That evening, I tracked down Harry on E Block, now sitting at my old desk. I desired to question him about Percy's reports at Briar Ridge, since he had been there that day to cart him off to prison. During the time he was there, he had to have looked at the records stating Percy's condition and diagnosis. I just had to know the facts about our prison guard gone mad.
As I walked down the green mile, the floor resembling tired old limes, I noticed Harry's exhausted figure slumped onto the desk. He had fallen asleep in a stack of old D.O.E.s, perhaps while typing up a summary on the past year's executions. I had to do that once or twice myself; typing was the most boring job I had ever had to do on E Block, considering that the other jobs I did consisted of legally killing killers and watching men change from sadistic murders to whimpering cowards in the end. All except for poor John Coffey, that is, who had been innocent his whole life, caught in the wrong place at the wrong time. As my footsteps approached the sleeping figure of Harry, he stirred awake, retaining his formerly erect posture at the typewriter.
"Hello, Harry, how have you been?" I asked him cordially. I placed my hands on the desk and leaned to peer at his progress on the papers.
"Been pretty good, Paul, although we sure do miss you 'round here." He rubbed his eyes of the sleep residue encrusting his lashes, and proceeded to restack the scattered papers formerly supporting his head. "How's Percy doin' over in C?"
I shook my head slowly. "Not too good, Harry; apparently some guys jumped him in the shower and nailed him real bad. Broke his jaw, too."
Harry looked up with shocked surprise. He put his hand thoughtfully to his chin. "Geez, at least we don't need to feel bad for his miserable self. Kid's finally payin' his due."
I nodded. There was still one thing I needed to know, but Harry asked me first.
"Paul, how do you s'pose Percy came back to sanity? He sure was out of it when he was sent to Briar Ridge."
I laughed heartily at the question. "Aw, Harry, I was about to ask you the same exact question. I thought you'd know, you bein' there with the records and all."
"True, but I never actually took a good look at 'em. All I know is that Percy had the seizures for a full five minutes, sometime on November 20th-"
At this fact, my hands instantaneously left the desk on which I had been previously leaning, and I suddenly felt terribly dizzy and lightheaded. I stumbled back a few steps and clutched my throbbing skull as I felt the cold sweat trickling down my temples and heart rate increasing. Witnessing the terrible spell, Harry's facial expression changed into one of fear.
"What's wrong, Paul? You look like you seen a damn ghost!"
I sighed with apprehension as I regained my balance and composure. "Nah, I'm okay now. I just thought somethin'. Wasn't that the night John Coffey rode the lightnin'?"
"Oh my sweet Jesus!" Harry exclaimed. "I didn't even think about that before, yes that was!" He had just realized, after the week and a half that Percy had been here, what role John Coffey played in the web of his sanity.
"Geez, Paul, it was John Coffey that caused Percy to come back!"
My eyes lit up as I pictured the exact cause. "Harry, John gave Percy a piece of himself along with that huge hoard of black from Melinda Moore's tumor. Because of that, Percy felt everything that John felt, and the electrocution jolted him back into sanity!"
Harry leaned back in the chair, pale and aghast, running a trembling hand through his graying hair. "Well, what should we do, Paul?" He must have suspected that I'd have some intelligent plan for Percy, but I just didn't want to get involved. Obviously Percy was meant to be here; Coffey planned it, so I'm sure heaven did too. And to think that I thought Coffey was a total dimwit….
"Nothing," I responded. "There's nothing to do."
"Wh-what do you mean, that we should just stay out of it?"
I nodded solemnly. "Can't you see that this is Percy's fate? We shouldn't get involved; we aren't meant to."
Harry stood up. "I guess you're right, Paul; you always are." He smiled faintly, for he may have felt slight pity for Percy sitting in the jail cell, getting abused elsewhere. I desperately wanted to change the subject, so I did.
"Hey Harry, how've you been here on the Green Mile?" I realized immediately that I had asked that question already when I had first arrived, but it didn't matter. Perhaps I could stir some new information on someone else other than Percy.
"Well, pretty good, although quite lonely. We're gettin' a new prisoner tomorrow, maybe get us some excitement around these dead corridors."
"That's good, Harry. What's the fellow's name?"
