The Degenerates

by J. Albert Mann

  Knowing things her sister didn’t know sometimes felt nice—like stealing food, and helping the girl elope. Rose loved Maxine and loved being her little sister. But Rose couldn’t help hearing the word “Mongoloid” that always sat between the other words. Often because people said it out loud that way: “Maxine’s Mongoloid little sister.” But when it wasn’t said, when it was left out, sometimes Rose felt she heard it even more loudly.

  Mongoloid.

  The word made her feel like she often did while walking the endless paths of the circles. Rose had once asked Miss Barrett, one of the nice ladies who now worked in the superintendent’s office, why the paths went in circles. Miss Barrett had said, “My dear, the feebleminded body is lacking a vital force. The paths circle to remove decision or choice.”

  Like so many things said to her here at the school, Rose didn’t understand it but also vigorously disagreed with it.

  Rose also didn’t tell Maxine or Alice about helping the girl because she knew they’d be mad at her for doing it. Helping was dangerous. Helping meant time in the cages. But Rose didn’t care. Helping felt good. Alice said this girl was the kind who would never stop eloping, and so Rose was planning to help her again.

  Rose had never tried to run away from anywhere. Not even like Maxine had done when they’d lived at their other home, the one with their mother and father and brothers. Being out at night in the dark without a blanket or a bed or her stick—she shivered just thinking about it. She imagined it might feel a little like the time she got a burning-up fever and got stuck inside a bad dream where everything was all wrong and she couldn’t find her way out for the longest time. When she’d woken up cold and wet and no longer in the dream, Rose had cried with joy at everything that was real.

  But the girl with the long, tangled hair and black eyes, that girl liked it out there—on her own in the dark. She wasn’t afraid at all. Watching her open the window had been like watching someone opening a Bit-O-Honey. The girl had been excited by the idea of climbing out the window high above the ground and out into the rainy night, so much so that she’d forgotten to look back at Rose. She’d just disappeared over the ledge.

  Rose loved remembering that moment. The tickle of it pushed her to speak.

  “Nurse?”

  The woman’s cold hands were wrapping a tape measure around Rose’s head. They measured her head a lot.

  “Yes, dear.”

  “I want to help more in the clothing room.”

  “Hm.”

  Rose could tell that the nurse wasn’t exactly listening as she scribbled in a chart. Rose’s measurements had filled so many charts. The numbers were like stars awakening in the night sky—a new one twinkling into sight before the last one could fully be noticed.

  “I know how to fold. I’m good at folding. But you know, practice leads to improvement,” Rose said, being sure to give words she’d heard them use over and over.

  “Very true, young lady,” the nurse said, looking at her for the first time.

  Rose leaped onto this connection. “Could you ask Mrs. Vetter if I might have more practice by working the clothing room?” She tagged on a few more of their words at the last second. “I feel up to the task.”

  The nurse looked away, searching through her instruments. She picked up the thermometer, shook it vigorously, and stuck it into Rose’s armpit. When the nurse’s eyes finally made it back to Rose’s, her head was tilted to the side and a sad kind of smile was on her lips. “These decisions aren’t up to me, dear.”

  She was backing down, about to move on… past this, past Rose’s chance. Panicking, Rose pressed her naked arm against her body, cooperating as much as possible to keep the thermometer in place. She needed to say the right thing next. But she wasn’t sure what it was.

  “But people listen to you,” she blurted, scared she’d lost the nurse’s attention.

  The nurse stopped, her hand still on Rose’s arm and, more important, her eyes on Rose.

  Rose had done it. Following lunch the very next day, she and Maxine were given clothing room duty.

  * * *

  “Why are we here instead of the laundry?” Maxine grumbled.

  She wasn’t really asking Rose this question, she was just complaining, so Rose didn’t answer. Of course Rose knew the answer, making this another thing Rose knew that Maxine didn’t. Although, this secret didn’t tingle in her stomach as the last secret had. This one felt more like a sharp jab.

