Victor Lavalle - The Devil in Silver

But then someone just leaned close to Pepper’s ear and breathed into it. Fuck! Pepper’s ear felt so hot that he instinctively pulled the covers up to hide his face. But the breathing stayed steady on the other side. Still right by Pepper’s ear. So hot it soaked the fabric, and the covers turned damp at the spot. The breath felt so hot that it actually began to burn.

Pepper pulled the covers back down now, trying to inch away, toward the windows, but able to move only so quickly in his addled state. And when the covers came down from his head, he felt the touch of rough hair against his neck. Rough like gnarled wool, matted. And the burning breath kept coming as though pumped from a bellows, until Pepper’s skin felt like it was puckering.

Pepper opened his mouth to call out to a nurse or an orderly — even Scotch Tape — anyone who might come in here and separate the two of them. But when Pepper opened his mouth he couldn’t speak. The only sound coming out of Pepper was a wet cough, a choking sound.

Because someone had three fingers in Pepper’s mouth.

And it wasn’t Coffee.

The fingers reached all the way to the back of Pepper’s tongue, one nail jabbing his uvula.

Pepper was so shocked, so disgusted, working so hard to keep from vomiting that he couldn’t bring his teeth down on those fingers hard enough. He was too dazed.

The thing pulled Pepper’s head back, away from the windows, with enough force to move the rest of Pepper’s body. Until the two finally made eye contact.

The eyes Pepper met were white and empty. They had no pupils. Just the white meat of the eye, faint red veins running just below the surface like the chicken wire running through the shatterproof windows.

Was this person having a seizure?

Once Pepper was on his back, the fingers drew out of his mouth, the nails raking his tongue. His jaw ached from being yanked. In the dark, Pepper couldn’t see much more than those white eyes. Matted hair dangled down across his attacker’s face. The hair scratched at Pepper’s nose and lips. It felt like fur.

Pepper was looking up into a face he couldn’t understand.

The hair against his skin was fur, after all. And resting in that thick pelt he now saw a wide, wet nose, black and quivering.

Was this a hallucination? Something brought on by the pills? Like Ebenezer Scrooge’s old bit of undigested beef? An apparition? This had to be an error. This was only his roommate, Coffee , standing over him. Coffee , who had woken him up. Coffee , who wanted a quarter. Pepper was just too tired, too drugged out, too confused to see clearly. He had to slow down, breathe in, he was just caught somewhere between wakefulness and sleep. That place where monsters really exist.

Pepper looked at his roommate’s bed.

There was Coffee, wide-eyed and shivering.

Watching.

The figure above Pepper’s bed leaned closer now. Its hot breath burned the tip of Pepper’s nose like direct sunlight. And its own wet, black nose wriggled as it sniffed him.

Stop this , he thought. Just leave me be .

But Pepper wasn’t addressing the thing standing over his bed. Because he knew it couldn’t really be there. He was pleading with his own pill-addled mind.

Then the door to their room rattled and shook. Pepper’s eyes blinked and fluttered. The thing by his bed moved away so quickly, it seemed to fly.

“Who locked this?” a nurse’s voice called out.

She unlocked the door and snapped on the overhead light. It was the night nurse, who’d given him his nighttime dose earlier, along with an orderly.

“You two stop all that screaming!” the orderly shouted, stomping into the room.

Had they been screaming? Both of them?

The nurse shook two white plastic cups, one in each hand. The tranquilizers inside rattled like backgammon dice.

Coffee and Pepper sat straight up in bed.

Pepper scanned the room, he even peeked under his bed frame. The animal was gone. The only thing different about the room was a ceiling panel on the floor by Pepper’s dresser.

“Now this is just sad,” the orderly said. He picked the panel up. “This place is just coming apart.”

The orderly had to leave the room and return with a folding chair so he could slide the panel back into place.

Now the nurse shook the little white cups again. “Y’all know what’s coming.”

Please knock us out! That’s what they were both thinking. Right then Pepper only wanted to disconnect. He didn’t want to see what he’d just seen. If he’d seen it. Felt it. Bad dream. Bad dream. (Shared dream?) Bad dream. Better to be knocked out than to lie awake till dawn.

PEPPER WOKE UP thinking of butts.

And nothing else.

Ladies’ butts.

Skinny butts, big butts, saddlebag butts, flabby and firm butts, the kind that sit so high they seem like part of the woman’s back, the kind that ride low and form a UU just above the thighs like in the old television commercials for Hanes Underalls, butts that wiggle and butts that jiggle, sagging butts and robust butts, butts that hardly make an impression under a pair of jeans; sidewinder butts and trumpet butts — the ones so meaty they actually spread out until they appear to be a woman’s thighs (ass so fat you can see it from the front), butts as knotty as acorns, butts as smooth as a slice of Gouda, butts with pimples and butts with cellulite, the kind that have pockmarks or red splotches, butts with tattoos and butts with bullet scars. Butts you can cup in your warm hands. Butts and butts and butts.

In other words, Pepper woke up horny.

Let’s take a moment to be impressed. Three doses of Haldol and lithium topped off with a Vicodin nightcap and the urge still arose, like a flower growing through concrete. And he sure hadn’t been staring at any butts while in here. He just hadn’t had the itch. All those butts, and more, were stored in Pepper’s memory chip. It was as if his mind had known the surest way to rouse him from the pit of sedation. Asses would work.

Pepper’s mind woke him up. He found himself in his bed yet again. No butts in sight.

Now Pepper, get your big ass out of bed .

Outside his windows Pepper heard the muted rumbles of traffic moving down Union Turnpike. Ambulances whining as they sped toward the hospital. Car horns composing a fugue of frustration. From where the sun sat he guessed it was midday. He’d probably slept through breakfast.

In fact, it was four thirty on Saturday afternoon.

Coffee’s bed sat empty. The sheets tussled but the body gone. The door to the room was open. Pepper walked to the corner where the ceiling panel had fallen down. He stood under it but couldn’t make himself raise his hand and touch. It felt like standing under a cold shower, being right there. Pepper’s big body tensed so hard he shivered. He half-expected someone, something, to come crashing down on him. But that didn’t happen. So finally he backed out of the room, keeping an eye on that ceiling tile until he’d left.

He stepped into the hallway gingerly. Would one of the staff members appear, tackle him, and hold his mouth open? Why hadn’t Miss Chris or Scotch Tape or whoever was on duty done that to him this morning like they did the day before? Maybe they preferred to let a sleeping patient lie.

Northwest 2 was empty. Quiet. Yes, the fluorescent lights in the ceiling made noise, the low drone of an electric insect. But other than that? Not much. Pepper didn’t even hear his own footfall. He had only his Smartwool socks on his feet. He went back for his boots.

He still wore the clothes he’d had on when the cops brought him in. Now the fabric looked a bit ragged, more wrinkled than an old man’s balls.