Heya guys ^^ Thanks for the reviews and the favs. It means a lot (: I know the whole romance has been a bit vague, but the Ellie/Brutus thing is going to blossom, I promise ;P
Chapter 3 – Welcome to E Block
The guard outside the prison, glared down at Miss Brent's paper, before handing them back to Brutus with a smirk and a low whistle.
"That's a mighty fine prisoner, you got yourself there, Brutal," he said mischievously, eyeing the young nurse beside the tall guard. "Where will she be staying?"
"Somewhere far away from you, Barry," Brutus answered calmly.
"Aw, whatta shame." Barry raised a finger to the shining shadow of his cap. "Well, good luck then, ma'am. I hope yer visited here at the foyer of hell, will be as pleasant as possible."
Miss Brent bowed her head, a smile playing on her lips. "Thank you, sir."
Barry waved and the gait slid open, so Brutus could let the van roll through it. Even at the low speed, he could see the dust in the rear-view mirror, whirling up from the tires, making it look like reddish smoke coming out of the hold.
Miss Brent turned in her seat. "Charming fellow."
Brutus snorted and she gave a short laugh, but then her features became serious again.
"This isn't really the foyer of hell, is it?" she asked warily. "I mean, I know it's not a trip to the park, but…"
The grave look on her face touched his conscience.
"No," he said softly. "Not E Block, anyway. Course we have our bad times, but it isn't anything like the other blocks. Most days are calm and quiet, don't you worry. You are gonna be all right."
The relieved smile lightened up her face, making him smile too. He remembered all to well, how it was like to be the new man on the block. The thought about those wicked, cruel men behind the walls, had made him so nervous, he had felt sick to his stomach. And he had been a big man, who knew how to fight back. She was just a young woman…
"You ain't having second thoughts, have yer?" he asked her.
She shook her head. "Alice needs me. And if she's able to handle this, so am I."
Brutus regarded her. Whether her loyalty towards the old woman was an act of pure braveness or perhaps a slight naivety, he did not know. Never the less, it was still quite admirable…
They reached the big, familiar, greengrayish brick building with the painted E on the facade and Brutus honked the horn, before killing the engine.
"Well, welcome to E Block then, miss," he said, putting on his cap again with a slight smile.
oOo
Another young brown-haired guard with blue, deep-set eyes, that gave him a permanent worried look, opened the door from the inside and the entire cortege walked in: Paul and Percy had taking the lead, Alice between them, still hand-cuffed. Brutus walked behind them, with Ellies suitcase in one hand. At the end came finally Ellie, eyeing her new surroundings.
It was an old building and the linoleum on the floor, had faded into the same greengrayish colour as the bricks outside. But the rest of the interior wasn't even half as bad, as Ellie had feared.
There were six big cells, three on each side of the corridor and half of them already occupied. At the bottom of the aisle there was a thick-looking door with a small window, like the porthole on a ship. At the other end, behind her, were a desk and a huge, churchlike window that let in the warm shine of the sun. To her right, was another door, perhaps an office? She glared upwards. The ceiling was high and had to her surprise, skylights.
The entire confinement was very solemn. The other prisoners stayed quite, even though Ellie could feel their curious glares. Paul and Percy walked Alice to her cell at the very end of the aisle and then Paul asked her to sit down on her bunk. He then gave her a speech about the eating and bathing times, the radio and when she was allowed to go outside for fresh air. Alice listened in complete silence and then bowed her head, when Paul asked if she had understood.
"If you have question or want something, you call for us, or miss Brent," he finished. "You already know Mr. Howell and Mr. Wetmore. And these two…" He made a gesture out of the cell, towards the worried-looking man and another older gentleman that had joined them; a small man with a sharp nose and even sharper, brown eyes under bushy brows, "…are Dean Stanton and Harry Terwilliger. You've had a long trip, so I will send for some lunch, and then you can rest, if you want. In the meantime, I will borrow your nurse."
"Thank you, Mr. Edgecombe," Alice said, giving Ellie an approving look. Ellie smiled back at her.
They stepped out of the cell and Dean Stanton locked the door.
"Dean, could you fetch us some lunch?" Paul asked him, as they walked back the aisle. "I sure could need that."
"Yes, sir."
"And miss Brent, could I just talk to you in my office for a moment?"
"Of course," Ellie answered dutifully, but inside she was rolling her eyes. Oh, dear God – not again…
Paul's office was indeed behind the door. It was a clamp room, with another door, a desk to the right and shelves and racks at every wall; all of them overflowing with paperwork and files. The American flag hang beside the window.
