I was now in my Freshman class at Lyons Township High School in Lyons, Illinois when my dad had a nervous breakdown and admitted himself into Elgin…with mental health issues. Mom was always saying to my dad, “You need help, Jim.” The night dad admitted himself, my minor aged relative and his friend were burning locust by our detached garage at 501 North Spring Street, and the garage caught on fire. The LaGrange Park fire department was down the street from us, and arrived within minutes. Everyone in the neighborhood was outside watching the firefighters. I was standing watching it all, holding Kelly on my hip. The same night my dad went to the madhouse, my mom was downstairs roaring with laughter with someone when I was upstairs in be. Who was she with ?
In those days when parents couldn’t afford a vacation at a spa, and they were depressed, they admitted themselves into mental institutions. Someone or other was always going into a mental institution in our neighborhood in the 60’s. I believe my dad just wanted a vacation.
I cried my eyes out when we pulled away from the Elgin mental institution after a visit on one weekend looking back at dad from our red Rambler station wagon. The best selling novel, “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” was published in 1962. It was 1969 when my “temperamental’ father was released from the cuckoo’s nest. As soon as he walked in the front door, I ran directly to my red Schwinn bike and headed to Saint Francis Xavier Catholic Church, where I knelt at the altar and prayed to Jesus for my dad. I loved him so much. He never loved me back. Dad didn’t care for children. I don’t believe my mother ever picked up on this. Dad was emotionally abusing me.
I was so proud of my dad’s artistic talents and how beautiful our house was. I escaped emotional pain by keeping busy, becoming domesticated around the house. I wanted to please my dad. He only yelled at me, and never kissed or held me once. “You goddam kids,” his favorite words, “what the hell did you break now?” My soul was filled with anxiety a lot dealing with a walk-on-egg-shells kind of dad. My mom’s side of the family didn’t like dad either. I felt so bad for my dad.
Dad had to keep up his illusion of himself with the neighbors and friends after the cuckoo’s nest, so we sold 501, packed up our fine furniture and antiques, and moved to Lafayette, Indiana where dad got a job in a furniture store, which didn’t last long before we moved back to Chicago after two years. In Lafayette, we bought a gorgeous ranch style home in Meadowbrook subdivision outside of Lafayette in the country. Within a month the interior of the house looked better than the Rockefellers.
Dad had an illusion of himself to maintain. He wore a mask with the public. He was a friendly, high-end designer. He had class, although, he was detached from the family man persona, and was engrossed in material pursuits always. I remember when was stuck going to the Merchandise Mart for a day with dad driving in the car, he never said a word to me. Dad was a snob. Full of hate. He’d make sure we heard about the kikes, the niggers and the spicks. Class, by the way, is how you treat people. It has nothing to do with material wealth or style, but dad thought he had class and that most people didn’t. Especially if their house wasn’t kept up. That was white trash to dad.
Now, in the second half of my freshman year after moving to Lafayette, I went to Tippecanoe Junior High School where I met black, Leslie Marshall. (Tippecanoe refers to the 1811 Battle of Tippecanoe, a pivotal conflict in Indiana where William Henry Harrison’s U.S. forces defeated Native American confederacy warriors under Tenskwatawa. The battle occurred along the Wabash and Tippecanoe rivers. The battle fueled the “Tippecanoe and Tyler Too” 1840 campaign slogan.)
I’m in the classroom for choir sitting on colosseum style elevated seats. I run up the stairs to the top and while I’m sitting up top looking down, there is Leslie Marshal goofing around on the bottom row of the seats across. She’s pulling her knee-high skirt down her legs to her ankles and making faces. She just cracked me up so bad, the teacher turned and scoffed at me, then decided to change the music and ignored us. I have a weakness for funny people, in fact, now that I think about it, I need to pray for a funny friend. “Laughter is the best medicine.” (Proverbs 17:22) Isn’t it ? God created laughter and God is a “happy God.” (1 Timothy 1:11) Needless to say, I befriend Leslie Marshal.
