by Rita Marley
I was going through those changes but I wasn’t, as everyone believed, going crazy. I thought I was opening up to more wisdom and felt I should share it. I had a strong religious impulse to begin with—as a child in church, I used to get the spirit, jumping and shouting, speaking in tongues and going into trances. Long before I met Bob, I’d been reading my Bible. Now I turned to preaching the faith of Rastafari—wherever I went I’d talk about black pride and raising ourselves up. Whenever I took a bus, I’d go to the front after I boarded and say, “Good morning, brothers and sisters!” My friends said, “Rita, you sure you’re okay?” And I would say, “Fine, fine …” Then I started to wear my nurse’s uniform, and tied a rope of red, gold, and green (the Rasta colors) around my waist, and people began to whisper, “You know she’s crazy, she’s getting crazy, what a shame after all the money her aunty spent on her.” And Aunty’s friends were telling her, “See now? The girl is crazy—get her father here.”
But in the morning or the afternoon some people would wait for my bus. They’d say, “Any bus Rasta woman take”—Rasta Queen, they called me—“any bus ‘Queenie’ on, we go on Queenie bus.” Everybody knew that when Queenie was on the bus, it was going to be Bible time. “Queenie gonna teach today,” they’d say. Sometimes I would have my rod, like a walking stick. I thought I was on a mission and didn’t feel in any way strange about it. I wouldn’t wear bangles or earrings or perfume, only ordinary sandals, nothing sleeveless, my dress had to cover my ankles, my hair had to be covered, I used to keep it so tied up …
I realize now that whatever you put yourself through to be where you are today is all a part of you. I wasn’t crazy, I was simply trying to find out who I was, and where, and why. Nevertheless, without my knowledge, Aunty wrote my father: “You better come get Rita out of here, she’s mix up with these guys and this Rasta thing.”
Though Papa always kept in touch, it wasn’t until I saw his response to Aunty’s letter that I knew she’d written him. In Trench Town back then when you got a letter from anywhere overseas, everyone knew about it: “Ooh—you get a letter from America, let me see the envelope!” Or: “Miz Britton get a letter today from America, I saw it in the post, man! Is only you get a letter wid dose red stamp wid de president on it …!”
Although it was addressed to Aunty, I opened the letter and read: “Dear Sister Vie, I am very surprised to hear about Rita. But don’t abuse her. Is she keeping herself clean? That is most important to me. If she’s clean she’ll be fine, because she’s very intelligent. Don’t fret yourself or worry her.”
When I confronted Aunty, she said simply, “I had to.” But by then she had divorced Mr. Britton, and I had become another breadwinner for our family, helping to support us through my work in the studio and with the Soulettes. Papa was still living in London, playing his sax and doing whatever he had to do to survive. He had been joined by Alma Jones, a Jamaican woman with whom he was to have a long relationship, and who later on would be very kind to me at a time when I very much needed some kindness. Their union had produced my sister Margaret and brother George. The last thing Papa needed at that moment was a sullen nineteen-year-old on his hands. Aunty took stock of the situation and said no more about sending me away.
Wesley, who had always lived with us, had grown into a young man now, and after Bob left for Delaware he had joined the police force. In Jamaica, police are rotated among parishes, so he used to spend most of his time living in police lodgings and came home only on holidays or weekends. He would arrive in his uniform, the talk of the town because, ooh, Uncle Wesley is a policeman! (This was a big thing to be in the early sixties.) As with me, people made a fuss over his bright, even teeth. Always smiling, very charming and mannerly, he was known locally as Mr. Tooths—definitely “Mister,” because he had become the man of the house after Aunty’s divorce. And took his role seriously, as I would find out.
A month after Bob left we learned that Jamaica was to receive a visit from Haile Selassie. By the time his plane touched down, on April 21, 1966, a huge crowd—more than a hundred thousand people—had gathered. Most of them were Rastas or members of other African-centered Jamaican groups. Because of the masses of people, I never got any farther than the road to the airport, so I stopped and waited for the motorcade to pass by. Bob hadn’t wanted me to go, but I said I was going anyway. Everybody was on the street smoking and having a nice time—it felt like freedom, freedom for black people, to see this black supremacy coming in real life.
