John Coffey transfers tumor to Percy

After the night journey to heal Melinda Moores, Paul Edgecombe, Brutus Howell, Harry Terwilliger, and Dean Stanton return John Coffey to his cell on E Block and release Percy Wetmore from the restraint room, where they had confined him in a straitjacket. Percy, still wearing the straitjacket and with friction-tape residue on his mouth, demands his sidearm and baton. He is angry and humiliated, but seems to accept the group's threat that he must keep silent about the night's events and transfer to Briar Ridge. He walks up the Green Mile alone, his head lowered, forgetting the corridor's width. John Coffey, a giant of a man with a reach far longer than an ordinary prisoner's, shoots his long brown arms out between the bars of his cell. He seizes Percy, yanks him against the front of the cell, and presses his mouth against Percy's mouth. A whispering rush of exhalatory sound is heard, and a black, swirling tide flows out of John Coffey and into Percy Wetmore through his mouth and nostrils. Percy screams, muffled, and tries to pull back, but John Coffey's hand on the nape of his neck holds him fast. The transfer is complete in less than a minute. John Coffey thrusts Percy away, grimacing and rubbing his mouth as if he has tasted something bad. Percy stands against the bars of Delacroix's old cell, his eyes wide and blank—double zeros. He does not cough or choke as John Coffey had after healing Melinda. He is catatonic. He pushes away from the bars, lists to port as he walks, and stops outside William Wharton's cell. Without warning, Percy draws his revolver and empties all six shots into the sleeping Wharton, who is snoring on his bunk. The sound is deafening. Wharton is hit in the groin, gut, chest, and three times in the head; he dies instantly. Percy lets the gun fall. His bladder and bowels release. His eyes settle on a far corner of the corridor, and he never sees the real world again. He is led away to Briar Ridge, where he remains catatonic for the rest of his life, dying in 1965. The event reveals that John Coffey's power is not limited to healing; he can also transfer the suffering he has drawn out of others into a new vessel. It also confirms that John Coffey recognized William Wharton as the true murderer of the Detterick twins—Wharton had grabbed John Coffey's arm earlier that night, and the touch had revealed the truth to him. John Coffey used Percy as an instrument of vengeance, and the act simultaneously punishes Wharton and silences Percy forever.