The Devil in Silver (12 page)

Sammy and Sam clapped. Sammy said, “We like this idea. A title to vote for.”

Dr. Barger just shook his head. “Fine then. I’ll buy us the books if I have to.”

Dorry grinned at the other patients, ignoring Dr. Barger’s glare. “Isn’t that generous?”

“Georgina, will you go get us some tape, and a legal pad?” Dr. Barger asked the nurse.

She nodded, but just as she left the room she said, “My name is Josephine.”

“Better bring a black marker, too,” Dr. Barger said.

Something in Josephine wanted to argue the point
—Say my name, say my name!
—but realized Dr. Barger was one of a dwindling
population: old mutts who were never trained to find others terribly worthwhile. Have an hour’s conversation and these men might be charming, funny, captivating, and kind. But they wouldn’t ask
you
a single question about yourself. Not one. They simply wouldn’t be interested. They were never trained to be curious about others, and they sure weren’t going to start now. At twenty-four, Josephine already knew she could spend the next minute trying and failing to make Dr. Barger hear her, or she could do something to help these patients. Only one choice was worth it. She left the room to fetch the man his pad and pen and tape.

Dr. Barger said, “Okay, so let’s have some suggestions for books.”

One of the two jokers raised her hand.

“Thank you, Sammy.”

“I’m Sam,” the woman said. “
She’s
Sammy.”

Dr. Barger said, “What’s your choice then,
Sam
.”

But it was Sammy who answered. “Ask
Click and Clack
,” she said.

Dr. Barger’s nostrils flared. “I have no idea what that is.”

Pepper leaned across the table, toward Sammy and Sam. “The Tappet brothers, right?” He looked at the doctor. “It’s a radio show called
Car Talk
. I love that show.”

Sam pointed at Pepper enthusiastically. “See that, Frankenstein knows what we’re talking about.”

Despite himself, Pepper laughed.

Sammy applauded him. “Hey, that’s nice. Frankenstein’s got a sense of humor.”

Sam and Sammy whistled and cheered.

Dr. Barger knocked on the table again. “We’re
not
reading a car book.”

Then Loochie spoke, no hand raised, no permission requested. She said, “Magazines.”

“What does that mean?” the doctor asked.

Loochie shrugged. “
Magazines
. That’s what I like to read in here.
Vibe. XXL. Black Hair
.”

Pepper said, “You want us all to read
Black Hair
in Book Group?”

Sammy opened her mouth, she had a joke, but thought better of sharing it.

Dorry spoke calmly. “No offense, Loochie, but I think the rest of us are too old for
XXVibe
or whatever it’s called.”

Loochie laughed like a native speaker at a foreigner attempting to master her tongue.

Josephine returned with the materials.

“How about Ken Kesey?” Josephine suggested. “
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
? That book meant a lot to me in high school. I think
you
all might really like it.”

Sammy frowned. “Well, why don’t you read
Slaughterhouse Five
to a roomful of cattle.”

Sam shook her head. “You’ll have to excuse my best friend. She only reads the covers of great books.”

Sammy grinned. “That’s usually the best part!”

Josephine didn’t give up.

“I just thought you all might like it because it’s about a mental hospital.”

Dorry took off her glasses, which instantly made her look less nuts. Her eyes were smaller, and she seemed younger by ten years. She blew on the lenses, and small specks of dust, flakes of skin, and dandruff fell like flurries toward the tabletop. She put the glasses back on and, nutty again, looked at the nurse.

“Here’s what you have to understand about that book,
Josephine
. As good as it is, it
isn’t
about mentally ill people. It takes places in a mental hospital, yes. But that book is about the way a certain young generation felt that society was designed to destroy them. Make them into thoughtless parts of a machine. To lobotomize them. That book is about
them
, not about people like
us
.”

Josephine stammered, trying to respond, but Dorry didn’t stop talking.

“If you remember the patients who really mattered in that story, most of them were
voluntary
. Do you remember what the main characters called the other ones? The ones who would never leave because they could never be cured?”

“No,” Josephine admitted quietly.

