the DTs and the trade of shoes for Librium — "eventually a gentle-faced nurse flanked by…"
eventually a gentle-faced nurse flanked by large men in custodial whites negotiated a trade of shoes for Librium, predicting that the mild sedative would fumigate what really needed to be fumigated.
Context
Detox rendered as low farce with real terror underneath: twenty-four abstinent hours and the hallucinated mice arrive, Ewell hunting them with the heel of a shoe until the ward trades his Florsheims for Librium. The nurse's line — the sedative will "fumigate what really needed to be fumigated" — locates the vermin correctly, inside the withdrawing man, not the walls.