by Jay Coles
“Did you know there’s a new Call of Duty game coming out?”
G-mo’s eyes get wide and he lunges up from the floor to look at the magazine.
I shake my head and shrug. “Those games would be so much better with less CGI. I always get nauseous playing.”
“They need more CGI. I need to see more blood and guts,” G-mo says back through a mouthful of sandwich.
“It’s hot as balls in here.” I can feel the sweat already forming on my forehead.
I sit my backpack in the corner of the room and crack open my window since we don’t have A/C. The bill doubled this month, and Mama doesn’t make enough to pay it. Besides, there’s a nice, steady breeze out right now.
“I saw something and I don’t know what to do,” I say.
Ivy turns off the music and eases up off the bed a bit, giving me a concerned look.
“What?” G-mo whisper-yells. “Mr. and Mrs. Hornberg were having sex in the gym again? If so, you kind of have to expect that at this point. I mean, yo, look at their last name.”
“No. I think Tyler’s a drug dealer.”
“What the fuck? Like, for real?” Ivy goes, her nostrils widening.
“When he was with Johntae and his crew, I saw them exchange some package. I swear it was drugs or something.”
“Dude. What’re you going to do?” G-mo asks.
“I—”
There’s a knock on my bedroom door, which is cracked open. It’s Tyler.
“Hey, bro,” he says with this desperate look on his face, his do-rag still on. I didn’t realize he’d started wearing it during the day, so it catches me off guard for a moment.
I blink back my focus on him. “Hey.”
“You seen my ham? I don’t see it in the fridge. I hid the last piece so no one would eat it.”
Ivy snorts and covers her face with the Game Informer. I look back at G-mo, whose face goes from This sandwich is bomb to I’m fucked, and I roll my eyes before turning back to Tyler.
“Mama told you about hiding food,” I say, looking up at his fivehead.
“Yeah, but you know every time Mama buys something sweet, she’s always hiding it in her room, too. Soda, candy, the whole nine yards.”
I have a two-second crisis with myself on what to say back now. G-mo’s looking at me, pleading with his eyes, but I can’t lie to Tyler.
“G-mo ate it,” I admit, and a laugh slips out.
“Fuck you, Marvin! I thought we were never-snitch homies, like Harry and Ron,” G-mo shouts, jumping to his feet, swallowing the last piece of sandwich as if to destroy all evidence. “Look, Tyler, I promise, bro, I didn’t know it was yours. I had this really disgusting-looking whatever-the-fuck-it-was for lunch and I—”
“It’s cool,” Tyler interrupts him, and smiles. “It’s cool. I’ll get some from the store next time I go.”
Not sure where this sudden burst of kindness comes from, but I like it. This is the Tyler Johnson I know and love. Suddenly, I’m remembering when we were in elementary school, when we lived on the South Side and had to share a bedroom. Some nights, after Mama made sure all the lights were out and our eyes were shut, and Tyler and I knew Mama was in a deep sleep, we would sneak out the window to shoot some hoops with the court set we’d gotten the previous Christmas. One night, I played barefoot, and after a jump shot, I came down on a smashed beer bottle. I couldn’t see much, but I could feel wetness everywhere. After Tyler and I snuck back in, he cleaned out the cut with alcohol and peroxide, bandaged it, and helped me back into bed. I limped for a whole week, and every time Mama noticed she would say, “Boy, what the hell wrong with your foot?” Tyler said we were messing around and he accidentally stepped on it.
I breathe in and ask Tyler if he wants to go play ball later tonight.
He hesitates. “Not tonight—I’m busy. Another time, though, all right?”
Busy? What kind of busy? I can feel my throat drying, my eyes growing wider by the second, and it’s getting harder to shrug off my thoughts.
Before I can even ask him, just to reassure myself that it’s not what I think it is, that he’s dealing drugs or whatever, he stops me. “Oh yeah, Johntae is having this party on Friday and he said I could invite whoever I wanted. I want you three there. It’ll be lots of girls there. I’m tellin’ you, it’s about to be so damn lit.”
