Phoenix Rises

Chapter Three Fanning the Flame

Anna was still a baby when my father was released from prison. With the glee of being reunified, Rocky and Lucy packed my sister and I up and moved back into an apartment in Roswell. This is where life would begin to turn into a nightmare and the start of my very first memories were formed.

"Mommy! Daddy! Stop mommy, daddy!" My three-year-old voice could often be heard begging my parents to stop fighting. Their arguments were tremendous and frightening for a girl my size. To add to this, all the money my father made was being spent on drugs and we often found ourselves without electricity or any utilities in the apartment.

"Lucy, that money was for the electric bill! Not for you to go out and buy another gram of dope." My father begged.

"What's the problem? I guess you just spend money on drugs whenever you want to but I have to go without whenever you say so? You wanted the drugs just as much as I wanted to buy them!" Lucy would laugh often at my father's hypocrisy. Truth be told, despite his insistence on his innocence, he was merely turning a blind eye. He knew that he was just as much of a participant in the drug use as my mother was.

"It's cold mommy, I don't like this. Stop please." I would whine as my mother filled large pots of water to carry into the bath for Anna and me. I gasped for air every time Lucy dumped a large bucket of room temperature water over our heads, the oxygen being sucked from my lungs. We were both crying as my mother ran back and forth from the kitchen to the dark bathroom. Rocky peered into the bathroom to see his two crying children, looked down at the floor and then walked away. This would turn out to be one of the great shames of his life.

"I'm hungry dada, want nuggets. Want mac n' roni" my sweet voice would ask my father as my stomach turned. Electricity wasn't the only necessity missing from our lives, but Rocky always tried to ease the hunger with his sense of humor.

Hand in hand the entire family would take a walk down the street to the place my parents first met, Allsups. During this short walk my parents would lift my sister and I up by our arms and swing us forward into the air. We'd laugh and ask them "Do it again! Do it again!" both in unison.

Once we arrived at Allsups, my parents would purchase a 99 cent Allsups burrito and the four of us would share it on the walk back home. There were also many nights that we were saved by Pizza Huts all-you-can-eat take home buffet from the early 90's. This is perhaps one of the best memories I have of my parents. Sitting together and eating what we could, of the little food we had. My sister Anna once told my father that the Pizza Hut parmesan cheese was "baby poop." This little quip caused an uproar of laughter, and Pizza Hut parmesan would forever live on by that title. Even during the darkest of times, there always managed to be happy glimpses of what my family could have been. Rather unfortunately, those moments were always short lived.

"Daddy, please don't let them take us away. Pease daddy. I want to stay with you. Please daddy don't let them take us away." A cry from me that would be etched into the heart of my father forever. A request he was powerless to fulfill.

The police had been called after yet another domestic dispute in the home. This time the police found drugs on my mother, and when they informed her that they would be taking her to jail and placing her children in foster care, she fought like hell.

"No you wont you son of a bitch!" my mother screamed at an officer as she picked up a frying pan that was sitting on the stove and hurled it, narrowly missing his head. At this very moment another officer swooped me up into his arms as I was kicking and screaming, "No don't take me away. Please daddy. No I want to stay with my mommy."

As the officer carried me away, I caught a side view through the apartment window. I could see my mother with her back turned to the police officer, leaned against the kitchen sink, being placed into handcuffs. The nice officer sat me into his car and tried to soothe me, "Its okay. What's your name sweetheart? Phoenix? Well Phoenix, I know you are scared, but everything is going to be okay. You will get to see your mom and dad again. This is only for a little while." His attempt to calm me was endearing, but a three-year-old only knows how much they love their parents. There was no consoling my broken heart.