Victor Lavalle - The Devil in Silver

But then he saw the same white chicken wire woven into the window, and he recognized it as the same unbreakable plastic outfitting that small window in the ward door. He rapped on the surface, as if it was a door that might creak open. But that didn’t happen, of course. He would’ve bashed at the windows with his fists, his elbows, but what would be the point? That cop had been right; you couldn’t get through this shit with a bullet. Jack Nicholson and the Big Chief had lived in more breakable times.

When Pepper pulled his face back from the window the chicken wire fell out of focus and the outside world became clearer. Nighttime in New Hyde. A lawn ran just below Pepper’s window, cut so low it was almost bald. It ran about fifty yards until it reached a chain-link fence that surrounded the whole New Hyde campus. The fence was topped with two rows of barbed wire. Pepper could see it from here, like unpolished silver in the moonlight. How bad would that stuff cut him, if he got out and tried to climb?

With the door shut, the television silenced, Pepper could hear the sounds of traffic running along Union Turnpike, the largest roadway nearby. From this distance, the engines rumbled as one, sounding like a rushing river. Only some bleating car horns reminded him he was listening to a street. That people were in their cars, going elsewhere.

Pepper stepped back from the window, still on the bed. The reflection he now saw wasn’t his face, just a blurred circle. It looked like an enormous thumb had been pressed to the window from the other side. His blurry head the thumb pad.

He stepped down off the bed and one of his boots slipped off his foot. Without laces they weren’t too secure. He kicked off the other one. It tumbled across the floor and stopped by the door. One tan steel-toed Belleville boot, size 14.5.

Pepper noticed another door. He opened it and found the tight, windowless bathroom. He stepped inside and shut the door behind him, standing in the dark without bothering to turn on the light. Eventually his eyes adjusted. He took in the stand-up shower stall to his right and sink to his left. A soap dispenser hung next to the sink, attached to the wall, like the kind you’d find in any fast-food restaurant’s bathroom. He fumbled for the cold-water knob at the sink and then listened to the water flow. The hiss of the water leaving the tap sounded like steam leaking out of those radiators in his apartment on Northern Boulevard. His home.

He looked at what he thought was the mirror above the sink, but couldn’t find his reflection there. Just another blurry shape.

He slapped at the walls, searching for the light switch now. He needed to see himself. To prove he was still there. But when he found the light, he saw the problem. No mirror above the sink, just a buffed metal pane. He stood before the semi-reflective surface with dismay. That was him? An elongated pink smudge ? Vaguely humanoid. Hardly him. But when he tilted his head, that thing tilted its head, too.

He smiled and the thing sprouted fangs.

He finally turned off the tap but still thought he heard rushing water in his ears.

Pepper moved to the toilet seat and closed the lid. He sat down and slumped to his right, resting his face against the cool wall. That felt nice. Even comforting. Maybe he’d stay here for a while, until he could figure out a plan.

But soon enough he’d slid off the toilet and went down on his knees to pray. He’d been a churchgoing boy once, long ago, though he couldn’t even remember more than a few words of the Lord’s Prayer. He did remember shutting his eyes at prayer time and that always made the world slow down. He closed them now. Eyes closed, head slightly bowed, he breathed. His mind slowed.

He’d fucked up tonight. The cops had brought him here without warning. He hadn’t expected that, nor being reduced to this. Two hours in New Hyde Hospital, 120 minutes inside Northwest, and he’d become a guy who prays on the floor, in the dark. As close to panicking as he’d come as a grown man. Two hours was all it took to capsize him.

But that was okay. Happened to nearly everyone sometimes. The fear just gets you. And in a place like this? A mental hospital? Anyone would feel thrown upside down. Even someone who belonged here. No need to feel crushed. He’d been scared, confused, but the feeling was passing. He just needed to control himself. He’d made the bed, and it was late enough, probably right around eleven o’clock.

He got off his knees, returned to the bedroom, and turned off the lights. Only moonlight lit the room, coming in through the shatterproof plastic windows. He pulled the thin curtains shut. He was out of ideas, but only for tonight. He could get a little self-control going tomorrow. Stay so calm and gentle they’d release him by Saturday. A little rest was what he needed. He lay flat on his back and let his feet dangle off the edge.

Did they give you one free phone call in mental hospitals, like in jail? That was all he needed to start correcting things.

Tomorrow he’d call Mari.

Around a quarter to four in the morning, Pepper opened his eyes.

He might’ve been a workingman but he wasn’t this early a riser. Not naturally. But there he found himself, back to the room, facing the two large windows above his head, seeing the deep night fade into a faint purple dawn through the thin curtains.

Awake. Why?

Because somebody was jabbing him in the small of his back.

As groggy as Pepper was, he remembered the incident from seven hours earlier, when he’d yoked that old woman. He couldn’t afford to risk something like that again. He wouldn’t be completely surprised if Dorry had a way of sneaking in here. Maybe she was after that tip. Maybe she had more tour-guide information to give. He turned his head slowly, expecting to see the old woman.

Instead he found a man’s face. So close to his own that Pepper could smell the man’s turkey dinner. A broad, round face. Smooth skin, and practically bald. Brown complexion, darker than Dr. Anand’s. Not an Indian guy, but a black guy. There was no other way to put this: the guy’s head looked like a malt ball.

Poking Pepper again, the guy said, “Let me get a quarter.”

He had a wide, flat face and a wide, flat nose and tiny little eyes set deep into his head. He was a grown-up but you could imagine what he’d looked like as a child. Almost exactly like now.

Pepper could feel this guy’s nail digging into him. He was more than aggravated by this. He was mildly disgusted.

“Come on, Joe,” the guy said. He spoke with an accent, the English slightly clipped, which didn’t really tell Pepper much. He might be from another country, but in this borough there were probably five hundred countries to choose from.

“You’re my fucking roommate.” Pepper didn’t state this as a question. More like someone who’s just realized he’d stepped in dog shit. He shut his eyes, turned his head back toward the windows, and pretended to fall back asleep. Maybe his roommate would give up. But this malt ball — headed bastard just moved his finger higher. Poking Pepper in the shoulder. Harder. Pepper turned to look at him.

“Let me get a quarter,” the man repeated.

This guy’s round face looked wet with desperation. His cheeks, his chin were shiny and moist, as if he’d been sweating. Or crying. Or both. He began stabbing at the back of Pepper’s exposed neck with a nail as thick as the edge of a flathead screwdriver.

It was all too much, finally.

Pepper rolled onto his back, to protect his neck, and so he could move on this man. But when he tried to pull an arm free from beneath the covers he found he couldn’t quite do it. Pepper had wrapped himself up in his own sheets, his head sticking out one end of the wrap, his feet dangling from the other.