Ivy and G-mo shout, speaking over each other. “Holy shit? Us? Johntae’s party? Girls? We are in.”
My heart picks up its pace. Tyler’s standing there, grinning in my face, like he’s not best friends with the neighborhood drug dealer and everything’s fine, and it takes everything for me not to punch some sense into him. And Ivy and G-mo are behind me acting like some invisible person is twerking on them, shouting how we are going to get laid.
“No, we’re not going,” I say, interrupting their moment. Tyler’s smile wipes clean off his face, and he gives me this hurt look.
“WHAT?!” G-mo and Ivy say in unison, like it’s the single most bonkers thing they’ve heard in their entire lives. Like accepting a drug dealer’s invite to a party is the same as accepting an invitation to Beyoncé and JAY-Z’s wedding. Like it’s a fucking honor.
Then, Ivy adds, “Dude, why the fuck not? We’re going. We need to meet some girls.” She pauses. “Weekends are for parties and meeting girls.”
I blink.
My weekends normally consist of waking up, eating breakfast, doing chores, writing letters to Dad, reading letters from Dad, filtering through our old letters, more chores (because those are never done, according to Mama), getting ahead with homework, looking up photos of Megan Fox and Zoe Saldana, and unashamedly masturbating. But still. Johntae’s party isn’t worth the risk of ruining my chances of getting into MIT, if something were to happen.
“Fuck Johntae. Fuck his party. I don’t care.”
“Yo! You are legit tripping right now.”
“Why won’t you come, Marvin?” Tyler asks, still looking hurt. “Quit acting like that.”
I don’t turn around to look at G-mo and Ivy, but I hear all of their annoying pleading.
“I’m not going to a fucking drug dealer’s party, Tyler! One, Mama would beat the black off me if she found out, and two, nothing good can come from going.” I turn to G-mo and Ivy. “But if that’s what you two want to do, go the fuck ahead!” I throw my hands up.
Tyler walks closer to me, and he gets so close I can feel his breath on my face. He clamps his hands down on my shoulders. “Look, Marvin, it’s not easy without Dad around, and Mama can’t support us on her own. You see her struggling. Can’t pay the bills, let alone send you to college. Johntae’s going to help with that. So that’s all this is.”
“I call bullshit, Tyler.”
He exhales deeply with frustration, rolling his eyes. “You’re just like Ma. So negative. You know, you’re both like prison wardens.”
“What? Tyler, sound it the hell out. These. Are. Gangsters.”
There’s a pause. I can hear my heartbeat in my ears. I look back at Ivy and G-mo, and they’re glancing down, chins in hand, as if they’re soaking in the moment.
“I’m having Johntae text our phone the address. Show up, if you change your mind. All of you.”
There’s another pause as an electric volt shoots through my body, and a huge sigh slips out.
Tyler walks away, readjusting his do-rag. I stand in the same place until I hear him walk out the front door.
• 6 •
Mama used to say, “Families that eat together stay together.” But Dad’s not here. Tyler’s not here. It’s just her and me at this silent table, looking at each other and eating spaghetti grilled cheeses made with leftover spaghetti. (I’m not complaining. It was either this or cabbage-water soup.) But after Mama questions me about Tyler’s whereabouts for the second time, and after I lie that he’s staying late to study for the SAT with friends, he shows up.
His shirt is torn and his backpack is covered in mud. He smells funky, like recentl
y lit weed and armpit.
“Where’ve you been?” A frantic look forms on Mama’s face. “You late.”
Tyler’s eyes fall to the floor, and he scratches the back of his neck, his backpack falling off him a bit. “Studying,” he lies. I don’t even know why he bothers lying. Mama is like a living, breathing lie detector.
Mama folds her arms in her seat. “Studying, huh?”
Tyler just nods. Still scratching away.
And this shabby little house of ours gets twenty degrees hotter all in a matter of seconds. I can see his eye twitch. I bet Mama can, too.
“Who was you with?” she asks.
Tyler tosses his backpack back over his shoulder, and his voice gets all low and apologetic. “The guys.”
