Unfit

by Karma Chesnut

  These are my sins. What sins could the author possibly have been guilty of? In a place like Emerson Asylum, the possibilities ranged from murder to not being able to spell. How extremely anti-climactic it would be if John retrieved the journal only to find that the great sin the author was referring to was forgetting to feed his neighbor’s cat.

  John looked past the fence over to the terminal side of the yard. Tim wasn’t there today. Neither was Buck. In all his time at the library, had Buck ever stumbled upon the journal?

  “So, when you think about it, the operation really ain’t as bad as everyone makes it out to be.” Amos nudged John. “Are you even listening?”

  “I’m sorry,” John replied, snapping back to reality.

  A hush fell over the yard as two keepers entered.

  “We will read the names of the next group to meet with Dr. Smith,” one of the keepers announced, sounding completely bored as he recited the same instructions he had undoubtedly given a hundred times before. “When I have called your name, you will come to the front of the yard and wait to be escorted to the examination room.”

  The second keeper began reading from a clipboard in his hands. “Daniel Baker.”

  A loud whoop rang out through the yard as the man John assumed was Daniel Baker roared out with excitement, thrusting his fists at the sky. His friends nearby patted him on the back and joined in his excitement, while a few scattered patients booed.

  “Quiet!” the keeper demanded, but the crowd ignored him. Shouting to be heard over the ruckus, the keeper continued reading names from the list. Michael Carter, Jason Coleman Bradley what’s-his-name, on and on and on.

  “Amos Gardner,” the keeper called out.

  Amos, either sensing or hoping that today would be the day, had been inching his way towards the front of the yard ever since the keepers had arrived and was now only a few meters from the growing line.

  At hearing his name called, Amos threw his arms in the air and shouted, “Finally! It’s about time I got out of this hell hole.”

  The standard scattered cheers and boos died down as Amos filled the last available vacancy. Twelve men had been called, and everyone knew the knifer only ever saw twelve men at a time. The crowd was already disbursing, the remaining men cursing their bad luck for having to stay at least one more week in the asylum when the keeper unexpectedly called out a thirteenth name…

  “and Jonathan Hunter.”

  John shot to attention at the sound of his name, stunned. They had called his name, right? No, he must have misheard. That had to be it, he had misheard. Maybe there was another Jonathan at the asylum.

  “Jonathan Hunter?” the keeper called again.

  There was no hooting or hollering, no friends celebrating his good fortune. The few people who knew who John was knew he shouldn’t have been called, not this soon anyway. To be honest, John wasn’t sure whether or not to celebrate himself. All of the other men lined up behind the keepers, ready to go meet the knifer, were staring at him and murmuring amongst themselves. None of them stared as coldly as Amos, though. If looks could kill, John would have been stricken down where he stood.

  John got to his feet and crossed the short distance of the yard towards the keepers, kicking up dust as he walked, and feeling a dozen pairs of eyes burn holes in his back.

  As he approached the group, John stopped short, careful to keep his distance from the rest of the men. Their looks made it clear he wasn’t welcome there. They were still whispering to each other, even though John was close enough to hear now. They didn’t seem to care, staring John right in the face as they gossiped loudly, words like “cheat” and “snitch” floating in the air.

  “Right then,” the keeper said, who either didn’t notice or didn’t care that anything was out of the ordinary. “Follow me.”

  The group moved out of the yard and through the asylum. John stayed at the back of the line, not wanting to draw any more attention to himself.

  Up ahead, someone pulled away from the rest of the group and hung back, waiting for John to catch up. It was Amos.

  John thought for a moment about speeding up and walking right past Amos—he didn’t much feel like being interrogated right now—but Amos was standing right in front of him, so unless John turned around and walked the other way, it seemed there would be no avoiding him.

  As John approached, Amos pulled up beside him and matched his pace. “So, how’d ya do it?” he asked.

  “Do what?” John replied.

  “Don’t play dumb.” It was a fair comment. What else would he have been talking about? “How’d ya jump the line?”

  John didn’t know how to explain it. He had no idea what had happened or how it had happened. He could only chalk it up to pure dumb luck.

  “I’ve been waiting for my checkup with the knifer for months,” Amos continued, “but you get called in after being here barely three weeks? You must have done something.”

  “If I did, I have no idea what it was. Honestly.”

  “Did you bribe someone? Blackmail someone? Screw someone? Whatever it was you should have let me in on it. Everyone in here would cut off their right arm if it meant getting out even a minute earlier.”

  “Then maybe you should just congratulate me on my resourcefulness and leave it at that.”

  “Fine. Don’t tell me then,” Amos said. “If I had done whatever it was you did, I could’ve been outta here months ago. But please, keep your secrets for yourself. Council forbid anyone else get special treatment.”

  “I’m not keeping any secrets, there’s just nothing to tell. I don’t know any more than you do.”

  This conversation was going nowhere. John could insist that he didn’t know why his name got called until he was blue in the face and Amos still wouldn’t believe him.

