The Degenerates

by J. Albert Mann

  Maxine’s head spun with the sweet smell of Alice’s sweat mixed with the sharp smell of cake icing. Except for with Rose, Maxine had never been this close to another body. But Rose’s body was Maxine’s own. Alice’s body was not Maxine’s. At all. In fact, Maxine could feel every part of it that wasn’t hers, the skin of Alice’s neck against her chin, Alice’s breast pressing in below Maxine’s own, the touch of Alice’s hand against her back. She’d never felt this kind of warmth. Like it was coming from inside her. Had Alice understood her? Maxine ached for her to have understood.

  As much as she didn’t want to, she pulled back from Alice, not stepping away, but enough to face her, their bodies continuing to sway to the music.

  “Alice,” she said. “Rose and I are here, at Fernald, because of me. When I was ten years old and playing in the alley beside my house, I kissed Evelyn Heminger. My mother caught me. She said I wasn’t normal. And that she didn’t want me around my brothers. Rose and I… It’s my fault.”

  She’d gone this far. And Alice was still holding on to her. Holding on to her more tightly. Maxine could feel it. So she said it. “Evelyn wasn’t the only girl I kissed. I belong here.”

  It was then that Maxine noticed the square white teeth in Alice’s mouth. Because she was smiling.

  “Maxxie” was all Alice said, before she leaned in… and kissed her.

  London leaped from her chair, but didn’t dare move toward them, not yet anyway. Better not draw attention to the two girls on the dance floor making the fuck out! She couldn’t believe it. Did they not understand what they were doing?

  Frenzied, London scanned the room. Women were dancing, eating, talking, laughing—no one seemed to notice Maxine and Alice. London was just about to take a seat, wait until the song was over to rush the dance floor and plant those two. But then they pulled apart, and London let out the breath she’d been holding… until, across the room, between the now separated lips of Alice and Maxine, London saw Ellen. Smiling directly at her.

  London’s heart dropped, and out of it tumbled all the hope she’d been feeling since she’d discovered that the old lady hadn’t left her and that Maxine had stolen the Easter offering. In its place was dread, a hard, tight dread.

  It took all of London’s strength to smile back at Ellen, the most wicked smile she could muster. But she couldn’t keep it up, and she stuffed the last of the cake into her mouth, and swallowed it whole in a dry lump that almost refused to slide down her throat. Ellen disappeared into the crowd, and London didn’t waste a second. She was out on the dance floor, her fingers clutching Maxine’s skinny wrist and yanking her toward the back door, where London had seen the women leave from, to smoke.

  “Ouch,” Maxine called. “London, you’re hurting me.”

  London checked behind her to be sure Alice was following. She was.

  Once outside the door, she let go of Maxine and approached the first woman she saw smoking. “Bum a gasper?”

  The woman stared down at London, deciding whether or not she’d give her a cigarette.

  “Oh, give her one, Rita. The kid’s one of ’em coming up,” said a woman smoking in the group.

  Rita begrudgingly slid one from her deck.

  “Match?” London asked.

  She could feel Maxine and Alice standing behind her, wondering what was happening, yet too out of their element to say or do anything.

  Rita reached into her pocket, pulled out a pack of matches, and slapped them onto London’s open palm.

  “Thanks,” London said, turning and motioning for Alice and Maxine to follow her around the corner of the gymnasium into the dark. No sooner had they turned the corner than London flipped the cigarette into the grass and sprang on the girls.

  “You’re leaving, tonight. Now.”

  Alice stared, and Maxine’s mouth opened and then closed. She was too stunned for words.

  “Ellen. She saw the kiss.”

  Now the girls reacted, stepping away from London and looking around, like Ellen might be behind them, or worse, Ragno.

  “Listen to me—” London began.

  “But Rose—” cried Maxine.

  “Listen to me,” London repeated, stepping close to Maxine. “They will separate you. Forever. Do you understand? It’s tonight or it’s never.”