I kept looking into the different cars and finally I saw him, this little man in an army uniform with a military-looking hat. Rastas believe that when you see your black king you will see your black god, and so when he was almost close up to me I said to myself, is that the man they say is God? They must be crazy. I didn’t believe, looking at him, I just didn’t believe. Short little man in his army uniform. Quite simple. With one hand he was waving side to side, and I thought, oh please God, could this be what I read about? Show me if what they say about this man is true, show me a sign so I can see, so I can put my faith somewhere, I need to hold on to something.
And just as I thought my prayer wasn’t working, Haile Selassie turned in my direction and waved. There was something about the middle of his palm that struck me—I saw a black print. And I said, oh my God, the Bible says that when you see him you will know him by the nail prints in his hand. Most people think I’m lying, but I’m not lying, it happened. I don’t know if it’s mind over matter, but I was looking for something to identify with. And there it was.
I yelled, “Oh my God,” and went home screaming and cheering. And Aunty said, “Lord have mercy, there she goes! Now she’s truly mad!” It had been raining and I was soaked, but I didn’t care. Aunty thought I was completely out of it, but for me it was an awakening. For the emperor to be waving at me!
As soon as I got to my room I started a letter: “Dear Robbie, I just came back from seeing His Majesty, and I swear I have seen him …” I gave Bob the whole picture of the crowd and people beating drums in the street and smoking herb and the police didn’t lock up anybody! What a day to remember in Jamaica! As for what I saw—ain’t nobody gonna take that from me!
But Bob’s response was, “Dear Rita, I got your letter, please take it easy, don’t go anywhere. Don’t go smoking at anybody’s place, stay at home and read and take care of yourself and the baby!”
The first days after Bob went to Delaware, I’d been devastated. Totally devastated, really lost. What is this? I kept asking myself. Married two days ago, madly in love, and now he’s gone? In my head—and sometimes aloud—I kept singing all the love songs I knew, but they kept turning into songs about loneliness, and how much I missed him. But at the same time I had to remind myself that I was now a married woman, for one thing, and two, I had to remember that my husband had gone to find a job and I had a daughter who had to be maintained. All of this brought me back to the same position I’d been in before the whole idea of marriage had intervened: Should I carry on singing or go back to nursing? At night I’d lie awake, trying to decide. Should I go find me a job, or what? Should I continue to be around Peter and Bunny and all the others at Studio One? Dream—or Vision, as he was now known—was ready and always available, and as the Soulettes still had a name we figured we still had a chance. If I wanted to, of course. We had maintained our connection to the studio and Coxsone continued to ask us to do background vocals for other groups—Delroy Wilson, Lord Creator, Tony Gregory are a few I remember.
Bob didn’t want me to go to the studio, it seemed. “Stay home and take care of your baby,” he would write, always “stay home.” He would never say “Go find you a job,” though he knew I had to have money coming in from somewhere. We wrote each other almost every day. Letters would be in and out, and if that postman passed my gate without stopping, my heart sank, because I’d look for a letter every day, no matter if I’d gotten one yesterday or the day before. But despite Bob’s constant advice to stay home and take care
of Sharon, Dream and I went to Studio One whenever we were asked, to do background vocals for Peter or for Bunny or whoever else Coxsone was recording and wanted us to work with.
Nevertheless, even with keeping myself busy and Bob’s letters keeping up my spirits, sometimes I’d feel lonely and lost after a studio session, just thinking, when will I see my husband? And missing him—everything about him, his voice, his music—and then going home and saying to myself, when am I going to go to America? I wasn’t thinking about him coming home, it was all about my going to America. That separation was a trial for me. I was a strong young lady, true, but it would get me down sometimes when people said, “I heard you’re married to Robbie, where is he?” One of his old girlfriends, a girl named Cherry, even accosted me to say, “That was my man!” I went through all that without him even being around to defend me. But Bunny told her not to mess with me, that Bob would come home and kill her if she did!
