The Devil in Silver: A Novel

by Victor Lavalle

  “Hey, Pepper,” Loochie asked. “How come white people do that?”

  She mimicked the move; head down but eyes surreptitiously on alert.

  Pepper frowned. “Why you asking me?”

  “You’re about the only white guy I know,” Loochie said.

  Pepper blushed red. “That’s not true.”

  “What other white guys you think I come across?” she asked. “I live in Laurelton.”

  Now he caught himself looking at the folks in the neighborhood. All the people in front of these homes were white. He hadn’t even been thinking about it. But now he watched the neighbors like he was actually going to explain some behavioral trait to his naïve friend.

  And once Loochie had mentioned it, he had to admit it seemed kind of true. Looking without looking. As soon as the group of patients reached them, the locals dropped their heads, but Pepper could see their eyes shifting warily. Was this really something white people did? Only white people? Did he do it, too?

  At first, Pepper wanted to tell Loochie it was a way to pretend the patients weren’t there. A trick for making others invisible. That made a simple kind of sense to him. But as Pepper watched it happen again and again, he changed his diagnosis. It began to seem like these people thought that by dipping their heads they were actually making themselves invisible. As if you couldn’t see them if they didn’t look directly at you. Talk about insane!

  That’s where things got uncomfortable for Pepper. After all, he was a white guy. So wasn’t Loochie criticizing him? Assuming he knew why white people played this eye-contact game meant that he, too, had probably done it. And had he? Probably! Pepper, who never really thought of himself as some great defender of the white way of life, felt the impulse to fight back.

  “Let me ask you something,” Pepper said. “How come black guys are so loud on the subway? Like when they start yelling out rap lyrics? Or they just play music through those little speakers on their phones instead of using the goddamn earphones like normal people do?”

  Loochie raised her eyebrows and let them drop. She sighed with disappointment.

  “That’s easy,” Loochie said. “Those loud black guys on the subway? They’re being assholes, too.”

  Then Loochie broke ranks and walked ahead of him.

  Something strange happened after the patients left the hospital. Inside, they were patients, but the farther they walked, the less this seemed true. Pepper turned into a white guy from Elmhurst. Loochie, a black teenager from Laurelton. It’s not like this hadn’t been true (or obvious!) before, but inside Northwest it hadn’t really counted as much of a difference. Not when you considered their enemies: the pills, the restraints, the Devil. But out here, there were no restraints and no pills. Maybe even the Devil had been left behind for now. So something had to rise in the order.

  And it wasn’t just the two of them. Suddenly Doris Roberts drifted away from Sandra Day O’Connor and gravitated toward Still Waters, two generations of Jewish women. Sandra Day suddenly found herself pulled toward the Redhead Kingpin. Wally Gambino and Loochie, kids from Queens, slid into step. Only Mr. Mack and Frank Waverly didn’t break off for new friends. Each man walked alone.

  Pepper watched these allegiances shift. He did a little quick math. If everybody paired off with the people who looked most like them, he’d be spending this whole field trip with Heatmiser. What was he going to do, listen to that bastard mumble for the next hour because they happened to share skin color and genitalia? He picked up his pace and found Loochie, who was walking side by side with Wally Gambino. Pepper had to balance on the curbside, dodging trees and fire hydrants, if he wanted to keep pace. Wally was in the middle of a sentence when Pepper caught up.

  “… and that’s why I’m saying,” Wally purred. “I been had my eye on you girl. I like that bald look. You lookin’ like a sexy mannequin.”

  Loochie walked with her head down, not looking at Wally. She tugged her knit cap down lower, so it almost covered her eyes. She watched her feet as they walked, but she cut her eyes to the right, watching Wally warily.

  “You’re doing the same thing right now!” Pepper laughed and pointed.

  Wally glared at Pepper. “Big man! You got to back up. Me and shorty is having a parlay.”

  Loochie jabbed her thumb toward Wally. “This is why women do it. I just didn’t know why white people do.”

  Wally was in between them. They talked across him.

  “Maybe it’s the same thing,” Pepper offered. “We just don’t want to be bothered.”

  Wally leaned closer to Loochie and deepened his voice.