  “It’s not hot like the laundry,” Rose said.

  She was right. The laundry room was the sweatiest place in the whole world, especially in summer. But it wasn’t summer. It was getting closer to winter, and the clothing room was a little cold since the school never turned on the gas until almost Thanksgiving. Soon it would be really cold. Winter was not a good time to elope. If Rose was going to help the girl, she had to do it soon.

  “What are you thinking about, Rose?” Maxine asked, looking at her for the first time since Miss Sweeney had let them into the clothing room.

  “Winter,” she answered, which was true. But it wasn’t the entire truth, and Rose felt another one of those jabs.

  “What about winter?”

  “Will you try to sing alone at Christmas again?” Rose asked.

  “Audition for a solo? I don’t know,” Maxine said, folding another summer dress. The uniforms the girls wore came in two varieties, winter dresses and summer dresses. The first were made of a wool and cotton blend, heavier on the wool, which made them itchy, and stink a bit. The summer version was muslin, soft and comfortable. Rose hated when they switched to winter dresses, which they’d done just yesterday with the advent of November. When the girls walked the circles on a warm fall afternoon, the body odor mixed in with the wool and smelled as bad as the toilet room.

  “But maybe I will, Rosy,” Maxine said, smiling. “Maybe this year I’ll get it.”

  This made Rose’s heart happy. She liked that her sister was always trying for things, but she really liked that now Maxine would start thinking about singing while she folded the hundreds of dresses, underwear, socks, and towels that sat in large bins in front of them. She needed her sister lost in her daydreams so that Rose might focus on one bin in particular, the one filled with outside clothes.

  Outside clothes were worn by the girls with families who visited them each month. On family visiting days, as well as on community visiting days, when the people who lived in town came, the girls who owned these special clothes were allowed to choose what they’d like to wear. Rose noticed it was the same with the boys. Although she rarely saw boys. They lived on the other side of the school and in other buildings. Girls and boys only came together for Christmas and Easter. On these holidays, when the community and families were invited, Rose would marvel at all the colorful clothes. It was like the difference, she thought, between the green trees of summer and the vivid leaves of fall. Outside clothes had soft sashes, satin bows, lace trims. They were bright blue, and deep red, and the crispest white, like the low puffy clouds of summer.

  Maxine and Rose didn’t own any outside clothes. Neither did Alice. Neddie did, and each month on visiting day when she put on an outside dress with a long lace collar that draped over her shoulders, the waist cinched by a thick satin ribbon, the skirt billowing around her as she walked, she looked like a beautiful princess. Sometimes, if Miss Sweeney was the attendant, she’d iron Neddie’s hair so that her bangs curled perfectly right over her eyebrows and her long tresses ran down her back in ripples. Neddie would perch on one of the soft couches, surrounded by her family in the visiting room, looking like a painting. Rose couldn’t help wondering what she herself might look like dressed like this, her long hair let loose from its tight braids.

  “You better stop dreaming about Christmas and start thinking about folding some of those towels, Rose.”

  “You’re always dreaming,” Rose shot back.

  “The difference here, Rosy,” her sister said, clearly annoyed, “is that
I can dream and work at the same time.”

  She was right. Rose said nothing and picked a stiff, clean towel up from the towel bin.

  “Why don’t you go fold the outside clothes, Rose. I know how much you like reading. You’ll have to read all the collars and be sure to match them correctly to the cubby names. Can you do that?”

  Rose nodded at Maxine—she didn’t trust herself to even smile, afraid she’d whoop with joy at her great luck. Rose moved quickly over to the colorful bin, and her hands shook as she picked up the first dress, a blue gingham with a tight-looking collar. She checked the name. Lucy Mitchell. After carefully folding the dress, she scooped it gently up onto her palms as if it were the crown of a queen, and walked it over to the wall of cubbies, where she stood reading all the names neatly printed on labels, until she found the right one. Triumphant, she slid the pretty blue dress into the cubby and tapped the dress four times… lightly, so as not to dent her work.

