The Johnson Sisters

by Tresser Henderson

  I managed to sit up, making sure to move slowly, and was happy the pain didn’t escalate. I was more sore than I thought. I threw my feet over the side of the bed and sat there for a bit. I still had on the T-shirt and panties I ran over here in. I looked at the side table next to the bed to see my sister put a change of clothes there for me to put on. I picked it up to see she put a pair of gray jogging pants and fitted white V-neck tee with a pair of socks and underwear. I ran my hand through my tangled hair, wincing a bit, and when I brought my hands back down, I saw clumps of my hair came out in my hand. Tears threatened to escape as I recapped the night and wondered how in the hell this had happened.

  Here I was thinking I had to worry about my sister calling our cousins, and I never considered what Tyree would do once he found out. I knew I should have kept what happened to me to myself. Cal beating me was the least of my worries. Now that Tyree knew too, it was enough to stress me the hell out.

  All because of the simple act of Tyree going to the restroom in the middle of the night, and that’s when he realized Serena wasn’t in the bed with him. He thought she was with Nevaeh but quickly found out she was with me, since the spare bedroom was right beside my niece’s room. When Tyree saw me, he knew something was up. As much as I didn’t want to tell him, I had to. Seeing him standing before me caused me to burst into tears again. Needless to say, Tyree was heated by what happened, and he immediately began calling his boys, letting them know to serve Cal with a pretty ass-whooping if they saw him.

  I could stop Serena, but Tyree was another story. He was the brother I never had, and he acted the role of one, too. Tyree let me know way back he didn’t like Cal. He only dealt with him because he loved me, so for this to happen, he was ready to stomp a hole in him.

  Really Cal was hated by many men in the street. He always thought he was big and bad all the damn time, running his mouth like he couldn’t be beat. All mouth and little action was what he was. “I’m from Jersey, yo,” he would say all the time, like that was going to make somebody back down. I had family in Jersey, but none of them bragged like he did. I guess since Virginia was more down south than upstate, he thought everybody from here was supposed to be punks. Boy was he ever wrong.

  He learned one lesson when his ass got stabbed in his back on the basketball court four months ago for running that mouth. It was through the grace of God that the blade missed his spinal cord and he lived. That alone should have been enough to clue him in on keeping his mouth shut, but if anything it made him cockier because he survived the stabbing. He walked with his chest stuck out more than ever now, with not one damn lesson learned. All he got out of it was he had street scars, and the fact that he survived proved his toughness. This punk really began to think his ass was invincible.

  Like a dummy, I still stayed with him. Look where that got me. I could have lost my life at the hands of this fool. He couldn’t beat a dude, so he thought it was fitting to make himself feel better by beating me. I was the only one he had in his corner. A lot of his own family didn’t have his back, so now he was going to stand alone, and I knew this was the time he would run to them. The only one who seemed to have his back was his mother. She was a good woman. Out of this entire situation, she would be the one person I would miss.

  The shower I took made me feel a hundred times better. The hot water helped ease my aching bruises, and I washed my hair, pulling it back in a ponytail. With clean clothes on and feeling refreshed, I felt good.

  The aroma of sausage swarmed the air, and I knew Serena wasn’t in the kitchen. Tyree was. He was the one who did the cooking most of the time between the two. I also smelled coffee, and for once I craved to have a cup with lots of sugar and cream.

  When I got downstairs, to my dismay, my sister Phoenix was sitting at the island in the kitchen. I heard her say, “Cal needs to start counting his nine lives, because Big Ray and them getting ready to take what’s left away from him. I promise you that.”

  She was always so damn loud and dramatic. And they said I was the crazy sister.

  Serena was sitting beside Phoenix. Both were drinking the coffee I smelled earlier. I turned to see, like expected, Tyree at the stove preparing breakfast.

  “Why did you call her?” I asked Serena as I walked into the kitchen painted a sunny yellow. It wasn’t overpowering at all. It made you feel like happiness should always be within this space; but I wasn’t feeling any type of happiness right now, not after seeing Phoenix here. If anything I was feeling dread at the days ahead, knowing I would be the brunt of conversation between my sisters and whatever other family they decided should be brought into my troubles.