  “All right, John. Whatever you say,” Amos replied, and hurried to rejoin the others, leaving John alone again at the back of the line.

  The keepers led the group through a wide doorway, into what John assumed must be the hospital wing. The main entrance looked a lot like the waiting room of the hospitals back home in Southend. At the end of the room was another doorway leading to some sort of recovery room. Through the narrow doorway, John could see that the walls in the adjoining room were lined with rows and rows of beds. Most of those beds were filled, occupied by groggy, groaning patients recovering from sterilization.

  A doctor in a white lab coat was already waiting for them, leaning against the wall and taking notes on the clipboard in his arm. He didn’t even look up as the patients entered the room.

  “You’re late,” he barked to the keepers.

  “There were more names on the list today than usual,” one of the keepers replied.

  “I’m sorry,” the doctor responded snidely. “I didn’t realize walking one extra man down a couple of hallways was such a difficult job.” He dismissed them before either of the keepers had a chance to respond.

  The doctor finally looked up at the group and set his clipboard down. “We have a lot of patients to get through and not nearly enough time,” he said. “I expect all of you to cooperate so we can get through this as fast as we can. Now take a seat.”

  The group simultaneously moved towards the empty chairs lining the back wall. There were no seats to spare, so John sat down right next to Amos, who didn’t look all that pleased with the seating arrangement. As they were seated, a woman—also wearing a white lab coat and carrying a stack of files—entered the room.

  “My name is Dr. Smith,” the doctor said, tossing his clipboard on top of the pile of files the nurse was carrying, causing the whole stack to wobble precariously. “I am the Head Sterilization Surgeon here at the Asylum.”

  The knifer. He seemed different than John had imagined. He assumed that the knifer would be just like all the other doctors that John had ever met, but this man wasn’t quite as—what was the word? Clean?

  “Nurse Taylor and I will be examining you today,” Dr. Smith continued. �
�This examination is simply to evaluate whether you are healthy enough for sterilization. Assuming you pass, we will schedule your surgery a week from today.”

  The nurse set down her papers on a nearby table and handed Dr. Smith a pair of latex gloves. Snapping the gloves over his hands, the doctor looked up at the group and smiled. “Let’s begin.”

  The nurse opened the first file in the stack. “Amos Gardner, patient number 23674.”

  “Two-three-six-seven-four, stand up,” the doctor ordered, and Amos instantly jumped out of his seat.

  “You can call me Amos,” he said nervously.

  “I don’t give a damn what your name is,” Dr. Smith replied. “From now on, you’re patient 23674. Follow me, 23674.”

  The doctor led Amos to the other side of the room, where a single privacy curtain hung in the corner. Once the pair was behind it, the examination began. The curtain was ragged and threadbare, barely providing much privacy at all as John could clearly see the outlines of both men. He watched as Dr. Smith checked Amos’s arms, legs, back, throat, eyes, ears—on and on until he had checked every inch of his body.

  After a few more minutes, Amos rejoined the group and another name—or rather, patient number—was called. Sitting back down next to John, Amos glared towards the knifer until he disappeared behind the curtain.

  Suddenly, Amos let out a derisive laugh. “Can you believe the way this knifer is barking orders at us? Only reason someone would choose to sterilize unfits all day is ‘cause they can’t get a job nowhere else. The quack probably isn’t even a doctor. I bet he was a patient here himself and just decided to stick around.”

  A few men sitting around John and Amos began to snicker.

  “What was that?” Dr. Smith barked suddenly, pulling back the curtain. The room fell silent. Apparently, he hadn’t been as far out of earshot as Amos had thought.

  Squirming anxiously in his seat, Amos replied, “Nothing, sir. Sorry.”

  “No, no,” Dr. Smith insisted, folding his arms across his chest and glaring disdainfully down his nose at Amos. “I believe you were asking a very important question about my qualifications.”

  “No, I was just—”

  “Boy, you must be a hundred different kinds of stupid,” Dr. Smith spat. He was now just inches from Amos’s face. “But I guess we already knew that because you’re here, waiting for—how did you so eloquently put it?—a ‘quack’ like me to sterilize you. You are the one who’s broken, boy. I’m just the lucky fellow who gets to fix you. And a word of advice: it probably isn’t a good idea to piss off the guy who’s going to be cutting off your balls. Accidents happen on the table all the time. My hand may just slip and take off the whole damn thing.”

  Amos muttered an apology and sunk into his chair, his face turning a dozen different shades of pink.

  Turning his anger on the poor patient he had just been examining, Dr. Smith roared, “Sit back down, you idiot. We’re done.” The man jumped down from the examining table and scurried back to his chair.

  Taking a deep breath and straightening his coat, Dr. Smith turned to his nurse and asked, “Who’s next?”

  “Jonathan Hunter,” she replied. “Patient number 24736.”

  John rose from his seat and stood before the doctor. Dr. Smith paused for a moment and stared intently at John’s face, studying him. Finally, the doctor turned, and John followed him to the examination area.

  Pulling the curtain shut, Dr. Smith turned to John and said in a low voice, “So you’re the famous Jonathan Hunter.”

