The Devil in Silver

by Victor Lavalle

  Eight patients stared at it, men and women, pawing blindly at their breakfast trays. Their mouths hung open and their eyes looked heavy in post-dosage stupor. What else could they do to ride the dosage out but watch television? Pepper couldn’t even manage that.

  The news played, though what was on hardly seemed to matter. The patients watched commercials and weather reports as intently as “breaking news” when they were in this state. Pepper heard the anchor’s voice. “Thousands packed Cairo’s Tahrir Square for a ‘Day of Victory’ to celebrate the one-week anniversary of the ouster of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.”

  Pepper tried to focus on his breakfast tray. A small box of cereal, a green apple, an eight-ounce carton of milk, a four-ounce juice cup, two pieces of white toast, and a set of plastic utensils. Very little of this stuff actually qualified as food. Foodlike, maybe. Pepper looked away from his tray, slowly raising his eyes, if not his entire head, to peek at the half-court out there. But what he saw, just beyond the court, was that same chain-link fence topped by barbed wire. The door to the half-court had three locks.

  How am I here? Pepper wanted to ask.

  But he couldn’t form the words. Not only was his body still working at sludge speeds, but now his mouth was so dry he could feel the bumps of his tongue against the roof of his mouth. He needed a sip of that juice. The most appetizing item on the tray. He meant to move his arms, to grab the tiny cup, but couldn’t. His fingers didn’t work, either.

  Dorry watched him struggle without offering help. It wasn’t that she was being cruel. It was that she was on meds, too. Pepper recognized it on her face. She smiled widely again. Had he said something funny or was she reacting on delay to something she’d heard minutes ago?

  He stared into her mouth. Dorry had tombstone teeth, bent at all angles and going gray. Her giant glasses showed streaks, like a window that’s been wet but not wiped clean. She wore the same blue nightdress from the night before. She was the kind of person Pepper might’ve given change to on a subway and never thought about again. Not a good thing to admit, but it was true. And now here he was, looking to her for help with his meager breakfast. His thirst overwhelmed him.

  “Dorry,” he whispered.

  Speaking, just that one word, and barely a whisper, made his parched throat burn. He puckered his lips, he opened and closed them. He stared down at the breakfast tray, at the juice carton, and hoped she understood.

  Dorry said, “Do you know much about the American buffalo?”

  It took Pepper a moment to register how mind-bogglingly random Dorry’s question was. If he’d been in control of himself, he might’ve chucked his table at her out of frustration. But he couldn’t do much of anything. He watched the little juice cup with an almost romantic longing.

  Dorry rose from her chair.

  She shuffled around the table.

  “Two hundred years ago, or something like that, the American buffalo dominated the West. There were millions of the great beasts, running in herds so big it sounded like thunder rolling toward you. A population of five million. Ten million. Maybe more.”

  Pepper couldn’t quite focus on her words. By now his mind seemed to be floating. Or sinking. Either way, his brain was an untethered balloon. If he hadn’t been able to see the tabletop right in front of him, see his arms balanced on the chair’s armrests, he would’ve thought he’d been let loose to float into the sky.

  His throat felt so dry.

  “When the settlers started crossing the country in droves, the American buffalo met its match. People wanted the skins for warmth, they ate the meat, they used the horns and the bones and all the rest. Those Native Americans used even more of the animal, but they hunted it all out of proportion, too. Used it for themselves and sold it to the settlers. The American buffalo became big business. Nothing stands in the way of that. In no time, maybe three years, those beautiful beasts were almost extinct.”

  Dorry stood by his side now. She reached across his tray for the four-ounce juice cup. But she couldn’t pull the foil top off the thing. Even though she’d been on the unit for much, much, much longer than Pepper, she, too, had been walloped by her morning dose. What she took would’ve put Pepper into a coma.

  “People used to go out and hunt them with rifles. Hell, they even leaned out of moving trains and picked the buffalo off with potshots. They also call the American buffalo a bison. Same animal, two names. Don’t know why that happened.”