Paul leaned against the edge of his desk, his arm crossed, but then he suddenly straightened and grabbed for the chair in the corner, next to his desk. "You wanna sit down?"
"No, it's all right. I'll rather stand, if that's okay? My legs are still recovering from the ride."
"Sure." He went back to his desk, clearing his throat. "Miss Brent…"
"Pardon my honesty," Ellie interrupted. "But you are not going to persuade me again, are you?"
Paul shook his head with a small smile. "Not at all, miss Brent. I already know that's gonna be a lost cause."
"Good." Ellie said calmly. "Because that really was the only reason, why you joined your guards today, wasn't it? Surely, a superior don't have to get his prisoner himself…"
She eyed him with slightly raised eyebrows.
Paul smiled at his own disclosure. "Well, you can't blame a guy for trying… No, we are going to introduce you to the inmates in a moment, but first I wanna talk to you about the rules around here, if that's all right?"
Ellie nodded, all ears.
"Good. Being a nurse, you probably already know how to take care of yourself, when dealing with risky situations. But this is much more dangerous, than a nervous patient. Every year, we have guards getting killed or injured in here – it doesn't take more than one moment of unawareness. And we would hate to see you get hurt."
Well, that's comforting, Ellie thought to herself.
"You must stay away from and out of the cells at all time," Paul continued. "Even mrs. Reardons. Except when there's a guard with you. If you have to walk down the aisle or talk to the inmates, you stay in the middle, so they can't reach yer."
He looked at her, waiting for her accepting and she nodded again. The graveness of his features softened.
"And no matter what happens, don't try to be a hero," he said, smirking. "I doubt your salary is worth it."
Someone knocked on the office's door and when Paul answered, Dean's head appeared behind the door. Paul waved him in.
"Thanks Dean," he said, as the young guard handed him a wrapped sandwich. "You guys haven't been introduced, have you? Dean, this is Eleanor Brent, the nurse supervising Alice Reardon, our newest inmate. Miss Brent, Dean Stanton."
"Hello, ma'am," Dean said politely. "Nice to meet you. I brought a spare sandwich too, in case you were hungry."
"Thank you, Mr. Stanton," Ellie said gently, shaking his hand. He was a middle-sized man, a couple of inches taller than Ellie was. Close up, the lineaments of his face were sharp, making him older than she expected; he was probably in his early thirties.
Paul clapped his hand together.
"Right. Let's get some lunch and then I'll let Brutus show you around, how 'bout that?" He turned towards the door. "Guys, I know you're out there – you can all come in now!"
At first, nothing happened, and then Brutus came in, looking a bit sheepishly, followed closely by Harry and Percy. Ellie exchanged handshakes with the elder guard, as Paul introduced her again. And then the office door was closed again and the solemn atmosphere was gone and Ellie was surrounded by questions. All the attention made her a bit shy. She was relived, when Brutus touched her arm gently and gave her an excuse to turn away from the crowd.
"Your suitcase is out front," he said. "Under the desk."
She raised her head, to meet his eyes. "Thank you. Paul suggested that you would show me around the Block afterwards?"
He smiled down at her. "That would be my pleasure, miss. We could do it now, if you wanted to?"
"Sure."
Brutus turned to his superior. "Paul? You want me to give her the grand tour now?"
"Yearh, why not. You kids have fun. I'll have Harry looking after the old gal."
Brutus gesticulated towards the other door, smirking at Dean and Harry and all of their unanswered quetions. "Don't worry boys: You'll get her back."
oOo
"Sorry 'bout all the fuss," Brutus muttered, as they walked out of Paul's office. "We ain't use to volunteer visitors like you. Most of 'em cry or hate our guts."
"It's quite all right," she assured him. "They are nice people."
He smiled. "You wanna see the execution room first?"
She nodded. Sooner or later she would have to see it anyway…
There was a narrow hallway behind Paul's office. To the right, Ellie could see out in the yard. To the left, there was another door. What was hidden behind that door, made Ellie stop short.
It was the chair. Just standing there on a wooden platform, like some sort of rare relic in a museum. Without the wires, the metal cap and clamps, it would look like any other massive chair – almost like an ancient king's throne – built in dark oak wood with broad arm and legs. It was quite surrealistic to know, that this chair had claimed so many lives. It looked so… harmless.
"We call it Ol' Sparky," Brutus said, his rough voice echoing in the empty room. Ellie forced her eyes away from the chair, just to find that the rest of the room was as perversely odd, as the chair. It wasn't actually a room – just a shed, with concrete floor and metal roof. The air was still and warm. Along the walls, someone had moved the audience's chairs to the side, so they could sweep the floor. At the far end of the shed, a tiny part of the room had been separated from the rest with a wooden wall.
