The Devil in Silver

Mr. Mack and Frank Waverly were at one table. Neither man looked at Pepper. At another table he saw another familiar couple. Sam and Sammy! But then he focused and realized they were two different women, new patients, similar but decades older than Sam and Sammy had been. Japanese Freddie Mercury sat at a table alone and it took Pepper a moment to wonder where his pal, Yuckmouth, might be. But really, who cared?

Who cared? Who cared? Who cared?

Pepper ate but tasted nothing. He blinked and breathed.

When Pepper finished lunch, Miss Chris and two orderlies appeared. They surrounded him. They walked Pepper back to his room. They looped the restraints around Pepper’s ankles and wrists. They left him there.

23

NOW THAT THE legal rep had gone, Pepper’s every meal was served in his room. His meds were brought to him. Loochie and Dorry were treated the same way.

There was a time when Dr. Anand knew of, but perhaps willfully ignored, his staff’s overuse of restraints on patients. But after the incident with Coffee, he’d check in on Pepper or Loochie and Dorry and find them in wrist and ankle restraints but, to his own quiet surprise, he didn’t care. When one of them complained about the aches (their backs, from lying prone for so long, especially) the doctor nodded his head and became engrossed in the charts in his hand. Soon enough, he got so used to seeing them tied down that he really didn’t even see the restraints anymore.

For the first two weeks after Coffee’s death, the trio didn’t spend much time on their feet or out of bonds. During the third week, they were freed in shifts. Each got eight unstrapped hours a day. The other sixteen, they were flat on their backs or, for variety’s sake, the restraints were rearranged so they could spend the sixteen hours on one side. Each time Pepper was lashed down, he asked the nurse or orderly if they’d leave one arm free so he could at least read during the hours he lay awake. And do you know who was the only staff member to indulge him? Miss Chris. Go figure that one. The times when Miss Chris left one arm unbound, Pepper read from the only book in his possession, the letters of Vincent Van Gogh. With his bed in its new position, he faced a wall instead of the windows and the sunlight streamed in over his back and illuminated the pages throughout the day.

Pepper was free from eight p.m. until four in the morning. Then back to bed.

The Devil didn’t return. As if Coffee’s murder had appeased it.

But for how long?

Six weeks later, on April 11, Miss Chris and a new orderly found Pepper asleep in his bed. They didn’t wake him until they’d removed the restraints. The orderly kicked the side of his bed. Pepper opened his eyes.

When he sat up, Miss Chris stretched out her hand, a small plastic cup in her palm. He accepted the pills without a fuss.

Then the orderly handed Pepper a small plastic bag from T.J. Maxx. Inside, he found a pair of slacks, a shirt, underwear, new socks. One new outfit, the same size as the clothes he’d worn in.

“Dr. Anand bought those for you,” Miss Chris said. “Since your other clothes got ruin.”

“You can move around the unit freely now,” the orderly said.

“But we’re watching,” Miss Chris added.

As Pepper washed his face in the bathroom sink, he found himself smiling in the mirror.

Look at that, he thought. His fuzzy reflection couldn’t stop smiling, which meant he must’ve been smiling. Pepper brought his cheap towel to his face and dried off, but he couldn’t feel that rough fabric against his cheeks. He dropped the towel, then traced the smile in the mirror with his fingertip. He tapped the metal with one long fingernail, and it sounded as if he was clicking the reflection’s teeth.

He’d lost weight while in restraints. Sure, he hadn’t been able to move much for six weeks, but he hadn’t eaten hardly at all. When the nurses came to feed him, he sometimes refused. Not really a hunger strike, more like a hunger tantrum. But the staff didn’t try to persuade him when he did this. You don’t want to eat? I’ll see you in the morning. Just like that. You’re not Bobby Sands if no one’s paying attention. You’re just starving.

Pepper dressed in his new clothes. Good to get out of those pajamas. Then he went to breakfast.

He moved through the unit with his head down, ignoring the staff, and ignoring the phone alcove as well. He heard a patient in there, a woman, talking on the phone with pleasure, laughing to a loved one. And Coffee wasn’t in there, on hold on the other phone, because Coffee was dead. So Pepper ignored the alcove and stumbled into the breakfast line. He picked up his tray of cereal and milk, a small green apple and two dry pieces of toast.

No one else in the television lounge paid attention to him. They had their own troubles and a television show to watch. Mr. Mack had control of the machine again and he’d picked his favorite.