Hypersite War: Della Braxton’s Story

Della Braxton placed the last piece of chicken on the platter. “Hey baby, take this plate to the living room please.”

Della’s daughter-in-law complied quickly. “Sure Momma, not a problem.”

In the living room, several long white plastic tables sat. “First Apostolic Church” was written in marker on the edges of the tables, having been borrowed with the chairs from Della’s home church for this occasion.

Ditzy placed the huge platter down with the other plates and bowls full of delicious looking food. A chicken leg fell from the platter and rolled towards the edge as stomping feet and raucous yelling approached. In another second, two young boys ran by and one reached out to grab the leg but Ditzy was faster.

“Naw naw, we not ready yet. Take it outside now, take it on outside,” Ditzy said, placing the chicken back with the other pieces and waving her hands to shew the kids from the area.

She thought that one of her boys looked as though he would stop and give her some lip but Ditzy returned a look that persuaded him to pick up speed. Both boys hit the back porch screen door a second later.

Normally at this time of the year it would be a little cool to have the back door open but it was unseasonably warm. Louisiana is known for its high humidity and heat for several months in the year but this was February and both the temperature and humidity were still low.

The unexpected warm spell was perfect, the house was filled with mouthwatering smells that were carried from the stovetop, the oven, and the three crock-pots scattered about the kitchen.

Ditzy looked out the back door and saw that Little James and John Mark still chased each other around the back yard and were now heading into the small pecan orchard that grew on the back of Della’s property. Her husband James, Della’s first born, was swinging his brother, Gary’s three-year-old daughter Lateatha and talking football with Gary. Juni-May, Gary’s wife, pulled out some folding lawn chairs and set them up for later after dinner conversations.

Yep, a beautiful day. Ditsy thought just as the doorbell chimed.

“Ditzy honey, get that door for me will you. I gots my hands elbow deep in this pie filling,” Della called from the kitchen.

“Okay, Momma.”

She approached the door and smiled, seeing her sister-in-law Dorthea through the front window as she stood on the porch. She carried her baby while her fiancé, Will, stood next to her holding a large plastic bowl topped with aluminum foil. This was his second social visit with the family and Ditzy thought he looked little nervous.

She wasn’t partial to white men, but Dorthea liked him, and he seemed to do well with little Shineafa, so who was she to stand in the way of love. “Come in, come in. Here let me take that bowl. My, my little Shineafa sure look pretty today,” Ditzy said, taking the food and kissing the baby on the cheek. “Will, you’re looking good.” She eyed him coyly.

“Now Ditzy,”  Dorthea said,  “This one’s taken. Sides, you got that big hunk of a brother of mine.”

“Yeah, he’ll do, and I ’bout gots him trained so I ain’t ready to change up, but if I do…” She looked at Will and winked.

“Sorry ma’am,” Will said in his prominent east Texas drawl, “I am a one woman man.”

Ditzy raised an eyebrow, “Uh huh. Well come on, Momma’s in the kitchen, cook’n her own birthday meal, as usual.”

Della came into the living room wiping her hands on a towel. “That’s ‘cause if I cook it then I get what I likes. If you all cook it then I get what the grocery store makes! And ain’t none of yo plates gonna have one scrap a food on them by the end of the day so I don’t rightly know why it matters to you all. Now let me sees that baby, she need her some shugga!”

“Careful mama, she’s got a little sniffle. I think she picked it up at daycare,” Dorthea said.

Della held the baby up and smiled. “Oh she fine. Yes you are, yes you are.”

Shineafa gurgled. Della shifted her eyes to the man briefly. “Hi Will, you doin OK?”

“Yes ma’am, I am. Thanks for asking,” Will replied.

Della looked at the baby. “You still carry’n?”

“Yes ma’am, I am. ‘Part of the job so…”

“Well, I’d appreciate it if you would place it right there in that box on the top shelf while you are here so there’s not even a remote chance of one my little babies, or big babies gets hurt.”

Will drooped his head and shifted his weight, as Dorthea jumped in. “Mama, you know the US Marshals are very well trained and…”

“It would mean a great deal to me,” Della said, looking at him directly. “Today… on my birthday.”

Will blushed. “Yes ma’am, I’ll do it for you, on your special day.” He took off his jacket and removed his shoulder harness and pistol.

