Aids Awarness & Domestic Violence

                               Myasia

         My grandmother was on her way to Jamaica  Hospital from Far rockaway when she found my older sister Myasia. It was cold that day in November. Our grandma was a very active god-fearing woman she was in good shape for her age. She stood an even 5’7, and weighed 140lbs but didn’t look a pound over 120 cause she was petite. With long shiny gray hair that she had to straighten with the hot comb at least every week it looked relaxed to the average pair of eyes. But to those of us that knew her knew otherwise. She loved children so much  that  if she saw you in the corner store and you didn’t have enough money to buy your groceries, then she would give you her last dollar or put it on her credit tab. She was just that kind hearted. She was headed to see me come into the world she was on the A train. 
         It was two in the afternoon but the train was empty except for grandma, who we called Nana, a young couple, an old white man, and a young girl and her baby. The young girl kept crying and grandma would soon figure out why. She looked to be around fourteen, mixed, maybe black and Puerto Rican, she kept writing something down on some paper. Then when the train doors opened up at the last stop she placed Myasia in the seat next to her along with the note and bolted off of the train as the doors were closing. 
         ”Miss” the young man said after her,” but it was too late she was gone.  “That’s so said the old white man said.” Shaking his head.
“Should we tell the train operator about this?” The young lady asked.
“No.” Nana said. “I’ll take care of her.”She didn’t want to see her mother go to jail. 
         Without any objections Nana picked her up noticing that she still had on a onesie and booties from Mary Immaculate hospital off of the ave. Nana got off at the last stop Mott ave., and went to a nearby baby store and bought two newborn pink snow suits with a few matching outfits. She took a cab  instead of taking a bus the rest of the way.  Ever since Nana found out that mama was pregnant she knew that she was having a girl. She read the note along the way. 
         Sorry bout this but I ain’t got no other choice. Me Madre would kill me if she eva found out bout this bebe. I gotta start high school next year, I don’t got no money , no job, even me boyfriend left me when he saw me gain a little weight. She don’t need no momma like me she need betta.. I call her Me Asia. She is so bonita .  Who eva get this to tell her I love her and did what I had to do to help her. Please take care of Me Asia. 
          Nana just starred at the last two words in the letter until she got out of the cab.  Me Asia, nana knew she meant My Asia.  Making good timing, she got to the maternity ward in time to she my shoulders coming out of mama. Her and Myasia just stood there and watched another soul come into the world.  Nana said she just stood there in shock for a few seconds. 
          When mama had woke up she wasn’t sure what had happened.  Mama was beautiful  5’6, 129lbs, and wore her hair in extensions (braids) in her hair all the time. She was the color of mahogany. After she gave birth she was knocked out for a few “Don’t tell me that I had twins, ” mama said to Nana.
“No, chile you only had one youngin’.”  “This here is Myasia.” Nana said to her.
“Well, whose baby is that then?” mama asked.
“Mines now Shelly.”Nana said.
“Now mama, you can’t take of no chile, as old as you is.” “Where did you get her from she’s a little doll?”  mama teased.