  Dorry finally opened the juice. Like Pepper used to do when he was a kid enjoying a quarter water after school. She popped two holes with her teeth then jabbed one finger inside to make a kind of spout. She tilted back Pepper’s head and opened his mouth.

  “But the worst way to kill them, in mass numbers, was to drive a herd toward the edge of a cliff and just make all those big dumb things jump right off. It was messy. Some people think the men did it just for fun. Or maybe it was more efficient. Didn’t use any bullets and you had all of them right there at the bottom of the cliff. The sight, from above, must have been something truly hellish. Just thousands of bison, broken into pieces. Heads and hooves and tails and guts. Blood everywhere. Some of them didn’t die right away. They might be down there snorting and wheezing and slowly drifting off toward death. But it hardly counted as a loss for anyone but the buffalo. Even though it sounds wasteful, the profits were so big it didn’t matter.”

  Dorry finished by slowly pouring the apple juice into Pepper’s mouth.

  Pepper’s arms shivered and his tongue expanded in his mouth like a sponge. His eyes focused on the old woman standing over him. He smiled at her: a mama bird feeding its chick.

  After drinking two ounces, he regained some control of his body. He raised one hand and took the juice from Dorry, sat up straighter, and slurped the rest himself.

  And Dorry returned to her chair, snatched both pieces of toast off his tray, and winked. The price of partnership.

  Pepper grabbed the green apple and bit it once. A chomp so huge it exposed the core. Smaller bites, Pepper. After he finished chewing he asked, “Dorry, why did you tell me that story about the buffalo? It’s horrible.”

  They laughed and the mood seemed to lighten.

  Then Dorry said, “I want you to understand where you’ve found yourself, big boy. In here we’re the buffalo. And New Hyde is the cliff.”

  Pepper wasn’t any goddamn buffalo, or bison, or whatever. He was a man and he’d be leaving soon after he made his phone call. Of course, Pepper couldn’t say those things to Dorry. Instead he spent forty-five minutes finishing his apple while she calmly watched him, as if she knew exactly what he was thinking.

  “We’ll have to go back to the nurses’ station if you want to make that phone call,” she said. “You remember where it is?”

  How could Pepper be expected to forget? What kind of dimwits was Dorry used to dealing with? But then Pepper remembered he’d been unable to walk half an hour ago, so maybe he shouldn’t be too smug.

  “Down that hall.” Pepper gestured with his head.

  Dorry grabbed the cereal box off his tray and held it up. She raised her eyebrows and Pepper consented to let her take it. Dorry marched over to the gaggle of patients by the television. She skirted around one table, closer to the windows, and stopped beside an old black woman wearing a purple pantsuit and matching little church hat. Dorry leaned close and spoke into the woman’s ear, then set the cereal box in her lap.

  Pepper and Dorry turned their walk back to the nurses’ station into a funny kind of race. Dorry held on to the wooden railing running along the right wall, and Pepper held on to the one on the left. They used the railings for balance, and to drag themselves forward. Eating breakfast had spiked Pepper’s blood sugar enough to put a dent in his paralysis, but he still needed a little help. And Dorry did, too. Clinging to their respective rails, they lumbered in harmony.

  When they reached the nurses’ station again, the same tops of the same four heads were still bent over the same paper
work. The staff members hadn’t shifted. Just as Dorry and Pepper reached the oval room, a phone rang behind the nurses’ station and one of the staff, a woman, picked up.

  “Northwest,” she answered, as if this was her name. She listened for a moment. “The doctor is not on the unit just now. Let me put you through to his voice mail. All right?” She asked without waiting for a reply. A faint click could be heard as the nurse pressed the transfer button. Then a clunk as the plastic phone went back into its cradle. The woman went back to paperwork. At New Hyde the term for this was charting.

  Pepper found he could best move through the room if he focused on its discrete little details. If he spent too much time planning his phone call to Mari, everything he needed to explain and to ask of her, then he got tripped up. Stick to the basic motor functions, Pepper! Footsteps, and hands held tight to the railing, and keeping pace with Dorry as she led him forward.

