The Devil in Silver

On the third night, Pepper arrived early.

The three women (and Heatmiser) tended to hit the television lounge at about ten p.m. This allowed the dinner rush to pass and the food (and meds) to hit the other patients. By nine o’clock, most couldn’t stay awake even if you set a limb on fire. By ten there was hardly anyone left. That’s when the quartet hit the stage. They fought through the haze rather than fall asleep. Other patients did exactly the same during the day, after breakfast meds, or lunch. They chose to keep alert then because they liked being up with the sun. These four were just on a different schedule.

And now there were five.

Sue came in carrying her plastic bag with two accordion folders and the night’s reading material clutched to her chest. She wore a thin white sweater over her faint blue nightdress and white Keds that had been through a hundred or more cycles in a washing machine, clean but eroding. To Pepper, she looked like a librarian. And in a way, that’s what she was.

Before she’d even settled herself in her chair, Pepper pulled his hands out from under the table. He waved his book at her. “I brought something tonight!”

At the television Heatmiser shushed Pepper. Pepper looked back as if he’d like to mess with the kid, but that boy’s face already looked five kinds of tired, weary in a way that had little to do with sleep. So Pepper only nodded and said, “Sorry.”

Heatmiser turned back to the closed-captioned scroll on the TV. The words appeared on the bottom half of the screen. “Catherine Zeta-Jones is touted for bipolar II disorder,” it read.

Heatmiser laughed to himself. “I think you mean ‘treated,’ ” he whispered.

Sue laid her stuff out at their table. Not the magazines, but the newspapers this time. She had the manila accordion file on the table; the blue one, for dreams, stowed under her seat. Pepper saw two words written in black ink on the side of the manila folder.

“No Name.”

This gave Pepper a chill, as if he were seeing that phrase etched into someone’s tombstone. He didn’t want to look at it. Pepper raised his book and showed her Van Gogh’s self-portrait on the cover.

“That’s him?” she asked. “He looks intense.”

Sue leaned closer to the page. “Actually, I think he looks a little like Elliott.” She pointed at Heatmiser.

Pepper looked back at the television. “That’s his name?”

Sue said, “Let me see some more of his paintings.”

Pepper flipped through the book’s pages fast as a deck of cards. “These are his letters, mostly to his brother. There’s only a few pictures in here and they’re only in black and white. But I think his stuff was mostly in color.”

Sue touched the cover. “Have you ever seen them in real life?”

Pepper snorted. “I didn’t even really know who this guy was until I opened this book. I mean I heard about him, like his name, but I just knew it was, like, a saying. You know? A teacher said it to me in class once. ‘You think you’re a real Van Gogh.’ And that was only because I was drawing a woman’s tits on my desk.”

“That’s charming,” Sue said and flared her nostrils.

Sue reached into one of her sweater pockets and took out a tiny notepad and a pen. She set them on the tabletop. Nearby, Redhead Kingpin and Still Waters had already begun working for the night. The day’s newspapers were open. Both women scanned the articles.

But Sue didn’t rush to join them as she might have on any other night in the past. When she looked at Pepper, she didn’t want to stay quiet. She didn’t mind if they spoke for a little longer.

Pepper, sensing that he’d passed some hurdle, some gate, felt a flush in his chest and arms. He said, “The thing I’ve been thinking about, as I’m reading these letters, is that there’s actually two Vincent Van Goghs.”

“Like clones?” Sue asked.

Pepper laughed loudly.

Behind him, Heatmiser said, “Come on, man.”

Pepper leaned closer to Sue so they could speak quietly. He said, “I mean there’s Van Gogh, now, whose name is used to tease a kid at P.S. 120 just because he’s drawing …”

“Tits,” Sue said dryly.

Pepper kept going. “You know they have a whole museum dedicated to Van Gogh in Amsterdam? They have a plug for it in the back of the book. A whole building dedicated to what he painted in his life.”

“How long did he live?”

“He was dead at thirty-seven.”

“Damn.” Sue sat back in her seat. “I’m forty-one.”

She looked at Pepper quickly, to see if the admission would sour him somehow. But Pepper didn’t care. He was still on his “two Van Goghs” point. He put his hand on the armrest of her chair. He said, “But the second Van Gogh is just a guy named Vincent. Vincent lived for thirty-seven years. Van Gogh only came to life after Vincent died. Same man, two people.”