The day the CPOD Circus came to town. (standard:drama, 3987 words)
Author: Anonymous	Added: Jun 13 2004	Views/Reads: 3142/2136	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
A group of kids stop drugs in their community.

The day the CPOD Circus came to town. By 

Donald R. Williams 

“Lieutenant Cobb, we found this journal left on the bed in the kid's
room. There are no clothes or shoes in the closet. Someone must have 
helped them clear out, it is the neatest room in the house. Both 
parents are on the way to the Martinez Rehab Clinic, to dry out. We 
found the mother huddled underneath the kitchen sink, and the father 
hallucinating in his bedroom closet. Who ever called this in wanted us 
to find the parents.” The patrol officer said handing the wire bound 
tablet to his superior. “You guys watch your step, and for God's sake 
beware in how you reach for stuff. There are Crack vials, and dirty 
needles all over the damn place. All I need is for one of you guys to 
get stuck, and come down with HIV, or worse. Just be careful.” He 
responded with mixed emotions of disgust at the surroundings and 
concern for his men. He walked out to his unit, sat down, lit a 
cigarette and started reading the journal. 

The reason we had to do this. 

My Mother and Father are hooked on drugs. For that reason, my seven
years old sister, Martha and I live in a world, which is not real.  Our 
world is filled with imaginary friends.  They are invisible goddesses, 
heroes', warlocks, shamans, and white witches who cast their magic 
spells. These saviors rush to our rescue, and calm our fears at night. 
Stuffed green turtles' with masks and swords let us cry on their furry 
laps. Our muted comforters listen with us, as we absorb the echoing 
sound of time-rusted bedsprings, in synch with the male grunting of yet 
another stranger groping our mother. 

Martha trembles with each footstep pausing at our bedroom door. I hold
her closely and whisper false reassurances in her ear, praying to any 
god that would heed our call.  Because of our fear, we've learned to 
sob silently, waiting for the day we'll leave. Time is our Jekyll and 
Hyde. Our pharaoh, returning each evening, brings with it a darkness 
from the shadows of the street; spewing its harvest of whistles, 
sirens, screams, shattered windshields, screeching tires and gun shots 
which seem to only happen during its nocturne.  Our saving grace is the 
dawn, mercifully pushing the scary things away. 

Each day, before Martha and I began our two?mile trek to school, our
parents performed their habitual morning ritual.  Half sleep, half hung 
over, and unsure of exactly where he is at, my father would feel his 
way down the short hallway of our two bedroom Morgan Project's home. 
Loud gurgling coughs are, usually followed by horrid sounds, producing 
large globs of clouded bloody sputum, propelled upon faded decorated 
mirror tiles.  He would desperately search for an acceptable cigarette 
butt among the menagerie of empty beer cans, cheap wine bottles, junk 
food wrappers and discarded crack vials. 

From withdrawal ticks, he constantly scratches his vein-collapsed arms,
and then rubs his filthy hands across his soiled face.  Cockroaches 
never ceased to emerge from his matted dusty brown hair, quickly 
descending his skeletal, scarred body. After putting a flame from the 
burner of our badly stained gas stove to a half smoked cigarette then 
beckons us to him for a hug, afterward he slumps on the kitchen table 
as if exhausted from a hard night's work. He would reach for a 
leftover, half-filled beer bottle, swig the stale amber fluid, and 
swallow. 

Never failing to issue instructions to take care of my sister—as if I
had a choice in the matter. It was a sure bet he never would. His 
breath reeked of vomit and his clothes of shit. Father always a 
stranger to gainful employment, is a dead man waiting to take his place 
among the dishonored dead.  His sole contribution to our family's 
survival had always been covertly pimping our mother. I still love my 
father, but I do not know why. 

Mother would shuffle slowly past us to my father; shoving a wad of
crumpled currency into his hand. Trying to conceal his pleasure at the 
money, he stuffs it into a waiting pant pocket.  Needle tracks, tired 
eyes, and an array of bruises spot my mother's caramel colored skin. By 
looking, a person might guess at one time she had been very pretty.  In 
the days before the drugs came along, she was a cocktail-waitress, her 


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