The Green Mile

9

There were no thunderstorms on the night it came John Coffey’s turn to walk the Green Mile. It was seasonably cold for those parts at that time of year, in the thirties, I’d guess, and a million stars spilled across used-up, picked-out fields where frost glittered on fenceposts and glowed like diamonds on the dry skeletons of July’s corn.

Brutus Howell was out front for this one – he would do the capping and tell Van Hay to roll when it was time. Bill Dodge was in with Van Hay. And, at around eleven-twenty on the night of November 20th, Dean and Harry and I went down to our one occupied cell, where John Coffey sat on the end of his bunk with his hands clasped between his knees and a tiny dab of meatloaf gravy on the collar of his blue shirt. He looked out through the bars at us, a lot calmer than we felt, it seemed. My hands were cold and my temples were throbbing. It was one thing to know he was willing – it made it at least possible for us to do our job – but it was another to know we were going to electrocute him for someone else’s crime.

I had last seen Hal Moores around seven that evening. He was in his office, buttoning up his overcoat. His face was pale, his hands shaking so badly that he was making quite some production of those buttons. I almost wanted to knock his fingers aside and do the coat up myself, like you would with a little kid. The irony was that Melinda had looked better when Jan and I went to see her the previous weekend than Hal had looked earlier on John Coffey’s execution evening.

‘I won’t be staying for this one,’ he had said. ‘Curtis will be there, and I know Coffey will be in good hands with you and Brutus.’

‘Yes, sir, we’ll do our best,’ I said. ‘Is there any word on Percy?’ Is he coming back around? is what I meant, of course. Is he even now sitting in a room somewhere and telling someone – some doctor, most likely – about how we zipped him into the nut-coat and threw him into the restraint room like any other problem child ... any other lugoon, in Percy’s language? And if he is, are they believing him?

But according to Hal, Percy was just the same. Not talking, and not, so far as anyone could tell, in the world at all. He was still at Indianola – ‘being evaluated,’ Hal had said, looking mystified at the phrase – but if there was no improvement, he would be moving along soon.

‘How’s Coffey holding up?’ Hal had asked then. He had finally managed to do up the last button of his coat.

I nodded. ‘He’ll be fine, Warden.’

He’d nodded back, then gone to the door, looking old and ill. ‘How can so much good and so much evil live together in the same man? How could the man who cured my wife be the same man who killed those little girls? Do you understand that?’

I had told him I didn’t, the ways of God were mysterious, there was good and evil in all of us, ours not to reason why, hotcha, hotcha, row-dee-dow. Most of what I told him were things I’d learned in the church of Praise Jesus, The Lord Is Mighty, Hal nodding the whole time and looking sort of exalted. He could afford to nod, couldn’t he? Yes. And look exalted, too. There was a deep sadness on his face – he was shaken, all right; I never doubted it – but there were no tears this time, because he had a wife to go home to, his companion to go home to, and she was fine. Thanks to John Coffey, she was well and fine and the man who had signed John’s death warrant could leave and go to her. He didn’t have to watch what came next. He would be able to sleep that night in his wife’s warmth while John Coffey lay on a slab in the basement of County Hospital, growing cool as the friendless, speechless hours moved toward dawn. And I hated Hal for those things. Just a little, and I’d get over it, but it was hate, all right. The genuine article.

Now I stepped into the cell, followed by Dean and Harry, both of them pale and downcast. ‘Are you ready, John?’ I asked.

He nodded. ‘Yes, boss. Guess so.’

‘All right, then. I got a piece to say before we go out.’

‘You say what you need to, boss.’

‘John Coffey, as an officer of the court ...’

I said it right to the end, and when I’d finished, Harry Terwilliger stepped up beside me and held out his hand. John looked surprised for a moment, then smiled and shook it. Dean, looking paler than ever, offered his next. ‘You deserve better than this, Johnny,’ he said hoarsely. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘I be all right,’ John said. ‘This the hard part; I be all right in a little while.’ He got up, and the St Christopher’s medal Melly had given him swung free of his shirt.

‘John, I ought to have that,’ I said. ‘I can put it back on you after the ... after, if you want, but I should take it for now.’ It was silver, and if it was lying against his skin when Jack Van Hay switched on the juice, it might fuse itself into his skin. Even if it didn’t do that, it was apt to electroplate, leaving a kind of charred photograph of itself on the skin of his chest. I had seen it before. I’d seen most everything during my years on the Mile. More than was good for me. I knew that now.

He slipped the chain over his head and put it in my hand. I put the medallion in my pocket and told him to step on out of the cell. There was no need to check his head and make sure the contact would be firm and the induction good; it was as smooth as the palm of my hand.

‘You know, I fell asleep this afternoon and had a dream, boss,’ he said. ‘I dreamed about Del’s mouse.’

‘Did you, John?’ I flanked him on the left. Harry took the right. Dean fell in behind, and then we were walking the Green Mile. For me, it was the last time I ever walked it with a prisoner.

‘Yep,’ he said. ‘I dreamed he got down to that place Boss Howell talked about, that Mouseville place. I dreamed there was kids, and how they laughed at his tricks! My!’ He laughed himself at the thought of it, then grew serious again. ‘I dreamed those two little blonde-headed girls were there. They ’us laughin, too. I put my arms around em and there ’us no blood comin out they hair and they ’us fine. We all watch Mr Jingles roll that spool, and how we did laugh. Fit to bus’, we was.’

‘Is that so?’ I was thinking I couldn’t go through with it, just could not, there was no way. I was going to cry or scream or maybe my heart would burst with sorrow and that would be an end to it.

We went into my office. John looked around for a moment or two, then dropped to his knees without having to be asked. Behind him, Harry was looking at me with haunted eyes. Dean was as white as paper.

I got down on my knees with John and thought there was a funny turnaround brewing here: after all the prisoners I’d had to help up so they could finish the journey, this time I was the one who was apt to need a hand. That’s the way it felt, anyway.

‘What should we pray for, boss?’ John asked.

‘Strength,’ I said without even thinking. I closed my eyes and said, ‘Lord God of Hosts, please help us finish what we’ve started, and please welcome this man, John Coffey – like the drink but not spelled the same – into heaven and give him peace. Please help us to see him off the way he deserves and let nothing go wrong. Amen.’ I opened my eyes and looked at Dean and Harry. Both of them looked a little better. Probably it was having a few moments to catch their breath. I doubt it was my praying.

I started to get up, and John caught my arm. He gave me a look that was both timid and hopeful. ‘I ’member a prayer someone taught me when I ’us little,’ he said. ‘At least I think I do. Can I say it?’

‘You go right on and do her,’ Dean said. ‘Lots of time yet, John.’

John closed his eyes and frowned with concentration. I expected now-I-lay-me-down-to-sleep, or maybe a garbled version of the Lord’s prayer, but I got neither; I had never heard what he came out with before, and have never heard it again, not that either the sentiments or expressions were particularly unusual. Holding his hands up in front of his closed eyes, John Coffey said: ‘Baby Jesus, meek and mild, pray for me, an orphan child. Be my strength, be my friend, be with me until the end. Amen.’ He opened his eyes, started to get up, then looked at me closely.

I wiped my arm across my eyes. As I listened to him, I had been thinking about Del; he had wanted to pray one more at the end, too. Holy Mary, mother of God, pray for us sinners now, and at the hour of our death. ‘Sorry, John.’

‘Don’t be,’ he said. He squeezed my arm and smiled. And then, as I’d thought he might have to do, he helped me to my feet.