Della looked at Dorthea. “Daughter, you got you a real gentleman right there. Respects his woman, her daughter, AND her mother. Better hold on to him. In fact, if you ever give him up I’ll take him.”

“It’d be an honor,” Will said, leaning in and giving Della a peck on the cheek.

“Ohhh…” the women said in unison.

“And he’s full of it mama,” Dorthea said.

“What man is not!” Della declared. “Come on in. Dorthea come back here and helps me finish the macaroni salad. Will, the men are all out in the back.”

Will understood immediately that the statement was actually an order to go to the back yard. Dorthea handed Shineafa to him who took her confidently, then turned and headed for the back door. Dorthea stopped him briefly, smiled and kissed him on the cheek.

When the screen door slammed behind Will, Ditzy having gone with him, Della lead Dorthea into the kitchen and began to wipe up the counter.

Dorthea watched her mother for thirty seconds before speaking. “Okay Momma, what is it?”

Della stopped, turned, and laid her cleaning rag on the sink. “Baby girl, I knows you was hurt by Duanne. Shineafa’s daddy was, is, and will probably always be a bum- lessen the Lord intervenes- but baby this man, he’s nice. I can tells he’s nice. He’s got a good job, he’s kind and he’s good to you and good to Shineafa.” Della paused, wiping something invisible on the counter. “When you gonna make that man marry you?”

Dorthea looked at the floor. “I know Mamma, and he has asked, and I haven’t said no. I have told him about Duanne, and all the… problems he caused us, and you, and…” She faltered as a tear formed. “…and I’m scared, Momma. Duanne tore my heart out, and I think he… he was not good to Shineafa so…”

“Girl, you ‘member what I said ’bout Duanne?” Della asked. “You ‘member what your sister said, and what Ditzy said?”

Dorthea nodded.

“He is a no-good bum and while he was with you, no one in this family kept it a secret, especially from, Duh-wanne,” Della finished.

Dorthea smiled as the tear rolled down her cheek.

“But this man baby, this man is as much the opposite as I could ask for, ‘cept maybe you gets him into the church.” Della flashed a smile. “And we ALL likes him, even Gary, and you know how picky he is ’bout people. ‘Took me weeks to get my nice neighbor man, Mr. Thompson back over here for dinner after last Thanksgiving when Gary found out he was a Librarian.”

“Libertarian Momma,” Dorthea corrected.

“Whatever, but you get my point right? We all likes Will so the next time he ask, say yes.” Della moved across the kitchen toward Dorthea. “Come on, let’s practice.”

“Oh, Momma,” Dorthea said, furrowing her brow.

“Yes,” Della pressed. “Come on, say it with me.”

“Momma, stop it,” Dorthea protested.

“No come on. Yeess.” Della tried again, inches from her daughter’s face.

Dorthea’s shoulders sagged. “Yes.”

“Good, let’s try it again. Yes.”

This time Dorthea looked at her mother and smiled. “Yes.”

“Good girl. Now get outside and talk to yo family.”

“What about the macaroni salad?” Dorthea asked.

Della moved a piecrust onto the top her apple pie without looking up. “Baby girl, you know I don’t like macaroni salad. Now get on outside and put that witchy smile all over yo man.”

“Okay, Momma, I love you,” She laughed, kissing Della on the cheek.

As the back screen door slammed for the thousandth time Della threw up a quick prayer. “Lord, all I’m asking is that all of ’em get married to good people, that’s it. Oh, and healthy grandchildren!”

An hour later, the family sat around the table ready for the blessing. Della began to pray when the doorbell rang. Dorthea got up to answer the door and soon came back with a nineteen-year-old young woman carrying a store bought cake in a plastic cake container. The cake appeared to be smashed against the top of the container lid.

Della left her spot at the head of the table and came around to the young woman.

The girl watched her feet and stuttered as she spoke. “Hi Momma. I brought… I brought you a cake but I…” The woman’s words failed as the sobs began.

“Jenna-Lynn, oh baby, I thought you weren’t com’n home this semester?” Della said, taking her youngest daughter into her arms.

“I wasn’t,” Jenna-Lynn said between sobs. “But I got ahead in my classes, then I lost my job at the medical center, then…” The words stumbled out of her mouth. “Troy broke up with me.” She barely managed. Troy was her latest boyfriend. At Della’s last count, she had one a month for the last year.

