The Devil in Silver

He passed the rooms of the other men in Northwest 2. Nearly all the doors were shut. He passed the nurses’ station and didn’t pay attention to the staff. Since he’d taken his evening meds, they had no reason to linger over him. They were making more stacks of paperwork for the electronic filing to come. They’d been promised a solution to the computer problem. The proper program would soon appear. So they prepared.

Pepper paced down Northwest 5, to the television lounge. He only realized he wasn’t wearing shoes or socks when the chill in the floor leached into his soles. Since it was late, he found the late-shift patients on duty. The night birds.

There were still only four of them: Heatmiser, who still watched the silent television screen and read along with the closed captioning. He had a chair right under the television. Footage of a tornado-wracked territory showed on the screen. The closed-captioned text read: “Residents of Alabama are bracing for moors.”

“More,” Heatmiser corrected.

The other three patients were there, too. The redhead, the woman who never seemed to make eye contact with anyone, and the Chinese Lady. Each sat at a table by herself like a sovereign, newspapers spread out across her tabletop like scrolls.

Pepper repeated one sentence to himself as he walked toward them: Do not call her the Chinese Lady. Do not call her the Chinese Lady. But the more times he thought this phrase, the more afraid he became that he’d say it. He approached the redhead because that seemed safer. She was also the only one who’d spoken to him that night, long ago now, so she seemed like the leader. Make introductions to the Redhead Kingpin, and the others would follow.

“You reading all those papers?” he asked her, smiling lightly.

Redhead Kingpin didn’t so much as sigh.

Pepper, feeling slighted, moved around Heatmiser, reached up to the television set, and turned the volume up. Now the news was being yelled at them. A childish act, no doubt.

He pulled a chair up beside Heatmiser. Heatmiser rose from his seat, mumbled something, and wandered from the television lounge, looking confused. On-screen, footage from the Kentucky Derby played. The hoofbeats on the track sounded louder than bombs at high volume.

Finally, Redhead Kingpin turned in her chair. She watched Pepper quietly for maybe one more minute. “You’re just going to make noise until we invite you to play with us,” she said.

Pepper’s only response was to cross his arms. Was the man actually pouting?

The redhead cleared her throat. The other two women—the one who never made eye contact and not “the Chinese Lady”—stopped their reading and looked up for the first time. “Does anyone have a problem with …”

“Pepper.”

“Does anyone have a problem with Pepper joining us?”

The one at the next table still didn’t lift her head, but her hand did rise, as if she was in a classroom. Then she waved the hand side to side.

Redhead Kingpin said, “Say your piece.”

The woman lowered her hand. She spoke into her clavicle. “He can stay, but he can’t read any of my periodicals.”

Pepper sniffed at her. “I don’t even want to read any of your periodicals.”

Just like that, the woman lifted her head. The woman had the coloring, and shape, of a sweet potato. Hardly the type to seem threatening. But what Pepper saw in her eyes actually made him tremble. She looked more rageful than Loochie just then. A scowl that would’ve made the Devil quake. He’d had thugged out guys (thugged out black guys) who hadn’t stiffened his spine so quickly. (Was that racist?) (Probably.)

“It was just a joke,” Pepper muttered.

The woman nodded once, like Pepper had apologized, and looked back down at her magazine.

Redhead Kingpin splayed her hands flat and wide apart on her table. Three or four newspapers were spread out there. She adjusted each, just slightly, the way you might straighten an off-center painting.

“Well, my table’s all full,” Redhead Kingpin said.

Finally, the third woman (not the … you know) said, “He can sit with me.”

Pepper walked to her table. But before he sat, Redhead Kingpin cleared her throat again. She pointed at the television. “How about you lower that before you get all comfy?”

After he did, the redhead added, “And please don’t start the same trouble you did with your other friends.”

“I didn’t—” he began to explain. He stopped when he realized these three women (and probably all the other patients) blamed him for what happened. Were they wrong?

Pepper sat at the Chinese woman’s table. She had newspapers and a few magazines. She offered him a copy of Backpacker magazine, which he accepted. But he couldn’t concentrate.