One day after school, Leslie Marshal, me and another girl are kicking it down by the Wabash River which is flowing fast, when two men in inner tubes come floating by and Leslie Marshal screams, “Can we go with you?” Next thing I know, Leslie Marshal is in one tube with a man, and the other girl is in another with the other man. It happened so fast, I looked in disbelief not knowing what to do, and then decide I better catch up, and jump into the cold Wabash and start swimming, following them. No one is paying attention to me at all, including the two grown men, and I’m swimming and swimming. Leslie Marshal is nowhere in sight. They’re far down the Wabash. I must have swam a mile, when suddenly my arms start to give out. I tried floating for a few minutes to catch my breath, and then did the back stroke. I wasn’t gaining strength and energy, and became entirely tuckered out. I was in the middle of the Wabash, and began to panic. I was having trouble keeping my head above water while kicking my legs under me. It wasn’t working. I lost all strength. I started to go under. I began to drown. I kept grasping for air. There by the shore were a group of kids. I kept my arms in the air and screamed, “help ! help ! help me !” I saw everyone looking. Then a young teenage boy without hesitation, jumped into the water so fast without a thought. He swam out to me and reached me within seconds. He positioned me on my back, put his arm around my shoulders and pulled and swam into shore. I recall how tight he held onto me. I was so thankful. I was so so thankful. He saved my life.
Leslie Marshal and I were about the same age. She might have been a year older, but we were in the same grade. I started school when I was four. My dad probably wanted to get rid of me, so he put me in school, and I was always the youngest in my class, being born in November.
Anyway, the next time I see Leslie Marshal, she’s inviting me to her house after school. We get to her house on the other side of the tracks. I recall the house inside felt bleak. There were dirty hand prints by the light switches, the curtains were torn and the furniture, well, put it this way, my dad is a designer. I wouldn’t know how to describe it. Leslie takes me up to her bedroom where dirty twin mattresses without box springs were on the floor without linens. There were no curtains on the windows.
Then Leslie Marshal and me are sitting at the Formica kitchen table. I hear the police radio within distance from the kitchen in the attached room. Leslie’s dad was a cop. I believe she said he was a captain. Leslie had just showed me how to make gravy. She said, “when your making gravy, always cover it when it’s done so you don’t get a film settling on top.” My dad was a gourmet cook too. Why didn’t he tell me any of this?
We’re sitting at the table eating mash potatoes with gravy, when Leslie Marshal tells me her dad has sex with her. Now mind you, I’m fourteen years old and entirely innocent. She then goes on to tell me that she wants to be a prostitute when she grows up, and move somewhere where prostitution is legal. This came out of the mouth of a black 14 or 15 year old child. We finished the potatoes and move into the living room.
Standing in the living room is a black kid I didn’t see walk into the house. I used to see him on the school bus in the back seats to the speech tournaments, but I never met him. I won many blue ribbons, first prizes reciting poetry in competitions. I would recite English poet, Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s, Sonnet 43, “How Do I Love Thee?” and, “Trees” by American writer and poet, Joyce Kilmer.
His name is Prince, Leslie tells me. The next thing I recall is Leslie Marshal asking me something like, “He wants to go with you. Will you be with him?” I softly and politely immediately said, “NO.” I was stunned by this, to say the least. My mom heard from a male relative of mine about me hanging around Leslie Marshal and mom told me not to. She said she had a bad reputation. I never hung around Leslie Marshal again.
Let’s recap this. I was fourteen years old while hanging out with Leslie Marshal only twice. I almost drown the first time with her in the Wabash River. The second time with her I could have been raped. Fornication is a sin against your body and against the Holy Spirit of God. (1 Corinthian 6:9)
! Corinthian 15:33 warns, “Do not be misled: Bad association spoils useful habits.”
Parents: Do not allow your children to be with anyone you do not know and even if you do know them, monitor your children always when they are away from you, no matter who they are with. Monitor their phones and their computers. Know who your children are interacting with online always. Remember too: Most predators are never caught.
Children: Protect yourselves from harm. Leslie Marshal was funny, but Leslie Marshal had no idea of the harms she was involved with. She had no common sense at all. Leslie Marshal had no morals. Leslie Marshall’s dad was a sexual predator raping her. There was no mother in her home. She was free to roam. Her dad would have ended up in prison, probably for life. Leslie Marshal was having sex with multiple boys. This is very dangerous behavior for a child or anyone for that matter. Protect your body and your heart. Be safe.
After Leslie Marshal, I made better friends in Lafayette. I’m going to write about what happened with them too.
Always Christian with so much love always at Anne Fisher Foundation. Amen.