“Okay, honey it’s okay. I bet that cake was beautiful when you bought it and it’s still beautiful to me.” Della backed away. “Now let’s get you cleaned up and come back and grab us a bite. We was all just about ready to bless the food and what happened, the Lord sent me a bigger bless’n to thank him for!” Della took Jenna-Lynn by the hand and guided her into the house towards the bathroom.

Five minutes later, they were back out. The family moved apart and made a space at the table for the young woman. Will moved his chair to fill the spot, then relocated some old sheet music and moved the piano bench to his spot by Dorthea. Dorthea beamed and placed her hand on his as he settled in.

“Well now,” Della said. “It’s about three o’clock so we are right on time for our noon lunch… Braxton time anyway.” Everyone smiled. “So without further ado, let’s pray. Lord Jesus, bless this food, those who prepared it, those who will eat it, and those without any this day. Amen.”

Ditzy and Juni-May served the kids then seated themselves by their spouses leaving James, the oldest at nine, to make sure the food at the kids table didn’t fly off the plates.

Praise for the food came with the first bites, and Della took it all in feeling blessed.

After the meal, the men and children returned to the backyard while the women cleaned up. Della knew none of the young women liked this sexist segregation of labor but they did it for her and she appreciated it. She also knew that her boys would get an ear full after they got home, though she supposed it would blow over in a day or so. Their father had trained them up right, and her boys had picked good women.

The weather remained nice into the late afternoon. At five o’clock the adults came into the house, and at six o’clock they called the children in. Della prepared the cakes, pies and ice cream for dessert.

She moved slowly knowing that serving the desert was a precursor to the end of her special day. Her family would begin to drift away, one by one with kisses, hugs and multiple good-byes then she would be alone again. It bothered her briefly then she smiled and remembered that this time Jenna-Lynn would stay, at least overnight.

Her son Gary, Juni-May and little Chris were the first to go. Della helped bundle the baby up then kissed and hugged the adults and opened the front door. The broken front porch light kept the front of the house in darkness. I needs to get that fixed, she thought.

The streetlights at the road were set too far apart to be helpful so her kids faded into the darkness a few feet from the bottom step.

Della turned to shut the door when it slammed back into her, slinging her to the side as Gary flew through the door followed by the baby a second later.

Both bodies hit the wall sounding like bags of wet leaves, and fell to the floor. Something fell at her feet. Looking down, she saw Juni-May’s manicured hand unattached to Juni-May.

Della stood paralyzed, her brain attempting to make sense of what was happening. She looked between her dead son, grandson, and the hand. Nothing registered.

She looked out of the door and saw two large men at the bottom of her steps. One man wore medical scrubs and the other, the oily coveralls of a mechanic. The next moment the door slammed shut and Will tugged at her, moving her into the room and away from the door.

“Y’all get upstairs!” Will shouted. “Except you James. Go get that Louisville Slugger I saw standing in the corner of the Utility room and make sure the back door is shut and locked. “Will looked quickly around the living room as the women began to hurry the kids up the stairs. “Where’s Jenna-Lynn?”

“I saw her head out the back with her cell phone about 30 minutes ago,” Ditzy said.

A huge bang drummed on the front door and Will heard the doorsill crack. He remembered his gun in the box on the top shelf just a few feet away and crossed over to retrieve it. His hand reached out for the box as the door crashed open and the man in scrubs stepped through.

Will, thrown off balance, stumbled over Gary’s body but regained his footing and stepped towards the intruder. He spun around, landed a solid elbow to Scrub’s head and felt the jaw crack, and he stumbled back against Mechanic.

The Scrubs reached for Will but a baseball bat came down across his arm snapping it. James then stepped back and tripped over a folding chair. He fell backwards and hit the floor with enough energy to rock him up onto his shoulders.

Will kicked Scrubs, forcing him back against Mechanic and both intruders stumbled, then fell out the door. He finally grabbed the box from the shelf. It hit the floor at Della’s feet with a thud, Will anxiously reaching for his gun.

He pulled the pistol from the holster and noticed another pistol, it looked like a .38 Special, also lying in the bottom of the box. He looked at Della, who slowly regained her wits.

“Marvin’s old gun,” she said, referencing her deceased husband. “Forgot it was up there.”

Will had only a second to think before the men came back through the door. He raised his gun and shot Scrubs in the chest, point blank. He stumbled back momentarily, then reversed directions lunging for him.