          Not saying another word Nana handed her the letter, and once she got finished she couldn’t stop crying. Nana couldn’t either. Knowing how much mama had tried to conceive before being blessed with me. Mama asked to hold both of her beautiful babies and just like that she named me Lynasia. Once the other nursing staff came on for the night the nurse came by with a form for one baby to apply for a birth certificate. Nana and mama just asked where Myasia’s was. Not even paying attention the nurse just went to get another form for her to fill out. And just like that she was official.***  
           Daddy didn’t even find out what really had gone on until years later what happened at the hospital for sure and by then he had two twin daughters that he loved too dearly to ever split up. “Who loves daddy the most?” He would always ask the two of us. We would always argue over who loved him more but the truth was that we both loved him equally. He was a tall man that weighed a good 220lbs,6’0”, a bald head, with a thin goatee. We would both fight over who got to sit next to him on the couch to watch t.v.. We both loved mama too be we were both ‘daddy girls’ Mama and Nana never lied to Myasia about our family. I can remember when they first told her that she wasn’t really kin when we were both old enough to understand. 
“Myasia   ” mama called out to her.
“Mama, just let me finish my turn” she said.
“Now.”mama said.
Not wanting to get an extension cord to her hide she came running. I was already in the house cleaning up the bathroom and finishing up my Saturday chores when I heard mama call in front of the building where we lived at to Myasia.
“Come sit down here.” mama said.
“Yes mama?” Myasia said.
“Mama loves you.” She said we were ten years old. And understood a lot for our age. 
          Mama didn’t know how to say it so she let Myasia read the letter that her mother wrote. Mama was shocked when she didn’t seem sad, now what mama didn’t know is daddy told us a year before and explained everything.  But mama told her, and that made her feel as if her family tried to keep her from her own mama. She would often think about the spanish women in the neighborhood. She wondered what it would have been if her mama would have just kept her.
          Till this very day I wonder why mama told her to read that letter. Mama had to notice the questions she would ask her. “Mama, why do you have to use the hot comb aon Lynasias’ hair?” Myasia would ask. “Cause, her hair is not like yours she would say to her.” She would have been stupid to not notice that she was different then the rest of us. I was the same complexion of mama but destined not to be too tall myself. I took after mama and had a small frame. I could eat enough food that could fill a grown man and still not gain a pound. Now Myasia already looked like a teenager already she had the curliest jet black hair I had ever seen, she was already 5’6, and still growing, she was getting taller, and bigger than mama in the waist. Mama still bought all of our clothes from the kids section out of cookies.
“I know mama, can I go back and play now please?” was her only response. 
“Yeah.” mama told her that she was here if she needed to know anything else. 
          Mama was happy but little did she know that was the worst day of Myasias’ life.  She was always on the honor roll at school, never fought in school, never even really looked at boys. Until then, see before mama said something to her she could act as if she never really noticed the changes in her body that I wasn’t going through that I her twin wasn’t also experiencing.   I was the one who had mama mad all the time. I wouldn’t do work in school cause most of the time I was bored, the same with Myasia she just never showed  it.  Nana was always home and helped us with our homework after school.  She showed us how to add, subtract, divide, multiply, and script all in the same year so we had a review for a few years. It was a Thursday night when mama’s beeper went off she knew something was wrong, it was only used for emergencies.

