Victor Lavalle: The Devil in Silver

Finally he pressed his face to the shatterproof window. There were little lines embedded in the plastic, like chicken wire. He’d been on the other side less than two hours ago. Two hours before that, he’d been on the other side of Queens! He’d been trying to help Mari by having words with her ex-husband, a man who wouldn’t leave Mari be. And yet here Pepper was, locked away. He pressed his face to the window, fucking confused. There was nobody on the other side. He closed his eyes.

“Better not let them see you doing that.”

Pepper opened his eyes, expecting — not hoping, but expecting — to find himself on the E train, having fallen asleep and only now waking to learn he’d dreamed up New Hyde Hospital. Instead he found himself still staring through the plastic window.

“If you understand English, then step away from the door,” the voice continued.

But Pepper didn’t move fast enough. Before he could stand up, stand back, and turn around, he felt fingers grip his wrist.

After having three cops wrestle him to the ground in a high-school parking lot, then being handcuffed to a chair, Pepper really wasn’t in the mood to get hemmed up one more time. No more hands on him tonight. He turned and yoked the person grabbing him. He actually pulled off a pretty sophisticated move, mostly through momentum and a great weight advantage. He yanked his wrist free from the person’s grip, turned and enveloped the body behind him, and lifted it into the air.

When it was over, Pepper had a seventy-six-year-old woman in a bear hug.

And before he could apologize, or loosen his grip, or set her back down on her feet, what did the old woman do?

She kissed him right on the mouth.

He dropped her and she landed harder on one foot than the other, yipping like a dog whose tail has been caught.

Now Pepper bent to cradle her on instinct, in case she’d been badly injured. But the old woman threw her arms out to stop him.

“You like it a little too rough for me,” she said.

The door of the conference room finally opened and Dr. Anand’s round head peeked out. He watched them both for a moment. Pepper and the old woman turned their attention to him.

“I see you’ve met Dorry,” the doctor said. “She’s our unofficial ambassador.”

“Hello, Captain.” She saluted him, any hint of leg pain hidden.

Dr. Anand tipped his head toward her slightly, then looked back down the hall, deeper into the unit, toward the TV sounds.

“Miss Chris is late again,” Dr. Anand said.

Dorry patted her chest. “She deputized me.”

She looked up at Pepper. “I can take him to his room.”

She jabbed Pepper in the belly. The new admit looked comically large next to Dorry, like a sheepdog beside a shih tzu.

Dr. Anand looked down the hallway once more, but Miss Chris made no appearance. He said, “Take him to his room, Dorry, but don’t go in his room.”

Dorry poked Pepper’s belly again.

“Dr. Anand thinks I’m a raging slut ,” she said.

Dr. Anand stepped all the way into the hallway and waved his arms as if clearing smoke. “I never said that, Dorry! Now come on.”

Pepper couldn’t help it, he laughed. The old woman made him feel at ease. The blush burning across Dr. Anand’s brown face also helped. Pepper decided to join in the banter. He set one hand on Dorry’s shoulder and said, “Maybe me and her will just run away together.”

Dorry quickly slipped away from Pepper’s hand as Dr. Anand stepped toward them with surprising quickness. “There is no intimacy allowed between patients on the unit. Do you understand?”

Pepper wanted to point out how ridiculous the warning was. What they were just doing counted as intimacy, too. But he knew, from past experience, no one likes a nitpicker. Especially not one who looked like him. Such a small act as begging to differ, from such a large man, tended to make people particularly angry. In general, people thought he took up too much room on the subway and often sighed or grunted to let him know. The only benefit to his great mass was that he could lift heavy things. He’d been a professional mover for eleven years.

As Dr. Anand continued to glare, Pepper stepped back an arm’s length from the old woman. Then he stuck his arm out and wiggled his fingers to show the distance. The playful moment over, Pepper again felt the gravity of this night— I’m locked in a mental hospital— as dead weight in his legs.

Dr. Anand nodded at Dorry. “He’s in five.” The doctor reentered the conference room and shut the door behind him with a click.

The old woman was right beside Pepper, pinching the back of his left hand. “I thought you were going to tell him about how you kissed me next.”

“ Me? ”

“Don’t insult a lady.”

Dorry’s hunched back only made her look smaller than she already was. She had wiry white hair that clearly hadn’t been combed in days. It shot from her scalp in fifteen unflattering directions, like a feral child’s. Her faded blue nightdress came down to her shins. On her dry, bony feet were faded blue slipper-socks. She wore gigantic glasses, big plastic Medicare frames. Their lenses so thick they looked slathered with Vaseline. Even if you didn’t know this woman was crazy, you’d think she was crazy.

Pepper said, “I’m sorry for grabbing you. I didn’t know you were a woman.”

Dorry frowned. “What the hell kind of apology is that?”

Pepper gripped his hands together. “I didn’t mean it like that! I’m sorry, that’s all. All right?”

“Let’s put the past behind us,” she said. “I always greet the new admits. You should see a friendly face first.”

Then Pepper pointed one finger at her eye, though not too close.

“That was you!” he said. He realized she really had been the first person he’d seen.

Dorry took off her glasses and the resemblance became exact. She winked at him.

“I’m always getting recognized by my fans.”

Pepper pantomimed applause. He didn’t actually clap because he didn’t want to give Dr. Anand another reason to step into the hall.

Dorry reached out and wrapped her left arm around Pepper’s right elbow. She looked up at him over the tops of her glasses. From here he could see the off-color band around her iris. She clearly wasn’t blind, but maybe blindness wasn’t too far off.

He was surprised to feel grateful for the tenderness in the touch.

“Let me give you the tour,” she said.

“They call this building Northwest,” Dorry began. “That’s just because it’s located in the northwest corner of New Hyde Hospital’s grounds. So much for creativity, right? Anyway, there’s three buildings at the center of the hospital campus and that’s the heart of the operation. Emergency room, surgery, children’s unit, geriatrics, ICU, almost everything is in those three buildings. Everything but us, really. You’ve got those three buildings, then the main parking lot. A couple hundred parking spaces. Then, you’ve got us crazybirds, tucked into the northwest corner. Some people say we’ve been exiled out here, but I prefer to think our building is exclusive . You’ve got to have a special invite to enter Northwest. They’re called commitment papers! I’m just kidding.

“So Northwest is the psychiatric unit. No other kinds of patients. It used to be an ophthalmology ward but that was over fifty years ago. Before I even got here, and that’s saying something. Fifty years ago they made Northwest a psychiatric unit and moved all the old ophthalmology equipment up to the second floor. It’s just a big attic. The layout of the second floor is exactly the same as the first, but none of us has any business up there.