Will jumped away and rolled to a knee, his gun coming up to target the man again. Smoke puffed from the barrel as another 9mm round left and entered Scrub’s chest just two inches from the first. Again, the man rocked back but kept his balance and started toward Will.

Mechanic entered carrying a metal bar, shiny with fresh blood. Ditzy was the last one up the stairs and the man quickly moved to grab for her. She, smarter than her name implied, jabbed a large knitting needle, she had taken from Della’s knitting bag by the couch, into the man’s eye, sinking it to the back of the socket.

The man leaned back a little then reached for Ditzy again. She slammed her open palm against the end of the knitting needle and drove it through the coveralled man’s brain and out the back of his skull. He toppled backwards onto the floor but his legs and arms kept moving, flailing against the air as if fighting some unseen opponent. Ditzy turned and ran upstairs.

James, now back on his feet, connected his bat against Scrub’s head causing the crazy man to fall to one knee. He came forward to hit him again but got too close and Scrub’s arm shot out, punching James just above the groin and shattering his hip with an audible crack. James fell to the ground unconscious.

Will shot again, this time he hitting scrub-man in the head who then toppled onto the floor. Will, releaved, smiled and looked back over his shoulder at Della who was raising her husband’s old .38 directly at his head. She pulled the trigger.

The bullet tore through his shirt at the shoulder and he flinched as it whizzed by hitting a bulky woman who wore in a blue skirt and the top half of a black slip. She had been quietly coming up behind him with a butcher knife in hand.

The bullet passed through the invader’s throat, then spine, then through a wall light shattering the bulb and throwing that part of the room into shadow. Will gripped his shoulder, looked at the woman now still and bleeding at his feet, then at Della. “Good shoot’n!”

She shrugged. “Marvin use to take me to the range every Saturday. He made me practice. I never thought it would be useful.”

James attracted both Della and Will’s attention by moaning as he regained consciousness.

“We come down now? Will, Momma, everything okay?” Ditzy asked from upstairs.

Will spoke first, “No, not yet, just stay up there. If you have cell phones see if you can get an ambulance for James, and police for… the others.” He looked at Della. “I’m going to look for Jenna-Lynn. You keep watch on the door and if another one of these crazies comes through you shoot’m in the head, okay?”

Della nodded.

Will slipped through the house to the back door, the screen door had been ripped from the hinges. No lights were on in this part of the house, making it easy to see outside. He stood for a minute and looked out into the back yard.

Initially he saw nothing, the only light came from distant streetlights, but then he noticed movement. A ghostly white figure drifted through backyard quickly moving towards him. He realized that it was a young woman, maybe seventeen, in a nightgown with no shoes. Perhaps a neighbor coming to see what was happening.

When she got closer, he heard her snarl and saw her grimace, reminding him of a Halloween mask.

“Stop,” Will yelled, but the woman, now only twenty feet away, leapt unnaturally high and tackled him before he could pull the trigger. They both flew against the far wall. She struggled to get a firm grip on any part of him but he pushed her away.

She grabbed for his gun and knocked it from his hand. It hit the floor and slid. He couldn’t reach it without giving in to her physical attack.

He pushed her away a second time and dove for the gun. He tried to raise it but she grabbed him by the head and she began to pull. His neck popped once and fear shot through him like an electrical current, then two gunshots rang out and the woman slumped to one side, then fell to the floor, her head badly mangled.

Will quickly got to his feet and looked to see Della, standing there, her arm hanging limply at her side and the .38 pointing at the floor, still smoking.

“Debbie. Next-door neighbor. Used to mow my lawn,” Della mumbled.

Will suddenly realized that of the two shots, the other had come from outside and he turned towards the open door. There was a scuff then a silhouetted form appeared in the doorway. Della and Will raised their guns together.

“Whoa, hold on momma, its Jenna-Lynn,” the voice said from the darkness. Then as the guns relaxed, the youngest Braxton sister stepped in holding a short-barreled .45 caliber pistol.

Della walked over, placed her head on Jenna-Lynn’s shoulder and began to sob. Jenna-Lynn held her with one hand. “It’s alright Momma, it’s alright.”

Will nodded towards the large gun, dangling at Jenna-Lynn’s side.

“Apparently it is the only thing Troy gave me that was worth anything.” A weak smile formed on her lips.

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