The Devil in Silver

by Victor Lavalle

His chance to escape witnessing Dorry’s encore performance had come when one of the nurses entered the television lounge, flicking through the keys on her chain. She found one long four-sided key. As she moved through the lounge, half a dozen other patients appeared behind her, matter pulled in her wake. They followed her, and Heatmiser slid back from his place at the table to join them. The nurse stopped at the glass doorway in the lounge. She slid the key into the door’s bottom lock and called out, “Smoke break!”

  Pepper found himself excited by those two words. Even if it was only to stand around on a busted old basketball court. This would be the first fresh air he’d known in almost thirty days. He left Dorry, took his PB&J, and got in line to go out.

  The breeze. It touched his neck and made him shiver. He opened his mouth and smacked his lips like a child conditioned to feed at the feel of his mother’s nipple. He inhaled the oxygen and swore it even had a taste. His tongue quivered in the cage of his mouth. He had to clamp his teeth closed to be sure it wouldn’t slip free.

  Heatmiser and Pepper and a Puerto Rican kid in his twenties marched outside. (When asked, at his intake meeting four months ago, what he wanted to be called, the Puerto Rican kid told Dr. Anand he wanted everyone to use his “professional name,” Wally Gambino, and Anand only blinked and said, “Wally it is!”)

  The nurse didn’t walk outside with the patients. She didn’t have to. At the far end of the court stood that chain-link fence with barbed-wire icing. A less addle-minded person might be able to scale it and use a blanket to cover the razor wire, slip himself over to freedom, but that was sort of the point of New Hyde, no? These folks, by and large, couldn’t even coordinate their outfits. Just about every patient wore a pajama top with jeans on the bottom, or pajama bottoms and a stained blouse on top. Some had showered recently, while others (Heatmiser) hadn’t. Not a jailbreak population.

  None of the patients wore coats, it was March but still a little chilly. They were all just so happy to feel the real climate that they didn’t register the cold at all.

  New Hyde didn’t supply the smokes. Those were brought by family on visiting days. A (semi)cheap gift, but much appreciated. Once outside, each patient pulled out a loosie and sparked it. All Pepper had was his inedible PB&J. But who cared? He stood outside. He walked the length of the half-court. On one end, that raggedy basketball rim hung at an angle, and at the opposite end stood a tall maple tree. The tree threw shade over half the court. That’s where nearly everyone went. Everyone but Pepper, eyes closed and face up toward the sun, and Loochie, who’d been one of the last ones out. She walked right up to the fence line and picked up a handful of rocks and pebbles. Pepper only opened his eyes when he heard Loochie stop in front of him. He heard this regular breathing and looked down to see her staring up at him, left hand heavy with stones. It was hard, for a moment, not to think of David and Goliath.

  She squinted from the sunlight. “I want you to apologize.”

  He felt so surprised by what she said that he dropped his damn sandwich on the ground. Both he and Loochie looked at it there. What seemed less edible? The PB&J or the pebbles?

  She picked up the sandwich and turned it over and brushed off the small bits of dirt and leaves that had stuck to the bread. Once it was mostly clean she brought it to her lips, gave it a faint kiss then held it over her head, toward the sky.

  “Kissed it to God,” she said. “Now you can eat it.”

  She handed it back up to Pepper and to Pepper’s surprise he took it.

  “Thank you?” he said.

  She had on that same blue knit cap. She reached underneath and scratched at her scalp with one finger. The movement was so delicate that the pom-poms didn’t even quiver as she did it.

  “How come you’re always wearing that hat?” he asked. He thought he was being playful but Loochie ignored him.

  “To my mother,” she said. “I want you to apologize for knocking her down.”

  “I didn’t mean to hit her,” Pepper said.

  “You know that’s not an apology, right?”

  Pepper saw that someday this girl was going to be pretty, but for now she was such a teenage girl. Smallish, but stooped forward to hide her chest, which only made her seem even shorter. Her feet were big and only seemed bigger because of the snug jeans she wore over her thin legs. Her long-sleeved top didn’t quite reach her jeans, so a band of her stomach showed and bulged out slightly, and she tugged at the bottom of her shirt to cover it. But the moment she let go, it slipped up again, showing skin. She yearned to be seen but felt awkward each time it happened.

