by Kiki Mcdonald

Created on: May 09, 2008

Sweet Tea was pulling in the Faded Youth apartment complex where he lived with his mom, Gladys. Gladys was very fragile and prone to bouts of deep depression, often not speaking or leaving her room for days at a time. She had been this way for roughly fifteen years since Sweet Tea's father, Travis, had tried to kill her. What Sweet Tea remembered of his father Travis was not favorable. He remembered that he wore only stained Fruit of the Loom briefs around the house and smoked pot constantly out of a bong so tall that Travis had to stand on a kitchen stool to reach the top of it. On particularly vindictive days, he would make Gladys lay face down on the filthy shag carpet while he stood on her back , taking hit after hit, usually while watching the Jefferson's with the sound turned off and Rush's "Moving Pictures" blaring over the stereo all the while laughing his ass off at Weezy's silent antics. From what Sweet Tea remembered, Travis subsisted on a diet of white bread, peanut m & m's and gin mixed with Tang, nothing more; he was skinny and sallow and wiry, resembling a sickly weasel as much as anything. Travis was stupid and mean, a bad combination to begin with, but pair that with his paranoia and short fuse and the end result was nothing less than lethal.

One afternoon Travis sent Gladys in to mix him another gin and Tang, but when she got to the kitchen, she discovered the Tang jar empty. Frantically foraging through the kitchen cabinets, she found an old packet of orange Kool-Aid, thank the Lord! She quickly mixed it with his gin in an old jelly glass and ran in to hand it to him. Travis took one sip and spewed it all over the sofa. "Goddammit you stupid cow! What the hell you tryin' to poison me with?" Before Gladys could even get a word out, Travis had picked up one of Sweet Tea's peewee soccer trophies and cracked it over Gladys's skull. Luckily, it was made of plastic so it only caused a nasty scalp laceration, but it bled like freaking busted water main. Sweet Tea was crouched behind the sofa, his diminutive frame shaking in fear. He reached for the phone; they had learned at school how to dial 911 in case of an emergency, and he knew this was quickly turning into one as Travis was becoming more incensed by the moment. Right now some he could hear Travis screaming obscenities and filling up the bathtub.

Sweet Tea dialed the phone with his shaking fingers and he could hear the operator saying "Hello? Hello? Is anyone there?" and he tried to say his

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