Choices - Weeping For A Night (chapter 2) by Katrina Burchett

Shauntice curled up in her wrought iron-framed bed, the soothing sound of CeCe Winans’ “It Wasn’t Easy” flowing from the three-disc stereo system she fell asleep listening to. Suddenly a loud banging at her bedroom door made her jump out of the fetal position that helped her to feel safe. She kicked off the cotton blanket that covered her legs and jumped out of the bed. An oversized, white cotton blouse hung from the bedpost. Shauntice snatched it and draped it over the sports bra and biker shorts she wore for pajamas, then hurriedly slid her size seven feet into a snug pair of slippers. She rushed across the room, praying that what she feared wasn’t happening.
When Shauntice opened the door and saw her twin brother’s face, her big brown eyes widened with worry. As she turned to go use the phone in her bedroom, Shannon grabbed her arm as if he could read her mind. “Callin’ the police won’t help,” he told her, then turned away and started down the hallway.
Shauntice ran after him. “How’d he get in?” she screamed, grabbing the sleeve of her brother’s oversized shirt.
Smothered by deep frustration, Shannon jerked his arm away. His flaring light brown eyes bugged out the way they always did when his temper rose. “I don’t know,” he snapped, resenting the question.
God did not give me a spirit of fear. Shauntice repeated the Bible verse over and over in her mind as she watched Shannon march down the narrow hallway. When her brother was this angry he acted without thinking. Because she didn’t want him to do something he’d regret later, she followed him. What she wanted to do was run to her bedroom, lock the door behind her, call the police, and then stay in there until all of the confusion was all over. But she couldn’t let the situation get worse.
On their way down the steep third floor stairs, Shauntice and Shannon heard a hysterical scream. Shannon leaped over the five remaining stairs, not so much as stumbling when his Air Jordan’s landed on the second floor. He spotted a wooden bat leaning in a corner, so he snatched it up.
“What are you gonna do with that?” Shauntice yelled out as she darted down the remaining stairs.
“I’m gonna show him what it feels like to be hit!” Shannon barely missed the plastic rollers in his sister’s hair when he flung the bat over his shoulder to rest. The muscles in his arms contracted as blood rushed through his veins. His jaw clenched and his fist squeezed the bat as he envisioned his target.
Shauntice grabbed her brother’s arm. “Wait a minute,” she whimpered, the concern in her eyes meeting his hard frown, “just let me call the police.”
“What good’s that gonna do? You know mom won’t press charges.” His breath quickened and his heartbeat raced as he contemplated his only option.
“I don’t think she has to. They will.”
“Yeah, right. And she’ll slap a pair of sunglasses on her face tomorrow and go bail him out.”
“C’mon, Shannon! You know mom doesn’t want you getting hurt!”
“Then why is he up in here again?” Shannon marched down the hallway with a silent, determined stoutness of a champion boxer before a fight.
Shauntice trembled. The last time Shannon went up against their drunken father he ended up with a broken finger. The time before that, his wrist was sprained. The time before that his face was cut. And the time before that he ended up with an eye so swollen it took three months to heal. At the thought of what could happen this time, she had to stop him.
At age seventeen Shannon was thinner than most of his peers—115 lbs soaking wet—but he was far from weak, especially when he was angry. With every fiber of her being, Shauntice valiantly attempted to tackle Shannon to the hardwood floor, but she couldn’t get him down.
“Stop it, girl! What are you doing?”
“If you go down there with that bat, he might take it and beat you with it!”
“You want mom to end up dead?”
“Don’t say that!”
“Why? You know it could happen.”
Shannon’s words popped a scary image into Shauntice’s head: her mother’s battered body stretched out in a casket from years of abuse by a so-called man who once promised to love, honor, and cherish his wife. He lied.
Shauntice’s body became limp as a wet noodle and she collapsed onto the cold floor. Pulling her knees to her chest, she dropped her face on top of them. “This wasn’t supposed to happen anymore. He told mom he was moving out for good this time,” she cried. “Oh, God, I thank You that Your mercy is new every morning. Have mercy, in the name of Jesus. Don’t let my mom die. Please don’t let her die.”
