Pleasure Reading 6

Part 6

Coffey on the Mile

Two days later, on the eighteenth, Bill Dodge, Hank Bitterman, and someone else – the narrator didn't remember who, some floater - took John Coffey over to D Block for his shower, and he with his friends rehearsed his execution while he was gone. There were no thunderstorms on the night it came John Coffey's turn to walk the Green Mile. Brutus Howell was out front for this one - he would do the capping and tell Van Hay to roll when it was time. There weren't many witnesses. Brutal bent over and plucked the disk of sponge out of its bucket. Water from the sponge was dripping down the sides of John 's face. John surged forward against the chest-strap. For a moment his eyes met mine. They were aware; the narrator was the last thing he saw as us tilted him off the edge of the world. Then he fell against the seatback, the cap coming askew on his head a little, smoke - a sort of charry mist - drifting out from beneath it. The hands were limp again, the formerly bluish-white moons at the base of the fingernails now a deep eggplant hue, a tendril of smoke rising off cheeks still wet with salt water from the sponge... and his tears. John Coffey's last tears.