You Can Take the Village Out of the Girl...

We lived in the village of East Syracuse until a few months ago. It was really going downhill from pretty far down to start. Crime had picked up, gangs were forming, my kids' friends were dirtbags. Said dirtbags showed up at all hours without supervision (young kids) asking if they could eat with us. These kids were visibly dirty, mind you. We'd had enough and it was time for bigger and better things.

So, we moved to a better area and better school for the sake of all of us. Alex (my daughter) came home the first day of school boasting of having a new best friend. Her last best friend was the daughter of friends of mine, classy folk for the village- nice house. They're getting ready to move out of the village, also. I imagined I'd meet the new best friend soon, and soon I did. 

Friday I had Georgianna, the friend, come here on the bus from school. The night before I talked to her mom on the phone. I immediately deduced the mom to be a smoker from her voice. I got a little concerned when she told me I'd have to take her daughter home because their only vehicle needed a new starter and an assortment of acquaintances were trying to fix it, not a garage. Then she proceeded to tell me how to find their dwelling. I was told it was a trailer with two green garages out front a dog tied up and bikes outside. I immediately started stereotyping, which I felt guilty for. I was sure it would be nice, although something told me otherwise and to prepare myself. The mom was dim at best on the phone. She was hard to converse with because she didn't 'get' anything I was saying. I tried to tell her all I needed was a street and number and my GPS should find it. She acted like she'd never heard of that. She struggled to give me the color of the trailer. It was an odd conversation at best.

So, the bus came and they ran in with my son in tow. Georgianna is a big girl. She said she weighs 190 lbs. She might weigh either 100 or 90. They're in 4th grade. I weighed 96 when I got married at 21. She had stringy hair and her shirt and pants clashed. Her shirt said, "Play with Coke" no cola, just coke. She showed off her shirt to me. I started asking her about her family a little, like any siblings, etc. She proudly professed to have a baby sister of 4 mo. A sister of 16 who has moved out and has a tattoo portrait of her boyfriend. I have 13 tattoos. I was 18, which is the legal age, when I got my first and it certainly wasn't a portrait of my then boyfriend. That would be awkward now since we're still friends. She told me of her two mothers and two fathers, of a step-sister of 24 and a step-brother who committed suicide at 16 behind her Grandfather's house. I was waiving the red flag by then.

Georgianna was miffed by our house. She loved it. That was nice considering it's full of unpacked boxes and was a mess. I got further concerned. I had initially told Alex there was no way anyone could come here with the house this way. I gave in finally. Georgianna was also shocked that Alex has a door on her room. They use sheets for lack of doors, she said. 

After snack it was homework time. Alex had none. Georgianna had some. She didn't finish some in-class work, it seemed. Alex had said she has problems doing her work on time when I asked her earlier if she was a smart kid. Alex is a damn genius and she rubs it in my high IQ face constantly by knowing more than I do. I was hoping her friends would be smart. I looked at the work that Georgianna had just exactly started. Her name was huge and sloppy as hell on the top. The rest was illegible with no spaces between the misspelled words. I decided to call off homework time so she wasn't sitting there struggling all afternoon while Alex waited, probably impatiently. I was hoping her mom could help her later.

So on our visit went until dinner. I made an easy dinner because we had a birthday party to attend soon and I had to take Georgianna home first. We had spaghetti with balls and sauce and veggies. I didn't even remember the cheesy garlic bread I was gonna make. My kids don't like much of anything food-wise. They insisted on no sauce. Alex choked down the meatball I made her eat and neither of my kids would eat the veggies. Georgianna ate two heaping helpings with four balls and plenty of sauce. She ate all her veggies and then ice cream. I was stunned and amazed. This was after an afternoon snack of a can of Pringles and a half a bag of Hot Fries.

It was time to take her home after dinner. We found her street immediately even though we live in the middle of nowhere and she lives even more in the country. Georgianna clued us in when we blew past her invisible driveway, in a forest of trees. When we pulled in I thought she must be horribly mistaken. Surely no one could really live here. Wrong I was. Her mom was outside smoking. I told you so! I can't even begin to describe her trailer. The siding was falling off. It was dirty, no obvious color. Now I know why her mom didn't know what color to tell me it was. It was a single wide. It had no skirt on the bottom of it that I remember. It looked like it had been long since abandoned and they were squatters. If the school could see this, they'd have the state take her away, I'm sure of it. The two green shacks out front were rotten. The driveway was completely under inches of mud water. The poor black dog that was chained to a nasty dog house, that itself should be condemned, looked like hell. He didn't bark. He looked too damn depressed.

Her mom was a whole other can of worms. She had on dirty clothes. She smiled to reveal a few blackish-brown teeth. I mean solid brown/black, not tinted but dead or rotten. We each, my terrified husband and I, shook her lifeless dirty hand and tried to be cordial. I was just beside myself. My feet were soaking up the mud. I didn't want to stay and didn't imagine I could flee fast enough. I was so grateful that she met us outside and didn't invite us in where she said the other dog was. I wasn't concerned about, but for the dog. How do they afford two dogs when we don't think we could fully support one, I wondered. Georgianna was quick to ask if they could have a sleep-over soon. I hope she meant sleep at our house. There's no way in hell I could allow Alex to cross their rotten threshold. I wouldn't myself. I imagined what it must smell like and what it must be infested with. I assured Georgianna that she could sleep over soon, wondering if she would infest our house by proxy. I half wanted to adopt her to save her from her situation for good.

Finally we were able to leave. I was a little worried about backing out that I'd hit one of the probably twenty abandoned tires in piles at the sides of the driveway. I managed not to. We drove in silence except for Nate, my son, who commented that the house was scary. The party got our minds off the squalor for a while. Once home with the kids in bed my husband and I discussed the need to somehow warn Alex about this whole situation. How do you tell your kid, without mincing words, that her new best friend is in a scary situation that you don't want her to be a part of? My daughter is brutally honest and would surely repeat anything we said to her. I quickly passed off the discussion to my more tactful husband before falling asleep afraid that I'd relive that experience in my dreams all night.