Stephen King - The Bad Death of Eduard Delacroix

Thunder, hardly muffled at all by the tin roof, banged harsh and loud. People glanced up uneasily. Men who looked uncomfortable wearing ties this late at night wiped at their florid cheeks. It was hotter than blue blazes in the storage shed. And, of course, they kept turning their eyes to Old Sparky. They might have made jokes about this chore earlier in the week, but the jokes were gone by eleven-thirty or so that night. I started all this by telling you that the humor went out of the situation in a hurry for the people who had to sit down in that oak chair, but the condemned prisoners weren’t the only ones who lost the smiles off their faces when the time actually came. It just seemed so bald, somehow, squatting up there on its platform, with the clamps on the legs sticking off to either side, looking like the things a person with polio would have to wear. There wasn’t much talk, and when the thunder boomed again, as sharp and personal as a splintering tree, the sister of Delacroix’s victim gave a little scream. The last person to take his seat in the witnesses’ section was Curtis Anderson, Warden Moores’s stand-in.

At eleven-thirty, I approached Delacroix’s cell with Brutal and Dean walking slightly behind me. Del was sitting on his bunk, with Mr. Jingles in his lap. The mouse’s head was stretched forward toward the condemned man, his little oilspot eyes rapt on Del’s face. Del was stroking the top of Mr. Jingles’s head between his ears. Large silent tears were rolling down Del’s face, and it was these the mouse seemed to be peering at. Del looked up at the sound of our footsteps. He was very pale. From behind me, I sensed rather than saw John Coffey standing at his cell door, watching.

Del winced at the sound of my keys clashing against metal, but held steady, continuing to stroke Mr. Jingles’s head, as I turned the locks and ran the door open.

“Hi dere, Boss Edgecombe,” he said. “Hi dere, boys. Say hi, Mr. Jingles.” But Mr. Jingles only continued to look raptly up at the balding little man’s face, as if wondering at the source of his tears. The colored spool had been neatly laid aside in the Corona box—laid aside for the last time, I thought, and felt a pang.

“Eduard Delacroix, as an officer of the court…”

“Boss Edgecombe?”

I thought about just running on with the set speech, then thought again. “What is it, Del?”

He held the mouse out to me. “Here. Don’t let nothing happen to Mr. Jingles.”

“Del, I don’t think he’ll come to me. He’s not—”

“ Mais oui, he say he will. He say he know all about you, Boss Edgecombe, and you gonna take him down to dat place in Florida where the mousies do their tricks. He say he trust you.” He held his hand out farther, and I’ll be damned if the mouse didn’t step off his palm and onto my shoulder. It was so light I couldn’t even feel it through my uniform coat, but I sensed it, like a small heat. “And boss? Don’t let that bad ’un near him again. Don’t let that bad ’un hurt my mouse.”

“No, Del. I won’t.” The question was, what was I supposed to do with him right then? I couldn’t very well march Delacroix past the witnesses with a mouse perched on my shoulder.

“I’ll take him, boss,” a voice rumbled from behind me. It was John Coffey’s voice, and it was eerie the way it came right then, as though he had read my mind. “Just for now. If Del don’t mind.”

Del nodded, relieved. “Yeah, you take im, John, ’til dis foolishment done— bien ! And den after…” His gaze shifted back to Brutal and me. “You gonna take him down to Florida. To dat Mouseville Place.”

“Yeah, most likely Paul and I will do it together,” Brutal said, watching with a troubled and unquiet eye as Mr. Jingles stepped off my shoulder and into Coffey’s huge outstretched palm. Mr. Jingles did this with no protest or attempt to run; indeed, he scampered as readily up John Coffey’s arm as he had stepped onto my shoulder. “We’ll take some of our vacation time. Won’t we, Paul?”

I nodded. Del nodded, too, eyes bright, just a trace of a smile on his lips. “People pay a dime apiece to see him. Two cents for the kiddies. Ain’t dat right, Boss Howell?”

“That’s right, Del.”

“You a good man, Boss Howell,” Del said. “You, too, Boss Edgecombe. You yell at me sometimes, oui, but not ’less you have to. You all good men except for dat Percy. I wish I coulda met you someplace else. Mauvais temps, mauvaise chance. ”

“I got something to say to you, Del,” I told him. “They’re just the words I have to say to everyone before we walk. No big deal, but it’s part of my job. Okay?”

“Oui, monsieur,” he said, and looked at Mr. Jingles, perched on John Coffey’s broad shoulder, for the last time. “Au revoir, mon ami,” he said, beginning to cry harder. “Je t’aime, mon petit.” He blew the mouse a kiss. It should have been funny, that blown kiss, or maybe just grotesque, but it wasn’t. I met Dean’s eye for a moment, then had to look away. Dean stared down the corridor toward the restraint room and smiled strangely. I believe he was on the verge of tears. As for me, I said what I had to say, beginning with the part about how I was an officer of the court, and when I was done, Delacroix stepped out of his cell for the last time.

“Hold on a second longer, hoss,” Brutal said, and checked the crown of Del’s head, where the cap would go. He nodded at me, then clapped Del on the shoulder. “Right with Eversharp. We’re on our way.”

So Eduard Delacroix took his last walk on the Green Mile with little streams of mingled sweat and tears running down his cheeks and big thunder rolling in the sky overhead. Brutal walked on the condemned man’s left, I was on his right, Dean was to the rear.

Schuster was in my office, with guards Ringgold and Battle standing in the corners and keeping watch. Schuster looked up at Del, smiled, and then addressed him in French. It sounded stilted to me, but it worked wonders. Del smiled back, then went to Schuster, put his arms around him, hugged him. Ringgold and Battle tensed, but I raised my hands to them and shook my head.

Schuster listened to Del’s flood of tear-choked French, nodded as if he understood perfectly, and patted him on the back. He looked at me over the little man’s shoulder and said, “I hardly understand a quarter of what he’s saying.”

“Don’t think it matters,” Brutal rumbled.

“Neither do I, son,” Schuster said with a grin. He was the best of them, and now I realize I have no idea what became of him. I hope he kept his faith, whatever else befell.

He urged Delacroix onto his knees, then folded his hands. Delacroix did the same.

“Not’ Père, qui êtes aux cieux,” Schuster began, and Delacroix joined him. They spoke the Lord’s Prayer together in that liquid-sounding Cajun French, all the way to “mais déliverez-nous du mal, ainsi soit-il.” By then, Del’s tears had mostly stopped and he looked calm. Some Bible verses (in English) followed, not neglecting the old standby about the still waters. When that was done, Schuster started to get up, but Del held onto the sleeve of his shirt and said something in French. Schuster listened carefully, frowning. He responded. Del said something else, then just looked at him hopefully.

Schuster turned to me and said: “He’s got something else, Mr. Edgecombe. A prayer I can’t help him with, because of my faith. Is it all right?”

I looked at the clock on the wall and saw it was seventeen minutes to midnight. “Yes,” I said, “but it’ll have to be quick. We’ve got a schedule to keep here, you know.”

“Yes. I do.” He turned to Delacroix and gave him a nod.