Watching his sister hurting set off a rage deep inside of Shannon. It was stronger this time than any other, because for the past three weeks he had been trying to convince himself this was never going to happen again. He wanted so badly to believe that he’d never have to hear his mother’s screams or see his sister crying out to a God, who obviously didn’t care about their messed up situation, ever again. “I’m tired of this!”
Shauntice lifted her head. Her stomach knotted up as she watched Shannon run down the stairs leading to the living room. He gripped the black bat like a policeman with a Billy club. Shauntice jumped up and darted down the stairs after her brother. When she caught up, she trailed him through the living room and into the kitchen.
Before them laid their mother, crouched in the corner by the back door, shivering like a scared rabbit. Blood dripped from her nose like ketchup moving slowly out of the bottle. Her upper lip was puffed out, her neck and arms were covered with bruises, and her right eye was swollen shut. And then their eyes met the one who put her in this wretched state.
Grant Johnston stood over his wife with a butcher knife in one hand and an iron skillet in the other. God did not give me a spirit of fear, but of love, power and a sound mind, Shauntice repeated in her head when she saw him. Grant’s gaze coldly passed over her, but she ran between him and her mother anyway, joining her mother on the floor. Fear was not going to control her actions.
Shauntice tried to help Elaine up but she couldn’t budge her, so she stayed on the floor next to her. “I’m so sorry, Mom,” she apologized, as if she had done her harm. “I’m so sorry.”
When Shauntice began to rock her mother in her arms to comfort her, Grant slammed the iron skillet down at their feet. Neither one of them flinched at his act motivated by pure meanness. Shauntice was too concerned with Elaine’s pain and Elaine wasn’t concerned with anything at all. Every part of her underweight body, from the roots of her long, black, unkempt hair to the tips of her toenails no longer trimmed or painted, hurt too much. Inching closer to them, Grant’s foul breath hit Shauntice’s nostrils.
“Step off,” Shannon demanded from the entrance.
Abruptly turning, the drunkard father staggered toward his son. He was a huge, muscular man and when he was full of alcohol he was capable of anything. The man held a knife in his hand, and since he had been drinking Shannon knew there was a chance he’d use it like he had before. That wasn’t going to make him back down, but he was going to bide his time before he swung the bat.
“Why you keep beatin’ on my mom?” Shannon’s voice was stern.
“She makes me hit her.” The words slurred out of a mouth reeking of malt liquor and cheap wine. “She makes me do it.”
Shauntice shook her head at the nonsense coming out of Grant’s mouth. What woman in her right mind would make a man beat her half to death?
Grant pointed at Elaine. “That’s my wife right there,” he said. “That’s right. I said that’s my wife. She’ll do what I say or else.”
He always said “wife” like it was a synonym for property. Shannon hated that. Instinctively, he began tapping the bat at the floor to keep from swinging just yet.
“Who you supposed to be?” Grant snickered. “Ken Griffie Jr.?”
Shannon glared at his drunken dad, who had the nerve to look at him like he was the stupid one. His stare finally settled on the knife Grant was holding.
A shaky hand raised the knife. “You got a problem with this?”
“You had to pick up a knife against a woman?” Shannon shook his head with disgust. “Yeah, that’s a real man.”
Grant charged his son, grabbed his face, and squeezed. “I’m tired of your smart mouth, boy.”
Shannon narrowed his eyes in response, squirming to break free, but he couldn’t. Nervously watching her father’s fingers tighten on her brother’s mouth, Shauntice knew there was nothing she could do. Elaine, who sat curled in her daughter’s arms like a newborn, was unaware of what was going on around her. Like all of the other times, she’d been beaten so badly she couldn’t move, talk, see, or hear very well. Everything was a blur.
Grant held the knife near his son’s throat, leaving little space between the point and Shannon’s Adam’s apple, and then he rested the point against the scar on Shannon’s cheek. His eyes, redder than a bloody Mary, locked with Shannon’s eyes, which dared his dad to cut him.
