“That’s as good a word as any, I think.”
“Resistant to the things that eventually bring the rest of us down like trees with termites in them. You …
and him. Mr. Jingles. When he cupped Mr. Jingles in his hands.”
“That’s right. Whatever power worked through John did that – that’s what I think, anyway – and now it’s finally wearing off. The termites have chewed their way through our bark. It took a little longer than it does ordinarily, but they got there. I may have a few more years, men still live longer than mice, I guess, but Mr. Jingles’s time is just about up.”
He reached the spool, limped around it, fell over on his side, breathing rapidly (we could see his respiration moving through his gray fur like ripples), then got up and began to push it gamely back with his nose. His fur was gray, his gait was unsteady, but the oilspots that were his eyes gleamed as brightly as ever.
“You think he wanted you to write what you have written,’., she said. “Is that so, Paul?”
“Not Mr. Jingles,” I said. “Not him but the force that – ”
“Why, Paulie! And Elaine Connelly, too!” a voice cried from the open door. It was loaded with a kind of satiric horror. “As I live and breathe! What in the goodness can you two be doing here?”
I turned, not at all surprised to see Brad Dolan there in the doorway. He was grinning as a man only does when he feels he’s fooled you right good and proper. How far down the road had he driven after his shift was over? Maybe only as far as The Wrangler for a beer or two and maybe a lap-dance before coming back.
“Get out,” Elaine said coldly. “Get out right now.’
“Don’t you tell me to get out, you wrinkledy old bitch,” he said, still smiling. “Maybe you can tell me that up the hill, but you ain’t tip the hill now. This ain’t where you’re supposed to be. This is off-limits. Little love-nest, Paulie? Is that what you got here? Kind of a Playboy pad for the geriatric…” His eyes widened as he at last saw the shed’s tenant. “What the fuck?”
I didn’t turn to look. I knew what was there, for one thing; for another, the past had suddenly doubled over the present, making one terrible image, three-dimensional in its reality. It wasn’t Brad Dolan standing there in the doorway but Percy Wetmore. In another moment he would rush into the shed and crush Mr. Jingles (who no longer had a hope of outrunning him) under his shoe, and this time there was no John Coffey to bring him back from the edge of death. Any more than there had been a John Coffey when I needed him on that rainy day in Alabama.
I got to my feet, not feeling any ache in my joints or muscles this time, and rushed toward Dolan. “Leave him alone!” I yelled. “You leave him alone, Percy, or by God I’ll ”
“Who you callin Percy?” he asked, and pushed me back so hard I almost fell over. Elaine grabbed me, although it must have hurt her to do so, and steadied me. “Ain’t the first time you done it, either. And stop peein in your pants. I ain’t gonna touch im. Don’t need to. That’s one dead rodent.”
I turned, thinking that Mr. Jingles was only lying on his side to catch his breath, the way he sometimes did. He was on his side, all right, but that rippling motion through his fur had stopped. I tried to convince myself that I could still see it, and then Elaine burst into loud sobs. She bent painfully, and picked up the mouse I had first seen on the Green Mile, coming up to the duty desk as fearlessly as a man approaching his peers .. . or his friends. He lay limp on her hand. His eyes were dull and still. He was dead.
Dolan grinned unpleasantly, revealing teeth which had had very little acquaintance with a dentist. “Aw, sakes, now!” he said. “Did we just lose the family pet? Should we have a little funeral, with paper flowers and – “