffey did something to it. Healed it somehow. I know how that sounds, but I saw it with my own eyes."

  I said: "He healed me, as well, and I didn't just see it, I felt it." I told them about my urinary infection--how it had come back, how bad it had been (I pointed through the window at the woodpile I'd had to hold onto the morning the pain drove me to my knees), and how it had gone away completely after Coffey touched me. And stayed away.

  It didn't take long to tell. When I was done, they sat and thought about it awhile, chewing on their sandwiches as they did. Then Dean said, "Black things came out of his mouth. Like bugs."

  "That's right," Harry agreed. "They were black to start with, anyway. Then they turned white and disappeared." He looked around, considering. "It's like I damned near forgot the whole thing until you brought it up, Paul. Ain't that funny?"

  "Nothing funny or strange about it," Brutal said. "I think that's what people most always do with the stuff they can't make out--just forget it. Doesn't do a person much good to remember stuff that doesn't make any sense. What about it, Paul? Were there bugs when he fixed you?"

  "Yes. I think they're the sickness . . . the pain . . . the hurt. He takes it in, then lets it out into the open air again."

  "Where it dies," Harry said.

  I shrugged. I didn't know if it died or not, wasn't sure it even mattered.

  "Did he suck it out of you?" Brutal asked. "He looked like he was sucking it right out of the mouse. The hurt. The . . . you know. The death."

  "No," I said. "He just touched me. And I felt it. A kind of jolt, like electricity only not painful. But I wasn't dying, only hurting."

  Brutal nodded. "The touch and the breath. Just like you hear those backwoods gospel-shouters going on about."

  "Praise Jesus, the Lord is mighty," I said.

  "I dunno if Jesus comes into it," Brutal said, "but it seems to me like John Coffey is one mighty man."

  "All right," Dean said. "If you say all this happened, I guess I believe it. God works in mysterious ways His wonders to perform. But what's it got to do with us?"

  Well, that was the big question, wasn't it? I took in a deep breath and told them what I wanted to do. They listened, dumbfounded. Even Brutal, who liked to read those magazines with the stories about little green men from space, looked dumbfounded. There was a longer silence when I finished this time, and no one chewing any sandwiches.

  At last, in a gentle and reasonable voice, Brutus Howell said: "We'd lose our jobs if we were caught, Paul, and we'd be very goddam lucky if that was all that happened. We'd probably end up over in A Block as guests of the state, making wallets and showering in pairs."

  "Yes," I said. "That could happen."

  "I can understand how
you feel, a little," he went on. "You know Moores better than us--he's your friend as well as the big boss--and I know you think a lot of his wife . . ."

  "She's the sweetest woman you could ever hope to meet," I said, "and she means the world to him."

  "But we don't know her the way you and Janice do," Brutal said. "Do we, Paul?"

  "You'd like her if you did," I said. "At least, you'd like her if you'd met her before this thing got its claws into her. She does a lot of community things, she's a good friend, and she's religious. More than that, she's funny. Used to be, anyway. She could tell you things that'd make you laugh until the tears rolled down your cheeks. But none of those things are the reason I want to help save her, if she can be saved. What's happening to her is an offense, goddammit, an offense. To the eyes and the ears and the heart."

  "Very noble, but I doubt like hell if that's what put this bee in your bonnet," Brutal said. "I think it's what happened to Del. You want to balance it off somehow."

  And he was right. Of course he was. I knew Melinda Moores better than the others did, but maybe not, in the end, well enough to ask them to risk their jobs for her . . . and possibly their freedom, as well. Or my own job and freedom, for that matter. I had two children, and the last thing on God's earth that I wanted my wife to have to do was to write them the news that their father was going on trial for . . . well, what would it be? I didn't know for sure. Aiding and abetting an escape attempt seemed the most likely.