The Devil in Silver (22 page)

When Pepper and Dorry and Loochie and Coffee got in line for their lunchtime meds, they all understood the pills weren’t their arena for insurrection. The point wasn’t to spit the pills into some staff member’s face. The four of them had to stop taking the antipsychotics and the antidepressants and the tranquilizers, all the various “stabilizers,”
in order
to mutiny. The rebellion required a little subterfuge first. So at lunch they got in line and plopped the pills into their mouths, tucked them under the tongue or by the gums and then discreetly spit them out later. No real challenge there. That wasn’t actually the hard part.

The trick was to
seem
medicated even as their bodies kicked. Because staff wouldn’t actually prod open their mouths and swish a finger over their gums. As long as the pills went in the staff assumed the pills went down. They were actually supposed to take every patient’s blood each week and test it to be sure the dosages weren’t too high or low, but this, like so many sensible hospital practices, went undone. Instead, the staff just tracked behavior. They noticed if the patient was being a little more
aggressive
recently. If the patient questioned staff commands more often. Even if he or she moved with new grace. These were all tip-offs. (And they didn’t generate lab costs.) So Pepper and Dorry and Loochie and Coffee had to enroll in acting class. To slouch like always; to let drool drip past their lips and onto their clothes at indiscreet times; to waver and wobble as they walked the halls; to never break character.

And the nominees for best actor in the role of reduced capacity are …

THREE DAYS OF
practice and Pepper thought he’d mastered a thoroughly convincing slur. At this point he could make his lower lip dip down so far, make himself so damn unintelligible, that even Mushmouth from the Cosby Kids would be like, whatbee da fuckbee is dis guy talking abeebout?

He’d also learned to drag his left leg slightly when he walked. Step lively with the right but throw a little hitch into the left. The stride of the medically polluted.

This is why it took Pepper about fifteen minutes to get from his room to conference room 2 for Book Group. Truthfully, he wasn’t even sure if he should attend the meeting. What was the point? He was ready to get to the next stage of their uncertain project: figuring out how to open the silver door.

But he had finished
Jaws
, read it even more quickly with his mind cleared, and actually wanted to discuss it. Though he wasn’t sure how he should handle slipping intelligent conversation between his fake droopy lip. He thought on this as he moved down Northwest 2 and into the oval room that held the nurses’ station. He pretended not to notice the three staff members all hunched in front of the computer, each one squinting at the screen in exasperated bafflement.

“What kind of program is this?”

“I booted it up three times. You can’t read what it says?”

“ ‘Equator. Equator. Equator.’ I
see
it, but that’s not the same as understanding it!”

Pepper passed them quietly, which was for the best. Those three were so angry at the computer and its almost willfully impenetrable program that they might’ve stuck him with a needle just to release their frustrations.

He reached Northwest 1 and looked at the ceiling, the tiled floors, the closed doors of the other conference rooms, the insipid nature paintings, looked at anything but the front door because he couldn’t be sure that he wouldn’t break character and go running for it again. The dream of freedom is a hard one to forget. But he managed to ignore it until he’d reached conference room 2.

To find that he was the first patient in attendance. Dr. Barger was clicking on the keypad of his Smartphone. His copy of the Benchley book facedown on the table. Next to that, a notepad and one pen.

“Pepper,” he said evenly, without seeming to even look up.

Pepper sat quietly. He felt like a student who’s made the mortal error of being the first kid to walk in the classroom, and he squirmed awkwardly.

In just another second, Dr. Barger set his phone down and said, “You look well.”

“I do?”

Pepper felt worried. Maybe his speech had been a little too clear when he responded just now? His face flushed. He did an internal check on his features: mouth slack? Check. Shoulders slumped? Check. Eyes vacant? Check. But then Pepper realized that to Dr. Barger all this counted as
well
, and Pepper felt the pride of accomplishment.

Dr. Barger said, “I was just in Aruba.”

“Yuh?” (That’s a slurred “Oh, yes? Do go on!”)

The doctor smiled warmly and leaned back in his chair. He rested one hand on his large hard belly. “I go down and do work with locals who don’t have any other access to treatment.” He wiggled his head side to side. “And I slip in a day or two of relaxation.”