  “Phoenix called me this morning because we were supposed to go walking so I can start losing this baby weight,” Serena said, grabbing her little pouch from having Nevaeh.

  “And you couldn’t wait to tell her what happened to me,” I said, crossing my arms in frustration.

  “She is our sister, Shauna. Don’t you think she should know?” Serena asked.

  “If I wanted her to know, I would have run to her house. I thought I could trust you, Serena,” I said, walking around the island to retrieve a mug from the cabinet.

  “Shauna, you can be mad all you want. Serena’s right. I should know about this,” Phoenix chimed in.

  “Why? What business is this of yours?”

  “We’re sisters. How many times do we have to say this to you? Cal stepped way over the line when he thought it was okay to disrespect you like this. And with him disrespecting you, he has disrespected us. That’s why I called Pookie and Gerald over.”

  “You did what?” I blurted in the middle of pouring the hot elixir into my mug. I halted my coffee-pouring midair, trying really hard not to drop the pot onto the granite countertop.

  “You heard me,” Phoenix said.

  I looked at Serena, who stretched her eyes and picked up her own cup to take a sip. The mug was so big it looked like it was covering her entire face. Maybe she was trying to hide from me.

  With Phoenix at the reins, I knew this situation was going to get worse, which was why I knew Serena told her instead of any of our other sisters. To be as pretty as she was, Phoenix was boughetto—bougie and ghetto. Yesterday she was high-class snooty; now she was ready to scream whooty-who. Just call my sister Phoenix the diva of the family. She was the type to start trouble and then finish it, even if it meant somebody else was fighting her battles. Don’t get me wrong; Phoenix fought. She had to, as many times as she slept with somebody’s husband.

  My sister let her beauty work for the good of her pockets. Where she got that behavior from, I don’t know. Her attractiveness managed to get her a house, a brand new Range Rover, and monthly installments of money given to her. Whoever her sugar daddy or daddies were this time, they were definitely taking good care of her. Still, I had to wonder at what cost.

  “You see why you shouldn’t have told Phoenix,” I said to Serena, putting some sugar into my coffee.

  “Don’t be mad at her. Be mad at me,” Phoenix said.

  “Oh, I am. I wish y’all would let me handle this on my own,” I said.

  “Just like you handled him last night? From the looks of your damn eye, it looks like he handled you good,” Phoenix responded, taking a sip of her coffee as she eyed the bruise on my eye.

  “Phoenix,” Serena called.

  “What?” Phoenix asked, looking dumbfounded.

  “Really? You had to talk about the bruises.”

  “I’m pretty sure she saw them when she looked into the mirror this morning. Maybe that will further help her decide not to go back to that punk.”

  I rolled my eyes, saying, “You see why I don’t ever want to come to y’all with anything.”

  “Why you trippin’? You lucky to be alive from what I heard from Serena, and you complaining,” Phoenix said with a sneer.

  “Phoenix, don’t start with me today. You know you don’t want none. I might have got caught off-guard last night, but this morning I
’m more than lucid enough to know how to whoop your ass.”

  “I’m trying to help,” she blurted like she was doing me a favor.

  “But I didn’t ask you to, did I?” I said, leaning forward for her to read my lips and hear me good.

  “Get your panties out your ass and be happy you got family willing to be there for you. All you have to say is thank you and leave it at that,” Phoenix countered.

  I sighed my frustration, asking Serena, “Did you call Dawn and Vivian, too?”

  “No, I didn’t. I figured we would see them later at our dinner.”

  “That’s if I go,” I murmured.

  “Why aren’t you going?” Phoenix asked, frowning.

  “I don’t need to hear why I let this happen. It’s bad enough having to deal with you two.”

  “Are we that bad?” Phoenix asked.

  “Hell yeah,” I shouted.

  “Shauna, I know I come off hard sometimes—” Phoenix began to say.

  “You think?” I responded.