  In another context Pepper would’ve sighed when seeing someone like Loochie. Like if he was on the E train coming home from work and she got on with her friends. He’d expect her to be loud (and she would be), he’d expect her to obnoxiously barrel through the crowded car bumping anyone she pleased (and she’d do that, too). He’d hate her, honestly, as he did most teenagers. But taken out of that context, dropped in New Hyde alone, it didn’t matter how tough she might be. Here he saw a kid.

  “I’ll apologize,” he said.

  She nodded and tossed one of her pebbles at the fence.

  “I heard you last night.”

  Pepper wiggled the sandwich in his hand and then—why not—he took two bites. “Was I loud?” he asked.

  Loochie threw another pebble. “Screaming usually is.”

  Now he bit into the sandwich again. “Why doesn’t your mother get you out of here?” Pepper asked.

  Loochie dropped all the pebbles. She wiped her hands clean. “She’s the one who committed me.”

  “So why would you want me to apologize to her?”

  She turned and took a step toward Pepper. Instantly ready to throw down. This seemed so young, too. That thoughtlessness, the rage that just has to become action. But he also understood it. He waved one hand in front of her face.

  “Calm down,” he said quietly. “Come on.”

  Her lips quivered. She looked away from Pepper and back into the television lounge. She said, “She’s still my mother.”

  Pepper finished his sandwich. It had almost no taste at all. The smokers under the maple tree were down to the end of their butts.

  “It’s been in my room, too,” she said. “You probably heard me.”

  He remembered the night when the women were screaming. When he felt lucky for being passed over. “That was you?”

  She shrugged. “Could’ve been. Depends on the night.”

  How old was this girl? He wanted to ask but he wasn’t sure how the question would sound. Like a criticism? Like he was about to turn all fatherly? It wasn’t meant as either one. More like he was marveling at what he was up to when he was just eighteen or nineteen. For all the trouble he got into, he wasn’t ever in a place like this.

  “Do you really know what it is?” he asked.

  The nurse returned to the lounge and unlocked the door that led outside.

  Loochie said, “It’s the Devil.” She looked up at him, squinting because of the sun. “I think you know that.”

  So she’d confirmed his most delirious idea, unlike Dorry, and it actually felt good to hear the thing named out loud. By someone other than him. But what was supposed to happen right after that? Now what?

  14

  DR. BARGER SHUT the door to conference room 2 and smiled at the Book Group members. Loochie and Dorry and Coffee and Pepper. Sam and Sammy were not in attendance. Neither was Josephine or the book cart. Just four patients and Dr. Barger.

  “Let’s rearrange the tables,” he said.

  They did the same work again. One table over by the windows. The other table moved to the center of the room. Five chairs slid close for those in attendance, the others pushed back against the walls. Even Dr. Barger helped. With the chairs.

  Then someone knocked on the door, and he said, “I’ve got a little surprise for all of you.”

  Dr. Barger opened the door and a woman stood in the doorway, carrying two canisters, one w
hite and one silver. An old woman, black, quite slim, wearing a purple pantsuit and a tidy hat that matched. When Pepper had first arrived, he’d seen Dorry give this woman his box of breakfast cereal in the television lounge. The woman didn’t even look at the doctor, only shuffled into the room in her slightly worn black Easy Spirit shoes. She entered carrying the two canisters close to her chest, as tender as a member of the congregation carrying the body and blood of Christ.

  Dr. Barger waved his hand as if he’d conjured the old woman. “I bring you coffee and hot water for tea!” he said.

  And against all better judgment, Dorry and Pepper and Coffee actually applauded weakly.

  The old woman made it to the free table at the back of the room and set down the canisters. Under one arm she carried a short stack of white disposable coffee cups. She set those down next. Then she turned and left the room and Dr. Barger stayed at the door, held it open, as proud as a pharaoh. He grinned at the group. “See? There are rewards for your attendance.”

  Dorry raised her hand. Dr. Barger pointed at her to speak, as if they were in grade school.

