Part 17 (1/2)

”Hee hee, hee hee,” Yeager said. ”Aint we been feeding y'all a little bit better lately?”

It was true. There wasn't any steak or dumplings, but the monotonous cornbread and cowpeas had been replaced by an occasional egg at breakfast, a sandwich at dinner, and a square meal at supper: hash or stew sometimes. They really couldn't complain about that. ”We're happy, I reckon,” Nail declared. ”I only wish you'd change that rule about not lettin us ever go to the visit room.”

”My goodness!” Yeager exclaimed. ”I forgot about that. You haven't seen the visit room lately, have you, Chism? Come up and take a look.” The warden himself, but with some help from Short Leg, escorted Nail upstairs, out across the Yard and into the visitors' room, where a few changes had been made: the dense screen had been torn out and replaced with a long table divided by a vertical board down the center of it, with chairs placed along both sides so that the inmates could sit on one side, the visitors on the other. And the table could accommodate up to six inmates and six visitors at a time, not just one of each. Two couples were using it at the moment: a black woman with her child was talking to a black convict, and a white woman was talking to a man Nail recognized as his old bunkmate Toy, who had such bad breath. The warden explained that they weren't allowed to pa.s.s anything across the board or touch or hold hands or anything like that, although one kiss at the beginning and one at the end were permitted. ”If it's somebody you care to kiss hee hee,” Yeager said. Nail wondered how the woman could stand to kiss Toy. And there were several other good improvements in the room: a visitor could bring you something, a present or some food or anything, so long as it got inspected first for anything illegal, and you could have a visitor not just once a month but once a week if you wanted.

”Well, I'll declare,” Nail said. ”Now all I need is a visitor.”

The warden gestured toward the opposite door, which Bird was guarding in a new uniform that made him look like a hotel doorman. ”She's in there hee hee,” Yeager said.

”Huh?” Nail said. Then he said, ”Oh. Warden Yeager, sir, you sure are a nice man.”

”Don't thank me hee hee,” the warden said. ”It was the Reverend Tomme who made these improvements. Now, enjoy your visit hee hee. Bird, you let 'em talk all they want, just don't let her give him nothin except what's already been inspected.”

”Yessir,” Bird said, and saluted like some G.o.dd.a.m.n soldier, then opened the door. She stood there, in the doorway, in a green summertime outfit that was thin and silky, a shade of green that matched her eyes and made Nail notice how her hair caught the light in soft red sparks. She came in. Nail stood on his side of the table waiting for her. She came up to the table, studied the barrier-board between them, and raised her hands as if to make sure the screen was gone. She looked uncertainly at Bird. ”Y'all can kiss, that's all,” Bird informed her.

They both had to put their hands on the tabletop to steady themselves as they leaned toward each other across the divider. His hands were still cuffed together. It took what seemed to him like an awful long time to reach her, to get there. Seeing Toy out of the corner of his eye, he began to wonder if his own breath was bad and tried to keep his mouth clamped tight shut, but he had to make at least a little pucker of his lips. Nail had never kissed a girl before. Not once. As her face began the long journey across the tabletop, she was smiling, but as she came closer the smile vanished, and she seemed as if she were about to faint and closed her eyes. He kept his eyes open for fear he'd miss her completely. He realized their noses were going to get in the way, and he tilted his nose to his left, but at that instant she tilted her nose in that direction too, then opened her eyes to see why he hadn't made contact yet; seeing their noses in the way, she tilted her head back in the other direction at the same instant he was heading that way himself, and they had to stop and start all over again until they could somehow silently agree to tilt their noses in opposite directions and get them out of the way. They made a short, simultaneous laugh of self-consciousness. And then her lips were touching his. It was almost like that time Bobo had given him a quick little charge of current, not that it was painful but it jolted him like something he had never expected to feel and wasn't ready for. He heard those trees, the same singing he'd sometimes heard in the death room. It was real nice. Sometimes, playing his harmonica, he had tried to imagine what it would be like kissing Viridis, but he'd never realized it would be as nice as this, or that it would make him tingle to the tips of his toes. He closed his eyes. The singing of the trees continued until finally it was hushed by Bird's harsh voice: ”That's enough now.” They disengaged and backed away from the middle of the table.

”Hi, Nail,” she said, smiling.

”Howdy, Viridis,” he said.

”Y'all sit down, now,” Bird said, and they sat in their chairs on opposite sides of the table and looked at each other across the wooden board. The couples on either side of them went on talking. Toy's woman was saying something about a store burning in De Vall's Bluff, and the black man was asking his woman if the white folks she worked for were treating her proper. They paid no attention to Nail and Viridis.

