Anatomy of a Drug Addict by Charles Brown

Author:Charles Brown
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: BookBaby
Published: 2020-12-09T19:26:19+00:00

Chapter Fifteen:

Just Another Day

in Paradise

“If we don’t plant the right things, we will reap the wrong things. It goes without saying.”

—Maya Angelou

When I arrived back at Walnut Street, my brother Timothy was still awake and he opened the door and let me in.

“Where’s your car, Charles?” he asked.

“I don’t have time to talk right now, Tim,” I said, “but I need to hide somewhere and quick. If the police come, just tell them I’m not here and that you don’t know where I am.”

Timothy seemed OK with that and went back to bed, not wanting to wake up anyone else who was already sleeping.

The room upstairs where I slept had a closet with attic access in the ceiling, so I locked the bedroom door and hoisted myself up there, just in case the cops came. At the time it seemed like a good plan, and since I was dead tired, I decided to take my chances.

The bullet that had zinged the side of my face and knocked my glasses off must have shook something loose in my brain, though. I should have known that if I locked the bedroom door from the inside and the cops came, they would surely know I was in there hiding somewhere.

I managed to make it through the night, twisting and turning in my sleep like I was still dodging the hail of bullets coming at us in the field earlier that night. Shaking and sweating profusely in the attic heat, I stayed put for all of the next day, not sure if by some miracle the police wouldn’t figure out who I was and where I might have gone. No such luck, though. They eventually showed up and started pounding on the front door.

Back then, Jacksonville was a police state, and when Timothy opened the door, they just pushed their way past him like he wasn’t there. The fact that we were Black meant they didn’t need a search warrant. They were sure I was hiding in there somewhere and were going to do whatever it took to find me. All the noise woke my father up, and he popped into the living room only to find his house filled with cops. Dad was not completely over the stroke he had suffered and was still a bit slow on his feet.

“What’s goin’ on here,” he said, looking at the redheaded Officer Kearney, who seemed to be the one in charge.

“We’re looking for Charles,” Officer Kearney blurted out, obviously still pissed from the fact that I had gotten away from him the night before.

“He’s not home,” my father said. “He hasn’t been here all night.”

“Unless you want us to tear this place apart and find him ourselves,” Kearney demanded, “it would be better if you just got him out here and turned him over to us.”

My dad didn’t even know I was there, but he came upstairs to the bedroom where I usually slept and found the door locked.

“Charles, if you are in there, son,” he pleaded, “you need to come on down and give yourself up.

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