  “I’m saying. You need to spend a little time with me.” He looked back at her butt. “You got a bubble I want to pop.”

  Pepper couldn’t help himself. He laughed.

  “I’m a virgin,” Loochie said with comical sincerity.

  But Wally hadn’t heard her. Instead, he looked at Pepper. “Big man, you don’t want to be laughing at me. You know what they call me back home? They call me Bloody Loco! Make sure you recognize that name. ASAP!”

  “I thought they call you Wally Gambino,” Pepper said.

  “You don’t put no fucking fear in my heart,” Wally shouted. He was smaller than Pepper and much thinner. “You or no fucking man put no fear in my heart!”

  Behind them, Nurse Washburn said, “We can take you back to New Hyde, Wilfredo. Turn you right around. ASAP.”

  Wally sneered at Pepper. “We ain’t done,” he said.

  Then he walked forward until he stomped alongside Scotch Tape. Now Scotch Tape had to listen to Wally grumble.

  Pepper looked at Loochie. “Are we cool?”

  Loochie nodded. She pointed at Wally Gambino, up ahead. “That’s why I keep my head down,” she said. “Sometimes I don’t even realize I’m doing it. It’s just easier to protect myself from guys like him.”

  “Yeah,” Pepper said. “I see.”

  “But here’s what I still don’t understand,” Loochie continued. “White people do it to everyone. Even each other.”

  Pepper sighed. “So?”

  “So how much of the world are you all scared of?”

  36

  THE CREW REACHED Union Turnpike, and Scotch Tape pointed at the sign on the awning of their destination: Sal’s Restaurant & Bar Incorporated.

  “Cheese on bread,” Mr. Mack muttered. “This is it?”

  Scotch Tape pointed at the green awning, its white lettering. “Yes-sir!” he said. He tried to sound enthusiastic though he understood the look of disappointment creeping across each patient’s face.

  A dozen patients shuffled and mumbled. They looked to the nurses who also nodded to show that indeed they’d reached the destination. Sal’s Restaurant & Bar. The staff tensed, a decision was being made by the group’s mind. Both nurses and the orderly calculated. Twelve patients and three staff. Imagine the debacle if even five or six of them decided to bolt, underwhelmed by this field trip. Half a dozen mental patients scrambling across Union Turnpike, that four-lane roadway with buses and big trucks speeding in both directions, perfect for splattering fleeing patients. There was a bus stop two stores down from the restaurant. Scotch Tape waited there after each shift as he began his ninety-minute journey home. Don’t run, don’t run, don’t run. That’s what the staff members were chanting in their heads.

  “Who’s paying?” Loochie asked.

  “New Hyde Hospital.” Nurse Washburn patted a sweater pocket where she carried the department’s debit card.

  A little more murmuring. A few looks back and forth.

  “So let’s get in there!” Scotch Tape said, grinning much too widely. He bounced from one foot to the other. He was getting himself ready to tackle the first person who tried to make a run. Young or old, man or woman. The first one to bolt was going to get whomped. A lesson for the others.

  The second nurse said, “They make good pizza. I ate here before.”

  “Can we get beer?” Pepper asked.

  Nurse
Washburn rolled her eyes. “No beer.”

  “But you’re paying for the slices,” Loochie clarified.

  “Two each.” She patted her pocket again. “That’s right.”

  No declarations were made by the patients. No one shook hands or signed a treaty. But the potential rebellion had been quelled. Heatmiser walked to the door of Sal’s Restaurant & Bar Incorporated. He held it open.

  Sal’s Restaurant & Bar was bigger than your average pizza place because it really had been a fine establishment once. (It had also once been owned by a guy named Sal. Now it was actually owned and operated by a man named Joseph Angeli, but who was going to pay to fabricate a whole new awning? You?)

  The bar had been removed (Sal took his liquor license with him) and replaced with the traditional bank of ovens for cooking up slices. But the dining area remained the same. Seating for fifty, and each table had a maroon tablecloth. The back wall had a faded trompe l’oeil painting of an Italian city under a blue sky. When the patients entered the restaurant, a few of them cooed.

  “This is nice,” Redhead Kingpin said.