  “Nice job,” Maxine said, rolling her eyes. “Now do that about fifty more times in the next thirty minutes, please.” But she laughed. And Rose laughed too. Loudly.

  If Maxine had been paying attention—which she wasn’t—she might have noticed how much of Rose’s laughter came from nervousness, as Rose had been one heartbeat away from stealing that dress. She had been so very close to rolling that blue gingham up into a tight ball and shoving it under her skirt. But she hadn’t. Thank goodness. Because stealing a summer dress was pretty silly. The girl would need a warm dress, of course.

  Rose folded another. And another. She folded alongside Maxine until her stomach growled and her back ached. Though she folded what felt like a hundred dresses, the bins never seemed to empty. While she worked, she thought about the nickels. Clams and a sandbar. That’s what you needed to run away and stay away. It’s what all the girls said. Rose couldn’t trade Neddie all her apples for a sandbar, but she could trade them for nickels. Neddie gave Rose a nickel for every apple. She’d collect some clams for the girl with the black hair… and also an outside dress. Rose didn’t like the thought of the girl running in the darkness in just her nightclothes. Rose didn’t like the thought of being out in the dark at all, but to be out in the dark in her nightclothes scared her even more.

  Now she heard Maxine’s stomach growl. The whistle for dinner would blow soon. She needed to steal a dress. Fast. Rose couldn’t be sure she’d ever be in here like this again.

  When Maxine bent way down into the bin to pull out the last remaining towels, Rose made her move. She had been folding a brown woolen dress. It looked like it might be a little large for the girl, but better this than too small. Rose hated tight clothes. She rolled the dress quickly sideways and then stuffed it under her skirt, half into her underwear. Then she plucked up the next dress and began to fold. Maxine’s head popped back out of the bin, her arms full of towels.

  “I wish Alice could be in here with us,” Rose said, a little breathless.

  Maxine stopped for a minute and gazed at the wall, smiling the special smile she used whenever she thought about Alice. “Yeah,” she said. “They barely ever let her out of that mangle room, except maybe to sew.”

  The next dress now folded, Rose needed to walk to the cubbies and place it in. It was Dottie’s, and Dottie’s cubby looked really far away.

  “Alice is good at the mangle, though,” Rose said.

  Maxine leaned down again into the bin for more towels, and Rose made her move toward the cubbies, hoping that the brown dress was tucked securely enough not to drop out of her skirt and onto the floor. It didn’t.

  “But Alice is good at a lot of things, just like me,” Rose said. Which was true.

  Maxine stopped folding and smiled broadly at her sister. “I love you, Rosy. You know that?”

  “I know that,” Rose said. She could see the sadness in her sister’s eyes. It was because tomorrow was visiting day. Maxine always got sad right before visiting day. When it was a while away, Maxine could still imagine that their mother was coming. But as the day drew closer, it grew harder for Maxine to hope.

  Their mother was never coming. But Rose would never tell her big sister this.

  Maxine sighed, and then turned around and bent over her folding table. Rose immediately hiked up her skirt and shoved the entire stolen dress inside her underwear, so that it could not slip, no matter what. She adjusted her skirt over the top of the stolen dress so that it didn’t poof out all funny-like, and then walked back over to her bin and pulled out another dress.

  The key entered the lock.

  Maxine turned around and surveyed all they’d done, and then looked at her sister. “Not too bad,” she said.

  Rose agreed.

  She felt a little bad, but not too bad.

  London heard the door unlocking at the end of the hall. She kept her eyes closed. This was her second morning in this room, and yet she was still so tired. She’d slept through the first night like a rock, only to be woken up by an attendant with water and hot oatmeal, which she’d devoured, and then she had fallen asleep again for the rest of the day. They’d not come back until evening—with soup and bread and milk, which London had promptly eaten, and then she had fallen into another deep sleep. She’d woken in what she believed was the middle of the night when she’d heard someone crying, but she’d turned over, and before she knew it, she was listening to the key in the hall door and sensing the lights on overhead.

