The Devil in Silver (42 page)

Pepper was shaken out of his trance when Mr. Mack stuck his head out of his room, saw Pepper, and shouted, “Nobody wants to see your pasty chest!”

Pepper ignored the insult (after all, Sue had liked it) and walked back into the room, to the ceiling tile. There were dozens of tiny cracks running from the stain, in the middle now. Pepper doubted this part of the ceiling was strong enough to hold much of anything anymore. A weak spot. Still Pepper found himself crouching slightly as he put on his shirt and left the room.

Scotch Tape stood at the secure door and tried to temper the patients’ enthusiasm.
“Relax, everybody,”
he told them more than once as they lined up in front of him.
“It’s just, like, six blocks.”
As if they would be disappointed. But he couldn’t understand. Scotch Tape walked eight blocks at the end of each shift and waited for the Q46. That bus took him to the Q30 and then he transferred one more time for the Q9. All this so he could get to Jamaica, Queens, where he then got on the J train and traveled home to Brooklyn. A ninety-minute commute. Sometimes longer with transit-system delays. He’d been working at New Hyde for three years. Making that commute five, and sometimes six, days a week. So this little trip of six blocks … to him, meant hardly anything.

The patients gathered at the door and Scotch Tape waited. He kept peeking out the plastic windowpane as if he were expecting company to appear on the other side, an armed escort maybe. That’s how some of the patients read his gesture, but of course some of them were clinically paranoid. Really Scotch Tape kept looking out the front door as an excuse to avoid the patients’ gazes, their conversations.
The ones who got there first looked to him like dogs do to their masters.
Let us out! Open up!
He was already exhausted by their undisguised need. But finally they had all arrived. “Ready?” he asked.

“We’ve been ready!” Doris Roberts shouted playfully. She had even done her hair after borrowing Sandra Day O’Connor’s brush.

The other patients stared at the door.
Let us out. Open up!
Pepper and Loochie were the last patients on line. Loochie had decided against wearing the towel wrapped around her noggin. Instead she’d returned to the blue knit cap. She’d removed the strings that once held the pom-poms. Nurse Washburn and a second nurse were behind them. The patients stood in pairs, like schoolchildren.

Scotch Tape unlocked the secure door. That click barely audible over the twelve patients’ heartbeats. He held the door open.

“Come on now,” he said to Mr. Mack and Frank Waverly, the first two in line. Their old sport coats were so crisp they looked steamed. (An easy trick if you run a hot shower and hang the coat inside the bathroom.)

“Don’t rush me,” Mr. Mack told him.

Scotch Tape nodded and waited, exasperated and respectful. Mr. Mack reached up and tried to close the buttons of his coat before moving. But his fingers were trembling so fast they damn near blurred. He had trouble getting the first button through its hole so Frank Waverly tried to help by reaching for Mr. Mack’s coat. But the littler man slapped Frank Waverly’s help away. Leaving Mr. Mack to wrestle with the fabric a little more. Frank Waverly got bored and walked out of the unit without him. The rest filed around him, too.

Mr. Mack was the last patient to go. His sport coat still unbuttoned.

The group passed through the secure ward door and into the hallway. The fluorescent lights above them cast the same old sickly yellow glow, but the lavender walls were a welcome change.

They walked through the empty lobby with its cheap chairs and sofas. These didn’t look any better just because they were on this side.

But then the group reached the double doors that led to the parking
lot. Scotch Tape opened one door and the sunlight came in. Somehow this sunlight seemed different from the stuff that reached the smokers’ court. There, the light looked like melted margarine. But out here? You know.

Like butter.

Twelve patients stepped outside and proceeded to act the fool. They squinted up at the sun and covered their eyes with their hands. They sniffed the air theatrically. Some hummed. One yipped at such a high pitch it sounded like a birdcall. They wiped their hands over their faces as if they’d just lifted their heads out of a pool. It was the middle of April, and a wonderfully pleasant day. A strong wind played among the trees and some folks shut their eyes, just listening to the quivering leaves.

Shhhhhhh

Shhhhhhh

Shhhhhhh

“That’s nice,” Loochie said.

Pepper gazed at her and wondered if he looked as happy as she did. He hoped so.

Loochie opened one eye. “I
thought
someone was watching me.”

“You’re just being paranoid,” Pepper said.

