The Devil in Silver

The orderly didn’t even look back at the cart. He crossed his arms to make his beefy biceps look even fuller. “I hear you’re not really hungry anyway,” he said. “I hear you’re actually turning down the things staff members offer you.”

Aha.

Pepper nodded. “It’s going to be like that.”

The orderly shrugged. “Let’s see if your appetite comes back by breakfast.”

And why did this guy take such pleasure in this little act? It was cruel, but the cruelty wasn’t really the charge for him. It was the rules. The order. Outside the unit (and even inside, mostly) this orderly, Terry, was a pretty decent dude. He volunteered at an animal shelter in Forest Hills and found it easier to care for animals than people. With people, you start getting into choice. To put it another way: Terry worked on a psychiatric unit but he didn’t really believe in mental illness. A series of bad (or stupid) choices led folks to New Hyde’s nut hut, that’s what Terry believed. Like this guy, Pepper. The doctor says you need to take your meds, so why not take them? You can’t leave until the doctors believe you’re improving. They won’t believe that if you’re not dosed up. And maybe the damn things are even helping you act like less of a wackadoo. So why not do it? Why not? Why not? Why not? In this way, not evil, even understandable, Terry justified denying Pepper his dinner. And Pepper could see Terry wasn’t going to become some fifth column among the staff, so he walked away and finally decided to sit with Dorry.

Maybe she would share.

“Hello, Dorry,” Pepper said. Even to himself, he sounded artificial. He wondered how broad a smile he might be showing.

But then he appreciated, enjoyed, that he could feel his lips move. That he could coordinate the thought of sitting at Dorry’s table with the action. That the meds had been beaten back enough that he could feel himself smiling, even if it was just to try to trick an old woman out of a desiccated-looking orange on her dinner tray. (It was either that or, you guessed it, a beet cookie.)

But even as Pepper pulled the chair out, Dorry slapped one hand on that orange and closed her mottled fingers around it. And with that she got to peeling.

Three hunks—bing, bang, boom—right into her mouth. Hardly enough time to chew. It was as if she ate the orange just to spite Pepper. As if this woman, both a mother and grandmother, had learned how to recognize when someone was just being nice in order to get something from her.

When Dorry had finished, a line of juice running down her chin, she said, “You look hungry.”

Pepper pouted. “I am.”

“Well, that’s what happens when you won’t do what they tell you.”

“News travels that fast?”

Dorry nodded toward the next table where Mr. Mack and Frank Waverly sat over their dinner trays. Mr. Mack lifted his head from his carton of juice as if he’d been monitoring Pepper and Dorry’s conversation. He set down his juice, looked directly at Pepper and said, “I am a grown man. I do not gossip.”

Then he returned to his previously scheduled apple juice. Once he did, Dorry raised her right hand and curled it into the shape of a duckbill. She nodded toward Mr. Mack again.

Quack, quack, quack!

The moment Mr. Mack looked up from his meal, Dorry dropped the pantomime.

And, of course, none of this had any bearing on Pepper’s hunger. And, for that matter, on his recent stance. Hadn’t he just gone all Spartacus? Where were his legions of gladiators rallying behind him?

Dorry just wiped her chin.

Mr. Mack looked at his wrist. “It’s just about six thirty. I’ve got the slot.”

The other patients hardly seemed to hear him. They either remained focused on their meals or on the game show playing on the screen.

“No whammies, no whammies, no whammies …!” shouted the man on the television, who hadn’t been well dressed even when this show first aired twenty-six years ago.

“Come on,” Mr. Mack said. “Who’s got the remote? It’s six thirty and I want the news.”

Loochie sat at the table closest to the screen. She raised one hand, holding the remote. “Almost six thirty,” she said.

Mr. Mack glared at her. “That’s fine,” he said. “But as soon as it’s my time I want my show.”

And finally here came Coffee.

Pepper watched as Terry, the orderly, received no follow-up phone call. Coffee just shuffled down Northwest 5, looking slightly dulled, and he reached the orderly. He was given a dinner tray.

Pepper watched as Coffee scanned the lounge. Looking over, through, past Pepper. Pepper didn’t bother waving him over. Instead Pepper became improbably interested in the woman on the screen now and the question of whether or not some little red animated demon would destroy her dreams.

“Come on, no whammies,” she chanted. “Come on, no whammies.”

It was as if Coffee had been a reel of film that hadn’t quite caught on the grooves of a projector wheel. Finally he saw Pepper (meaning his medicated vision and his consciousness synced). Coffee registered Pepper there at the table with Dorry and shambled over.