“The Chronics. Most of them were vegetables. Brain-deads. Maybe violent. Chronically sick. Diagnosed as everlastingly damaged. All of
us here at Northwest? That’s who
we
are. Northwest is nothing but Chronics. We’ve all been committed, and most of us are not voluntary. So why would we want to read a book that barely mentions us except to tell us we’re
fucked in the anus
?”

Dr. Barger shouted, “Dorry!”

Josephine could withstand Dr. Barger’s callousness, but to get torn down by Dorry actually hurt.

“I was only trying to …”

Her eyes reddened, and she quickly walked out of the conference room without looking back.

How could Dorry know all this?
Josephine thought.
How does some daffy old lady mental patient in a New Hyde psych unit understand that book better than me?
Josephine didn’t mean to be so dismissive, but it came surprisingly easily. Then, almost as quickly, she questioned many of the judgments she’d made in her life. Mental patients can’t be intelligent. Junkies can’t be articulate. And so on. But really, honestly, how many did she actually know? Josephine left the room feeling embarrassed and shallow, but also determined to do better, to know these people, with time.

Back in the conference room, Pepper realized there was only one thing he wanted to discuss.

“I want to read about a monster,” he said.

This quieted everyone.

Dr. Barger finally said, “Why?”

Pepper said, “Because I’ve seen one.”

Why did everyone in the room suddenly sit up straight? All except Dr. Barger. The doctor lifted a black marker and pulled off the cap. He watched Pepper coolly. “That’s a
belief
we’ll have to discuss more in Group next week. But, okay. We can read a horror story. Nothing too gory, though. I can’t stand things like that.”

“Let’s read
Jaws
,” Pepper said. It was like he could only look at the monster obliquely, to avoid being stricken blind by the horror of direct sight.

Loochie raised her eyebrows at him. “About the shark?”

“Yes.”

Loochie, to her own great surprise, felt interested. She raised her hand to vote yes. So did Sam and Sammy and Coffee and Dorry.

Dr. Barger, underwhelmed, said, “
Jaws
. All right then. I’ll order it.”

Every hand went down except one.

Dr. Barger sighed. “What is it, Coffee?”

“The comptroller’s number, please. You can find it for me on your phone.”

BOOK GROUP ENDED
with a silent march. The patients left the conference room quietly. Sam and Sammy went together. The others, one by one. Only Pepper remained at the table. Dr. Barger and Josephine waited for him to leave so they could lock the door behind him.

What had Pepper been expecting? To declare he’d been trapped here through deceit and have the others, who’d been trapped even longer, gnash their teeth and weep for him? To confess he’d seen a monster and have everyone melt and hold him close? Maybe so. But that’s not what he’d gotten. He’d admitted to being frightened. The reaction of his peers? They wanted lunch.

Pepper finally left the room.

Josephine moved behind him, keeping the Bookmobile between them.

Dr. Barger locked the door.

Lunchtime.

When Pepper reached the nurses’ station, he found half the patients in an orderly line. Scotch Tape stood inside the station, holding a clipboard. He caught Pepper’s eye.

“No more room service for you, my man. Before every meal, you come here first to get your meds, like everyone else.”

Pepper didn’t see any point in refusing. He went to the back of the line. Where Loochie and Coffee and Dorry and Sammy and Sam were. They didn’t speak to him. They didn’t even look at him. Had he said something wrong in there?

Miss Chris was beside Scotch Tape, holding a tray of small white cups. As each patient stepped up to the desktop, Scotch Tape read off a series of medicines: Risperdal. Topomax. Depakote. Celexa. Luvox. Nardil. Dalmane. Haldol. Lithium. (Just to name about a third of Scotch Tape’s list.) Miss Chris checked the cup to be sure the right pills were in each. Then she handed the cup to the patient and both staff members carefully watched each one swallow.

That was the system. Meds at breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

Pepper swallowed his Haldol and lithium. He was strangely grateful for the pills. They shaved down the sharp edges of his emotions. Until he felt smooth and round. Easier to roll along, no matter the bumps and curves. He walked down Northwest 5, toward the television lounge, alone. No doubt he’d lost his job with Farooz Brothers by now. Those guys would fire someone if he missed more than two days. Forget about four weeks. But Pepper just kept rolling.

