The Devil in Silver (2 page)

And yet he must be someone with authority, if he had the keys to open this mighty door. Which was good enough for the big man, who said, “I’m innocent.”

The brown man looked up at the big man. “I’m not a judge,” he said. “I’m a doctor.”

The doctor narrowed his eyes at Huey, who suddenly seemed bashful.

The doctor said, “I didn’t expect to be seeing you again.”

Huey nodded, looking away from the doctor. But then he seemed to feel the gaze of his partners, and he snapped out of his shame.

“This is legit. He jumped two of my guys.”

The big man appealed to the doctor. “I thought they were meatheads, not cops.”

The doctor looked at the two cops on either side of the big man. He smiled, which made his bushy mustache rise slightly like a caterpillar on the move. He stepped aside and invited them in. “My team is waiting down the hall,” he said, locking the door behind them. “Second room.”

The cops led the big man forward. Dewey and Louie holding his arms tighter than before. They didn’t like the meathead line. Huey, with the watch, rested one hand on the big man’s shoulder and together the quartet followed the doctor.

The room looked like nearly any medium-sized conference room you’ll ever find. The walls were an eggshell white, a dry-erase board
hung on one of them with the faintest red squiggles half erased in an upper corner. A pull-down screen hung on another wall. In the middle of the room sat a faux-wood table, large enough to seat fifteen, but ringed by only fourteen faux-wood chairs with plastic padded backs. Another ring of cheaper, foldout chairs was placed against the walls. The working class of meeting spaces. All the people already in the room looked as tired as the décor.

Tonight the full intake team was in attendance: a social worker, an activity therapist, a registered nurse, three trainees, an orderly, a psychologist, and a psychiatrist (that was the brown man). These poor folks had been ready to leave at the end of their shift, but then the cops called ahead and said they were bringing in a new admission, so the doctor demanded that everyone stay. The team had been waiting on the big man for two hours. This was not a cheerful group. Ten people, plus three cops, plus the big man. It would be a crowded, grumpy room.

Before the guest of honor arrived, the men and women on staff had sat at the table with notepads and files spread out in front of them, doing busywork for other patients while they waited. Some used cell phones to make notes, or to text, or answer email. The orderly, at the far end of the table, watched a YouTube video on his phone and sagged in his chair.

When the cops brought the big man into the conference room, the staff members leaned backward, as if a strong wind had just burst in. The doctor pointed to a faux-wood chair that had been pulled back from the table about three feet.

“He can sit there.”

Huey brought the big man to the chair and unlocked his handcuffs. He then took the big man’s right wrist and handcuffed it to the arm of his chair. The staff watched quietly and without surprise. Only the orderly looked away from the scene, replaying the video on his phone.

Once the big man settled, the doctor walked to the open door of the conference room. Somewhere outside the room, farther down the hall, deeper into the unit, buzzing voices could be heard. A television playing too loudly. The doctor pushed the door shut, and the
room became so quiet that everyone in it could hear, very faintly, the
bump-bump-bump
coming from the orderly’s cell phone. The tinny thump of music playing over small speakers.

The doctor walked the length of the room and chucked the orderly on the shoulder as he passed to collect a folding chair for himself.

He set his plastic chair in front of the big man and sat down. He smiled and the bushy mustache rose.

“I’m Dr. Anand,” he said. “And I want to welcome you to New Hyde Hospital. This building, this unit, is called
Northwest
.”

The big man looked at the other staff members. A few of them managed a New York smile, which is to say a tight-lipped half-frown. The others watched him dispassionately.

Dr. Anand—like the big man, like most of the people in this room—had been raised in Queens, New York. The most ethnically diverse region not just in the United States, but on the entire planet; a distinction it’s held for more than four decades. In Queens, you will find Korean kids who sound like black kids. Italians who sound like Puerto Ricans. Puerto Ricans who sound like Italians. Third-generation Irish who sound like old Jews. That’s Queens. Not a melting pot, not even a tossed salad, but an all-you-can-eat, mix-and-match buffet.

Dr. Anand was no stranger to the buffet table, a man of Indian descent who sounded a little like a working-class guy from an Irish neighborhood. He dropped those
r
’s when he wasn’t being careful. He sounded like he was talking through his nose, not nasal but surprisingly high-pitched.

