The Devil in Silver

“Okay now,” Scotch Tape whispered to it. “We’ll get you back. Come on.”

Dorry looked down at Pepper.

“Maybe you feel like they’ve pushed you off the cliff already,” she said.

The nurse peeked at Pepper, too. She saw him watching Scotch Tape and the thing under the towel. And the nurse shifted her body to block Pepper’s view! In the same movement, she put an open hand to Dorry’s mouth. Pepper knew what the nurse had in her palm. And Dorry didn’t argue, she took the pills and swallowed them.

Dorry looked at Pepper once more, lips pursed in a sympathetic frown.

“You have to climb back up,” she said.

The nurse sucked her teeth and squeezed Dorry’s upper arm.

“Enough foolishness, Dorry. Why you come to this boy’s room anyway? You forgot you’re an old woman? He too young for you!”

The nurse laughed loudly, as if she could make everyone (herself included) forget what had just happened in this room. She pulled Dorry out.

The pair stepped into the hallway, and the nurse looked back at Pepper, who was still on the floor, on his back. His breathing stayed weak but at least it came steady.

“I’ll be back to help you, soon come,” the nurse promised.

Who would ever doubt her return? It just wasn’t possible that Pepper would be left after such an attack.

But forty minutes later, no one had returned to check on him so he finally had to pull himself off the floor.

13

NO WAY AROUND it, a doctor had to be called in.

Maybe Pepper’s sternum hadn’t actually splintered (since he had pulled himself, painfully, back into bed), but even if his chest plate hadn’t cracked, the man’s pain sure wasn’t a delusion. The morning after his attack, Josephine came with morning meds. When she stood over Pepper, she saw the blood that had seeped through the front of his shirt. A hundred little red dots in the fabric, all bunched around his chest. Pepper opened his eyes and looked at her, but just opening his eyes was an exertion. He spat out a dozen shallow breaths but couldn’t say a word.

Josephine sat on the side of his mattress. There wasn’t much space, but she wasn’t very big. One of the reasons people treated her like a kid, even though she was twenty-four, was because of how her body hid the years.

She set the small white cup with Pepper’s meds down on the floor, and leaned over Pepper. His eyes shut, then opened again. She wasn’t sure he could see her. His eyes wouldn’t focus on her face. She wondered at the pain he was in, and if she wanted to keep doing this job, but then told herself to stop. Even if she quit tomorrow, she was here now.

“I’m going to open your shirt,” she said.

She undid the buttons gingerly. The fabric had stuck to his skin, blood like an adhesive. Finally she got the top two buttons loose and peeked inside and smelled the stale punch of Pepper’s dried blood.

Now she noticed one of the torn restraints, dangling from the side of the bed. She pulled at it and let it swing loose again. She looked at Pepper.

“What did you do to yourself?”

He shook his head so faintly that it looked like a tremor.

“I guess you’ll need to see a doctor,” she said.

When Josephine padded out of the room, Pepper figured that might be the end of it. She might say he needed to see a doctor, but that didn’t mean she’d actually call one. It was just a way to get out of the room. Like last night’s nurse. When he breathed too deeply, his ribs hurt; he was surviving on shallow breaths.

The morning meds remained in their cup, on the floor. Josephine had left without making him take them. He felt grateful for this. His throat felt so tight he couldn’t even imagine ingesting something as small as a pill.

Ten minutes later, Dr. Anand walked in.

The man appeared at the doorway, just as slightly comical as he had been on that first night. Jacket and tie and ID on a plastic cord around his neck. Bushy mustache; cheeks as healthy and round as a brown Santa Claus. But he seemed a bit more rushed this time, maybe the intake meeting was the only time a patient earned the doctor’s complete attention. Now he offered a new performance: the overtaxed physician.

Dr. Anand walked in quickly. Eyes down in concentration, not meekness. He wiggled a clipboard in his left hand. He reached into his pants pocket with the other and jiggled his set of keys. Dr. Anand pulled his hand out of his pocket and scratched his scalp. He patted his chin then the pocket of his coat, looking for a pen. Pantomiming harriedness.

He hadn’t looked at Pepper yet.

“Okay, Mr.…”

When the doctor finally looked up, he grinned genuinely.

“Pepper! Right?” He moved toward Pepper’s bed, reading the chart on the clipboard. When he reached the bed, he kicked the little white cup carrying Pepper’s morning meds. They rolled under the bed but Dr. Anand didn’t notice.

“Sounds like you hurt yourself.”

“It wasn’t me,” Pepper said.

Dr. Anand giggled. “My daughter loved that song. I don’t think she understood what it meant.”

Pepper looked at the doctor directly. “The Devil did this.”