It took Bob a while to reveal to his mother that he was married. Cedella Booker had known about me, or at least about a girl named Rita, from my letters. She knew we had been dating, knew I was his girlfriend, but nothing about the wedding. After he finally admitted to it, and she asked him to describe me, he’d said, “Oh Mommy, if you should see her you’d like her, she walks and she rolls.” And Mrs. Booker said, “What do you mean by that?” And he said, “If she walking and you see her from the back, she rolls!” When I heard this story I wondered what could he mean? Until I realized it was my knock knees that did that! (Some people think it’s sexy.)
Married or not, his mother sent her sister to check out my house—I guess to find out where I lived, whether I was good- or bad-looking, whatever—I never knew what they were looking for. But when her sister came to see where I’d been raised and saw that the walls of my room were decorated with pictures from magazines—like all teenagers I had put up posters and pinup pictures—Mrs. Booker’s sister wrote her to say that I was such a poor girl that I lived in a house with cardboard walls! Plus, I had a baby! So in America they were all disappointed. But by then there was nothing to be done; we were on our way.
It wasn’t long—only eight months—before Bob decided to leave Delaware. His mother said he’d been worried about me; she was surprised that he loved me more than he loved the United States. She couldn’t understand why, even though she’d never met me. She had been sure that America was his dream, and his family there had done everything to entice him to stay—even brought him pretty girls after they found out he was married.
But Bob had his own reasons for leaving America. Poor thing. He’d worked first in a Chrysler factory, then at the Hotel Dupont in Wilmington. When at last he gave up he wrote me, “I’m coming home, I’m sick of this place. Today, while I was vacuuming, the vacuum bag burst and all that dust went up in my face.”
The poor boy!
“If I stay here, this is gonna kill me,” he wrote. “It will give me all kinds of sickness! I’m a singer, I’m not this, I’m coming home.”
The whole homecoming scene was so very good—and felt so long overdue! It didn’t seem like eight months; it seemed like forever that I had waited for that moment, to see him coming out, into the terminal. And there he was looking at me, his head to the side as if he was just longing to put eyes on me, just the same way I was feeling. And poor Bob, you looked at him and you just felt sorry for him! And I keep feeling this way about him, even now. My love for him is a deep, true, lasting love, of course—but there was something about sorrying for him that still is in me. Though he had left with only one bag, now he had one over his shoulder and another, a suitcase, in his hand. We hugged and kissed, and he said, “Yeah, man, I’m back, my mother sent some things for you and Sharon and I bring a dress for you and things like that.” I just had a chance to say “Ooooh” before Dream and Aunty grabbed him. And Sharon even remembered how to say “Bahu!” We were all so glad to see him!
But then, on the way home, he said to me, “Why you no fix up yourself, what happened to your hair?” (I was wearing it natural.) He seemed puzzled more than critical, and I guess, after American women, I looked different. With him gone, I’d been into reading and trying to confirm that whatever he had said wasn’t simply herb talk, or something he had picked up on the street. And ever since seeing the dark spot on Haile Selassie’s hand, I’d felt more secure about being a part of the Rastafarian movement.
But the day he came home none of that stayed on my mind very long. We got home, ate dinner, played a little music, sneaked out to the alley for a little smoke, and then went straight to bed—and it was like whooo—heaven! If that’s how heaven is, fine, I want to go there!!
And even after the first excitement wore off, I noticed a little extra affection being laid on me, whether from missing me or any other reason, I didn’t know. Whatever, I was very happy about it. Love can bring out the best in anyone, I guess. And it was great to realize all over again how much we loved each other. This is where we had a nice time. Yes, definitely, this is about a nice time.