She shut her eye, breathed deep once more. “That’s what the doctors tell me.”

“They have pills for that,” Pepper said.

Loochie laughed with him. The other patients seemed to be having their own reveries. Even Mr. Mack was feeling better out here. With his eyes shut, he found the top button of his sport coat. With steady hands he slipped it through the corresponding hole in one try.

“Everybody ready to walk?” Nurse Washburn asked.

Scotch Tape raised one hand at the front of the group. “Let’s go.”

They took the six blocks slowly. Some of them, like Pepper and Loochie, could probably have done with a faster pace but others, like Mr. Mack and Frank Waverly, the Haint, and Sandra Day O’Connor, had more gingerly strides. This wasn’t just the fault of old age or medication. The sidewalks around here were also a mess. On every block, there were a few trees whose roots had finally cracked through the
concrete surface, causing the sidewalk panels to buckle and occasionally shatter. Neighborhood joggers didn’t bother running on those sidewalks because it was double hell on the knees. Joggers, bike riders, even folks out walking their dogs tended to move in the street. The only people limber enough to risk the sidewalks were neighborhood children, who found all the dips and rises kind of fun. The staff wouldn’t let the patients walk in the road, even though everyone could tell it was the commonsense choice. What if one of them got smashed by a passing van? All three staff members would lose their jobs for that one. Not to mention the tragedy of someone getting smashed by a van. (But really, the fear of losing a decent-paying job in 2011 could not be overstated.) So if the older patients, or the dazed patients, or the morbidly obese patients took their time to move six blocks, well, no one felt too angry with them.

People from the neighborhood watched the group go by. An old woman dragging her garbage bin out from the side of her house or a middle-aged couple returning home from the grocery store. They didn’t throw eggs or stones. No pitchforks and torches.

Mostly, the neighbors just watched them, as you would any time a parade made its way down your street. The neighbors watched intently but refused to admit it. They did this strange move where they ducked their heads as the patients passed, looking at the sidewalk or their front lawns or their garbage bins, always toward the ground. But anyone could clearly see the eyes shifting up to gawk.

“Hey, Pepper,” Loochie asked. “How come white people do that?”

She mimicked the move; head down but eyes surreptitiously on alert.

Pepper frowned. “Why you asking me?”

“You’re about the only white guy I know,” Loochie said.

Pepper blushed red. “That’s not true.”

“What other white guys you think I come across?” she asked. “I live in Laurelton.”

Now he caught himself looking at the folks in the neighborhood. All the people in front of these homes
were
white. He hadn’t even been thinking about it. But now he watched the neighbors like he was actually going to explain some behavioral trait to his naïve friend.

And once Loochie had mentioned it, he had to admit it seemed kind of true.
Looking without looking
. As soon as the group of patients reached them, the locals dropped their heads, but Pepper could see their eyes shifting warily. Was this really something white people did?
Only
white people? Did he do it, too?

At first, Pepper wanted to tell Loochie it was a way to pretend the patients weren’t there. A trick for making others invisible. That made a simple kind of sense to him. But as Pepper watched it happen again and again, he changed his diagnosis. It began to seem like these people thought that by dipping their heads they were actually making
themselves
invisible. As if you couldn’t see them if they didn’t look directly at you. Talk about insane!

That’s where things got uncomfortable for Pepper. After all, he was a white guy. So wasn’t Loochie criticizing him? Assuming he knew why white people played this eye-contact game meant that he, too, had probably done it. And had he? Probably! Pepper, who never really thought of himself as some great defender of the white way of life, felt the impulse to fight back.

“Let me ask
you
something,” Pepper said. “How come black guys are so loud on the subway? Like when they start yelling out rap lyrics? Or they just play music through those little speakers on their phones instead of using the goddamn earphones like normal people do?”

Loochie raised her eyebrows and let them drop. She sighed with disappointment.

“That’s easy,” Loochie said. “Those loud black guys on the subway? They’re being assholes, too.”

Then Loochie broke ranks and walked ahead of him.

Something strange happened after the patients left the hospital. Inside, they were patients, but the farther they walked, the less this seemed true. Pepper turned into a white guy from Elmhurst. Loochie, a black teenager from Laurelton. It’s not like this hadn’t been true (or obvious!) before, but inside Northwest it hadn’t really counted as much of a difference. Not when you considered their enemies: the
pills, the restraints, the Devil. But out here, there were no restraints and no pills. Maybe even the Devil had been left behind for now. So something had to rise in the order.