  Maxine squirmed under her gaze like a trapped animal.

  “Ladies,” a voice called from the door.

  The girls froze.

  “Ladies, it’s speech time. Please come inside.”

  They heard grumbling, but the group of smokers at the back door herded inside, and the door closed, leaving the three of them in darkness. London waited one moment and then spoke. “The borax box.”

  Alice nodded. “Maxine,” she said.

  Maxine’s face was already wet with tears, but she also nodded.

  Alice leading, the three of them streaked across the institution’s lawn to the back of the laundry building. Alice arrived at the tree first and started to toss the rocks aside.

  “I can’t go. Rose. I can’t go,” Maxine babbled.

  “You have to.”

  “London.”

  London turned to Maxine then, grabbing her by the shoulders. “You have no choice. Do you hear me, Maxine? You have to go. I’ll take care of Rose. You know I will. I will never leave her. Do you understand? Never.” She was heaving, breathless, stung by the truth of what she was saying.

  Maxine’s face glowed back in the dark. She understood.

  Alice had the borax box out of the wall and was emptying the money from it. She pulled off her boot, and then one leg of her stockings, shoved the change and bills into the foot, and then replaced her stockings and boot. This surprisingly smart act inspired London.

  “Follow me. Bring that box.”

  London scoured the lawn for movement. It was well past eight, and no one was about. Any maintenance staff would be hanging around the gymnasium, smoking with the women and hoping for leftover cake. They ran around the back of the large North Building that housed the Sick Ward. The only other building in sight was the nurse’s home, which was a good two to three hundred feet away, with trees between the girls and the home.

  London yanked Maxine and Alice to the large-leafed tree nearest the laboratory’s window, one floor above them.

  Maxine was seriously struggling to hold herself together. Alice looked grim. London, who was about to climb a tree, smash a window, and start a fire, was feeling very much herself.

  She addressed Alice. “Chicopee is north of Springfield.”

  Alice dropped her face to the dark grass.

  “Alice,” London snapped. “It’s time to stop wondering if this piece of shit place has you pegged right. You won’t make it out of here if you believe these pricks. Neither of you will. Now,” she barked. “Repeat this. Left on Trapelo, left on Lexington, right on Boston Post Road, all the way to Springfield.”

  “Left on Trapelo,” Alice whispered. “Left on Lexington. Right on Boston Post Road all the way to Springfield.”

  “Chicopee is north of Springfield. Find Springfield, and you’ll find Chicopee.”

  “The old woman?” Alice asked.

  London hesitated, but only for a moment. “She’ll be there. I know it. Just… walk around the town. Look for an open window with an old lady cussing out of it. That will be her. Thelma Dumas.”

  “Dumas,” Alice said. “Like your book.”

  “Like my book.” London smiled. “Now, Trapelo is that way, at the edge of the school.” She pointed to her left. Tell me again.”

  “Left on Trapelo. Left on Lexington. Right on Boston Post Road to Springfield,” Alice repeated.

  London glanced over at Maxine, who was still breathing heavily, but was quiet.

  “Travel only at night. Sleep during the day. Steal only what you have to.” London turned and looked up at the window of the laboratory. “Wait here. I’m going to throw some stuff down.” She took the borax box from Alice and stuffed it under her dre
ss.

  Sucking in one last breath before she started to climb, she thought about telling them that she wasn’t coming back down. But her instincts told her to climb, so she climbed.

  It was easy. One floor. London loved scaling walls or trees, loved being high above the ground. Once she reached the window, she peered inside. No one. She pulled the borax box from under her dress, stuck her hand inside, and then smashed the window, all uncertainty gone.

  “Watch out,” she whispered as she pulled shards of glass out of her way, and let them fall to the grass below. After slipping her hand inside to unlock the window, she opened it and crawled in without so much as a scratch.

  “Stay there,” she called down.