  But then he lost himself by counting hallways. They’d just left Northwest 5 and as they veered to the left, making a circuit around the nurses’ station, holding to the curved railing, they reached Northwest 1. As they crossed the mouth of that hallway, Pepper turned and recognized the secure door. Miss Chris stood in the open doorway. A delivery man held a white bag, food from a place nearby called Sal’s. Miss Chris counted out her money. Pepper couldn’t even consider escaping just then, he could barely stay upright. Then they passed Northwest 1 and Pepper clung to the railing again. Up ahead was Northwest 2, the men’s hallway, where his room lay. He looked over and saw Northwest 3, the women’s. There he saw a pair of middle-aged women walking together, dressed nearly identically, and laughing over some impossibly funny joke. Really happy, at least in that moment. Were they patients? How could they be smiling if they were in here? He couldn’t stop watching the women as he moved.

  And that’s how he bumped right into Dorry, nearly knocking her over. But he caught himself and her. The wooden railing groaned as the two of them held to it.

  “Sorry,” Pepper said.

  Dorry said, “My son was the same way. Never looked where he was going.”

  Two of the staff members at the nurses’ station rose from their seats, just high enough to peek over the desktop at Dorry and Pepper. One of them was Scotch Tape, who recognized Pepper from last night and didn’t feel like being bothered this early. No one being hurt, no one attempting to escape, no one refusing treatment. As far as the staff’s checklist went, there were no problems then. He returned to his charting.

  Dorry and Pepper had stopped midway on the wheel, between Northwest 2 and Northwest 3. Between the two halls there was a little alcove.

  “Pay phones,” Dorry said.

  “I can make as many calls as I want?” Pepper asked. Surprised that prisoners were limited to just one, but mental patients had unlimited access.

  “As long as you’ve got the money,” she said.

  He had the change right in the pocket of the slacks he’d slept in. Pepper reached into the pocket and pulled out the coins. Only then did he realize the act of balance he’d just achieved. A minor feat for anyone over two years old, agreed, but you’d be surprised how that medication makes you feel like a wobbly infant. It had been two hours since he’d swallowed the meds and he still didn’t feel clearheaded, but maybe they had lost their worst effects.

  The change in his palm looked like shiny communion wafers.

  The alcove wasn’t terribly big. There were two pay phones. Both were in use. By the same guy.

  Pepper’s roommate.

  Mr. Malt Ball held one receiver to his right ear. The other was balanced on his left shoulder. He looked like an old-time receptionist, putting through calls. He didn’t notice Pepper, even in that cramped space. This guy had admirable powers of concentration. Either that or he was just ignoring the big man.

  The roommate spoke into the phone by his right ear. “Yes, I will hold.”

  Then he set that phone onto his right shoulder and lifted the other one to his left ear and said, “Hello? Hello? Come on!” But he’d already been put on hold on that phone, too.

  Dorry peeked in. She said, “That’s Coffee.”

  At least Pepper had a name for his enemy.

  “I should warn you,” she said. “I wouldn’t go around flashing my change like that.” She pointed at Pepper’s open hand and he closed his fingers. “Coffee’s going to ask for money if he sees that.”

  “He already did. He’s my roommate.”

  Dorry winced like someone who’s just touched an open flame. “For the first time since we’ve met, I actually feel sorry for you.”

  Dorry meant this as a joke, but why did it make Pepper flinch?

  He walked right up to the still oblivious Coffee, who had returned to the phone at his right ear. His eyes were tilted upward as he listened to the hold message play for the fifth time in a row. That’s why he didn’t understand what was happening when Pepper snatched the other receiver out of his left hand to hang up the line.

  “I’m using this phone now,” Pepper said.

  Pepper stood half a foot taller than Coffee but, more important, Pepper outweighed Coffee by at least eighty pounds. And Pepper’s face, with its high, flared nostrils and bared teeth, looked about as pleasant as an etching of a Chinese demon. The sensible reaction for Coffee would have been to make peace. Or even to get his ass out of the alcove. But let’s say this for Coffee: the man was out of his mind.

  Coffee squared right up to Pepper, chest to belly.

  Then he spat in Pepper’s face.

