The Devil in Silver

Pepper spent the morning in the makeshift bed he’d shared with Sue. Every wrinkle in the sheets, each indentation in the pillows seemed to hold a trace of her. Pepper lay in the bed, dressed in his street clothes. The binder held tight in the crook of his right arm. When staff let all the patients out of their rooms for lunch and midday meds, Pepper was the first in line. He swiped his little white cup out of Scotch Tape’s hand. He swallowed the pills so eagerly that Scotch Tape and Nurse Washburn suspected a trick. After he slugged the pills, Nurse Washburn put her hand out. “I’ll throw out your cup.”

When Pepper handed it back to her, she peeked inside.

But Pepper felt too good to take insult. Today he was going to help Sue, and nothing could break his great mood. “You don’t trust me?” Pepper asked.

Nurse Washburn, the former Josephine, looked at Pepper coolly. She closed her fingers around the empty white cup, crushed it into a ball, looked over Pepper’s shoulder and said, “Next.”

Pepper went on his way, almost dancing toward the television lounge. Where he found a new orderly manning the lunch rack. Pepper accepted his lunch tray and took the far table. Where he’d first kissed Sue, first touched her. Pepper practically bounced in his chair. He didn’t even eat.

The regulars rolled through for their food. Wally Gambino bopped along and Heatmiser shuffled. The Haint appeared, somehow looking as spiffy as ever even though she wore the same purple pantsuit and matching hat every day. Yuckmouth showed up, too, took his lunch and sat alone. He might’ve been bereft at the damage done to his friend but who could say? His expression was as impassive as always. Mr. Mack and Frank Waverly arrived together. No one had claimed the television, so Mr. Mack flipped to the station, and the show, he loved most. Mr. Mack clapped when that stone idol, Steve Sands, filled the screen. Frank Waverly huffed like an agitated mutt.

Mr. Mack glared at his roommate. “Oh, hush.”

And there were the two new admits. The older women Pepper had seen on the night Dorry attacked Loochie. They weren’t Sam and Sammy, he could see that clearly. Older and a bit more professional-looking in their air. Former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor and Doris Roberts from Everybody Loves Raymond. That’s who they looked like. Sandra Day O’Connor and Doris Roberts.

They sat down one table over from Mr. Mack and Frank Waverly.

“Now everybody listen to this man,” Mr. Mack announced. He raised the volume on the set. “He grew up right here in Queens!”

“Yo,” Wally Gambino said, with a mouthful of macaroni. “How’s this motherfucker’s show always on?!”

“Language,” the new orderly said, but it came out weakly, like he was still practicing giving commands. Everyone ignored him.

“He’s popular,” Mr. Mack said to Wally. “That’s why they air his show three times a day.”

“When does this dude sleep?!” Wally pressed.

“The truth don’t need a rest,” Mr. Mack said.

Frank Waverly huffed again but Mr. Mack didn’t notice.

Steve Sands, as per usual, looked as though he’d just been thawed. Not soft enough to melt yet, but starting to bead.

“Welcome back to News Roll. And I’m Steve Sands. You might remember a month ago when I brought you the story of a mental patient who had to be put down by New York City Police when he tried to harm another patient. There was some outcry about the case. Some felt the police went too far, but I wondered if people wanted the police to wait until the man hurt or killed some innocent person before they stopped him. But we won’t get back into that debate.”

The picture of Coffee from the news piece appeared over Steve Sands’s right shoulder. It hadn’t become any more pleasant since the last time Pepper had seen it. If anything, it looked worse because now, projected on that flat television screen, the image was about the size of a magazine page.

“Well, I’d also mentioned in that piece that this man, Kofi Acholi, was an illegal. He overstayed his time in this country by abusing our work-visa program. And today, we’ve found out that his body will be shipped back to his home country. The nation of Ooganda. Am I pronouncing that right, Beth? You-ganda? Thank you. He’ll be shipped back to Uganda where he’ll be buried, or whatever they do over there.”

Pepper remembered sitting in his room with Coffee, each man on his bed, lunch tray in his lap. He looked down at the tray in front of him now. He peeled the small orange they’d given him. He’d traded a few orange wedges for a can of Sprite. Such a stupid, insignificant way to remember a man. And yet as Pepper ate the orange, his face softened. He looked at his lap and, very quietly, he cried.

When he looked up to the screen, the picture behind Steve Sands had changed from Coffee’s face to a giant green dollar sign.