Зеленая миля / The Green Mile

I suspect there are people who wouldn’t understand why that was, even after all I’ve said, but they would be people who only know the phrase Great Depression from the history books. If you were there, it was a lot more than a phrase in a book, and if you had a steady job, brother, you’d do almost anything to keep it.

The color was fading out of Percy’s face a little by then, but his cheeks were still flushed, and his hair, which was usually swept back and gleaming with brilliantine, had tumbled over his forehead.

“What in the Christ was that all about?” I asked. “I have never—I have never!—had a prisoner beaten onto my block before!”

“Little fag bastard tried to cop my joint when I pulled him out of the van,” Percy said. “He had it coming, and I’d do it again.”

I looked at him, too flabbergasted for words. I couldn’t imagine the most predatory homosexual on God’s green earth doing what Percy had just described. Preparing to move into a crossbar apartment on the Green Mile did not, as a rule, put even the most deviant of prisoners in a sexy mood.

I looked back at Delacroix, cowering on his bunk with his arms still up to protect his face. There were cuffs on his wrists and a chain running between his ankles. Then I turned to Percy. “Get out of here,” I said. “I’ll want to talk to you later.”

“Is this going to be in your report?” he demanded truculently. “Because if it is, I can make a report of my own, you know.

I didn’t want to make a report; I only wanted him out of my sight. I told him so.

“The matter’s closed,” I finished. I saw Brutal looking at me disapprovingly, but ignored it. “Go on, get out of here. Go over to Admin and tell them you’re supposed to read letters and help in the package room.”

“Sure.” He had his composure back, or the crackheaded arrogance that served him as composure. He brushed his hair back from his forehead with his hands—soft and white and small, the hands of a girl in her early teens, you would have thought—and then approached the cell.

“I ain’t done with you, Pierre,” he said, then jumped as one of Brutal’s huge hands fell on his shoulder.

“Yes you are,” Brutal said. “Now go on. Get in the breeze!”

“You don’t scare me, you know,” Percy said.