“The. Guys?” She punctuates her words, slow and jabbing. This is about to be ugly. I can feel it in my queasy gut. “What’re their names? Where do they live? And why don’t I know them?” Her voice gets louder and shakier.
Tyler pauses for a bit, his eyes blinking fast. He barely gets the names out, stumbling over the syllables, like rocks on the sidewalk. “Johntae, Fish, Zig, Big Money, and Moe.”
She gets out of her chair and slaps him hard against the side of his face with a popping sound. “What the hell kind of name is Big Money and Fish? What’re their real names?”
Tyler just shrugs his broad shoulders and scrunches up his mouth, confused. His scratching moves to his nose. “I don’t know.”
“You don’t know?”
“I just call them what they want to be called,” Tyler answers.
“You know what’s about to be calling you? This belt,” Mama shouts, pointing a finger into Tyler’s chest. But instead of pulling off her belt for real and waling on Tyler, she closes her eyes tightly, breathes in, cocks her head back, and then walks over to the table and pulls up a seat, shaking her head.
Then, she opens her eyes as wide as ever, pulling out a cigarette and lighting it in between her fingers. “I just want y’all boys to be safe out here. That’s all I ask: Do your chores, get good grades, and be safe. There’s too much going on in the world. Folks done lost they minds, snatching up kids and killing everybody. I just couldn’t imagine what I would do if something were to happen to one of you.”
I look over at Tyler, and his face actually looks remorseful. “I’m sorry, Mama,” Tyler says, and even I fall for it.
“All right now,” she accepts, and points to the stove. “I made dinner. It might be cold, but a microwave’s over there.”
She puffs out an almost perfect cloud of smoke. If there’s one thing I’ve learned since she brought me into this world, it’s that you’ll never quite understand her. It’s like Mama’s cigarettes are the only things that wholly get her.
I walk by Tyler’s room. He’s sitting on the edge of his twin-sized bed, his eyes cold, brown, and drained, like coffee stains. He gives me one slow nod, and I walk inside and sit next to him on the bed, looking around like I’ve just stepped inside Mr. Magorium’s Wonder Emporium. His hideout is a graffiti mural plastered in posters and sports cards.
“I’m never lying for you again, Tyler. You gotta stop hanging with Johntae and them. Please. For Mama and me. You heard what she said.”
He inches away a bit, his sheets rustling, and he finally says, “It ain’t that simple.”
“Look, I just want to talk.” I stare straight ahead, my hands folded in my lap.
“There’s nothing to talk about.”
Up close, I can see the dark circles underneath his eyes. And I can’t believe it, but Tyler is actually crying, and he’s giving it his all to hide it from me. But it’s a losing battle.
We sit in silence for a couple moments. I’m not sure what Tyler’s thinking, but I know the only thing running through my mind is the fact that my own brother is straying away from me, and this is just my desperate attempt at calling him back.
“Remember all those mixtapes you made?” I ask.
He laughs with watery eyes. “Yeah. They’re somewhere in here. In a box or drawer, buried, never to be heard by another human being.”
“No, man, you were actually good at beats. It used to be all that you’d listen to, remember?”
“Of course I remember! That’s when I thought I was the shit. I actually thought I could sell tapes and make it the way Biggie did. Still do, sometimes. FruityLoops and that illegal version of GarageBand I had helped me get through middle school and freshman year.”
“Mm-hmm, you were a bad middle school student,” I joke.
“Those were some rough years, and my beats were the only thing that kept me going. I had this fire in me that if I powered through, I could be, like, the next Dr. Dre or something.” He lets out a small laugh. “Those mixtapes were a perfect distraction from everything.”
He nudges me in the arm, and I look up at him as he flashes me a small grin. Then I look away.
It goes quiet. I breathe in deeply, and the strong and lingering stench of weed fills up my nostrils.
“You stink,” I say. “You should take a shower.”
He buries his head in his armpit; he takes a huge whiff and then smells his sleeves. “Dammit! I didn’t think it would be this bad.”
We lift off the bed simultaneously. “So, you smoke now?” I shoot him a disappointed look, furrowing my eyebrows.
Tyler rolls his eyes. “No. The guys did, though.”