During five minutes of intense silence, they both remained immobile. Beads of sweat surfaced on Shannon’s forehead as he wondered if he’d ever be able to look at himself in the mirror again, and Grant laughed triumphantly when the sweat began to trickle down his son’s face.
“What you worried about? I wasn’t gonna cut you this time.” He tossed the knife, landing it in the sink nearby. “And it was an accident the last time, boy. I told you that.”
Shannon knew better. Too many accidents left people dead and too many murderers pouted their “If I had it to do over agains” and “If I could bring him backs.” If Grant thought his words were going to make Shannon feel better about being attacked, he was so wrong.
Grant turned toward Shauntice and Elaine. As he staggered toward them, he felt his son’s presence behind him. Just as he turned around, the bat flew at his receding hairline with the speed of a fastball. For one split second the shock of his son’s unexpected attack made Grant as sober as a designated driver. He ducked and missed getting hit. Shannon swung the bat again and it was on.
After a serious struggle that landed the toaster, blender, an ivy plant, the breadbox, and two chairs broken on the floor, Grant snatched the bat away from Shannon. He tossed it to the floor behind him and wrapped his large hands around his son’s neck, slammed him against the refrigerator, and roared, “I’m your father, boy! You better respect me!”
Enraged tears clouded Shannon’s sight as he glared at Grant’s evil smirk. Get your hands off me, is what he would have demanded if he could speak.
Grant laughed at Shannon as if he were Chris Tucker performing live. “Come on, boy,” he egged. “Show me what you got.” Thick fingers locked in on Shannon’s skinny neck tighter and tighter.
Desperately gasping, Shannon’s world began to grow black. Panic struck him and he helplessly pried at Grant’s hands, but he couldn’t release the grip. His right hand eased into a back pocket of his jeans.
“No, Shannon,” Shauntice begged. Shannon took his hand out of his pocket, clenched his fists, and pounded Grant’s arms. He squirmed and punched, but he still couldn’t break free. “Get off of him,” Shauntice screamed when she noticed her brother wheezing for air.
At the sound of his daughter’s demand, Grant let go of Shannon and shifted his body in Shauntice’s direction. “Who you think you shoutin’ orders at, girl?” he slurred, cutting his eyes into her.
A sunken feeling churned in Shauntice’s stomach when she saw Shannon bent over holding his neck and still gasping. He dropped to his knees and violently coughed. “Shannon, are you okay?” He responded with a nod because he could not speak.
Grant stumbled toward his daughter. “You ignoring me, girl?”
Sickened by his disgraceful acts, Shauntice loathed her father. “God help you,” she said, disgusted by the insensitive, unfeeling, downright dangerous person he became every single time he drank.
Grant looked at her so hard she felt like she was hit.
“I don’t need help from God. You hear me?” He emphasized his words by pounding the table, and then fumbled with its glass top he’d almost knocked to the floor. “Ain’t nothin’ He can do for me!” He turned and glared fiercely at Shannon. “You get over there and help Shaun get your mom off the floor,” he ordered. “They look stupid as hell down there.” With a smirk on his lips, he started across the room. “And pick this up!” he yelled, kicking the chair he almost tripped over.
Shannon stood to his feet and leaned against the wall. As he began to breathe normally, all he could think about was how cheated he felt to be the son of a man who didn’t know how to be a man. Shannon looked over at his mother, but only for a second. He couldn’t bear to see her like that. It pained him to see her cuddled in Shauntice’s arms; her spirit, body, and soul wounded. The beautiful, feisty woman she used to be—gone.
He noticed the bat lying next to the stove, feeling like a punk because he’d failed to beat Grant down like he’d planned. From the corner of his eye he saw Grant walking drunkenly toward him. Shannon remained unmoved, his eyes burning with hate. Shoving his hands in the front pockets of his jeans, he turned his head away when Grant stood beside him.
“Do what I told you.” On his way out of the kitchen, Grant deliberately bumped into Shannon. With vision blurred and doubled he moved unsteadily through the living room, knocking over a lamp and tripping over his feet before making it to the carpeted stairs. He climbed each one as if struggling to climb Mt. Rainier. His musty, liquor-scented body collapsed the instant he made it to the top.