  She raced to the door of the lab, unlocked it, and eased it open. Again, no one. Out in the hall she entered the quiet crib room. She knew no one would be in here at night; the attendants stayed away from the room if they could.

  “Hello, you dirty little fleas,” she whispered to the babies, maneuvering between their cribs to the supply cabinet. After grabbing a waterproof sheet, she threw in a bunch of tins of the awful milk-like food, along with a tin opener. Then she grabbed two clean blankets, knowing the girls couldn’t carry much more than this. At least they wouldn’t starve or freeze in the first few days.

  She ran back for the door and checked the hallway once again. She could hear coughing and shuffling coming from the ward across the hall but saw no one. She made her move, racing back into the lab, closing the door silently behind her, and then running for the window.

  They were watching.

  She hung the tins wrapped in the blankets out of the window without dropping them, waiting for Alice and Maxine to move out of the way. Then she let them go. The blankets hit the ground with a clank.

  Alice immediately picked them up and began shoving the two blankets under her dress and rerolling the tins back up in the plastic sheet. Then she tossed the sheet over her shoulder.

  “Go!” London called.

  The girls stood under the window… not moving.

  “Go!” she repeated, pointing toward Trapelo Road.

  They slowly turned from her and began to walk, and then to run. She watched them until they got to the corner of the North Building, two dark spots now.

  Then one of them stopped and turned. It was Alice. She raised her hand in the air… and waved.

  London raised hers.

  They’d make it. She knew. Alice would do this. She’d get them there.

  And then they were gone.

  London didn’t waste any more time. She ran to the long shelves of jars with the numbers on them. She couldn’t make out any of the numbers in the dark, and she was glad for it. After grabbing the largest she could find, she moved back to the broken window, as far from the Sick Ward and the crib room as she could get. She placed the jar on the floor, picked up the nearest heavy object she could find—a thick glass container—and smashed the jar. The liquid flooded the floor, the smell burning London’s nose. She lit a match. And dropped it.

  The fire whooshed into existence faster even than London had expected it to. Now with a little light, she looked around the room for more fire power.

  After collecting three more smaller jars in her arms, she carried them to the flames and set them far enough apart to give her time to move away.

  Smoke began filling the room.

  Rushing to the door, London’s plan was to open it and cry “Fire” as loudly as she could. Get the hysteria moving, and then hide until she could safely join the throng of people exiting, which was sure to follow. But as she approached the door, the first jar exploded, throwing her against the door. The fire leaped higher, heading up the wall toward the ceiling. London crouched by the door, her arms over her head, coughing. Behind her, the two other jars exploded like gunfire.

  The smoke was so thick now that she could barely see. She heard someone outside the door. “Fire!” a woman screamed. “Fire! Fire! Fire!”

  London swung open the door, the fire leaping at her from behind. She stumbled out into the hall and slammed the door, her hands burning from the heat of the metal knob.

  Smoke billowed from under the door so that she couldn’t see her boots. She was going to kill everyone. Already the door to the Sick Ward was unlocked and people were scrambling past her to get out. Panicked, she ran down the hall toward the Sick Ward. She could hear fire bells in the distance. Passing the rush of bodies leaving the ward, she fought her way toward Rose.

  She found Rose in her bed. Anyone who was mobile was already up and moving toward the exits. Someone had opened the large windows, and a few people were standing on the sills. The room wasn’t smoky yet, or hot. They still had time.

  “Rose,” London said, but she was already throwing back the blanket, and had the girl in her arms.

  “My stick,” Rose cried. “My stick, my stick!”

  London stopped, letting Rose reach down. If London was going to kill them both, the least she could do was let the girl die with her lousy tree branch. All London had wanted was a diversion. Something to distract from Maxine and Alice’s escape. Not this. Not this.

  London stumbled toward the doors, struggling to stay on her feet and not drop Rose, or trip over the stampede of people ahead of her.