"Uh, his name is…" He shuffled some papers nervously, feverishly attempting to sort the records. "Oh, yeah, Jack Thompson. Came from Baton Rouge. Young man, late twenties. I heard he murdered train passengers when they'd exit the stations. Took their money."
"Geez, you really got something on your hands," I stated cautiously.
He stopped sorting his papers and looked up. "Nah, I heard the kid's been scared as a sheep since the guilty verdict. He probably feels terrible for what he done."
"Well," I said as I turned around to leave, "keep an eye on the man. I'd like to chat longer, but I got to get back to C. Bye, Harry."
"Bye, Paul."
With a heavy heart I trudged back hesitantly to C Block. Something about the whole execution Percy thing bothered me deep inside.
At lunch, I watched our resilient prisoner attempting to converse with some inmates demanding seconds without response. "Hey, would you like some of my food?" I heard him ask the group of four at the table.
Burly George Hantrey, a long-time prisoner and infamous thug, looked up from his meal with a glare. "If I took that from you, kid, I'd have to kill you."
"Wh-what do you mean? I'll let you have it; you don't have to fight me…."
The burly thug, known around the prison as "Gore" (for he enjoyed goring his victims), stood at his full height and glared down at Percy with fist in hand.
"Look, sally-boy, that is not what I mean. Now leave the table before I have to kick the living shit out of you." He stared menacingly, pounding his fist against palm, until Percy flipped his legs over the table bench and slunk away cowering.
After Percy had left the table, George abruptly sat down and a small shiny item fell out of his back pocket with the sudden impact.
As Percy distanced himself from the table, he bent over and picked up the shiny something from the mess hall floor. The silvery item glinted in my eyes as he hastily shoved it into his pocket. I would know the nature of the glittering object during cell check, and was quite anxious to find out. Was it merely a quarter or nickel, or had Percy gotten a lucky break finding a weapon?
A few minutes before evening cell check, I approached the cell of Percy, who had been sitting studying closely (I suppose) the object he found in the cafeteria. As he realized I was going to his cell, he tucked the item somewhere in his pants.
"Wetmore, I saw that," I gruffly stated as I came closer to the bars. The kid was too secretive and I was going to find out what that shiny object was, even if it was going to be the last thing I'd ever do.
"Nothing. Why do you care?" he replied exasperatingly.
"I saw you pick that up this morning in the cafeteria. What is it, a quarter?" I approached the bars slightly with hands in my pockets, near my club holster.
"No…" Percy hesitated. "It's a… nickel. Why can't I keep it?"
"Lemme see it," I commanded. Trust was one thing that would never exist between Percy and I.
Within seconds, Percy stood and approached the bars boldly. He sneered at me from my distance of about four feet. "Do you really want to see it? Here, I'll show it to you." As I observed his every movement with great curiosity, I saw the flash of sharpened metal he pulled out of his right side pocket. He sneered with a "Wild Bill" quality, his sadistic eyes narrowed in an expression of pure entertainment. In a few moments, however, the self-satisfied smile faded from his face as the sound of an approaching guard echoed through the complex. As the guard approached behind me, Percy's expression changed to that of a suspicious glare. He must have suspected that something was up between the guards, perhaps an ambush (This was not the case).
As I glanced briefly behind me, Dean Stanton clamored up the grated metal stairs with a questioning look on his thin face. He approached Percy's cell and stood behind me with arms crossed. With the other guard now standing behind me near Percy's cell, I felt a stupid bravery and decided to swipe the object out of Percy's hand from the other side of the bars. I honestly didn't think he'd try anything with another guard nearby, and felt quite in control, with him being a cowardly little punk – all talk, no action- all his life. The "Wild Bill" look came back again as Percy loosened his grip on the item, almost daring me to grab it. I didn't want Percy toting a weapon around the prison, and with his length-wise grip on the object, I assumed it as a potentially dangerous item. As I planned the retrieval of the weapon, I figured that as soon as I had grabbed his puny wrist with my iron grip, he'd let go and resist an actual battle. I didn't think he'd let his weak self get harmed again, much less by a guard with a club and a gun.