The big man wasn’t concerned with ethnography just then. He hadn’t said anything since crossing the threshold of the big doorway. That’s because he wasn’t actually there. Only his body filled his chair. The rest of him lagged a little behind. It was still back in the lobby.

The big man knew he should be listening to this doctor. If anyone could explain how soon he’d be released, it must be the barrel-chested Indian dude squatting on the dinky chair right in front of him. But he just couldn’t do it. His ears felt stuffed up and his mind fuzzy. He wanted to turn and look over his shoulder, try to find that lagging part of him that would make sense of this moment. He didn’t actually move, for fear the cops might pummel him.

“So why do you think you’re here?” Dr. Anand asked.

The whole room waited for his answer.

Except for the orderly, who pulled out his cell phone again, muted the device, and tilted his head down toward the screen. He wore the glazed-eyed grin of a man watching something that showed skin.

In some strange way it was deeply reassuring for the big man to see this familiar incompetence. He asked, “If this is a hospital, how come you’re not checking my blood pressure or something?”

Three of the staff members at the table recorded this question in their notes. The patient’s responses during the intake meeting were vitally important. Not only what he said, but how he said it. Did he seem agitated? Morose? Distant? Combative?

(Combative.)

Dr. Anand nodded slowly. “This is a
psychiatric unit
. We’ll take your vitals and all the rest, but first we want to get to know you.”

Psychiatric unit.

Two words the big man could honestly say he’d never imagined hearing in a sentence pertaining to him. Open container in public, public urination, twice he’d been in fights where the police had been called. He’d never had trouble that caused him more than an overnight stay in a lockup. Most of the time they were just ticketable troubles. One time he hopped a turnstile—in a rush to get to Madison Square Garden for Mötley Crüe’s Girls, Girls, Girls tour; the one where Tommy Lee did his drum solo in a rotating metal cage suspended over the crowd—the cops scolded him, gave him a ticket, but he still made the show. (And it was great.) That’s the kind of trouble the big man had been in. But this?

Dr. Anand leaned forward. “Is this your first time?”

Huey answered for him. “As far as our records indicate.”

Staff members noted this in their paperwork as well. All those pens writing on the tabletop at the same time sounded like a skateboard’s wheels on pavement.

“I want my lawyer,” the big man said. Wasn’t that what he should tell them?

Huey squeezed the big man’s shoulder. The silver diver’s watch appeared in his eye line. The big man blinked rapidly, as if the cop was
about to conk him. Instead the cop explained, “It don’t work that way. You haven’t been charged with a crime yet so an attorney isn’t your right.”

The big man pulled at the handcuff attached to his right wrist. The metal thunked against the armrest. Even the orderly looked up now. Inside New Hyde this orderly counted as the muscle, the one to hold a thrashing patient down, separate two patients fighting over a kid-sized carton of milk. (Nurses did the same, but that was not what they’d been hired to do.) Now the orderly sized up the big man, tried to figure if he could handle the new admit once the cops, and their handcuffs, were gone. The big guy wore cheap khaki slacks and a button-down light blue long-sleeved shirt. Both in sizes you only find in Big & Tall stores. The new guy had size to him, no doubt, but it was the kind of bulk you find on bouncers at shitty bars; the kind of guys who wear overcoats to hide the fact that their bellies are bigger than their chests. A big man but not a hard man. He’d probably do more damage falling on you than punching you. The orderly came in a smaller package, but was made of denser material. He’d been a wrestler in high school and stayed in good shape. He felt sure he could maintain control later on. Threat assessed, he looked back down to his screen.

The big man pleaded, “If I’m not charged with anything, then you can let me go.”

Dr. Anand shook his head faintly. “Unfortunately, no. You’re categorized as a ‘temporary admit.’ Which means the police leave you in our custody for seventy-two hours.”

“Three days? I’m not staying here three more minutes!” He bucked in his chair. Dewey and Louie had their hands firm on his shoulders in an instant, keeping him seated.