  “How come you’re only bringing us gifts after four weeks of Group? We had three times as many people at the first meeting.” Dorry leaned toward Pepper and poked at his sleeve. “That was before you joined the cast!”

  Dr. Barger shrugged. “I had to ask Dr. Anand for money to buy you all some supplies, and he had to file the request with the board of Northwest who then passed it on to the governing body of New Hyde Hospital. From there, it had to be approved by the president of the hospital, or at least rubber-stamped by his secretary. And I’m guessing that request is still on someone’s desk. Finally, I said forget it and just bought the stuff at Key Food.”

  Coffee wagged his finger at Dr. Barger. “You didn’t have faith in the system.”

  Pepper looked at Dr. Barger. “Coffee’s not an American. He doesn’t know it’s every man for himself around here.”

  Dr. Barger jutted out his lower lip, as if a specimen had finally done something worth noting. “Is that how all of you feel? Dorry? Loochie?”

  Dorry waved her hand at Pepper dismissively. “Even Pepper doesn’t believe that. He figures that’s what he’s got to say. You look stupid if you’re sincere these days.”

  Dr. Barger pushed the conference-room door closed without thinking. He’d become engaged in this conversation and didn’t want it to end. Because he wasn’t paying attention he bonked the old woman in the purple pantsuit as she walked into the room. The tray in her hands flew; the tea bags, and packets of sugar, and a plastic cup of plastic spoons all tumbled to the floor.

  The old woman wasn’t hurt. She hardly stopped moving. She held on to the tray and stumbled into the room. Dr. Barger pulled the door back quickly and sputtered apologies. The old woman set the tray down on their table, lifted one arm and dropped a rectangular box of lemon cookies. She turned toward the mess, which Dr. Barger now stooped forward to clean up, and she pulled at the doctor’s coat to move him. With the doctor out of the way, she bent and gathered up all the fallen items in two quick swipes. She used the plastic cup like a scoop. She set all the items back on the tray. Then she shuffled out of the room. She hadn’t spoken, hardly acknowledged anyone the whole time.

  Dorry punched Pepper in the arm lightly. “She’s been here almost as long as me. I don’t think the doctors even know her name anymore. They give her little jobs like that. You would almost think she worked here. We call her the Haint. Haint quite a patient. Haint quite the staff.”

  Coffee studied his open blue binder, as if he hadn’t noticed any of this. Loochie snatched the box of lemon cookies.

  Pepper said, “I need coffee.”

  As he poured it, Pepper realized it was the first cup he’d had in over a month. He used to buy two or three each day before. Before. The word made him feel slightly dizzy. He dipped one finger into the hot coffee and held it there, burning the tip of his finger until he came back to himself.

  As he blew on his finger, Josephine arrived at the door pushing that same three-tiered book cart. It entered the room and gathered all attention, the ark of a cut-rate covenant.

  The same bevy of professional manuals were on the shelves but now there were seven copies of one book, all in unblemished condition, across the top row. Hardcovers. Jackets in “near fine” condition (a used-booksellers’ term). The background of the jacket was black and on each spine, the title in large red letters: JAWS. JAWS. JAWS. JAWS. JAWS. JAWS. JAWS.

  Dr. Barger peeked outside theatrically, finally shutting the door. He sat down at the head of the table. Dr. Barger stretched out his hand and Josephine handed one of the books to him. They could all see the back cover. It showed the author’s photo in black and white. The dude wore a black jacket and white turtleneck, stood in a slightly turned pose, and grinned faintly at all of them in the room. He cut a Hugh Hefner figure. And on the front cover that iconic image, an enormous gray shark’s head moving up from the bottom of the black page and a small gray woman swimming at the top. The woman meant to get a little exercise, but the shark had other plans.

  It was an old book-club version of the original. The shipping cost more than the books. Dr. Barger opened the dust jacket and scanned the flap. He read out loud.

  “ ‘It’s out there in the water … waiting. Nature’s most fearsome predator. It fears nothing. It attacks anything. It devours everything.’ ”

  He closed the flap and sighed.

  “Oh, my,” he said.

  He dropped the book on the table as if it had dirtied his fingers. Then he looked up at the group, and smiled and said, “I’m really looking forward to discussing this book!”

