It was April then, that I found myself once again and not for the first time passing that bat tree. A dark silhouette, on a small canvass, impressive in size and scope, alive with its many occupants, just a block off Victoria park, where we would stroll in the evening, all too often in the company of our 3 cats, unleashed but decidedly with us, as we sang our little ditties and inhaled the atmosphere about us.The bat tree stood on a small raised patch of earth, reinforced by wood, sitting much higher, than the land about it. It was here, with collar and cuff against the April wind that I sat down and let Paul Edgecombe, bull goose screw of E block, Cold Mountain, tell me more about that mouse, Eduard Delacroix, Old Sparky and his guards, up close and personal like. Among the latter, Brutus Howell; Brutal to his friends, a mild as a mouse himself, brick wall of a man and Percy Wetmore, still mean, just a nasty little slip of shit; one with a gun and a hickory baton.
But it is King’s searing portrayal of skinny, pimply assed, psychopath Wild Bill Wharton, that seeped in and haunted me most, as I waited for the next installment of The Green Mile.