I was wrong with my convictions. As I charged his cell, thrusting my arm in to grab his sliced-up wrist, the wimpy former guard did something that would forever change his life and mine.
In a fluid motion, Percy shoved the object into his pocket as I grabbed his wrist. As I struggled to reach the item (which I now figured to be a weapon), Percy, whom I believed to be quite incapacitated and in a state of shock, wrenched his wrist off of my hand in his moment of rushing adrenaline. Then, he attempted the unthinkable. Percy, with both of his arms in full motion, grasped my flailing arm and crunched it down –hard- onto the horizontal bar directly below my arm. I heard a crack and yelped loudly, with excruciating pain shooting up my arm into my shoulders. As I ripped my arm back through the bars, Dean ran over to my side, and called down way too calmly to the guards to open Percy's cell. "Open cell number 234 please, down there." He probably didn't want the guard backup enforcements, for he had been itching to beat the crap out of the kid from day one.
As the cell door slid open with a ringing clang, Percy backed up against the furthest corner of his cell, and Dean yanked out his club from its holster.
"Hey, I'll get the punk for you," he huffed to me in his anger. Dean followed with the violent beating of the snotty prisoner, Percy getting rained on with heavy blows while attempting vainly to shield his head from Dean's rage. He sunk to the floor with head buried in knees, pleading for Dean to stop the hard slams. The blows continued, Percy whimpering like a stray dog, as his fingers crunched and Dean groaned with exertion, his full strength being applied to his task at hand. I wasn't in any mood to stop the beating. In fact, I let it continue until Dean was thoroughly finished and Percy had crumbled into the bruised, crying coward that he truly was.
As Dean left the cell and requested the gate be slid shut again. Percy held his shattered fingers and sobbed out his threat. "I'm gonna get you for this, Stanton." Dean and I rushed over to the infirmary for my arm, and because of the punk's unthinkable actions, I had to have a cast applied to my shattered forearm bone.
Throughout the next week, Dean was established permanently on C Block, eyed sadistically by Percy each time that he was nearby. Since being the first to leave the green mile, Dean was now a full-time guard on "Cruel" Block. I never suspected the cruelty that would later ensue.
Percy was beaten up badly in the two times he had to shower that week. I actually felt pretty bad for the kid, considering he was too wimpy to defend himself against the inmates, but willing to break my arm in defense.
I was ordered to stay out of direct touch with the prisoners for the following two weeks because of the weakness my cast arm presented to the inmates. When threatened or made to do something they don't want to do by a weak guard, the prisoners are more likely to attack and ambush him, especially with a guard having use of only one arm. I accepted the order of avoidance, and instead mainly oversaw the following weeks' inmate outdoor time from a high view in the guard tower.
One Monday morning in the C Block laundromat, between a pot of watery coffee and cheap checkered tablecloth, Dean told me of the many occasions displaying Percy's recent rage.
"The kid's been glaring at me ever since the incident in his cell. He hasn't been listening to any of my orders at the cell checks, and twice I've had to confront him. Next time he does it he's getting solitary." Dean sipped his coffee and puckered his lips at the bitterness of it.
"I agree with that judgment, Dean. Of course, then Percy wouldn't be harmed by the other inmates."
"Well, whatever we do with him, Percy has got to learn a lesson."
I agreed wholeheartedly with Dean, but couldn't discuss specifics because of my assignment with lunch duty on B Block.
In the mess hall of B Block, I spotted Brutal as the other guard on duty. Immediately he recognized me and approached me with friendliness but slight fear at my arm cast.
"What the hell happened to your arm, Paul?" he asked with great concern. He was obviously quite disturbed by the fact that I had been hurt only two weeks into the new assignment.
"Don't worry, Brutal, it's not that bad," I assured him. Brutal was a huge man and would surely kill Percy for breaking my arm. I desperately wanted to change the subject.
"Not that bad, Paul? You got a cast on your arm! That means that a bone was broken! You can tell me what happened!" A look of genuine pity was on his face as he poked the cast. He towered above me, almost seeming to look at me from a father to son angle. Even though he was taller than me, I was older than him with slight guard seniority to him. I didn't want to tell him the cause of my arm, but I was sure that sometime I'd find the time.