"Catching," Ellie mumbled, turning her attention to the chair again.
Brutus smiled slightly; a smile without the track of cheerfulness. "It's not much to look at, huh?"
"No," she admitted. "How does it work?"
Brutus pointed towards the separated room. "When the inmate is clamped to the chair, wearing the metal cap, we have a man in the switch room, who turns on the generator and later the electricity. The electricity then runs through the wires and into the cap." He walked back to the chair, picking up something from a tin bucket next to the platform. It was a sponge – a yellow, circular sponge. He continued: "Inside the cap, we've place the sponge, soaked in brine. When the electricity reaches the cap, it goes right through to water and into the convicted mans brain and kills him."
His voice was calm, as if he was just explaining how the generator was working. Ellie looked at him, at when he raised his glare and met hers, he blushed slightly.
"Sorry," he said silently. "I guess I've been here so long, it becomes everyday life."
She smiled at him. "I understand. How many executions have you witnessed?"
"Christ – forty or fifty, maybe more. I lost count years ago."
Ellie looked down at the sponge in his huge hand. "Don't take this the wrong way," she said. "But you guys are so different from what I expected."
"What'd you mean?"
Ellie shrugged lightly. "I guess, I thought that people, who worked so close with death was… I don't know…"
"Cold-hearted bastards?" Brutus asked, half joking and half dryly.
"No," she assured him. "But definitely more marked by it. It must be a hard job."
"Well, sometimes… I guess you get used to it. But you see death too, don't you? Being a nurse, I mean."
"Sure, I do, but we save lives as well. It kind of offsets it a bit; makes it easier to handle the tough times."
He nodded and dropped the sponge back into the bucket. Then he cleared his throat.
"So… You wanna meet the inmates?"
oOo
She would, so they walked back to the hallway.
"We only have three at the moment, beside Mrs. Reardon" Brutus told her. "Guess you saw 'em, at the arrival: Eduard Delacroix, Arthur Flanders and Arlen Bitterbuck. All three convicted for murder."
Delacroix both murders and rape, he thought to himself, but she didn't need to know that. It wasn't a pretty story.
The boys were gone. The only one left in Paul's office, was Paul himself. Percy and Dean were at the laundry room, and Harry was mopping the corridor, he told them, as he got up.
Harry was indeed cleaning, but he stopped at once, when Paul and Brutus arrived with miss Brent, and leaned against the mop, waiting for the entertainment, he knew would come: Changes on The Green Mile, even the slightest, was rare.
The first cell on the left was occupied by Arlen Bitterbuck, the Chief: A sad-looking, old Indian, steady as a rock. Behind him was Arthur Flanders, called the President: A stoic, slender and quite (even Brutus had to admit it) handsome man with thick, dark hair, that had greyed at the temples. Across the corridor, in the middle cell, was Eduard Delacroix; a tiny, balding Frenchman. Mrs. Reardon had been placed next to him.
All the men were at their feet, looking curious through the bars, like children in the zoo, hoping to catch a glimpse of the new, exotic animal… Mrs. Reardon was not in sight. Perhaps she had already gone to bed.
Paul cleared his throat.
"Listen up, guys," he said softly. "In the next couple of month, we'll have a special guest amongst us. This young woman is Eleanor Brent, a nurse from Skt. Stephen. She has been transferred here to take care of Mrs. Reardon, our new inmate, until she is no longer needed. You guys treat her nicely now, all right?"
"I wouldn't mind having my own private nurse, too," the President said, eyeing Miss Brent with a sly smile. "Could that be arranged?"
Brutus shot him a look.
"A nurse," Del repeated and looked closely at Miss Brent through the bars. Then he smiled. "Je pensais que tu étais u ange quand vous êtes entré par la porte."*
Miss Brent smiled back, but cast down her eyes in a brief, shy second. Like if she wasn't use to compliments. Because it was a compliment, that Brutus was sure of, even though he didn't understand a single word.
"Merci, monsieur Delacroix" she said and then to Brutus' surprise she continued – a bit slowly, but in perfect French, as far as he could hear. "Mais je pense que vous avez… été ici trop longtemps, si vous... pouvez me prendre pour un ange."
Del chuckled. "You keep 'er, boss Edgecombe. She bof' smart and pretty."
"She'll stay, if you guys behave," he told them, catching the eyes of the President. "Is that clear?"
There was a consenting mumble. The President, sensing he had lost this round, went back to his bunk. Paul turned towards her, smiling.
"I guess that's settled then," he said. "Welcome to the Green Mile."
*If the French is completely wrong, please blame Google Translate :P I can't speak a single word of French myself…