  The hallway was now full of smoke and people. They could no longer get past the laboratory door. There was confusion and screaming, and London was sure she and Rose would be trampled. Many were returning to the Sick Ward, back toward the windows. The drop to the ground was only twenty feet or so, enough to break your legs maybe, but not kill you. Unless you were very sick, and then just maybe? London couldn’t stop to think about what she’d done, putting all these people’s lives in danger. The babies’ lives in danger.

  The babies!

  London shoved her way across the hall and through the double doors of the crib room. Kicked the doors closed behind her in an attempt to keep out the smoke. There wasn’t any smoke in here… yet. She carried Rose to the farthest corner of the room and set her down on the floor under a window.

  “Don’t move.”

  “London?” she asked.

  “Everything’s fine,” London snapped. And Rose smiled.

  London unlocked the window and threw it open. Sticking her head out, she had to cover her ears with her hands, the roar of the fire was so loud. There was a crowd forming below to the right. To her left the flames were shooting out of the lab windows.

  London pulled her head back in. Smoke was curling under the double doors, and the room was heating up.

  “Rose,” she said, and grabbed a handful of towels from the supply cabinet and threw them down at the girl. “Rose, I’m going for the babies.”

  London ran to the far side of the crib room and grabbed Louie. She was shaking too hard to pick up Edwin, too. She ran back and placed Louie in Rose’s arm.

  “Oh,” Rose breathed. “What’s his name?”

  But London was gone. For Edwin, and then Wally, and Doris, and William, and Shirley… running from crib to Rose and back again, over and over, laying each of the babies gently down around Rose, until every crib was empty.

  Sweat dripping down her face, her eyes burning with smoke, London held Lois in her arms, the last child from the cribs.

  “Look at all your babies,” Rose said, coughing.

  Smoke. Too much smoke.

  London stared at all the children surrounding Rose. They were her babies, and so she had better goddamn save them.

  Stepping over the pile of infants, Lois still in her arms, she stuck her head out the window. “Over here,” she shouted, her voice cracking from the smoke. She waved her one arm. “Help! Help!” But they couldn’t hear her over the blast of the fire.

  The smoke was thickening. The heat was intense. London didn’t know what to do. She searched the room for something, anything.

  She handed Lois to Rose and ran to the supply cupboards, grabbed an armful of towels, and ran to the double doors. She tried d
esperately to stuff them into the cracks to hold back the smoke. It was useless.

  Forced to her hands and knees by the coughing, she crawled back to the window. Her eyes were burning. Fire trucks had driven right up onto the lawn, and men were uncoiling hoses. “Help us!” she screamed, knowing there was no way anyone could hear her. Sucking in a breath to scream again, she could only break down into a fit of coughing.

  “Rose,” London gasped over the deafening hiss of the fire. “They can’t hear me.”

  “Throw my stick,” Rose screamed.

  London grabbed it from Rose’s hands. She moved to the window, picked the nearest crowd of people she could see through the smoke, and whipped Rose’s stick at them.

  It hit. And within a minute a group of people on the ground were looking up at London, shouting at her, shouting at others, collecting under the window.

  London picked up Lois. Hung her out the window. Knowing she had no choice, she watched the men and women below, huddling together, arms raised. And then she… let the baby go.

  They caught her!

  Now London grabbed Edwin, checked to see that the people below were ready, and dropped him. One after another through the relentless coughing, the sweat pouring off her, and her lungs and eyes burning, she dropped baby after baby to the waiting crowd, not thinking, really, how they were going to catch Rose. Or her.

  When she grabbed the last baby, Ruth, she whispered down at Rose, “You’re next.”

  But when she turned back to the window, a sweaty face greeted her. A man, with his arms out. On a ladder. London handed him Ruth. And he was gone.

  The smoke was so thick now that London had to hold her sleeve over her mouth to breathe. She knelt on the floor and picked up Rose. When she turned back, the man was at the window again, and she heaved Rose into his arms. But Rose clutched at London’s dress and wouldn’t let go.