Dr. Barger laughed and Pepper didn’t begrudge him. He actually
kind of liked that this guy didn’t pretend life wasn’t happening outside the unit. Liked, even, that the doctor talked about things like vacation, relaxation, joy. He would’ve preferred to hear about the days on the beach more than the days at some clinic for locals. Sometimes, when you’re in bad straits, it’s actually nice to hear about pleasure and not more gloom. Pepper almost asked Dr. Barger about the good days down in Aruba but the next member of Book Group arrived. It was Dorry. And she was
not
acting well.

Dr. Barger said, “Dorry?”

The woman wore a purple cardigan and pink blouse underneath. The lapels of the blouse flared out over the lapels of the cardigan and the top two buttons of the blouse sat open. Exposing a string of
fake pearls
! Dorry still rocked her gigantic glasses, but they were so clean, it was as if they’d been sandblasted. And she’d washed her hair; it now sat in a blunt bob that made her look fifteen years younger. She used to look like Angela Lansbury in
Sweeney Todd
. Now she looked like Angela Lansbury on
Murder, She Wrote
.

Pepper might actually have started hyperventilating at the sight of her. What happened to their pact? There were supposed to be no obvious signs they’d stopped taking their meds.

But if Pepper experienced a mild panic, Dorry didn’t seem to notice or care. She swayed as she entered the room, looking serene. “I woke up this morning and just
had
to spruce up,” she said.

Dr. Barger nodded and lifted his pen and wrote something down on his pad. Pepper craned his neck to try to read the words upside down. But he was too far away and Dr. Barger caught him trying to peek, so Pepper returned to his routine, making his face as soft as a bowl of porridge. Any words he might have for Dorry would have to be saved for after Book Group.

Then Loochie arrived.

Her transformation was less of an overhaul. She’d already been the type to wash up and change clothes pretty regularly. And she remained the same stylish teenager. But she wasn’t wearing the blue knit cap. What could have been more jarring to Pepper? Maybe it was finally seeing what lay underneath. Half Loochie’s scalp was hairless. She had dark brown hair that came down to the bottom of her ears,
but there were irregularly shaped bald spots in five different places. The largest was the size of a softball. But when Loochie entered the room, she strode as gracefully as Dorry.

Dr. Barger couldn’t hide his surprise. “This is the first time I’ve seen you … so confident,” he said, trying to be kind.

Loochie nodded as if he’d meant the line as a compliment. She touched her head, one of the hairless patches, as she sat. “I think the Geodon was making me pull my hair out at night. I didn’t even know I was doing it.”

“Was?” Dr. Barger asked.

Loochie shrugged, dramatic nonchalance. “I don’t know why, but I just haven’t felt the compulsion recently.”

“That’s wonderful,” Dr. Barger said dispassionately. He wrote something else down on his pad.

Loochie said, “I talked to my mother, and she told me I needed to let my scalp breathe so the hair could start growing again.” She shook her head from side to side as if it had already all come in. “So that’s what I’m doing.”

Pepper glared at Loochie. He would’ve expected a teenage girl to be existentially mortified by exposing her patchy scalp this way, but she wasn’t acting that way at all. She seemed almost proud of her audacity.

Dr. Barger said, “There’s a different air to the room today. Have you noticed?”

Pepper wondered why he bothered to maintain his pretense. A different
air
in the room? There might as well be a whole new atmosphere.

“Hello, my friends,” Coffee said when he entered.

Pepper did the quick up and down. The man hadn’t suddenly grown some enormous glorious afro. He hadn’t walked into the room wearing an African suit. (Pepper didn’t know what he meant by that exactly. A bright draping cloth? A Western suit made out of that bright draping cloth? Better to not dwell on it.)

Coffee looked like the same man as always. He still wore his pajamas, still wore the blue slipper-socks, and his face maintained the look of concentrated dissatisfaction it had always worn. In fact, if
Pepper hadn’t watched Coffee dropping his meds into the bathroom sink in their room these last few days, he would’ve sworn Coffee remained medicated. So okay, at least he and Coffee would carry the torch for subterfuge.

But when Coffee sat down, he looked at Dr. Barger and said, “I liked seeing the sun through my windows this morning.”

And Dr. Barger stared back, baffled.

As did Pepper.

Coffee said, “Doctor?”

Finally, Dr. Barger coughed and squeezed his lips in a tight smile. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard you mention
anything
but the phone numbers of governmental employees. Not in even
one
of our interactions over the past year.”