“Buzz….Buzz…, Buzz”. It was our teacher Mrs. Robinson’s number mama knew cause she called to say how I disrupted the class that week. How could I have forgotten that Myasia had got caught right in the middle of her impression of Mrs. Robinson who was six months pregnant at the time. she had walked out of class probably to go throw up again when  Myasia took a class mates basketball out of the closet and put it under her shirt. Ms. Walker from another a class came in and told on her.  Now mama was mad at her, Myasia got the first wippin’ I had ever seen her get. She was the good one up till then.   What nobody knew was that wasn’t the half of her problems. ***

     Once we got into Junior high school, she went after the captain of the cheerleading teams’ man, the first week of school. Yeah he was cute but that’s all anybody did was admire him from a far. He was tall dark and handsome, with the smoothest skin that either of us had ever seen, “Lynasia, did you peep Vincent?” she asked me after the first day of school.
“How could I have missed him, when it was time to take down our homework you kept on talking bout him.” I told her.
“Yeah well I got a plan.” she told me grinning from ear to ear.
“And what does that pose to mean?” I asked her.
“You’ll see baby sis, you’ll see, now get some sleep we have a big week ahead of us.”was the only thing she said to me. ***

 

             The next day she wore a tight denim skirt with no stockings, a white body suit and some all white fifty- four leathers (Reeboks)  to school. She even put her hair down and let it flow  (Which she never did) naturally.
“Hi Myasia.”
“What’s up Myasia?”
“Hey twins.”
             That was all you could hear in the hall way between classes from all the guys from our old elementary school. “Hey” was the only thing that she said back. As she walked through the hallways.  By the end of the day everyone knew her name including Vincent, and his girlfriend since second grade Felicia. The next day in the playground at recess she jumped double dutch, casually bouncing her 34 DD breasts that mama had worked hard to keep hidden by buying her loose blouses and sweat shirts. That night I tried to talk her out of whatever she had up her sleeve. But it didn’t work.
“Myasia, you sure you know what you doin’?” I asked over and over again.
“I got this sis” she told me.
               Thursday she walked right up to Vincent and handed him a note that simply said, ‘I got some fruit for you . . . I hope you like cherries.’ With that said she was a no show in gym class while he ate her pussy in the back stairway, and keeping true with her promise she let him  pop her cherry too.
By Friday,  I came to school with Vaseline and box cutters ready to fight with my sister for taking some chicks man, right from underneath her nose.
“Myasia you bitch.” Felicia said to her after school, just  outside of school with a bunch of her friends.
“What?” “Don’t hate on me cause you didn’t know what to do with that fine ass nigga of yours . . . oops he’s mines now.” She teased Felicia not caring that we were out numbered.
“Smack” she smacked Myasia across the face after the smart comment.
That was the only hit she got to get in, Myasia broke through her ‘windmill’ with a two piece to the nose.  She had no idea that when we were home daddy let us play fight and box when nana was sleeping, and mama was at work. She tried to pull her hair but I had pinned  it up for her during lunch in the tightest bun I could. Myasia was just too fast for her to hit. She landed a few hits to her arms but that was like beating a bear with a baseball bat. You can try to hurt him but in the end all your doing is making him madder. Sensing a loss her friends tried to jump in but I put a stop to that by remembering what daddy had taught us “when you get jumped always go for the biggest one in the bunch and drop them, then the rest will back off.” He used to always tell us. So I just caught the biggest and loudest one in the throat.
“Oh Shit” I heard her friend say as she gasped for air.
“OoouucHHHH” she tried to scream out loud.
“Let them fight Shae-shawnna.” Felicia’s other friend said to her.
“Break it up” I heard a man say as he pulled Myasia off of Felicia.
“Yall’ shouldn’t be out here fightin’ no how” he said to all of us as we gathered our book bags and left to go home.
“Yo, you saw how I caught her after she hit me?” Myasia asked me when we were walking to our building.
“Yeah, you got her good …. I taught you that.” I said taking credit for all of her fighting skills.
“I’m  just happy that we didn’t have to use the box cutters though.” I told her I didn’t like what she had done but she was my sister and I wasn’t even bout to leave her out to fend for herself around a bunch of wolves.  Besides the only thing she would have to do is say to daddy later that night is ” I was getting jumped and she didn’t help me ” to daddy and he would beat my ass. Then he would  tell mama and she would beat my ass again. Then she would tell nana and she would beat my ass too. Nobody would have cared what it was all about and why we were fighting to begin with . The rule was if one fight then let them shoot the fair one. Just as long as they not getting jumped, then everybody fights. Or the one who let their sister get beat up on will have to feel the same thing once they got home. ***            

     The following Monday our phone rang around 5p.m.  “RRRIIINNGG, RRRIIIINNGG, RRRIIINNGG, RRRIIINNGG.”
I heard the phone ringing from our room.
“I’ll get it    ” I yelled to nana figuring  that it was for one of us anyway.
“Hello?” I said into the receiver.
“Hello, this is to inform you that you child, ………. Myasia ……….” I hung up once I heard the automated voice say Myasia.
“Girl, that was your house call to say that you didn’t go to school today.” I said to her.
“You know how I do.” knowing exactly what she was talking about, she was just gettin started.***