  The patients crowded the nearby counter. One old man stood behind it, looking bemused. He had his hands in a gray plastic bin of shredded parmesan cheese. His full head of wavy white hair sat flat on his scalp from working near the heat of the ovens. His eyebrows were thinning and his face clean-shaved. His cheeks and forehead were red, and his nose had a high arch, like an Art Deco eagle, which made the man look angry all the time. Another person could be heard behind a swinging door, clattering pans. The patients jammed themselves against the counter, and the old man looked at them. He nodded once, and said, “So what’s all this?”

  They called out orders.

  “Lemme get two pepperoni!”

  “Lemme get one anchovy!”

  “Lemme get three with sausage!”

  But the guy didn’t even take his hands out of the cheese. He just scanned. Finally Scotch Tape entered the restaurant. “Everybody go take a seat,” he shouted. “Take a seat!”

  The patients glumly moved away from the counter.

  The old man smiled and pointed at Scotch Tape.

  “That’s my guy.”

  A teenage couple occupied one table in the restaurant, a single half-eaten slice between them. The girl leafed through a newspaper, and the boy ticked away on his cell phone. But as the patients moved past the pair, they looked up. Were they shocked to see so many mental patients cresting over them like a wave? No, it wasn’t that. These two kids were just amazed to see so many customers. Normally, Sal (they didn’t know his real name was Joseph Angeli) wouldn’t serve this many people in a week.

  The patients took their seats. There were plenty of tables, but they clustered near each other, as if afraid to drift too far apart. While the others were discussing their orders, Redhead Kingpin and Still Waters paid attention to that newspaper at the teenagers’ table. The girl flipped the pages loudly out of boredom, and those two watched her enviously.

  Both nurses took a table together and pushed out a third chair for Scotch Tape. Scotch Tape remained at the counter, jabbering with the owner. Sal looked at the group as Scotch Tape pointed at them. He nodded his head faintly.

  Scotch Tape returned to the group. He clapped his hands at the start of his announcement. “I told Sal that everyone is getting two slices apiece.”

  Loochie raised her hand, “I want mushrooms on mine.”

  Scotch Tape waved one hand. “We’re not getting into all that. Everyone gets two cheese slices and a soda.”

  Sal came from behind the counter carrying a plastic tray crammed with Coke cans, all perspiring chilled droplets. He went from table to table plopping down cans. Three people demanded different drinks. Sal didn’t argue. He took the Cokes and returned with two ginger ales and one Diet Coke. Once that was done, he stood before the patients and rubbed his big hands, making a swishing sound.

  “I’m happy to have you all here today,” he said. “Call me Sal. I’ll be making your pizza.”

  He smiled at them, much too widely. He really waggled his eyebrows. Cartoonish gestures. The kind of thing you might do when first meeting a group of kindergartners.

  Pepper leaned toward Loochie. “Why’s he talking to us like that?”

  “Have any of you made pizza before?” Sal asked. “It’s not that diffi— hard. But it’s hard to make it right.”

  Loochie sighed. “He knows we’re mental patients.”

  “Scotch Tape must’ve told him,” Pepper said. Sal was about to explain what dough and cheese were. After that, maybe he’d give a lesson on the oven and the transformative power of heat! Pepper didn’t feel like humoring the guy as he tried to “communicate” with them. They were out for a trip, a kind of vacation. He wanted a reprieve from the unit, not a reminder.

  “Hey, Sal,” Pepper called out. “Can you make my slice with Haldol?”

  That made Loochie grin. “I’ll take lithium on mine,” she added.

  “I want a little Depacot on mine,” Doris Roberts shouted. “A dank!”

  Even the silent patients enjoyed themselves. Heatmiser and Yuckmouth and the Haint grinned. Laughter rippled through the group.

  Sal wasn’t stupid, he understood he was being ridiculed. But he couldn’t understand why they were doing it. He was being nice! But okay, fine, Sal (Joseph) had his own worries in life. (Like a daughter, an addict, working in the back, who made a habit of lifting money from the register when left to work the shop alone; which is why the man never got a day off; which is why the man was tired; which is why he lost his patience.)

  “Ahhh, you can choke on the slices,” Sal said.

  Which made even the staff members laugh.

  Sal stomped behind the counter to cook.