  Loochie ate a lemon cookie, spoke with her mouth full. “Liar.”

  Before Dr. Barger could argue, the door opened and in walked Sam. All eyes in the room scanned the doorway for Sammy. But Sam just shut the door.

  She looked down at the floor.

  Last time, she’d been dressed for the day; now, she wore her pajamas.

  She moved behind Pepper and Dorry and took a seat at the far end of the table, directly across from Dr. Barger. Her face looked red, as if she’d been scalded, and they couldn’t see her eyes because she wouldn’t look up. The depth of her silence quieted the others.

  Finally, Dorry spoke up. “No jokes today, Sammy?”

  She lifted her head. Her eyes were red and veiny. She hadn’t been burnt, she’d been crying. “I’m Sam,” she said quietly.

  Dr. Barger said, “You’ve been crying.”

  Loochie rolled her eyes. “Is that your professional diagnosis?”

  Coffee said, “If you want to add a complaint to my own petition, I can include your name when I reach”—Coffee cleared his throat—“when I reach someone.”

  “Sammy’s gone,” Sam said.

  Coffee looked down at a page and made a note.

  “Dead?” Dorry asked.

  Dr. Barger barked, “Dorry!”

  Sam pointed at Dr. Barger and Josephine.

  “They say they discharged her. But she didn’t even say good-bye? To me? They said I slept through her release, but she didn’t even leave me a note? She just disappears?”

  Pepper surprised himself when he spoke. As he’d been listening to Sam, he’d been clenching his teeth. Not consciously, just a tightening in his chest, his neck, his jawline. And the two words found their way out.

  “The Devil,” Pepper said.

  Sam narrowed her eyes at Pepper. “Maybe it didn’t get who it wanted. So it came after her instead.”

  Pepper leaned so far back in his chair, it tilted.

  Loochie raised her arm, making a fist. Was she about to hit Sam? Or fly across the table and throttle Pepper? Unclear, but Dr. Barger could see she was about to do something aggressive. Sam’s sadness, her suspicion, her accusation ran through the room like a current. The newest admit had to use those words. The Devil. Dr. Barger thought, Not this again.

  Dr. Barger said, “I’m
sure Samantha will call you as soon as she’s back home and settled in. You all know it can take a few days to readjust.”

  Every patient in here (except Pepper) knew this was true. Coming out of the hospital could feel like emerging from the amniotic sac, or from a tomb.

  Dr. Barger added, “So why don’t we give Samantha a few days before we decide that she’s been sacrificed to Beelzebub.”

  A bit gruesome, that, but it did work. So much of the job in Northwest was simply about management. The ugly truth was that these patients weren’t here to be cured. There were no cures for them. They had illnesses that had to be managed, by them and by those who treated them. They were like ships that would never find a shore. The most you could do was bring them supplies; the most they could do was get used to the rocking, the unpredictability, of the vast, impenetrable ocean below them.

  “Now,” Dr. Barger said, smiling, seemingly relieved to have staved off a storm. He knocked on the front cover of the book. “Let’s get back to this shark.”

  Book Group ended and they all fled. They were running from Sam, even if they wouldn’t put it that way. She stank of desperation and loss. Dr. Barger couldn’t stay because he had another job, late-afternoon patients at his private practice, a half hour drive from New Hyde Hospital. (You didn’t think Dr. Barger was living solely on the salary he earned serving the practically destitute population of Northwest, did you?)

  Last out of the room was Josephine, whose heart felt sore as she wheeled the book cart. She’d had to evict Sam before locking up. Sam didn’t even argue as she walked out, head down again. Josephine watched her leave and wanted to grab Sam’s hand. Just hold it. But she wanted to be a professional. Best to get back to work or Josephine would soon feel overwhelmed. The cart had to be returned to the supply closet in Northwest 1. Then back to the nurses’ station to log on to the computer, continue transferring information from the charts. Who else would do it? Most of the staff couldn’t handle an automatic transmission.

  Pepper and Coffee walked together. Coffee had his binder and his copy of Jaws tucked under one arm. Pepper held his copy of the novel in one hand. They looked like schoolboys just then, walking home from class.