  “And I acknowledge that, but I act crazy when it comes to the people I love.”

  “Not only with the people you love,” Serena said under her breath.

  Phoenix nudged her with her elbow, causing Serena to say, “Ouch.”

  “Like I was saying before I was rudely interrupted,” Phoenix said, side-eyeing Serena, “I love you, Shauna. I hate this happened to you. Yes, I have overreacted, but I want Cal to get dealt with for what he’s done to you.”

  “But why is this any of your business?” I asked.

  “It’s my business because you are my sister. Plus, this has struck a nerve in me because it’s happened to me too,” Phoenix confessed.

  “Really?” Serena asked in shock.

  “Yes,” Phoenix said warily. “I went to this get-together with a guy I was seeing, and he thought he could smack me in front of a bunch of his people because I talked to him a certain type of way and came out my face wrong.”

  “He smacked you?” Serena asked.

  “Yep,” Phoenix said, nodding.

  “What did you do?” I asked.

  “I blacked the hell out.”

  Tyree giggled as he took the biscuits out of the oven.

  “It took four of his family members to pull me off of him. By the time I was finished with him, it looked like a cat had attacked him. Plus, I gave him a black eye.”

  “Dammit,” Tyree said.

  “He was lucky I wasn’t toting my pistol. I swear on my mama I would have shot him dead,” Phoenix said, holding her right hand up like she was being sworn in by a court officer.

  “You would have shot him?” Serena asked, giggling.

  “You damn right I would have. A man putting his hand on this pretty face? Please. And to do it in front of people trying to prove he had some kind of control over me,” she said with eyebrows raised. “I think what triggered my departure—”

  “Departure?” Serena asked, frowning.

  “My mind leaving the building,” Phoenix said.

  “Oh. Okay.”

  “I snapped because this jackass had the nerve to laugh after he slapped me. I think that’s what made me lose all sense of reality.”

  As much as I loved my sisters and family members, we tended to be a little crazy. No. Let me scratch that. We were a lot crazy. I mean crazy in the sense of some members having papers showing they’ve been in a mental institute. I had to sometimes question our stability. None of us were quite right upstairs and I knew this.

  Just when I didn’t think my morning could get any worse, I saw Big Ray walk in the kitchen. He hugged Serena and Phoenix and then went over to Tyree, giving him the brotherly handshake. I was last on his journey of affection. After he hugged me, he pushed my hair back gently and took my face into his massive palms. He tenderly moved my head back and forth, looking at my developing bruises. When he let go of my face, I could see him clenching down on his teeth, causing his jawbone and temples to flex. I knew what this meant. It meant things were about to get real.

  “Big Ray, you don’t have to do this. I’m okay,” I said, looking up at my six foot five inch cousin built like a brick building, weighing about 320 pounds. His size alone was intimidating, but when it came to the women of the family, he was a big teddy bear. Trying to convince him everything was okay, I said, “I think Cal knows not to let this happen again.”

  “I don’t know about all that, cuz. He messed up when he touched one of ours,” he said with his deep baritone voice.

  “I know he’s not crazy enough to try anything else with me,” I said, changing my words.

  “How do you know that, Shauna? He hasn’t had to deal with any consequences behind this,” Big Ray said, looking sincerely into my eyes.

  I could see the pain and anger within him. I still tried to smooth things over so he could leave it alone. “Ray, by the time he hears about all y’all looking for him, he’s going to be long gone. He ain’t dumb enough to stick around for an ass-whoopin’,” I said.

  “He violated you. No man ever violates my peoples. Y’all are like my sisters. Your mama help raise me when my mama was cracked out in the street, so to see you hurt like this, it pains me, Shauna,” he said, visibly upset.

  I wanted to cry so bad, but I held back my tears. That would have only added to him wanting to hurt Cal. As bad as Cal deserve whatever he got, I didn’t want Big Ray to risk himself for someone as sorry as Cal.

  “So I can’t change your mind?” I asked Big Ray.

  “I’ll tell you what; we won’t go looking for him. The word will be put out in the street. But, Shauna, if we see him, he will get dealt with.”

