Portrait of Jeny

Looking for random stuff like batteries, Jeny would find crack pipes in her parents' dresser. She knew that the big, bald black man who came to the house — their parents' "friend" — was really the dope man. When he arrived, she'd round up Rudy and Carmen, knowing that soon her parents would be in their room, doing their "medication." After that, they'd get paranoid and the kids would be stuck inside all day.

Sam did make it to Jeny's DARE graduation, though he was really strung out. A police officer had brought a drug-sniffing dog to the ceremony to show the kids. "Do you think the dog can smell it on us?" Rosy recalls Sam asking.

Sam and Rosy bought Jeny some balloons to mark the occasion. Then they went home and smoked crack.

When her parents were high, Jeny took on the responsibilities of cooking and cleaning and watching Rudy. Carmen helped, too. Her specialty in the kitchen was fried Ramen noodles. But the "spread" — slightly cooked Ramen noodles mixed with a bag of crushed Doritos and mustard and mayo — was the girls' favorite. Jeny and Carmen would make mayo sandwiches, with just mayo between two pieces of bread. They also ate a lot of cereal and frozen burritos.

Sam would constantly spray air freshener to hide the stench of crack smoke. If they were out of air freshener, he'd spray Febreze. When that ran out, he'd mix laundry detergent and water in the Febreze bottle and spray that.

Once in a while, Sam would "spoil" the girls, giving them each $20 to buy whatever food they wanted at the store or tortas at the local carnicería. But the girls would have to come right back home, with no talking to boys. And they never got to play Ghost in the Graveyard or bote, a Mexican Kick the Can, with kids in the neighborhood.

"We knew how to take them to Lakeside and they would forget," Rosy says. "We would take them to the pool and they would forget." But Jeny and Carmen never really forgot what life was like behind the closed doors of their house.

At night they'd lie in bed, trying not to laugh when their paranoid father would walk around, holding a stick to defend himself, poking behind doors and the shower curtain at some imaginary figure. Sometimes Sam booby-trapped the doors with chairs or bungee cords.

Eventually, Sam lost both of his jobs for no-call, no-show. Then Rosy was laid off. She got some severance pay, which she spent on rent and crack. Then she started collecting unemployment while Sam tried the day-labor spots.

For two years, Sam and Rosy bounced around different jobs, always behind on their rent. It was impossible for the girls to keep up with the mess their parents had made of their lives. The hot water heater broke, and there were so many cockroaches that Jeny made them her "pets," naming one Bob and another Phil. "They were the homies," Carmen jokes.

In the summer of 2006, when Jeny was getting ready for high school, an eviction notice finally arrived.

Jeny suggested they have a yard sale. While her parents were at work, she sold off the furniture and other household items, getting sunburned in the process. Rosy gave Jeny $25 of the $100 that she had made that day. Sam and Rosy bought Subway for dinner and crack for dessert.

The next day, the Martinez family checked into a motel on East Colfax.

We ended up moving to a motel called the Sands. Everything was okay, so it seemed. We had more freedom, got to play outside, made lots of friends and got to go to school with them and actually had washed clothes and new shoes. Starting high school was fun, new people and it was just awesome. But coming home was the worst part. It was like living in a small dungeon. My Dad was paranoid and carried an ice pick along with a stick. Me and my sister tried to make the best of those moments. We made fun of my Dad, calling him Tarzan and "old man Jenkins." My Dad constantly had friends over. Every morning getting ready for school, my Dad's friends were sleeping on our couch like bums, as if they lived there.

For Jeny and Carmen, the Sands seemed like heaven. Their two-bedroom unit had a kitchen, hot water and air-conditioning, and no roaches. Carmen fixed the place up with the leftover curtains and linens from the duplex. There were lots of other families living there, and other girls to play with. But the adults had their own idea of fun; one day a neighbor knocked on the door and asked for a metal spoon.