The End of the Innocence

Lino's mother is as skinny as a line of cocaine. "I'm a crack addict, okay," she says. "That's why I don't look good right now."

Lino is a darkly handsome young man, with indifferent brown eyes that seem to focus on nothing in particular.

"He'd always give me this belt to wear back across. When I got to be about twelve, I asked him what was in that belt. He told me it was heroin."

"I don't blame my kids for hating me," Chachi says. "I mean, people tell them, `Your mom turned into a drug addict and a whore after she left you.'"

Dalina has taped her Cinderella drawings onto a wall next to a handwritten chart that lists the hierarchy of the Coffelt Jets gang.

"I promised Lino I'd try to be straight for his court dates," his mother says.