When I think of Marlene, I am reminded of how lucky I am to have been born into my family, but many kids aren’t as fortunate.
Our nearest neighbor was an older woman who lived alone in a shabby house on a small farm. She would let her pigs come in and out of the house like pets, which I thought was barbaric.
One day when the school bus picked me up, it stopped at the elderly neighbor woman’s house. Next to the house was a camper trailer that hadn’t been there previously, with some people walking around. The bus door opened, and a young girl about 10 years old stepped into the bus. She was an exceptionally pretty girl, with big brown almond-shaped eyes with dark circles under them and wavy, thick brown hair. She looked destitute, wearing thrown-together clothes that didn’t quite fit and looked shabby. When she walked on the bus, she didn’t have eye contact with anyone, had no expression, found a seat, and sat quietly for the ride to school. She reminded me of a gypsy, and later I found out she was a type of gypsy.
One day I smiled at her, thinking it would be fun to have another friend close enough that I could walk over to her house without being dropped off in a car. Marlene smiled back but said little. Every day that week, when Marlene got on the bus, I grew more fascinated by her and her family. They all seemed very mysterious. Marlene always sat in front of me on the bus but still wasn’t talkative. As I sat behind her each day, I noticed her hair tangling a little in the back, becoming a rat. Each day the tangle grew until, after about a month, the whole back of her hair was one big tangled giant rat mess. I wondered why she didn’t comb her hair and why her family would let her go to school looking like that. Marlene always got on the bus and continued to sit in front of me, never looking ashamed or like anything was wrong. One morning, a boy on the bus said something mean about Marlene’s hair while we were riding to school. I broke the ice by sticking up for Marlene, which was risky for me, and from that day on, Marlene and I became friends on the bus. I still didn’t understand how she could let her hair get into such a mess and not do anything about it. I asked her about the giant rat tangle, and she said, “I can’t get it out, but now I like it.” Her face showed me it was her pride talking, not the truth. One day as the bus door opened to pick up Marlene, she had her hair cut short into a jagged, rough pixie cut. Pixie cuts were fashionable, but someone obviously did it to cut the giant matted hair rat out. Everyone on the bus stared at her in silence. Marlene walked down the aisle silently, looking straight ahead with her chin held high as if she knew there would be stares and shock on the children’s faces.
Marlene never said a word about the haircut; I just told her I liked it. After several months of Marlene living nearby at what she said was her grandmother’s house, she invited me over to play. Seeing the filthy living conditions up close, it was hard to imagine living like that. The grandmother allowed a pig to come and go in and out of her run-down, dirty house like a pet. I could hardly believe it. In the camper trailer, her other “siblings” were sitting around talking. They looked older and didn’t attend school. I was curious about the family, but Marlene only told me they were from Detroit and that they sometimes traveled with carnivals.
Shortly after, my parents told me I could not go to Marlene’s anymore. I felt nervous, embarrassed, and a little scared about how I would tell Marlene I couldn’t play at her place anymore. Daddy said they were not people I should be around. He said he had heard rumors that they were in trouble with the law in Detroit, Michigan, which is why they were hiding out in the Ozarks. I started to feel a little afraid of what they would do if we crossed them.
After finding out more about Marlene, my parents knew what was best. One day at school, I saw Marlene at the drugstore near our school, and I sat at the counter with her to order an ice cream cone. She was reading a book named Reds, so I asked her what it was about, and she told me it was about drugs. She then told me that her family had given her LSD since she was eight, saying they all did it every night. It WAS the mid-1960s, but this was rural America, not Haight-Ashbury in San Francisco. I was shocked, and now understood how her hair got into such a mess, with no one seeming to care.
Being from a different family environment, I couldn’t imagine what it was like for Marlene to be born into such a life, never knowing what it feels like to be cared for and loved the way a child should. One day, not long after her confession, the bus passed by Marlene’s grandmother’s house without stopping for Marlene. As the bus passed, I looked out the window for the trailer. The shabby camper trailer that was there the evening before was gone, vanishing in the night. Marlene said nothing to anyone about leaving, but probably didn’t know herself. The word was out, and the law was on to them, so they moved on. I never heard from or saw Marlene again, but I will never forget her.
I never heard from, or saw Marlene again, but I am forever haunted by her memory.
One pill makes you larger,
And one pill makes you small.
And the one that mother gives you,
Doesn’t do anything at all.
Go ask Alice,
When she’s ten feet tall.
When you go chasing rabbits…..
Jefferson Airplane, Grace Slick, 1967
nurseracquet 