"Hello Mary Lou"

I sneeze. I wonder if somebody’s yelled my name out somewhere, but it’s probably just ‘cuz I was hiding out in the rain all night. Not that I’m sick, mind you, or even sick in the head! You see, my dad got hit by nebelwerfer rockets at the Bulge and my mom remarried and didn’t want me no more, that’s why they stuck me in that school on the hill. I’ve been dorming there for…years? When you live a life of textbooks and rolling pins, day in and day out, time seems to swirl together.

The Salem Slot School for the Gifted. More like a Schutzstaffel training ground. They don’t allow you outside up there. Nope, every day, you go from the dorm room to the classroom, classroom to martial education, martial education to re-education. They wanna make me into a good little tin soldier all dressed up in red, white, and blue. By they, I mean Ingrid and Dr. Funny. They've been in a tizzy ever since the Russians launched Sputnik two weeks ago and the Turks threatened to intervene in Syria. Mary Lou Sunday, they sez, your destiny in life is to serve the American people. And if you don’t, we got rolling pins and electro-shock for you until you do.

Well, screw that! I may have bruises and bumps and burns, but my mind is still strong. Some people tell me I just don’t know when to give up. None of my classmates believed I could escape, and yet - here I am!

I haven’t been outside in years. Everything’s so effing crisp and clear, an autumn day like I read about. Just look at the leaves on the trees! Having gone through miles of forest and hills, I stand on the last ridge between the school and the Slot. I toss my nightgown soiled from last night’s rain and empty the contents of my bag - white T-shirt, red bomber jacket, fresh jeans, even fresh tennies I swiped from one of Ingrid’s nieces when she spent the week at the school for “summer camp”. Please! I was scraping poop off the toilets with a toothbrush while Ingrid and friends were having tea parties.

The niece said she’s gonna dress up as a black cat for Halloween. I’ve heard the stories that kids go ‘round tricking and treating on the last night of October. Why do you think I timed my escape with it? I can explore the Slot for the day, mix in with all the kids, get some of that candy I’ve heard so much about, then ride the rails hobo-style on the midnight train out of here.

Once I’ve changed, I take one last look from the ridge. Salem Slot is down there, a sea of red brick buildings built centuries ago by the first settlers over an Indian burial ground. Ingrid always says the outside world is unsafe, especially Salem Slot, which is haunted by witches and demons and the past, but seeing is believing, you know?

There’s a paved road leading down into town. I look over my shoulder - the colonial house which serves as my school stands up there silently, overlooking the town like the Colossus of Rhodes might’ve done. A rolling mass of gray sky spreads from behind it, silver fingers slipping across the sky, reaching out for me, for the town. A sharp gust of wind kicks up, and all those caramel-colored trees in the forest start shaking, all in unison, as if this whole thing was planned. A performance for me. You can run, sez the School, but we’ll hunt you down, Mary Lou Sunday. This is my power. We’re in the trees, the clouds, the wind. Your destiny is mine.

“Come get me!” I yell back, then dash down the road, off to freedom. The town gets closer and closer. My feet pick up. Is that what the settlers felt when they first stepped foot in virgin land? I skip into a puddle, feeling the fresh rainwater splash on my ankles. I took a harmonica with me, and when I play, I can hear the whole ensemble, trombones and trumpets, the drummers, piano and guitar, not that old Yankee Doodle sort of music, not the military marching bands they regularly pipe into our barracks during morning reveille, but the new wave, the songs of beatniks and the new generation, the ones you could hear in malt shops and high school homecomings.

MARY LOU’S SONG

Ol’ Mary Lou’s coming down the road (doo wop doo wop)

She’s a new girl kind of girl on a new kind of mode (doo wop doo wop)

Watch out, watch out, she’s coming throooooooooooough (doo wop doo wop)

Watch out, ‘cuz here comes ol’ Mary Lou (woah-oh-oh)

Maybe I should be a musician.

And then I’m in the Slot! That’s the beauty of towns - one minute you’re walking down freeways, autumn forests all ‘round you, but then all of a sudden, you’re in city, wilderness blurring into outskirts. I immediately expect to be accosted by the usual inhabitants of cities - greasers, jocks, mafiosos, loose-cannon cops, alcoholic private eyes, enemy spies, working class heroes that tend to break out into song to describe their troubles - but instead I’m greeted with the scream of factory whistles as work lets out for the day. Down the narrow colonial streets, there’s a mad scramble of humanity as everyone pours out, heading to the tavern, the bar, home. There are jack-o-lanterns on the streets, straw scarecrows on the corners. Skeletons stand in front of storefronts, staring at me with empty sockets.

Something feels off. Maybe it’s cuz nobody’s greeting me, you know. I guess I can’t just shout heyo, I’m a runaway from the School, nice to meet ya! But, you know…the School’s right up there, just over the hill, you can even see it from down here in the street intersections. But nobody’s looking at it. Nobody’s looking at me. Everybody’s just looking at each other. It’s like I’m invisible.

I take a tepid step backwards, then bump into a brick wall. Shucks, I’m not, you know…dead, right? I’m not a ghost or nothing, r-right?

A trio of blonde girls comes down the road, dressed in cheerleader’s outfits. I step out and block them. 

“Say, Jack,” I say. “I’m not dead, right?”

The lead cheerleader, SALEM SLOT HIGH SCHOOL emblazoned in red across the black color, her hands covered in pom-poms, looks at me like I have two heads (maybe I do? It’s been a while since I checked). “Aren’t you a little old for Halloween?”

Another cheerleader snicks. “Connie, Connie,” she whispers. “Look at her. Maybe she’s an asylum escapee…ooooohhh, ooooooooohhhhhhhhh!”

I cock my head. “Asylum?”

Connie’s friends keep making ghost noises until Connie rolls her eyes. “Enough. Let’s hit the shop before the game.”

They march off, Connie in the lead, the two followers wiggling their fingers all spooky-like at me. I raise my arm, ready to make them pay, since I got sooper-dooper psychic powers (I mentioned that earlier, right?)

Holding my hand out, I prepare to knock them over, bulldoze them into the ground. Anger flairs, my hair rises, there’s a flash of lightning despite there being no clouds in the sky, and then, and then…

Oh, wait. I don’t have psychic powers.

I stuff my hands in my pockets. Well, at least I’m not dead. Unless those three girls are dead as well, and we have some sort of ghost communication thing going on. But as they walk off, and students presumably lower on the social totem pole step out of the way, I guess that means they ain’t dead either. I sigh in relief. I must be alive.

The School’s still watching on the hill. Gray fingers across the sky, just like the gray fingers that straps me into the harness for electroshock therapy. I didn’t bring my medicine with me, either. I take it every morning and night, so I guess that’s not helping my current mental state…

I shake my head, auburn strands going every which way. Nuh-uh. I’m gonna enjoy Halloween, like all the normal people do. Maybe I’m just so used to being inside that I’m rattled right now.

To get out of the School’s gaze, I follow those cheerleaders into the malt shop.