“The drugs are pretty blatant,” said Kathy Garrison, vice president of the local community council.

        “Broad-daylight blatant,” corrected Pat Markley, a neighbor.

        “They used to hide,” added Anne Sheckles, who says her house is like a prison surrounded by walls of fear. “Now they stick their heads in my car window and ask what I want, and if I say no, they say "Get out of here, then.'”
       

Crack-head neighbors

        This is not Over-the-Rhine or the lawless zone in Avondale. It's happening on a shady, tree-lined street with neat lawns and modest, carefully preserved older homes in Madisonville.

        Mrs. Sheckles described the filth and threats she sees every day outside her remodeled 1928 home on Erie. “I've had rocks thrown at me. I've been told they are going to poison my dog if I call the police.”

        She has picked up buckets of used drug syringes. She has raked discarded condoms from her bushes, then threw away the rake because some of her neighbors have AIDS and hepatitis.

        “I'm tired of watching people get shot in my front yard. I'm tired of the murders within a block or two of my front door,” she says. “I won't let my boys play in the front yard. I hear gunshots every single night. They call me "white b----' every time I step outside.”

        “We hear the same thing,” Mrs. Markley and Mrs. Garrison said. And everything Mrs. Sheckles said is true, they added.

        In videos and photographs taken by Mrs. Sheckles, the yard next door looks like an appliance graveyard. Rats have been spotted running from a dilapidated garage behind a red-painted brick house with dirty bedspreads for curtains.

        These women put the “mad” in Madisonville. They have complained to the police until the cops know them by their angry voices. The police are trying, Mrs. Markley says, “but there are just not enough cops. We've been told that there are often no more than six for all of District 2.”
       

Which way to "Baywatch"?

        The women have counted 40 cars in a half-hour driving up a dead-end street off Erie. All those “lost” drivers were not looking for directions. They were looking for drugs.

        And in the home videos, it's plain to see that drugs are easy to find. The “drug store” is open 24/7. Dope boys stand on the corner, pants pulled down below their butts, waving and whistling down passing cars.

        “We see cab drivers, plumbers, business trucks and construction workers,” Mrs. Sheckles said. “Half of the problem is the white people from out of our neighborhood. Fancy cars from Clermont County, Adams County, Indian Hill.”

        As if on cue, a HumVee — the ultimate SUV — pulled over to the curb. The window snaked down, and a bouncer at the wheel stared straight ahead as two Baywatch blondes asked the way to I-71. They looked like show girls — and I don't mean Rockettes.

        If Cincinnati could be X-rayed, this is where we would find a deadly malignant tumor that will spread unless it is removed.

        If nothing is done, Mrs. Sheckles could be the courageous voice of Cincinnati's dark future. “I don't like my children seeing the things they're seeing,” she said, “but who would buy my house? Who would want to live here?”

        E-mail pbronson@enquirer.com or call 768-8301.
       

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