  The teenage boy set down his phone and ate the rest of the slice in two bites. He gave the crust to the girl. She chomped it while getting up, and the pair left.

  The girl forgot her newspaper. Didn’t even look back for it as she went. What did she care? It was am New York, a freebie handed out weekday mornings at subway stations and bus stops. If she’d returned, even just a minute later, she wouldn’t have found it anyway, it was already at another table. Still Waters flipped through the pages and now thoroughly ignored Doris Roberts. Each time a page turned, Redhead Kingpin, at the next table, faintly whimpered.

  Soon enough, the slices arrived.

  Sal didn’t bring them over himself like he had the soda cans. The serving duties fell to Sal’s daughter, a woman in her forties who never introduced herself. A woman who didn’t seem put off by or scared of the patients, didn’t act friendly or solicitous, either. She seemed so utterly indifferent to the patients that they immediately felt quite fond of her. This woman had served that teenage couple in exactly the same way. Equal-opportunity disinterest.

  Before their meals began in earnest, Mr. Mack picked up a napkin dispenser and clanged it against the tabletop like a gavel.

  “I think we should say a little prayer for Dorry,” Mr. Mack said.

  There were many differences about the patients on the outside, but none more so than with Mr. Mack. If inside he was as irritable as a weasel, outside he’d found a new kind of steadiness. Not calm, but more commanding. Less weasel, more badger. Maybe this is how he’d been before he entered New Hyde. Or how he might’ve been had he never been committed. He was at his table alone. He stood up to lead.

  Those who were in the practice shut their eyes and whispered the proper words from memory. Even Frank Waverly, at his own table, mouthed the phrases. Those who weren’t the praying types still clasped their hands.

  “We wish you the best, Dorry,” Mr. Mack said. “You’re probably talking God’s ear off right now!”

  There was a long silence, people squirmed, unsure if the caustic old man was mocking the dead.

  “But unlike us,” Mr. Mack added. “The good Lord will appreciate the sound. Amen.”

  “Amen,” Loochie whispered.

 
; Pepper found himself unable to speak. He’d been so cruel to that woman with his last words. And, if he thought about it, hadn’t she helped him yet again, even in death? It was because of her suicide that he’d been brought to Dr. Anand’s office. Once in there he was finally able to call Sue’s sister. Even now, sitting in Sal’s pizza shop—the entire patient population getting out so the cops could work on Dorry’s crime scene without interruption—even that was kind of her doing, too. Maybe Dorry really had been like a mother. He’d treated her so badly but still, in her way, she’d taken care of him. How could he thank her for that? How could he ever repay it?

  And in this moment, Sal came from around the counter again. The dining area had turned so quiet that he wanted to make sure they hadn’t all somehow dined and dashed. He found the patients and the staff with lowered heads.

  Sal watched quietly for a little while.

  “That’s good,” he finally said. “I like to see that.”

  Pepper and Loochie and all the rest opened their eyes. They looked at Joseph Angeli, who was leaning forward, both hands flat on an empty table. His head dropped, and when he lifted it again, his eyes were moist. He pointed to the painting on the back wall, the Italian city. “That’s Florence,” he said quietly. “The birthplace of Dante.” He shook his head. “Dante knew the truth.”

  The thunder of crashing pots came from the kitchen. It shook everyone but Joe, who was used to it. The clatter nearly drowned out his last words.

  “The Devil is real,” he said.

  The pizza was fine. But the setting made it scrumptious. And the staff didn’t rush the meal. Scotch Tape tried to play like he was being magnanimous. When one patient or the other asked him how much time they had left before they must return to New Hyde, Scotch Tape just waved one arm to let them know there was time. And he was giving it.

  So they ate slowly, but eventually Nurse Washburn rose and walked a circuit around the tables.

  “All done?” she asked loudly. Not for the patients but for Scotch Tape. She didn’t much care for his benevolent-king routine, especially since she and the other nurse (Nurse Washburn hadn’t learned the woman’s name yet) outranked him. She wandered among the tables twice, as if taking a count, then she stopped alongside Scotch Tape. She stood next to him but didn’t face him. (She didn’t want it to appear like she was reporting to him.) He stayed seated. Nurse Washburn said, “If we’re all done, then we can line up.”