  The saliva struck the big man’s chin, slid down, and hung there like a chrysalis for a full three seconds before Pepper hit the man.

  Actually he crushed him. The alcove didn’t have enough room for real blows to get thrown, so instead Pepper threw himself. The smaller man got caught between a wall and two hundred seventy-one pounds of medicated murderousness. Coffee might as well have been ground into a fine powder. Ready for the French press. (Sorry!)

  Coffee howled and went down to the floor. The other receiver slipped out of his right hand, striking against one wall like a gavel. A recorded announcement played from the receiver, repeating what it had already been saying for many minutes:

  “Thank you for calling 311 in New York City. We’re here to help.…”

  Coffee was curled on the ground, hands over his face. Pepper stooped over him. Pepper wanted to thump this guy for spitting on him. Really one of the most cowardly and disgusting moves a person can pull in a fight. But before he could do more, Pepper felt that saliva dripping down onto his neck and he panicked. What if this dude’s spit had passed through his lips, even just a little bit, and gone down his throat? AIDS? Hepatitis C? Who knew what could happen? The moment the thought came up, it was impossible to put down. He stuck his tongue out and pressed it to the sleeve of his shirt. Licking his arm to clean his tongue. Coughing loudly.

  Try to imagine what Scotch Tape and the other staff members saw when they entered the alcove, drawn in by Coffee’s screams and Pepper’s wretching. The staff found a very large man standing over a smaller one, menacing the smaller man who was, even now, scrambling to get hold of the dangling pay-phone receiver to try his call again. And the big man was—what the hell else could you say?—licking himself.

  Crazy-balls. The scene was absolutely crazy-balls.

  Scotch Tape sucked his teeth. He stared up at Pepper with distaste. “Damn, my man.”

  Pepper stopped applying his tongue to the fabric of his shirt and turned toward Scotch Tape. Below them both, Coffee spoke urgently into the phone.

  “Hello?” he whimpered. “Please. I’ve seen it. I know where it lives.”

  “Thank you for calling 311.…”

  Two nurses poked their heads into the alcove, but with Coffee, Pepper, and Scotch Tape already inside, there was no more room. From farther outside the alcove Miss Chris shouted, “What’s this foolishness?!”

  Scotch Tape called out, “New admit attacked Coffee.”

&n
bsp; Hearing it like that, from a staff member, made Pepper understand what he’d just done. Hadn’t he resolved to control himself? To make the best impression possible? But getting spat on had to count as a mitigating circumstance. Pepper wanted to explain.

  “I needed to make a phone call,” he began.

  Scotch Tape waved the words away. “I’m taking you back to your room now, and you’re going to stay in there for the rest of the day. You hear?”

  Coffee rose to his feet now, pushing himself up with his back against the wall. He shook the receiver of the phone Pepper had hung up. “Now you owe me a quarter, Joe! An American quarter!”

  Pepper said, “This guy was using both phones and I just …”

  Scotch Tape stepped closer to Pepper. They were squared up just like Pepper and Coffee had been, but Scotch Tape wouldn’t have to spit on anyone to make his point. That was clear.

  “Save that shit,” Scotch Tape said. “You can explain all this to Dr. Anand.”

  The way Scotch Tape said it, the name sounded like “AndAnd.”

  From outside the alcove Miss Chris added, “Oh-ho, it’s Charlie Big Potato causing the fuss? I already told him to be easy.”

  In defiance, desperation, and drugged-out confusion, Pepper grabbed the phone on the left, lifting the receiver out of its cradle. He’d make his phone call.

  But Scotch Tape wouldn’t let that happen. He pressed two fingers down on the cradle, and the dial tone choked before Pepper even got the phone to his ear.

  Then, another quick flash of temper, Pepper half-raised the receiver like he’d bring it down on Scotch Tape’s head. But he stopped himself from making a bad day terrible and put the phone back in the cradle.

  Scotch Tape grinned.

  “That’s smart, big boy. First smart move you’ve made since you got here.”

  Oh, how Pepper would’ve loved to pick up Coffee and use him to bludgeon Scotch Tape to death. Would that count as black-on-black crime?