The Devil in Silver

A pair of old men, one small and one medium-sized, walked past Pepper and Scotch Tape, going in the opposite direction. They wore sport coats and walked in synchronicity. Scotch Tape nodded at them but they ignored him. The smaller one peeped Pepper.

“You believe me about what?” Pepper asked.

“What you said last night,” Scotch Tape continued. “That you don’t belong here. I believe you.”

Pepper stopped to reach for the handrail, put off balance by the residual effects of the medication or what Scotch Tape just said.

“Why do you believe me?” Pepper asked.

“You seen Dorry? Or Coffee? Most of the patients in here? Shit, I’ve seen crazy. And you’re not that. You can be an asshole, though.”

“Why don’t you unlock that big door for me then, so I can just go home.”

Scotch Tape shook his right arm and the red plastic cord slipped down below his wrist. It looked like a miniature Slinky. His keys dropped and he caught them with practiced cool.

“Today’s February 18. You got a seventy-two-hour watch and you’re not getting out any sooner than February 21. But if you keep acting stupid, you’re going to be staying a whole lot longer.”

Pepper didn’t say anything smart because even he’d known that rolling on Coffee had been really dumb.

Scotch Tape said, “Let’s keep going.”

Scotch Tape entered room 5 with Pepper and shut the door behind him. He moved to Pepper’s dresser and rested an elbow on it.

“You know how you got here?”

Pepper couldn’t get a handle on what this moment really was: surprising camaraderie, or just a staff member messing with a patient. So he said nothing.

“That cop who brought you in, the one who did the talking, his name is Detective Saurez. He brought you here because him and his boys aren’t getting no more overtime from the NYPD right now. Processing you at the precinct would have taken hours. Without that overtime they’d basically be working for free. But they know if they drop you off with us you’re our problem and their workday is done. Half of them got second jobs to get to. Like we don’t.”

Pepper shook his head. “That’s why I’m here? Because Huey, Dewey, and Louie got lazy?”

Scotch Tape looked confused for a moment, but he let it pass. He tapped the top of Pepper’s dresser with two fingers, for emphasis.

“That Saurez dude has pulled this same shit with Dr. Anand before. Plenty times. I’m telling you. And we have to process you. But I’ll bet you Dr. A is making some phone calls today.”

Pepper noticed one of his laceless boots standing by the door. The other was most likely under his bed. Yes. He fished beneath the frame and there it was. Pepper collected his shoes and set them both down, together, neatly by the foot of his bed. A little bit of order.

Pepper said, “They can’t just do something like that.”

Scotch Tape shook his head as if Pepper were a silly child.

“And yet here you are,” Scotch Tape said as he left the room and locked the door from the other side.

Pepper sat on his bed.

He wasn’t actually surprised to be locked in his room as punishment. Even if this was a hospital, they’d fallen back on some old-school discipline. His mom and dad might’ve done the same, thirty years ago, when Pepper got into a fight with his kid brother, Ralph.

Locked door, still no phone call made, Scotch Tape’s revelation about why he’d been brought in here, and even Dorry’s little story about the American buffalo. The whole mess swirled in Pepper’s head until he imagined a cliff with a mound of bodies at the bottom. But his vision was far worse than what Dorry had described. He saw buffalo heads and human arms, bison’s legs and human torsos, a mess of discarded flesh and fur. And the three cops were at the top of the cliff. Huey, Dewey, and Louie, not even wearing their plain clothes but the brightly colored sweatshirts those duck kids wore in the cartoons. One red, one blue, one green. They were pushing something big to the edge of the cliff, and he knew who it was.

What to do with all that?

Pepper put on his boots to get rid of the dark thoughts.

The boots were three years old now. Bought from a military shoemaker. The soles were flexible, the toes durable, and lots of ankle support. Perfect for furniture movers, as well as soldiers. Even without the laces it felt good to have his work shoes back on. He worked exclusively for Farooz Brothers Movers. He was very good at his job.

Pepper was thinking maybe he should call the Farooz brothers himself, risk asking them for help, when he heard a patter against his shatterproof windows.

It was rain. A sun shower. The best kind of storm. They always made Pepper feel drowsy. Rain against the windows. The faint tapping got stronger, but only slightly. A sun shower on a Friday morning. Pepper slid his butt backward and lay flat on his bed, the boots still on his feet.