He reached the spool, which struck the far wall and bounced back. He went around it, then lay down on his side. Elaine started forward and I held her back. After a moment, Mr. Jingles found his feet again.
Slowly, so slowly, he nosed the spool back to me. When he’d first come – I’d found him lying on the steps leading to the kitchen in just that same way, as if he’d travelled a long distance and was exhausted – he had still been able to guide the spool with his paws, as he had done all those years ago on the Green Mile.
That was beyond him, now; his hindquarters would no longer support him. Yet his nose was as educated as ever. He just had to go from one end of the spool to the other to keep it on course. When he reached me, I picked him up in one hand – no more than a feather, he weighed – and the spool in the other. His bright dark eyes never left it.
“Don’t do it again, Paul,” Elaine said in a broken voice. “I can’t bear to watch him.”
I understood how she felt, but thought she was wrong to ask it. He loved chasing and fetching the spool; after all the years, he still loved it just as much. We should all be so fortunate in our passions.
“There are peppermint candies in the bag, too,” I said. “Canada Mints. I think he still likes them – he won’t stop sniffing, if I hold one out to him – but his digestion has gotten too bad to eat them. I bring him toast, instead.”
I squatted again, broke a small fragment off the piece I’d brought with me from the sunroom, and put it on the floor. Mr. Jingles sniffed at it, then picked it up in his paws and began to eat. His tail was coiled neatly around him. He finished, then looked expectantly up.
“Sometimes us old fellas can surprise you with our appetites”, I said to Elaine, and handed her the toast.
“You try.”
She broke off another fragment and dropped it on the floor. Mr. Jingles approached it, sniffed, looked at Elaine … then picked it up and began to eat.
“You see?” I said. “He knows you’re not a floater.
“Where did he come from, Paul?”
“Haven’t a clue. One day when I went out for my early-morning walk, he was just here, lying on the kitchen steps. I knew who he was right away, but I got a spool out of the laundry room occasional basket just to be sure. And I got him a cigar box. Lined it with the softest stuff I could find. He’s like us, Ellie, I think-most days just one big sore place. Still, he hasn’t lost all his zest for living. He still likes his spool, and he still likes a visit from his old blockmate. Sixty years I held the story of John Coffey inside me, sixty and more, and now I’ve told it. I kind of had the idea that’s why he came back. To let me know I should hurry up and do it while there was still time. Because I’m like him – getting there.”
“Getting where?”
“Oh, you know”, I said, and we watched Mr. Jingles for awhile in silence. Then, for no reason I could tell you, I tossed the spool again, even though Elaine had asked me not to. Maybe only because, in a way, him chasing a spool was like old people having their slow and careful version of sex – you might not want to watch it, you who are young and convinced that, when it comes to old age, an exception will be made in your case, but they still want to do it.
Mr. Jingles set off after the rolling spool again, clearly with pain, and just as clearly (to me, at least) with all his old, obsessive enjoyment.
“Ivy-glass windows,” she whispered, watching him go.
“Ivy-glass windows,” I agreed, smiling.
“John Coffey touched the mouse the way he touched you. He didn’t just make you better of what was wrong with you then, he made you … what, resistant?”