”How are you?” Viridis asked, rather formally.

”I am real fine, I reckon,” he answered, somewhat formally himself. ”And how are you?”

”I am very hopeful,” she said. ”Everything is looking up. They're treating you decently, aren't they?”

”Compared with the way it was before,” he said, ”it is sure decent.”

”You look good,” she said. ”You're putting on some weight.”

He ran his hand over his bare skull. ”My head don't look too good, I guess.”

”Your hair's starting to grow back,” she observed. ”And they'll never shave it again.” She repeated: ”Never.”

”I don't know how to thank you for what you done to stop that last execution, because I don't know for sure just what you done, but me and Ernest both are awful glad you did.”

She smiled. She just smiled that real pretty smile of hers, like she wasn't going to tell him a thing about what she done. ”I hear the...thingamajig in the power plant-the dynamo or whatever you call it, that powers the electric chair-was incapacitated,” she said.

”Yeah. Incapacitated.” He liked the sound of that word. ”Dempsey, the new guy, that I'm workin for, he says he can't figure it out. Something's busted bad in that dynamo, but I might be able to fix it myself.” He laughed. ”Wouldn't that be something? For me to learn enough about electricity to fix the dynamo so they can go ahead and finish fryin me with it?”

She did not laugh. She leaned close toward the barrier and lowered her voice almost to a whisper. ”Nail, the dynamo has a Number 12 cartridge fuse that has been removed and is hidden on the top shelf of the broom closet in the engine room. Leave it there.”

Nail nodded his head. And then he nodded it again, and just left it nodding. At length he asked, ”How did you know that's what it was?”

”It's written on the side of the fuse,” she said.

”I didn't think Bobo was smart enough to read,” he said.

”Nail,” she said. She just said his name, but the way she said it seemed to mean, Let's quit pretending we don't both know what happened.

He kept his voice down. ”Where'd you git the fake mustache?”

She giggled. ”It wasn't fake. It was his. I cut it off.”

”How did he like that?”

”He was dead drunk, and he was still dead drunk when I put his clothes back on him and left him. I doubt he ever woke up until the next morning.”

Nail felt his face getting red, and he knew Viridis could notice the blush. He observed, ”You must've seen me and Ernest without a st.i.tch.”

”A st.i.tch is a st.i.tch,” she said. ”It's all the same to me.” They both laughed so hard that Bird snapped to attention from his half-bored stance. ”You do have a nice body,” she went on. Did she enjoy keeping the blush on his face? ”How did that Post-Dispatch reporter say it? 'Chism is a blue-eyed, light-haired, fair-complexioned man of splendid physique despite what harsh incarceration has done to it.'”

The blush stayed. ”I never read no story of that kind,” he said.

”I'm keeping a sc.r.a.pbook for you,” she said.

Trying to change the subject, he said, ”There's something I can't figure out. How did you get inside The Walls if you didn't have Bobo with you?”

Very quietly she rapped out on the tabletop, Shave and a haircut, two bits. ”That's the code for the door at the main gate,” she said. ”But to get into the powerhouse, I also had Bobo's key-ring on my belt...his belt, which I was wearing. That key-ring is the only thing of his I've kept.”

Nail whistled, then whispered, ”You still have Bobo's keys?”

She nodded. ”He doesn't need them anymore. For instance,” she lowered her voice even more, ”did you notice there's a long ladder lying against one wall of the engine room?”

”Yeah, and it's padlocked on both ends to the wall,” he said.

”The key to the padlocks,” she whispered, ”is in my hand. Before I have to go, I'll slip it into my mouth. Then, when I kiss you goodbye, I'll put it into your mouth. Okay?”

”Viridis,” he said, ”you are as good as they make 'em. I mean, you are really truly good as all gitout. But there's just one other thing I'd have to git...”

She didn't give him a chance to finish. ”On the same shelf of the broom closet where the dynamo fuse is hidden,” she said, ”is Irvin Bobo's empty whiskey pint in a paper sack. Only it isn't empty. I filled it with mustard oil.”

He shook his head. And then he shook it again and just left it shaking. ”You didn't leave a railroad ticket up there too, didje?” he asked, laughing.

”Shh,” she hushed him. ”No, but I could tie Rosabone to a tree out by the swamp,” she said, meaning it.

”I'll go on foot,” he said.

”Where?” she asked.

”Where? Why, home, of course.”

She shook her head. ”That's the first place they'll look for you.”

”Where else would I go?” he asked. ”Mexico?”

She whispered again. ”I could hide you up in the attic of my house.” When he frowned and shook his head, she said, ”I could really make a nice room up there, and you could have anything you want.”