PAUL BRINKLEY-ROGERS

 The sun came up on Elian's street on Sunday, and for a few hours it seemed as if a miracle
 had happened. It was eerily quiet.

 The barricades festooned with slogans were gone, and so were the protesters. Camp Elian
 -- the canopies used by television crews -- was no more. The vendors selling flags had pulled
 out. A pet parrot called out ''mi amor'' (my love), over and over again.

 But if this was peace, it was peace in a strange land.

 ''Sure we are sweeping up,'' said Mary Rodriguez, who lives at 2314 NW Second Ave.
 ''But none of this -- none of us, are normal. My life can never be normal again. Elian is gone.
 My worst fears came true.''

 She watched her neighbors hosing down the dust and raking up the garbage that thousands
 of feet had ground into the road surface.

 Across the street, the chain-link fence around Elian's house was a tangled mess. People
 were taking down signs. A man with a machete hacked at the tangle of nylon cord hanging from
 power poles that had secured the tarps sheltering the crowds.

 ''This was a neighborhood,'' Rodriguez said. ''I used to make Cuban coffee for everyone. We'd
 come outside and share a cigarette. When the hurricane came last year, the guys came out
 with wood and nails to help people put up shutters. And then . . . ''

 Across the street at 2337, Raquel Arencibia, 68, surveyed the scene. A neighbor called out
 greetings. A man hosing down his pickup waved. Arencibia walked out and stuck a
 wooden cross and two small Cuban flags in her fence.

 She stood there with her arms crossed. ''I am still angry,'' she said. ''You can't clean up all
 that has happened here. This is all very sad history.''

 And then, at that instant, the street filled with agitated people arriving from Easter Sunday
 Mass. Many carried copies of the now-famous photo of the agent holding the submachine gun
 on Donato Dalrymple and Elian. They were shouting: ''Clinton is a Nazi. Reno is a Nazi.''

 Other protesters arrived, carrying computer-altered versions of the photo. One showed
 Janet Reno, wearing a helmet with a swastika on it, holding the gun on the child. Another
 version showed President Clinton with the gun.

 The crowd moved to Elian's house and the decibel level rose.

 A parade of cars flying the Stars and Stripes upside down with black tape over the flag to
 signify mourning passed with honking horns. People stood in groups expressing their
 outrage -- one person venting, and then the next.

 Sandra Lima stared at a hugely enlarged version of the photo attached to Elian's front
 door. It bore the words in English, ''Federal Child Abuse. Would you let this happen to your
 children?'' She shook with anger.

 ''Where is your democracy, America?'' she demanded. ''Where is your liberty?''

 Suddenly, at the edge of the crowd, a young woman in slacks and a tank top held up a sign
 that read, ''Reno Did The Right Thing.''

 The crowd froze, stricken with disbelief.

 In an instant they were on her, tearing at her hair, ripping the sign out of her hands.

 A security guard hustled her down the street surrounded by men and women still trying to
 strike her. ''Who paid you to do this?'' they asked, shouting expletives at her.

 The woman, who identified herself as Melanie Luke, 26, and said she was of Jamaican
 heritage, kept her head up. ''I have my rights, too,'' she shot back, defiantly.

 The guard had to take her three blocks to Flagler and stop a passerby in a van and push
 her inside before the incident was over.

 Within seconds, police cars, sirens wailing, sealed off the neighborhood.

 ''There is still a war on my street,'' said a tearful Julie Ramos, 44. ''There is no end
 to this. Nothing is ever going to be the same again.''
 

                     Copyright 2000 Miami Herald