I glanced up at the clock. It was almost time for shower duty for the northern end of B Block. "It's a long story, and I'll tell you when we have more time."
He nodded solemnly but insisted he tell me what or who did it. Although I would've like to have seen Percy sent back to Briar Ridge catatonic again from Brutal's beating, I felt slight guilt for even attempting such a stupid action between the bars.
As the horn sounded for shower duty and I headed back over to C Block, I had a horrible gut feeling in my stomach that something terribly wrong had happened. Picking up the pace, I sped over to C Block, praying that I was just suffering from a small infection and not the dread my stomach rumbled and my heart pounded.
Damn me for not telling Brutal what had happened. Maybe, just maybe, he could have stomped over there in time to prevent it. A group of guards stood over a crumpled figure, as a small pool of blackened blood spread over the redbrick floor from the head of the victim. About a dozen other guards were hastily guiding inmates back into their cells.
My pulse raced and I suddenly felt the urge to vomit as I ran over to the body. I attempted to see whose corpse was lying on the ground, but to no avail. One of the guards stepped back from the circle and shook his head sadly as I began to panic.
"What happened?" I said through panicked breaths.
The guard put his arm around my back and sighed, showing his difficulty in giving me the news.
"Paul, some inmate slit Dean Stanton's throat. I'm sorry to have you hear it this way." The guard, Jim Barker, gave me a sympathetic hug as my eyes began to water with grief. I immediately became suspicious and pulled back.
"What's wrong, Paul?" he asked gently.
"Who did it? Who killed him?" I demanded. Already my rage had built up and I could feel my face reddening with anger.
"Well, no one saw for sure. Many inmates were around in the lunch line-up, and suddenly Dean fell over. I have no clue who could have done it, but it must have been an inmate on the first floor.
I turned around to go look at Dean's body, with his lifeblood pouring out from the side of his neck onto the surrounding redbrick floor. Someone must have gotten hold of a shank and caught him off guard, I thought solemnly. I could not make myself believe anybody could do that to poor Dean, I didn't recall him ever having beat an inmate (at least, without reason), and he had always been kind and fair to all.
Letting the tears flow, I squatted down beside my dead friend and reminisced about the old days and the times we had shared as guards and as buddies. The other guards surrounding the body moved away so I could mourn privately with my friend. As the realization of Dean's death began to sink in and hit hard, a rage built inside me, and I immediately thought of Percy. Percy had shown rare bravery before (well, actually he had quite recently), but the guards had found Dean's body on the first floor, and Percy's cell was on the second floor. I still did not trust the fact that some random inmate had killed Dean, and I figured there to be a motive.
Percy had a motive to kill Dean, and that shiny thing he had must have been a shank, for he had been awfully protective of it. I had to consider, though, that Percy just wanted to rouse us into taking his hidden item, even if it had only been a nickel. He may have just tried to stand up for himself to gain respect. Even with the evidence for and against Percy, he had said that he "was going to get Stanton" and that could account for a lot. I wasn't sure, but I had to know what had happened.
As the guards carried the not-yet-stiff body out of the cellblock, I followed behind the procession, scanning the cells for any obvious knowing grins. I felt the urge of tears again, but the steadily increasing rage inside of me kept me from breaking down again. I saw to it that Dean's body was packed away safely for the morgue, and then went back to C Block.
When I arrived back at C Block, some inmates were mopping up the pool of drying blood and things basically seemed back to normal. It's disturbing how easily the prison gets over a lost life. At Cold Mountain, death is a daily happening: inmates getting shanked, life sentence inmates dying of old age, Old Sparky, guards getting a little too close to the bars….
I stomped up the grated stairs, hoping for the slightest gleam of guilt on an inmate's face. Some inmates cackled evilly with victorious expressions from a safe distance in their cells as I ascended the stairs, but I knew that only one inmate had done the job. As rage engulfed me I slammed my club against the bars of their cells, screaming at them threats I would keep.
"Which one of you damn bastards killed that guard? C'mon, chickens, own up to it!" I ran over to a grinning inmate's cell, wielding my club. "Tell me who did it, or I'll assume it was you and punish you severely!"