      In High school aside from cuttin’ class she was having mostly unprotected sex, smoking weed, and what I found out later on was she was using dope too. Over the years she never stopped being close with me until our nineteenth birthday party and our friend Belinda brought her cousin Tyleek from Maryland there. From the outside he looked like the average guy, he wore gold teeth top and bottom, really high yellow with reddish, brownish  hair that was so straight it looked like he used a bone straight relaxer in it. He was 6’2 and stood taller than daddy. He was a pretty boy that was a sweet talker with the gift of jab.
“Yo cuz., whose dat Dominican shawty rite theere?”  he said to Belinda over the loud music. “Who?… oh you mean Myasia, she not Dominican she black. And it’s her and Lynasia’s party.” Belinda said to him.  “Come on I’ll do the introduction.” she told him. Following her he walked up to where we were cutting the cake at and sang louder than Stevie Wonder.
“Happy Birthday to ya, …Happy Birthday.” he serenaded mostly Myasia. Once he was done with his own version everyone laughed and clapped. 
          “Myasia, Lynasia, this is my cousin Tyleek.” Belinda announced to us. And from then on it was nothing but goo-goo eyes between the two of them.  “Lynasia, I’m in love.” Myasia said to me a little over a week of knowing Tyleek. “Just take everything slow, you never know nowadays what peoples intentions are.” I warned her.  Call it twin intuition but it was something I just wasn’t feeling about him.  Well, that went in one ear, and right out the other. He treats me better than any other guy I’ve ever known before him.” she said to me from cloud nine. “I hope he does big sis.” Was what I said to her. After that I beban seeing her less and less, and we shared the same room. Eat, sleep, and shit. Was all she did at home.  Then she stopped doing that there. 
         Once Tyleek found out about Myasias’ new found habits he prayed on it.  He kept her high on weed, and she began snorting cocaine.  I soon found out how he could afford the Lexus coupe he drove. There was nothing good about him, he was a dealer that was on the run in D.C., he had shot a cop in an undercover sting, and was accused of attempted murder. He was a local pimp in his spare time and had lots of women working the strip in far rock for him. The only reason why his aunt was letting him stay is he was keeping her happy by paying her. She had enough money, for rent,  groceries, and a new Jaguar.  It wasn’t long before the streets started talking. It didn’t take long before he turned Myasia out either after a good eight months of dating he had convinced her to run away from home. “Lynasia, you hear from your sister?” mama and nana would both ask me every day. “No mama, no nana.” Was all I said to them . How could I have told them where I thought she was, who she was with, and what I thought she was doin?***
         After a week of playing a disappearing acts Myasia showed her face back home.  Mama was so happy that she didn’t even get in any trouble. Her eyes were swollen as if she was crying all day. She took a long hot bath and ate a huge plate of food.  I still wasn’t sure what was going on until later on that evening. “Ly?” Myasia called to me when I was getting ready to go to work the semi overnight shift at K-mart. “Yeah?” I said to her.
“Come here.” She said to me in a sad voice.
“I’m pregnant…. and Ty don’t want me no more.”
“Aahh man!” “Why did you tell him?” As if she could hide a baby forever.
“I thought he was different.” She said giving me a hug.
“I gotta go to planned parenthood in the morning.” “I need someone to come with me.”
“You got it, sis, this is the forever hug it lasts a lifetime and it’s here whenever you need it.” I said crying myself.***
         The worst place a woman of any age should have to go to is to an abortion clinic.  Myasia skipped out of her first and last visit and bought some things for her and her baby that was on the way. She was only 2 months so she started to go out to work for a clothing company on Mott Ave.  I put in as many as 35-45 hours at work. We were planning on moving out as soon as we had enough money saved up to do so.  I had told nana, and nana told mama, and mama, told daddy. So everybody knew what they didn’t know was that Myasia tested positive for HIV in her second trimester.  That was something I didn’t tell anyone.  ***
         On valentines day in the morning at 7:19 a.m.  Myasia gave birth to a healthy baby boy, he was 5lbs. 4oz., 21”, and hands down the cutest baby I had ever laid eyes on. She named him  Tyleek Bryson Carter Jr.  He had a full head of hair, curly like Myasia. I just stared as my sister looked at her son over and over again. She was taking a lot of anti viral drugs so thank god Tyleek Jr. Wasn’t born with the HIV virus too.  Myasia never told Tyleek about her status.
 She was only with him like that and she wasn’t sharing needles, or had any blood transfusions ever in her life. ***
         Tyleek came to her room that same evening and started an argument as soon as he entered the door. I was in the bathroom at the time but dropped down to the floor as soon as I heard the gun shots out of instinct.  “Dumb bitch!  You tried to kill me now I killed you first.” Tyleek said as he stood over my sisters cold body crying.  “Hey little man, daddy’s here don’t cry.”  “Your moms a whore who gave daddy AIDS, now she’s dead.” 
“N.Y.P.D. Freeze, drop the gun and put the baby down!” The cops said to Tyleek as he stood there in the hospital room with his son and still crying.”  “Hey, little man. I love you.” Tyleek said to Tyleek Jr. As he was read his rights and carried away.  
          After almost 2 hours of trying to revive her Myasia was pronounced dead.  My big sis has been gone for a year now. I still think about her often, every time I see my nephew Tyleek Jr.. I gotta go to Tyleeks trial to testify against Tyleek next week. I can’t wait until they find out that Myasia only had sex with him unprotected throughout all the years and all the guys even with oral sex she still used condoms. And that he went to his aunts house the day before telling her and Felicia that he was gonna kill Myasia and they did nothing to stop him. I gotta get myself and my nephew out of the hood.  I just had to tell My sister Myasias story.