  I nodded.

  “I’m serious, Shauna. I can’t lay eyes on this punk and not do what I say I’m going to do if I see him,” Big Ray stressed.

  “I understand, Ray,” I said, smiling at him.

  “I don’t know what you saw in him anyway,” Phoenix said, ruining the loving moment I was having with my cousin.

  “For goodness’ sake, sis,” Serena said, but Phoenix kept talking.

  “He ain’t cute. His breath stank, and his grill is busted. I still can’t believe that punk thought he was the prettiest thing walking.”

  “Well, I did care for him,” I replied, wishing she would shut up.

  But that would be too much to ask of Phoenix, so she replied back, “Love wouldn’t have allowed him to kick your ass. I hope you are done with him. From the looks of that eye, you need to take a picture for it to be a constant reminder of what he did to you so you won’t take him back.”

  “Taking pictures is a good idea, Shauna,” Serena agreed. “I’m going to get my camera,” she said, hopping down from the stool and jetting past us to go upstairs.

  “Bump the camera,” Phoenix said, taking out her cell phone. “I’m going to snap this right now,” she said, taking numerous pictures of my bruises. “This is evidence.”

  “I better not see this on Facebook or any other Web site, Phoenix. I know you.”

  “Why not?”

  I scowled at her, and she said, “Okay. I wasn’t going to do that anyway.”

  It didn’t matter how many pictures they took of me; the emotional toll of this situation was enough to wound me for life. I was done with Cal. As much as I hated agreeing with Phoenix, love wouldn’t allow something like this to happen to me. I came to the realization that what he had for me wasn’t love at all. It was straight-up abuse.

  Chapter 11

  Serena

  My house was finally empty of my family. Shauna decided to go home, and Big Ray and Phoenix decided to follow her to make sure that fool Cal wasn’t still waiting outside her house.

  I expected to be exhausted from going on my walk with Phoenix this morning, but I was worn out mentally by the drama my family brought into my home. Don’t get me wrong; I loved my family, and yes, I would have welcomed Shauna into my house anytime, but this was a bit much for me to deal with because I hated drama. I always tried to avoi
d it, but somehow drama was always brought to me.

  Maybe it was because I was a nice person. Maybe it was because I was that person people loved to confide in. Either way, sometimes it was a bit much. Still, I’ve learned to deal with it because being a Johnson sister comes with its fair share of tumultuous situations.

  The day went by so fast, and now it was time for me to go over my sister’s house for our dinner we had together. Tyree walked into the bedroom soaking wet with his body dripping with sweat. He had just come from playing basketball with his friends. I was mad because he was supposed to be here thirty minutes ago to get Nevaeh while I went over my sister’s house. He knew this before he left but, like Tyree, he did whatever he wanted, only thinking about himself.

  “You’re late,” I said, sliding on my gold-and-orange bangle.

  “The game ran long,” he said.

  “I don’t care. You knew I had something to do. You should have cut your game short,” I snapped.

  “Serena, please don’t start.”

  “Don’t start? Don’t start what?”

  “This,” he said, holding his hands out to me. “I’m not in the mood to deal with your attitude.”

  “Fine, Tyree. You won’t have to deal with it once I leave. Hell, I’m thinking about leaving permanently. Then you wouldn’t ever have to worry about my attitude again,” I said angrily.

  “Do what you got to do. I’m tired of you threatening to leave me. If you are going to go, then leave already,” he said, peeling off his soggy shirt.

  “Don’t tempt me,” I said, glaring at him.

  “Do me the favor,” he shot back, walking to the bathroom.

  “Oh, so you want me to leave?” I asked, getting angrier by the minute.

  Sometimes I wished he wouldn’t be so damn nonchalant about us. Why didn’t he ever fight for us? Like now, he could have apologized and left it at that, but no, he had to push me further away from him. This unnerved me and made me wonder why I was trying. If he could give up on what we had so easily, why shouldn’t I leave? It was always the same thing with him. He came with the “whatever” attitude like he could be with or without, and that always hurt me.