The Devil in Silver

Let’s take a moment to be impressed. Three doses of Haldol and lithium topped off with a Vicodin nightcap and the urge still arose, like a flower growing through concrete. And he sure hadn’t been staring at any butts while in here. He just hadn’t had the itch. All those butts, and more, were stored in Pepper’s memory chip. It was as if his mind had known the surest way to rouse him from the pit of sedation. Asses would work.

Pepper’s mind woke him up. He found himself in his bed yet again. No butts in sight.

Now Pepper, get your big ass out of bed.

Outside his windows Pepper heard the muted rumbles of traffic moving down Union Turnpike. Ambulances whining as they sped toward the hospital. Car horns composing a fugue of frustration. From where the sun sat he guessed it was midday. He’d probably slept through breakfast.

In fact, it was four thirty on Saturday afternoon.

Coffee’s bed sat empty. The sheets tussled but the body gone. The door to the room was open. Pepper walked to the corner where the ceiling panel had fallen down. He stood under it but couldn’t make himself raise his hand and touch. It felt like standing under a cold shower, being right there. Pepper’s big body tensed so hard he shivered. He half-expected someone, something, to come crashing down on him. But that didn’t happen. So finally he backed out of the room, keeping an eye on that ceiling tile until he’d left.

He stepped into the hallway gingerly. Would one of the staff members appear, tackle him, and hold his mouth open? Why hadn’t Miss Chris or Scotch Tape or whoever was on duty done that to him this morning like they did the day before? Maybe they preferred to let a sleeping patient lie.

Northwest 2 was empty. Quiet. Yes, the fluorescent lights in the ceiling made noise, the low drone of an electric insect. But other than that? Not much. Pepper didn’t even hear his own footfall. He had only his Smartwool socks on his feet. He went back for his boots.

He still wore the clothes he’d had on when the cops brought him in. Now the fabric looked a bit ragged, more wrinkled than an old man’s balls.

He reached the nurses’ station and found just one orderly back there, charting.

The orderly looked up from his seat, over the tall shelf of the nurses’ station, and nodded at Pepper. A thick folder of paperwork sat in front of him. The orderly had stopped writing to flex his aching fingers. Like the other staff members, he wore his keys on a short, red plastic cord around his wrist. When the orderly looked up at Pepper again and stretched his aching hand this time, his keys tinkled.

“Last night …” Pepper said, but he couldn’t finish the sentence, didn’t want to say it out loud.

The baby-faced orderly kept watching Pepper, but his hand dropped back on the papers and the fingers searched blindly for the pen, working nearly autonomously.

“You need something?” the orderly asked.

How old was this guy? Twenty? And in this place he had almost total authority over Pepper, a forty-two-year-old man.

“Where is everyone?” Pepper asked.

The orderly jerked his head once, behind him, toward Northwest 5, the television lounge.

“It’s visiting hours.”

Finally the kid looked down and found his pen. He snatched it, then looked up and frowned, clearly unhappy to find Pepper still standing there.

Now the orderly leaned over and lifted a clipboard.

“You had your lunchtime meds?” He scanned the list but wasn’t sure of this patient’s name.

Pepper saw an opportunity. “Oh, yes,” he said. “I had those. Definitely.”

“What’s your name again?” the orderly asked, torn between the clipboard and the charting.

“Thanks!” Pepper shouted as he walked to Northwest 5, and the orderly just set the clipboard back down with a shrug. He clicked his pen and returned to work.

Even from halfway down Northwest 5 the lounge looked like it was jumping. Every table was occupied, handfuls of folks were forced to stand. The natural afternoon light flushed against every face. And most of the people in there weren’t even looking up at the television, though the television stayed on.

Pepper didn’t make it all the way to the lounge. Part of the problem was that he saw Dorry in there, at a table with a slightly tired-looking woman in her forties, and two enthusiastic kids under ten. The kids were in their chairs, on their knees, holding playing cards close to their faces. Dorry, too, though she kept dropping her hand theatrically and one or the other child would shout for Grandma to be careful! The woman in her forties had a hand of cards, too, but hers were facedown on the table. She looked out the window and seemed to wish she was anywhere else.