Victor Lavalle - The Devil in Silver

Actually he crushed him. The alcove didn’t have enough room for real blows to get thrown, so instead Pepper threw himself. The smaller man got caught between a wall and two hundred seventy-one pounds of medicated murderousness. Coffee might as well have been ground into a fine powder. Ready for the French press. (Sorry!)

Coffee howled and went down to the floor. The other receiver slipped out of his right hand, striking against one wall like a gavel. A recorded announcement played from the receiver, repeating what it had already been saying for many minutes:

“Thank you for calling 311 in New York City. We’re here to help.…”

Coffee was curled on the ground, hands over his face. Pepper stooped over him. Pepper wanted to thump this guy for spitting on him. Really one of the most cowardly and disgusting moves a person can pull in a fight. But before he could do more, Pepper felt that saliva dripping down onto his neck and he panicked. What if this dude’s spit had passed through his lips, even just a little bit, and gone down his throat? AIDS? Hepatitis C? Who knew what could happen? The moment the thought came up, it was impossible to put down. He stuck his tongue out and pressed it to the sleeve of his shirt. Licking his arm to clean his tongue. Coughing loudly.

Try to imagine what Scotch Tape and the other staff members saw when they entered the alcove, drawn in by Coffee’s screams and Pepper’s wretching. The staff found a very large man standing over a smaller one, menacing the smaller man who was, even now, scrambling to get hold of the dangling pay-phone receiver to try his call again. And the big man was — what the hell else could you say? — licking himself .

Crazy-balls. The scene was absolutely crazy-balls.

Scotch Tape sucked his teeth. He stared up at Pepper with distaste. “Damn, my man.”

Pepper stopped applying his tongue to the fabric of his shirt and turned toward Scotch Tape. Below them both, Coffee spoke urgently into the phone.

“Hello?” he whimpered. “ Please . I’ve seen it. I know where it lives.”

“Thank you for calling 311.…”

Two nurses poked their heads into the alcove, but with Coffee, Pepper, and Scotch Tape already inside, there was no more room. From farther outside the alcove Miss Chris shouted, “What’s this foolishness?!”

Scotch Tape called out, “New admit attacked Coffee.”

Hearing it like that, from a staff member, made Pepper understand what he’d just done. Hadn’t he resolved to control himself? To make the best impression possible? But getting spat on had to count as a mitigating circumstance. Pepper wanted to explain.

“I needed to make a phone call,” he began.

Scotch Tape waved the words away. “I’m taking you back to your room now, and you’re going to stay in there for the rest of the day. You hear?”

Coffee rose to his feet now, pushing himself up with his back against the wall. He shook the receiver of the phone Pepper had hung up. “Now you owe me a quarter, Joe! An American quarter!”

Pepper said, “This guy was using both phones and I just …”

Scotch Tape stepped closer to Pepper. They were squared up just like Pepper and Coffee had been, but Scotch Tape wouldn’t have to spit on anyone to make his point. That was clear.

“Save that shit,” Scotch Tape said. “You can explain all this to Dr. Anand.”

The way Scotch Tape said it, the name sounded like “AndAnd.”

From outside the alcove Miss Chris added, “Oh-ho, it’s Charlie Big Potato causing the fuss? I already told him to be easy.”

In defiance, desperation, and drugged-out confusion, Pepper grabbed the phone on the left, lifting the receiver out of its cradle. He’d make his phone call.

But Scotch Tape wouldn’t let that happen. He pressed two fingers down on the cradle, and the dial tone choked before Pepper even got the phone to his ear.

Then, another quick flash of temper, Pepper half-raised the receiver like he’d bring it down on Scotch Tape’s head. But he stopped himself from making a bad day terrible and put the phone back in the cradle.

Scotch Tape grinned.

“That’s smart, big boy. First smart move you’ve made since you got here.”

Oh, how Pepper would’ve loved to pick up Coffee and use him to bludgeon Scotch Tape to death. Would that count as black-on-black crime?

Scotch Tape misread Pepper’s contemplative look. He spoke with a mix of compassion and condescension. “You calm now? All right, then. Let’s go. You and me. Back to your room.”

As Pepper followed Scotch Tape out of the alcove, Coffee still clung to the pay phone like a man adrift, trying to stay afloat. The receiver was tucked against his ear.

The automated voice on the other end thanked him, once again, for calling.

“It’s here ,” Coffee said quietly.

SCOTCH TAPE MOVED alongside Pepper, shaking his head as if he’d just seen a kid do something that would earn a powerfully strict punishment.

“I believe you,” Scotch Tape said as they walked.

A pair of old men, one small and one medium-sized, walked past Pepper and Scotch Tape, going in the opposite direction. They wore sport coats and walked in synchronicity. Scotch Tape nodded at them but they ignored him. The smaller one peeped Pepper.

“You believe me about what?” Pepper asked.

“What you said last night,” Scotch Tape continued. “That you don’t belong here. I believe you.”

Pepper stopped to reach for the handrail, put off balance by the residual effects of the medication or what Scotch Tape just said.

“Why do you believe me?” Pepper asked.

“You seen Dorry? Or Coffee? Most of the patients in here? Shit, I’ve seen crazy. And you’re not that. You can be an asshole, though.”

“Why don’t you unlock that big door for me then, so I can just go home.”

Scotch Tape shook his right arm and the red plastic cord slipped down below his wrist. It looked like a miniature Slinky. His keys dropped and he caught them with practiced cool.

“Today’s February 18. You got a seventy-two-hour watch and you’re not getting out any sooner than February 21. But if you keep acting stupid, you’re going to be staying a whole lot longer.”

Pepper didn’t say anything smart because even he’d known that rolling on Coffee had been really dumb.

Scotch Tape said, “Let’s keep going.”

Scotch Tape entered room 5 with Pepper and shut the door behind him. He moved to Pepper’s dresser and rested an elbow on it.

“You know how you got here?”

Pepper couldn’t get a handle on what this moment really was: surprising camaraderie, or just a staff member messing with a patient. So he said nothing.

“That cop who brought you in, the one who did the talking, his name is Detective Saurez. He brought you here because him and his boys aren’t getting no more overtime from the NYPD right now. Processing you at the precinct would have taken hours. Without that overtime they’d basically be working for free. But they know if they drop you off with us you’re our problem and their workday is done . Half of them got second jobs to get to. Like we don’t.”

Pepper shook his head. “That’s why I’m here? Because Huey, Dewey, and Louie got lazy?”

Scotch Tape looked confused for a moment, but he let it pass. He tapped the top of Pepper’s dresser with two fingers, for emphasis.

“That Saurez dude has pulled this same shit with Dr. Anand before. Plenty times. I’m telling you. And we have to process you. But I’ll bet you Dr. A is making some phone calls today.”

Pepper noticed one of his laceless boots standing by the door. The other was most likely under his bed. Yes. He fished beneath the frame and there it was. Pepper collected his shoes and set them both down, together, neatly by the foot of his bed. A little bit of order.