His rent was paid automatically from his checking account. A system that his landlord (an agency rather than a person) had demanded of all tenants back in 2009 when layoffs first began in big numbers. Electricity, gas, even the cable was probably still working. His life had been disrupted, but not his billing cycles. His cell phone was paid automatically, too. Which meant he might still have service. Where had they put his phone? In a baggie with his boot laces and belt. (That baggie then went into a cubby, like in kindergarten, kept with all the others in a locked room on Northwest 1.) How long could he keep current on his bills? How long would his life outside wait for him? He had about four thousand dollars in his checking account. Which would last longer—his savings or his captivity? Keep rolling.

He reached the television lounge and the orderly handed him a lunch tray. The gray tray, with its little segmented sections, reminded Pepper of the ones they used to hand out in grade school.

Pepper moved to an empty table, as far away from the television as possible. The flat screen showed the local news. There was a remote
control for the TV, an old man held it like a scepter. He lifted it high and increased the volume so he could hear over the chatter of the growing lunch crowd.

The orderly said, “Not too loud, Mr. Mack.”

The old man turned and glowered at the orderly, a kid. “It’s my half hour to control the remote,” he said. “That
includes
the volume.”

Mr. Mack looked to his best friend, who sat beside him. “Is this youngblood giving
me
orders?”

His friend shrugged noncommittally.

Both men wore threadbare sport coats. Under these were their patient-issue blue pajamas; theirs were bright and stain-free. Both had on worn-down loafers, too. They looked sharp, especially in here. Compared with everyone else, they looked like Duke Ellington and Cab Calloway.

The orderly raised his voice now. “You’ve got to think of everyone in the room.”

“Fuck everyone in the room,” Mr. Mack muttered.

“Language!”

Mr. Mack put up a hand in a gesture of peace. “I
mean
I’m trying to help these people learn about current events.” Mr. Mack looked back at the orderly. “And Frank Waverly doesn’t think I need to listen to you anyway.”

The orderly said, “Frank Waverly is no fool. It’s you who’s being defiant.”

Mr. Mack grinned at this as if he’d just been complimented. He raised the remote again and lowered the volume. But just one bar.

Pepper, meanwhile, had settled himself at his table, ignoring the skirmish. Instead of the staff and patient, he watched the sunlight as it lit up the half-court outside the lounge.

He didn’t notice he had company until they sat.

Loochie, Coffee, and Dorry.

At the other end of the lounge, Mr. Mack’s hand rose again, the remote aimed at the screen, and the little green volume bars appeared again. The sound went up.

“Mr. Mack!” the orderly shouted.

Dorry reached over and put her hand on top of Pepper’s.

“So,” she said, when he looked at her.

She leaned toward him without smiling. She squinted, as if trying to see deeper inside. Loochie spoke next, though.

“It’s been around
long
before any of us. I mean any human beings. They found it living here and built Northwest just to hold it. You understand? Northwest is a cage.”

Coffee leaned forward to add, “But every living thing needs to eat, Pepper. You can keep something in a cage, but then you have to feed it. Now look at us here. The food makes us fat. The drugs make us slow. We’re cattle. Food. For it. And best of all, for New Hyde, no one notices when people like us end up dead.”

Behind the group, a new skirmish unfolded. Mr. Mack’s half hour of television privileges had passed. This was as much of a rule on the unit as the medication schedule. The only way to keep so many different patients occupied. It was Sammy’s turn to hold the remote. But Mr. Mack wouldn’t let it go. He and Sammy were now tugging at either end of it like it was the key to New Hyde’s front door.

The orderly intervened. “Your time is
up
, Mr. Mack.”

“I got one minute left! I got one minute!”

“You got milk breath!” Sammy yelled back at him. “And your teeth are yellow!”

Behind Sammy, Sam added, “And those are his good qualities!”

Frank Waverly, Mr. Mack’s friend, nodded at this. Even though Mr. Mack was his best friend, he couldn’t disagree with Sam’s point.

Now the orderly clomped over to the tables to break up their nonsense.

Dorry, Loochie, and Coffee paid this chaos no mind. They were on another plane. Dorry leaned in to speak, snatching that wretched cookie off Pepper’s tray and dropping it into her lap before opening her mouth. “I’m going to tell you the
truth
about what you saw last night.” She glared at the others. “Not stories.”