Зеленая миля / The Green Mile

Jingles went around it and pushed it back to the bunk, switching from one end of the spool to the other whenever it looked like it was going to veer off course. He pushed the spool until it hit Delacroix’s foot. Then he looked up at him for a moment, as if to make sure Delacroix had no more immediate tasks for him (a few arithmetic problems to solve, perhaps, or some Latin to parse). Apparently satisfied on this score, Mr. Jingles went back to the cigar box and settled down in it again.

“You taught him that,” I said.

“Yessir, Boss Edgecombe,” Delacroix said, his smile only slightly dissembling. “He fetch it every time. Smart as hell, ain’t he?”

“And the spool?” I asked. “How did you know to fetch that for him, Eddie?”

“He whisper in my ear that he want it,” Delacroix said serenely. “Same as he whisper his name.”

Delacroix showed all the other guys his mouse’s trick… all except Percy. To Delacroix, it didn’t matter that Percy had suggested the cigar box and procured the cotton with which to line it.

Delacroix was like some dogs: kick them once and they never trust you again, no matter how nice you are to them.

I can hear Delacroix now, yelling, Hey, you guys! Come and see what Mr. Jingles can do! And them going down in a bluesuit cluster—Brutal, Harry, Dean, even Bill Dodge. All of them had been properly amazed, too, the same as I had been.

Three or four days after Mr. Jingles started doing the trick with the spool, Harry Terwilliger rummaged through the arts and crafts stuff we kept in the restraint room, found the Crayolas, and brought them to Delacroix with a smile that was almost embarrassed.

“I thought you might like to make that spool different colors,” he said. “Then your little pal’d be like a circus mouse, or something.”

“A circus mouse!” Delacroix said, looking completely, rapturously happy. I suppose he was completely happy, maybe for the first time in his whole miserable life. “That just what he is, too! A circus mouse! When I get outta here, he gonna make me rich, like inna circus! You see if he don’t.

”

Percy Wetmore would no doubt have pointed out to Delacroix that when he left Cold Mountain, he’d be riding in an ambulance that didn’t need to run its light or siren, but Harry knew better. He just told Delacroix to make the spool as colorful as he could as quick as he could, because he’d have to take the crayons back after dinner.