His eyes widened as he lost his confident expression. "No Sir, it wasn't me, and I didn't get to see who did it."
I ran over to Percy's cell as Percy was slicking back his hair in the cracked mirror above the toilet/sink. He had bloodstained gauze wrapped around his upper left arm and various cuts on his face and neck, and it was quite obvious he had been beaten up lately. He immediately noticed my arrival and stood up stiffly as he put down the comb he was using, looking quite insulted. He glared at me and immediately spoke in his defense.
"Why do you always come to me? I don't do nothing around here! I'm always the one getting picked on!" He must have suspected I'd blame the death on him.
"Wetmore, did you see who killed the guard?" I asked, not wanting to anger him with unproven accusations.
I could sense a sigh of exasperation as he answered, and yet he seemed much calmer, relaxing his tensed shoulders. "I'm sorry, I didn't see who killed the man." He sighed as he shrugged, staring at me. "I wasn't payin' attention to what was happening on the first level; they were herdin' me off to lunch."
"You sure you're not pulling my leg?" I asked earnestly. Percy always seemed suspicious to me, and although it seemed that he was being honest, I couldn't be too sure.
"If I told you who I heard did it, his friends would kill me on the spot," he suddenly blurted. I gaped at him, not expecting this response.
"Why did you say you didn't know?" I asked. I could see that Percy was just trying to push ahead in the prison world by attempting to fit in with the conniving inmates. It really wouldn't take him much to turn into a compulsive liar. I crossed my left arm over my cast arm, waiting for his answer.
Percy approached the bars. "Let's face it, if you were me, would you want to put yourself in that much risk just to turn someone in who killed an enemy?"
"So, you wanted the guard dead then, did you…" I murmured, leading him into an answer.
Percy licked his lips and glanced at his shoes ashamedly. "No, I didn't want him dead! I just didn't like him very much; he beat me just like the inmates do…." He sighed, trudged back over to his bed, and plopped down, squeaking the mattress.
I felt Percy was quite stupid in that accusation. He had deserved it that time.
"Don't you feel as if you at least sorta deserved that? You broke my arm! You can't do that stuff to guards and expect no consequences, least of all when some other guard is standing right beside me watching!"
Percy looked at my arm and shook his head slowly.
"I am sorry about that, but the main reason I did it was to impress an inmate across the cellblock. He says that I let the guards boss me around all the time, so he tells the inmates to do what they please with "cowardly" me."
I accepted his excuse with some thought, then I suddenly remembered the hidden item he would not let me see.
"What was that shiny thing you wouldn't let me see?" I asked cautiously.
Unexpectedly, Percy stood up and pulled out a quarter. He laughed easily as he presented the shiny item in his open palm through the bars. I was shocked but could see that he indeed have a quarter and I assumed no respected inmate would give pathetic little newbies money.
"It was a quarter, but I was only hiding it from you for the principle of preventing you taking advantage of me again. Hope you don't hate me too much." He grinned widely, leaning into the bars while pulling his open hand back in. I assumed he was being friendly, but there always seemed to be hostility reflecting deep within his eyes, now twinkling but bloodshot.
I smiled weakly back at him, thinking about the things he had admitted to me just now? Were they true? Percy kept smiling, then lankily strode back over to his cot and sat down, the grin big and satisfied. I tapped my hand on the horizontal bar as I turned to walk away.
As I clamored down the steps, I realized that my shift was over. Tomorrow I would have to discover the killer of my friend Dean, even if it was the last thing I would ever do. I punched out sullenly while craning my neck to glimpse at Percy's cell. He must have been lying down, for I couldn't spot his shadow extending over the outside hall, as was usually visible.
The evening of Dean's death I lamented to Jan the death of my good friend and coworker for the years we spent together.
"I still… can't believe someone would kill Dean, Jan." I murmured despairingly.
"Well, I'm sure you'll discover the killer soon enough, Paul, then you can handle him any way you'd like. The man is gonna pay, believe me."
I suddenly recollected the incident with Percy at his cell. Didn't Percy tell me that he had found a nickel? He showed me a quarter today… I suspected again the nature of the item. Could it have possibly been a weapon? Dean was killed on the first floor, though. I had many unanswered questions to ask tomorrow…