And it wasn’t just the two of them. Suddenly Doris Roberts drifted away from Sandra Day O’Connor and gravitated toward Still Waters, two generations of Jewish women. Sandra Day suddenly found herself pulled toward the Redhead Kingpin. Wally Gambino and Loochie, kids from Queens, slid into step. Only Mr. Mack and Frank Waverly didn’t break off for new friends. Each man walked alone.

Pepper watched these allegiances shift. He did a little quick math. If everybody paired off with the people who looked most like them, he’d be spending this whole field trip with Heatmiser. What was he going to do, listen to that bastard mumble for the next hour because they happened to share skin color and genitalia? He picked up his pace and found Loochie, who was walking side by side with Wally Gambino. Pepper had to balance on the curbside, dodging trees and fire hydrants, if he wanted to keep pace. Wally was in the middle of a sentence when Pepper caught up.

“… and that’s why I’m saying,” Wally purred. “I
been
had my eye on you girl. I like that bald look. You lookin’ like a sexy mannequin.”

Loochie walked with her head down, not looking at Wally. She tugged her knit cap down lower, so it almost covered her eyes. She watched her feet as they walked, but she cut her eyes to the right, watching Wally warily.

“You’re doing the same thing right now!” Pepper laughed and pointed.

Wally glared at Pepper. “Big man! You got to back up. Me and shorty is having a
parlay
.”

Loochie jabbed her thumb toward Wally. “
This
is why
women
do it. I just didn’t know why white people do.”

Wally was in between them. They talked across him.

“Maybe it’s the same thing,” Pepper offered. “We just don’t want to be bothered.”

Wally leaned closer to Loochie and deepened his voice.

“I’m saying. You need to spend a little time with me.” He looked back at her butt. “You got a
bubble
I want to
pop
.”

Pepper couldn’t help himself. He laughed.

“I’m a virgin,” Loochie said with comical sincerity.

But Wally hadn’t heard her. Instead, he looked at Pepper. “Big man, you don’t want to be laughing at me. You know what they call me back home? They call me
Bloody Loco
! Make sure you recognize that name. ASAP!”

“I thought they call you Wally Gambino,” Pepper said.

“You don’t put no fucking fear in my heart,” Wally shouted. He was smaller than Pepper and much thinner. “You or
no
fucking man put no fear in my heart!”

Behind them, Nurse Washburn said, “We can take you back to New Hyde, Wilfredo. Turn you right around.
ASAP
.”

Wally sneered at Pepper. “We ain’t done,” he said.

Then he walked forward until he stomped alongside Scotch Tape. Now Scotch Tape had to listen to Wally grumble.

Pepper looked at Loochie. “Are we cool?”

Loochie nodded. She pointed at Wally Gambino, up ahead. “That’s why I keep my head down,” she said. “Sometimes I don’t even realize I’m doing it. It’s just easier to protect myself from guys like him.”

“Yeah,” Pepper said. “I see.”

“But here’s what I still don’t understand,” Loochie continued. “White people do it to
everyone
. Even each other.”

Pepper sighed. “So?”

“So how much of the world are you all scared of?”

THE CREW REACHED
Union Turnpike, and Scotch Tape pointed at the sign on the awning of their destination: Sal’s Restaurant & Bar Incorporated.

“Cheese on bread,” Mr. Mack muttered. “This is it?”

Scotch Tape pointed at the green awning, its white lettering. “Yes-sir!” he said. He tried to sound enthusiastic though he understood the look of disappointment creeping across each patient’s face.

A dozen patients shuffled and mumbled. They looked to the nurses who also nodded to show that indeed they’d reached the destination.
Sal’s Restaurant & Bar
. The staff tensed, a decision was being made by the group’s mind. Both nurses and the orderly calculated. Twelve patients and three staff. Imagine the debacle if even five or six of them decided to bolt, underwhelmed by this field trip. Half a dozen mental patients scrambling across Union Turnpike, that four-lane roadway with buses and big trucks speeding in both directions, perfect for splattering fleeing patients. There was a bus stop two stores down from the restaurant. Scotch Tape waited there after each shift as he began his ninety-minute journey home.
Don’t run, don’t run, don’t run
. That’s what the staff members were chanting in their heads.