Stephen King - The Mouse on the Mile

THE NURSING HOME where I am crossing my last bunch of ts and dotting my last mess of is is called Georgia Pines. Its about sixty miles from Atlanta and about two hundred light-years from life as most peoplepeople under the age of eighty, lets saylive it. You who are reading this want to be careful that there isnt a place like it waiting in your future. Its not a cruel place, not for the most part; theres cable TV, the foods good (although theres damned little a man can chew), but in its way, its as much of a killing bottle as E Block at Cold Mountain ever was.

Theres even a fellow here who reminds me a little of Percy Wetmore, who got his job on the Green Mile because he was related to the governor of the state. I doubt if this fellow is related to anyone important, even though he acts that way. Brad Dolan, his name is. Hes always combing his hair, like Percy was, and hes always got something to read stuffed into his back pocket. With Percy it was magazines like Argosy and Mens Adventure; with Brad its these little paperbacks called Gross Jokes and Sick Jokes. Hes always asking people why the Frenchman crossed the road or how many Polacks it takes to screw in a lightbulb or how many pallbearers there are at a Harlem funeral. Like Percy, Brad is a dimwit who thinks nothing is funny unless its mean.

Something Brad said the other day struck me as actually smart, but I dont give him a lot of credit for it; even a stopped clock is right twice a day, the proverb has it. Youre just lucky you dont have that Alzheimers disease, Paulie, was what he said. I hate him calling me that, Paulie, but he goes on doing it, anyway; Ive given up asking him to quit. There are other sayingsnot quite proverbsthat apply to Brad Dolan: You can lead a horse to water but you cant make him drink is one; You can dress him up but you cant take him out is another. In his thickheadedness he is also like Percy.

When he made his comment about Alzheimers, he was mopping the floor of the solarium, where I had been going over the pages I have already written. Theres a great lot of them, and I think theres apt to be a great lot more before I am through. That Alzheimers, do you know what it really is?

No, I said, but Im sure youll tell me, Brad.

Its AIDS for old people, he said, and then burst out laughing, hucka-hucka-hucka-huck!, just like he does over those idiotic jokes of his.

I didnt laugh, though, because what he said struck a nerve somewhere. Not that I have Alzheimers; although theres plenty of it on view here at beautiful Georgia Pines, I myself just suffer the standard old-guy memory problems. Those problems seem to have more to do with when than what. Looking over what I have written so far, it occurs to me that I remember everything that happened back in 32; its the order of events that sometimes gets confused in my head. Yet, if Im careful, I think I can keep even that sorted out. More or less.

John Coffey came to E Block and the Green Mile in October of that year, condemned for the murder of the nine-year-old Detterick twins. Thats my major landmark, and if I keep it in view, I should do just fine. William Wild Bill Wharton came after Coffey; Delacroix came before. So did the mouse, the one Brutus HowellBrutal, to his friendscalled Steamboat Willy and Delacroix ended up calling Mr. Jingles.

Whatever you called him, the mouse came first, even before Delit was still summer when he showed up, and we had two other prisoners on the Green Mile: The Chief, Arlen Bitterbuck; and The Pres, Arthur Flanders.

That mouse. That goddam mouse. Delacroix loved it, but Percy Wetmore sure didnt.

Percy hated it from the first.

THE MOUSE came back just about three days after Percy had chased it down the Green Mile that first time. Dean Stanton and Bill Dodge were talking politics which meant, in those days, they were talking Roosevelt and HooverHerbert, not J. Edgar. They were eating Ritz crackers from a box Dean had purchased from old Toot-Toot an hour or so before. Percy was standing in the office doorway, practicing quick draws with the baton he loved so much, as he listened. Hed pull it out of that ridiculous hand-tooled holster hed gotten somewhere, then twirl it (or try to; most times he would have dropped it if not for the rawhide loop he kept on his wrist), then re-holster it. I was off that night, but got the full report from Dean the following evening.

The mouse came up the Green Mile just as it had before, hopping along, then stopping and seeming to check the empty cells. After a bit of that it would hop on, undiscouraged, as if it had known all along it would be a long search, and it was up to that.

The President was awake this time, standing at his cell door. That guy was a piece of work, managing to look natty even in his prison blues. We knew just by the way he looked that he wasnt made for Old Sparky, and we were rightless than a week after Percys second run at that mouse, The Press sentence was commuted to life and he joined the general population.

Say! he called. Theres a mouse in here! What kind of a joint are you guys running, anyway? He was kind of laughing, but Dean said he also sounded kind of outraged, as if even a murder rap hadnt been quite enough to knock the Kiwanis out of his soul. He had been the regional head of an outfit called Mid-South Realty Associates, and had thought himself smart enough to be able to get away with pushing his half-senile father out a third-story window and collect on a double-indemnity whole-life policy. On that he had been wrong, but maybe not by much.

Shut up, you lugoon, Percy said, but that was pretty much automatic. He had his eye on the mouse. He had re-holstered his baton and taken out one of his magazines, but now he tossed the magazine on the duty desk and pulled the baton out of its holster again. He began tapping it casually against the knuckles of his left hand.

Son of a bitch, Bill Dodge said. Ive never seen a mouse in here before.

Aw, hes sort of cute, Dean said. And not afraid at all.

How do you know?

He was in the other night. Percy saw him, too. Brutal calls him Steamboat Willy.

Percy kind of sneered at that, but for the time being said nothing. He was tapping the baton faster now on the back of his hand.

Watch this, Dean said. He came all the way up to the desk before. I want to see if hell do it again.

It did, skirting wide of The Pres on its way, as if it didnt like the way our resident parricide smelled. It checked two of the empty cells, even ran up onto one of the bare, unmattressed cots for a sniff, then came back to the Green Mile. And Percy standing there the whole time, tapping and tapping, not talking for a change, wanting to make it sorry for coming back. Wanting to teach it a lesson.

Good thing you guys dont have to put him in Sparky, Bill said, interested in spite of himself. Youd have a hell of a time getting the clamps and the cap on.

Percy said nothing still, but he very slowly gripped the baton between his fingers, the way a man would hold a good cigar.

The mouse stopped where it had before, no more than three feet from the duty desk, looking up at Dean like a prisoner before the bar. It glanced up at Bill for a moment, then switched its attention back to Dean. Percy it hardly seemed to notice at all.

Hes a brave little barstid, I got to give him that, Bill said. He raised his voice a little. Hey! Hey! Steamboat Willy!

The mouse flinched a little and fluttered its ears, but it didnt run, or even show any signs of wanting to.