Nearly the whole room scribbled notes after that. And instantly the big man saw that his usual headfirst routine wasn’t going far.
Can’t bulldoze through this
. He knew what he had to do then. Stay calm enough to convince them of the truth.

Dr. Anand leaned forward in his chair. “You’ll be with us for three days. That’s the law. It’s Thursday night. You’ll be with us until Monday morning. And in that time we’ll evaluate your mental state.”

“I can tell you my mental state.”

Dr. Anand nodded. “Let’s hear it.”

“I’m pissed.” Being mellow had never been one of his talents.

From the back of the room the orderly rose as high as he could in the chair. “Language, my man.”

The big man took him in. “You watching music videos or porn on your phone?” he asked.

Dr. Anand looked at the orderly.

“It’s off!” he said, as he fumbled with the device.

The big man grinned and said, “I’m going to call you Scotch Tape. ’Cause I see right through you.”

The orderly said, “Look here.…”

But Dr. Anand caught the orderly’s eye. If this was a contest of power, you can guess who won. The other staff members studied their laps, and silence choked the room. The orderly pulled his chair forward and set the cell phone on the tabletop, facedown.

A moment after that, the big man heard a snorting noise from the back of the room. It sounded like the radiators in his apartment. They would snort and hiss, too, at odd hours. Sometimes they produced heat, other times they just made a racket. The snorting stopped. The room didn’t get any warmer.

Dr. Anand returned his attention to the big man. He didn’t look angry, more like exhausted. “Why don’t we just start with a
name
. What should we call you?”

Huey had the big man’s wallet. He handed it to the doctor.

“You’ve got my name,” the big man said. His brown pleather wallet, old and overstuffed, carrying more ATM receipts than currency, sat in the doctor’s hand.

Dr. Anand shook the wallet. “I’m not asking what it says on your license. I’m asking what you like to be called.”

Why was this doctor talking to him like that? Like he was a dun-sky? He spoke so slow it seemed like another language. Being treated like a newborn only riled the reptile in the big man’s brain.

He said, “You can call me ‘Ed the Head.’ ”

Two staff members actually wrote this down, the others just looked confused.

Scotch Tape couldn’t control himself. From the back of the room he shouted, “I am
not
calling you no ‘Ed the Head!’ ”

The big man nodded. “Then call me … ‘Blackie Lawless.’ ”

Scotch Tape leaned forward and snatched up his phone as if it was the big man’s neck. “Watch it, white boy!”

Blackie Lawless was the lead singer of an eighties band called W.A.S.P., but the big man didn’t have time to give Scotch Tape a history lesson in heavy metal.

The cops shifted in their stances. They wanted to be done. Dr. Anand seemed the least exasperated by all this. He opened the wallet, pulled out the driver’s license, and read the name to himself.

“Your name’s not Edward. And it sure isn’t Blackie!”

The big man felt foolish. What was he really doing here? Giving a little shit to an orderly? Confusing a doctor? But to what end? He couldn’t think past the anger caught in his throat. In other places, his taste for pointless conflict made him seem a bit wild, lippy, a guy who wouldn’t back down. He liked that. But that’s not how they’d see it in a psychiatric unit. These people at New Hyde were
evaluating
him. He had to remember that.

Just breathe. Be calm. Speak to the doctor for real
.

“Pepper,” the big man said in a subdued voice. “Everyone calls me Pepper.”

“Why do they call you Pepper?” Dr. Anand asked.

“Because I’m spicy.” He couldn’t help it, the words just came out. Now he looked at the doctor to see if this would earn a demerit, too. But Dr. Anand didn’t seem bothered.

The snorting began again. This time it seemed closer, no longer playing in the back of the room. It came from under the conference table. And it no longer sounded like a radiator. More like a living thing, but not human. A bull. The snorting grew louder. Pepper watched the table. He felt confused but refused to show it. What could he say that wouldn’t make him look like a grade-A lunatic? Then, once again, the sound abruptly cut out.

Dr. Anand put the license back into the wallet and balanced it on Pepper’s thigh. “Thank you for telling me.”

“I get to keep that?”

“This isn’t prison,” Dr. Anand said. “You have rights.”

“Except the right to walk out of here tonight,” Pepper said.

Dr. Anand nodded. “Except that one.”