He rips off his shirt and throws it across the room, into the hamper by his cracked and peeling wooden dresser. He puts on a tight black tank top, squeezing into it.
Out of nowhere, I blurt, “I don’t want to lose you to them, Tyler.”
He looks surprised—his eyebrows caving in, lines forming on his forehead.
“You won’t. I’ll always be here. For you and Mama.” He rubs his eyes. “No one will ever take me away from you two.”
It goes quiet again. The world feels like it speeds up.
“I’m sorry.” His voice is the quietest it’s been since I came in here. “I shouldn’t have said those shitty things to you earlier.”
“It’s okay,” I say, and he gives me dap, like he used to. “Ty, I know you think you need to be hanging out with Johntae and dudes like him to fulfill some sort of prophecy the world predicts for you—or for us—but trust me when I say there are better ways.”
I watch him search his drawers for a change of clothes, and he tosses a clean pair of cheap boxers over his shoulder before he responds.
“Like I said: No one’s taking me away.”
I bite my lip and turn back.
“Hey, Marvin, one other thing.” We look at each other a final time. “I don’t say it a lot, but I love you, bro.”
I force a small smile at him before heading to my room. For the first time in a while, the air I breathe in, and everything else, is just… peaceful.
• 7 •
Even though my stomach turns sour every time the thought of Johntae’s party enters my mind, I text Ivy and G-mo that the only reason I’m going is to play Spy on My Twin. None of us has an actual driver’s license, so we meet up at my place and pedal our way under the still, blue sky to some mystery location that Johntae sent Tyler in a text and my nuts get really sore and tender riding on my bike, the seat worn all the way down to the metal frame.
Two numb nuts and a handful of minutes later, I arrive with G-mo and Ivy to this brick warehouse–looking building that used to be a flea market. I believe they called it Pic-A-Rag or something. Yeah, that’s it. A trash market owned by an old friend of Mama’s that got closed down because of roaches and too many robberies. For the longest time, I thought this building was abandoned, never to be used again—or maybe a place for all the homeless people of Sterling Point to take up permanent residence. But it looks totally redone from the outside, and I can only imagine what the inside is like. I guess drug dealers can afford this kind of renovation.
The line to get in is strangely long, like all of Sojo Truth High School was invited and the
y just so happened to bring everybody and their mama. There’s a bouncer and a slew of security guards standing on both sides of the red carpet and cutoff line rope.
And I’m all like, “What kind of drug dealer gets security guards and a bouncer at a party?” More important, though, what kind of security guards and bouncers agree to work a drug dealer’s party—a drug dealer’s anything?
“Does it really matter?” G-mo says, slapping his dry hands together like he’s about to get some grub. He twists his marijuana-green hat, turning it backward to look more suave than he really is.
“Yeah, who cares? All I want is to find me a fine-ass honey,” Ivy says, her eyes all dolled up with gold eyeliner. She’s also wearing skinny disco pants—black ones, with a white tank top and a blue jean jacket. I’m in my Notorious B.I.G. hoodie and some black jeans. The three of us really could be our own pop group or something.
G-mo and Ivy shake up hands, like they’ve made a bro pact or something—that they both have to leave this party 1) with a girl and 2) without their virginity.
My fists clutch at my sides, and I find myself sighing a bit too loudly, looking around, and checking the long line over and over again, seeing it grow.
“What’s up with you?” Ivy says, putting her hand on my shoulder. “You seem… tense.”
“Nothing,” G-mo answers for me. “He just desperately needs to get laid.” And he laughs at his own joke, like it’s the greatest thing ever, but even Ivy doesn’t laugh.
Out the corner of my eye, I see Tyler entering a side door with a couple other guys who belong to Johntae’s crew. The angst is all over my body now, like goose bumps. I remain fixed on him as the anxiety pinches at the back of my throat. I’m afraid to see something I don’t really want to see. I’m afraid of knowing the truth.
Images flash through my mind of the time I saw Tyler with Johntae, dealing in the middle of the day, at Sojo High. One image haunts me: Tyler ending up like Dad—in jail, just plucked from my life.
