The Devil in Silver

Pepper didn’t bother her again. He hovered near the phone alcove, and every few minutes he slipped Loochie’s postcard out of the breast pocket of his pajama top and looked at it. Van Gogh’s painting and Loochie’s note, which was more beautiful? (Okay, the painting, but not by much.) Loochie was out there in the world. He felt so happy it almost made him nauseous. He wondered where she was. Still in Amsterdam? Back in the United States? Maybe even somewhere else by now.

But really, it didn’t matter where Loochie had gone. Didn’t matter if she’d ever face hard times again. (Of course she would, like anyone.) For now Loochie was something she hadn’t been through six years of on-and-off institutionalization. Loochie was alive.

Beside the phone alcove, he watched some of the other patients emerge from their rooms. He watched Northwest 1, the new women’s hallway, and the female patients who turned in the wrong direction, too. Disoriented by the rearrangements. Facing the front door rather than the nurses’ station and getting totally rattled until they saw Pepper, eyes so bright he shined like a lighthouse. He waved and they set course toward him.

He greeted each one, then sent him or her to the lounge. As those men and women ate breakfast—those who’d survived the terrible night—the food on their trays tasted damn near gourmet.

And finally the new admit finished his intake meeting. Dr. Barger and his team had kept the first room, right next to the secure door, as a meeting space. But since the new patient was a man, Dr. Barger escorted him all the way down Northwest 1 to the nurses’ station. Dr. Barger told the new admit to wait there for Josephine, who had run to the bathroom. (Though the doctor remembered her name as Karen.) Then Dr. Barger returned to his team in the intake room.

The new admit hadn’t responded to Dr. Barger, or anyone else during the meeting. He waited at the nurses’ station now in the same pose as Pepper had seen before. Head down, arms crossed, he didn’t take in the surroundings at all.

Pepper knew what he was going to do even before he began. He slipped Loochie’s postcard into the breast pocket of his pajama top. There, it fortified him, like any good talisman.

Pepper approached the new guy slowly. What to say now? How to break the ice, one dude to another? Pepper didn’t want to look stupid. Suppose he spoke and this guy only glared at him, or tried to bite off his nose, or laughed at him. It seemed so ridiculous to be nervous about saying hello to a stranger after what he’d been through at New Hyde. But there it was, even here, just some mundane social anxiety. Pepper rested one hand on Loochie’s postcard. This made it look like he was about to recite the Pledge of Allegiance. He felt himself calm.

Now Pepper walked closer and extended his hand. “What’s your name?”

The new admit left Pepper’s hand hanging there. Kept his arms crossed.

“Anthony,” he finally said.

“People call me Pepper.” He lowered his hand.

Anthony grinned to himself. He kept his head down, but spoke loud enough to be heard.

“Is that because you give everybody the squirts?”

Pepper laughed. Anthony grinned, then returned his gaze to the floor.

At the Vincent Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, there’s a bit of text printed on the wall of the second-floor landing. It explains Van Gogh’s ambition as a painter; that Van Gogh viewed his work as a kind of “love letter” to humanity. He hoped to be a great artist, but not simply to bring praise upon himself, his talent. (Though that would’ve been nice, dammit.) He hoped to reflect the world’s own glory, with love. An artistic impulse, but one not exclusive to artists. For instance, Coffee. For instance, Dorry. And now, Pepper. The aspiration is so rarely rewarded, or even understood, that most people don’t even try. But wherever it’s found, whenever it’s displayed, it’s an act of genius.

Soon enough Pepper would be released, but until then what would he do? Sit in his room and wait, or might there be more he could offer? Like now, with this new guy, so overwhelmed, so clearly scared, helpless. Pepper touched Anthony’s arm lightly.

“I like to greet the new admits,” he said. “You should see a friendly face first.”

Pepper raised his free hand and waved as if to take in the entire world. He smiled at Anthony.

“Let me give you the tour.”

AUTHOR’S NOTE