  Stretching, she slowly opened her eyes. They were going room to room, unlocking doors and giving out breakfast. The smell of oatmeal floated through her barred window. Her stomach growled. She thought about the baby in there, wanting food. She hated mawkish thoughts, and never had them. She rolled to a sitting position on her mattress, brushed the hair out of her eyes, and waited for her breakfast.

  A face appeared in London’s window. They were checking to be sure she wasn’t hiding in wait for them. Satisfied she wasn’t a threat, the key slipped into the door’s lock. London wasn’t foolish enough to jump someone when there was a hallway full of food and a morning full of people. But she understood the drill.

  An attendant in a gray uniform opened the door, while another came in with a tray. London didn’t move from her mattress. The last thing she wanted was for this woman to spill any of that oatmeal onto the sticky piss-soaked floor.

  The woman, older, with graying hair pinned up under her cap, smiled at her. London didn’t smile back.

  The woman set the tray down, but London didn’t move for it. Though she was starving, she would wait until these two passed on before she ate. It was a weakness to dive in, and London wouldn’t show any weakness. She’d let that oatmeal turn to cold paste before she touched the spoon.

  “You okay?” asked the woman.

  London stared at her. She couldn’t tell why this woman had asked this. Most likely to see London break down, cry, beg to be allowed out. Although, truthfully, London felt pretty good. Two days of sleeping and eating had really been what she needed. She decided to answer honestly, test out this place. But before she could, the woman spoke.

  “I’ve spent some time here,” she said. “So has Maddy.” She gestured at the other attendant outside the door by the cart of trays. Maddy didn’t respond.

  “You work here now?” London asked.

  “We live here. And work here. You’ll work today too. They’ll be in for you after breakfast.”

  London nodded. This was good to know.

  “Let’s hurry, ladies.” The booming voice came from out in the hall, probably one of the women who’d dragged London down into this place.

  “Enjoy your breakfast,” the gray-haired woman said.

  As soon as the door was shut and locked, London did just that.

  * * *

  They came for her about twenty minutes after breakfast. First they made her pick up her piss pot and carry it to the toilet, dump it, rinse it, and return it to her room. After which they herded about twenty women from the tiny rooms into a large shower, where
the attendants made them undress and had them bathe. The water was freezing but felt glorious, especially on London’s bruised face. London had heard about warm baths or showers, although she’d never in her life had one and so didn’t wish for one now. The thought of dunking herself into water as warm as tea seemed like a dream. The old lady liked to say that wishing was for boobs. London always liked this about her. Here in the showers, deep within the basement of the building, the air was warm, and London washed her hair, something she rarely ever did. As the cold water ran down her back, she even allowed herself to miss the old woman, a little.

  They were each given clean underwear, socks, boots, and a stiff woolen dress. London braided her long, wet hair, letting the water naturally squeeze out as she twisted. She was beginning to think that being hit with that man’s gun wasn’t the worst thing in the world. A few days of rest. Some hot food. A shower. None of it was bad, and it fortified her for another jump out of this place. Because no matter how good it felt to be clean, she wasn’t about to stay locked up. This time she’d keep moving until she got home.

  They were led out of the showers in a line and up the stairs, escorted by attendants, and not the kind in the drab gray dresses who had brought breakfast that morning. These women had more substantial uniforms, and more substantial arms and faces. London wasn’t going to run right now anyway. Not while she was being watched. She’d wait until they released her back into the dormitory with the other girls, which she was sure they would eventually do. She would behave and be released, and then take off like a jackrabbit.

  The group in the line ranged in age from those younger than London to women almost as old as Thelma Dumas. A few of them looked pretty ragged, even after the shower they’d just had. Others seemed empty, like the horde of workers leaving the Bremen Street railyard at the end of a long shift. A few were rotten apples. London could pick them out of any crowd. Crappy people. They were everywhere.