Coffee looked at Pepper quickly, then down at the table. “I’m sorry.…”

Dr. Barger laughed. “Don’t say ‘sorry.’ It’s nice. Makes me feel like, well, maybe
I’ve
been of some help.”

Coffee looked up again and offered the doctor a generous smile. “Oh, of course you have.”

Dr. Barger rubbed his belly proudly.

Pepper watched Coffee for another moment and realized he had missed something. There was one glaring difference to Coffee that should’ve been obvious from the moment the man arrived.

No binder.

“I was sorry to hear about Sam,” Dr. Barger said.

No reaction from anyone in the room. None of them knew what to say or do. They were sorry, too. Maybe there was nothing more.

Dr. Barger recovered by smiling. He hoped to return to the elation in the room just before he’d mentioned the death. He said, “All this good cheer only makes my bad news more difficult to share.”

Pepper looked at Dr. Barger. He’d wondered how the man couldn’t have noticed all the signs of reversion; the slip back into attentiveness, empathy, self-control. In other words, normalcy. How could this trained professional miss all that?

Dr. Barger said, “Unfortunately, this is going to be our last Book
Group session together. The board of New Hyde Hospital has informed me that my services aren’t
affordable
.”

The doctor paused there, as if the patients were going to cry out in horror. When they didn’t, he said, “And keep in mind, my work here is subsidized by both the city and the state, since New Hyde is a public hospital. So that means the board has decided that I’m not worth even the pittance they have to pay out of their own account in order for me to work with all of you. They’ve basically told me I’m worth nothing and I just …”

The man had been looking at his own hands as he spoke, the volume of his voice increasing. But now he stopped speaking all together. He looked at Coffee and Loochie and Dorry and Pepper, and though he smiled, his eyes were small and wet.

“It’s silly of me to complain. Especially to you. Each of us has a burden and I shouldn’t share mine. I guess I just hoped for time. With a little more of it I thought we might really do some good.”

God bless her, Loochie responded fastest. Veering away from the maudlin, changing the subject. “So what do we do instead? Watch TV?”

“Book Group isn’t ending,” Dr. Barger said. “My contract is ending.”

Dr. Barger got up and walked around the table and stepped outside the room. He called out, “You can come along now!”

Josephine arrived, pushing the Bookmobile.

Now don’t worry, this wasn’t about to turn all
Dangerous Minds
. Josephine entered the room and rolled the cart around until it sat right beside Dr. Barger’s chair.

He said, “New Hyde Hospital has enough in its budget for keeping this room heated while you use it for Book Group. And for this Bookmobile to be made available to you. So that’s what you’re going to get. And, as a part of the salary she already receives, Muriel will stay in the room and supervise.”

Pepper looked at Josephine. “So she’s going to lead our discussions?”

“No.”
Dr. Barger leaned forward in his seat and lifted his pen and
tapped the tip against the table. “There is no money for a facilitator. And she isn’t trained as one. She can only bring the cart and take the cart.”

“Well, then, what’s the point of being in this room?” Loochie asked.

Dr. Barger sighed. “Truthfully? It’s so that New Hyde Hospital can tell the city and the state that it provides group sessions to its patients. Not
therapy
, but
sessions
. That way, they comply with the letter of the law, if not the spirit. That way, they’ll continue to receive state and federal grants for the sessions, but cut out the cost of a professional like me.”

Dr. Barger looked toward the door, as if he expected the board of the hospital, or at least Dr. Anand, to rush into the room and charge him with excess honesty.

Josephine tapped the side of the cart. All three tiers were full of new books. “I listened to what you all said last time,” she began.

The doctor seemed surprised to hear her voice. He’d been expecting to milk the pained silence for another minute or five. But he also didn’t interrupt her. What would be the point? When he left this room, this unit, he’d never be back. Too much paperwork to fill out for compensation anyway. And too many different agencies spitting up some small portion of the total bill. He looked at the four patients, two men and two women, and felt a stabbing kind of sympathy. This was the new American Austerity. The reality of our lives in the aftermath of economic disaster. The tighter belts, the slashed spending, the death of compromise. The twenty-first century threatened to look a bit like the nineteenth. The Century of Sharp Elbows was upon us. This economic prudence was supposed to affect everyone, but you could bet it was going to whip some people much worse. Dr. Barger felt the pain of these realizations but with a little time, and distance, his discomfort would pass.