The little money Bob brought back was just enough to go into the studio with Bunny and Peter to record a few of his earliest songs, like “Nice Time”: “Long time we no have a nice time/ Long time I don’t see you/ this is my heart to rock you steady …” As he did then, and as he always would, he was just naturally singing about his feelings. So we went into lovemaking and family making. First was to be Cedella, my second daughter, named after Bob’s mother, but whose pet name is “Nice Time,” just like the song.
As soon as Bob came home, I had to get to work. Music is art, but it’s also business, and all three of the Wailers were more into writing songs and rehearsing. To keep the rights to their music, we had begun our own company, Wail’NSoul’M (for the Wailers and the Soulettes). At one point we were actually producing, manufacturing our own records. I was still singing (Bob and I recorded a cover version around this time, along with Peter, Bunny, Cecile, and Hortense, of “Hold On to This Feeling”). But someone had to be going out to make sure the record shops and the radio stations had the records. You had to be on the streets to service them every day.
We were still living at Aunty’s house on Greenwich Park Road, where she had added on a room for us. Our bedroom faced the road, so in the daytime Bob and I curtained off part of it and made the front into a little shop, where we sold our 45rpm “dub plates”—in those days everything was on these seven-inch vinyl recordings. Some days we’d sell three, some days six, sometimes as many as twenty-five, out of a cashier’s booth, a little cage we’d constructed. I never imagined that cage as part of history, but there are two replicas of it now, one at the Bob Marley Museum in Kingston and the other at Universal Studios in Orlando, Florida.
I also made deliveries on my bike. Aunty was a bicycle rider, so she had trained me to do the same—“Take the bicycle, run go buy a needle.” It was because of the bike and the shop that I found a woman friend for life, Minion Smith (later Phillips). When we met I was still searching, looking for more strength to confirm my feelings of faith in Rastafari, and I saw Minion as a sister who was already involved in the struggle in Jamaica, where white supremacy and class barriers were so defined. Her mother’s Jewish family had fled the Holocaust and her father was Jamaican, and they lived uptown, in middle-class Kingston. Minion—called Minnie—was one of the first young women from that area to show an interest in Rasta and, as expected, her family thoroughly disapproved. Tall and beautiful and very militant, she used to come down to our shop to buy records, and I liked her style, her sandy brown dreads, the way she carried herself. Seeing her in Trench Town, I thought, wow, there goes a Rasta sister who looks confident and strong.
That strength was so appealing. During those early sixties years, being young and female and endorsing Rastafari was a sure way to become an outcast, and seen as crazy and strange, even more so than the men. But like them, Minnie—the only other young Rasta woman I’d met so far—and I were simply searching for a way out of the discriminati
on and rejection we felt all around us, and trying to understand that we were not from the nowhere in which we felt stranded, but had a heritage in Africa, that we had roots.
Sometimes I’d get on my bicycle and meet Sister Minnie part way, between Trench Town and where she lived, and we’d talk about Black Power and Malcolm X and Angela Davis and Miriam Makeba. To make extra money I was making dashikis, and she’d take them uptown with the bead jewelry she made and sell them at the university. Over the years she has given me a lot of strength and support, but we had a link at the first. Sometimes you meet somebody and you know right away, wow, we’re going to be friends for a long time.
Late one afternoon, riding home from a record shop in Half Way Tree, which is more than three miles from Trench Town, I was hit by a car and thrown from the bicycle. In my carrier on the back I had a load of records, to be delivered from orders we’d gotten for Wail’NSoul’M Recordings. I was more embarrassed than frightened, because I was accustomed to this daily three-mile ride from Trench Town to Crossroads, and from Crossroads to Halfway Tree. Sometimes I’d go back to downtown Kingston, too, where all the famous record shops were, like Randy’s and KG’s. Everybody knew me, everybody looked out for me: “Oh Rasta Queenie come! What records you have for us today?” I was a favorite because we were carrying new stuff that was in demand, a little of the Wailers, a little of the Soulettes, so it was very exciting. And I was so young and full of enthusiasm, carefree and happy despite being poor, and loving every moment of my life and thinking, one day we’re gonna be somebody, or one day we’ll have money, or one day, we’re gonna have enough to eat!