  Famous? John wondered. Famous for what?

  Dr. Smith picked up a file and read aloud. “Jonathan Hunter, age 19. Detained for a disorder of the blood.”

  Amos and his friends had been right after all. John had been arrested for one of those mystery blood diseases.

  “Disorder of the blood? What does that mean?” John asked.

  “It means you’re sick,” Dr. Smith replied shortly, tossing John’s file back on top of the stack.

  “I don’t feel sick.”

  “The severity of the symptoms can range. Essentially, your body can’t regulate the mineral levels in your blood. Toxic amounts of iron are building up and slowly poisoning all of your organs. It might take a while, but they will eventually shut down. Lift your arms,” the doctor said.

  John lifted his arms out to his side and Dr. Smith began patting them up and down, feeling the muscles and checking the joints.

  “I’ve spoken to your wife, Jonathan Hunter,” he whispered.

  “Morgan?” John asked in surprise and felt as though his insides had turned to jelly at the very mention of her.

  “Not too loud,” Dr. Smith hissed. “But yes, I’ve met with Morgan Hunter.” Picking up John’s file and casually flipping through the pages as if he found the entire conversation extremely dull—no doubt putting on a show for all of the onlookers in the next room—he continued, “Your wife has offered me a lot of money to get you out of here as quickly as possible.”

  John’s heart jumped. All of this, him being called months earlier than he should have been, jumping the line to meet with the knifer, it had all been Morgan. She had kept her promise after all. She was going to get him home. But it strangely all felt too easy.

  “You can do that?” John asked.

  Dr. Smith quietly chuckled. “Of course I can, boy. This time next week, you’ll be back home with your sweet, adoring wife.”

  A strange feeling overcame John, comfort mixed with apprehension. Of course, he was ecstatic by the idea of going home and being with Morgan, but the emotion didn’t fit with the prospect of being sterilized sooner. The castration procedure had always seemed so far away, and John found comfort in that, thinking perhaps something could change, or some miracle would occur, and he wouldn’t have to follow through with it. Now it was real. It was imminent.

  Except his future had been altered the minute he was arrested. It was pointless to mourn for what could never be. All he wanted now was to get out of this glorified prison.

  “Thank you,” John finally muttered.

  “Don’t thank me. I don’t give a rat’s ass what happens to you so long as I get paid. And it goes without saying that you can’t utter a word of this to anyone.”

  John nodded. “Why am I hearing about this plan from you and not Morgan?”

  “You won’t be seeing her around here anymore. One of my conditions was that she stop visiting you.”

  “You what?” John almost shouted. He tempered his tone. “Why would you do that?”

  “What we’re doing here isn’t exactly legal,” Dr. Smith said quietly, “so you must keep a low profile right now.”

  “You’ve already made it impossible for me to do that. Everyone in the asylum knows I’m not supposed to be here for at least another five months.”

  “They’ll get over it. But I promise you no one would forget it if they realized that pretty girl of yours popping by to say ‘hello’ was a Loughlin. That’s bound to draw some attention.”

  An icy chill ran up John’s spine. “You know?”

  “Of course. She tried to be all cute and cover it up by introducing herself as Mrs. Hunter, as if I didn’t recognize her immediately. All the Loughlins look alike. Plus, there aren’t too many people with an extra thousand credits laying around to bribe their boy toys out of jail.”

  John cringed. Is that really what it had taken to get him home?

  Now it was John’s turn to study the man standing in front of him. Could Dr. Smith be trusted? It wasn’t until John was back in his chair with the rest of the group that he finally decided it didn’t matter whether or not Dr. Smith was trustworthy. He didn’t have any other choice at this point.

  It was dark before the knifer finished his examinations. The keepers, who looked just as tired and eager to leave as the patients did, directed the group to go straight back to their rooms for lights-out before heading in the opposite direction towards the faculty quarters.

  The thirtee
n patients walked down the hall, excitedly discussing their not-too-distant operation date. Amos and another boy talked loudly at the front of the line, where Amos had carefully positioned himself, probably just to get away from John, who was more than happy to take up his usual place far behind the rest of the group.

  One by one, the boys began to scatter, each heading off to their rooms. Even though John was exhausted, and his head felt heavy, the last place he wanted to be right now was back in his room with Amos and the rest of his roommates and all of their prying questions. Maybe he would get lucky and Amos would continue ignoring him, but that didn’t sound much more pleasant.

  As they turned a corner, John looked to the end of the hall and paused. He knew this place. There wasn’t anything particularly noteworthy about this specific hallway, but he recognized it from the night he found the library.

  The group continued to trudge along in front of him and John wondered if they would even notice if he slipped away. And the more he thought about it, the more it seemed like such a wasted opportunity if he didn’t at least try to sneak off. This was one of the few times he had been anywhere without a keeper, or another patient, hovering over him.

  Within a second of making up his mind, John ducked behind the nearest corner and after a few minutes of wandering, found himself back at the familiar double doors leading into the library.