Tyler Johnson Was Here

by Jay Coles

  “Yo. What the fuck is going on with the goddamn cops, man?” G-mo goes.

  “My mama say this world’s going to shit,” Ivy adds. “That’s just all there is to it.”

  I have to catch my breath. I’m unable to say anything, horrified, still thinking about what just went down, still flinching from this nasty twinge all over me. I feel like my bones are legit on fire. Like someone ran a cheese grater over every single muscle in my body. But I’m reminding myself that I can’t allow pain to reign over me. I can’t handle another oppressor.

  “That was some fucked-up-ass shit. He only had CDs and a dime bag. No one deserves to be beaten like that. He could’ve died. That isn’t punishable by death. What’s worse is that that could’ve been any of us,” Ivy says.

  “Word,” G-mo sighs.

  “And we just stood there and ran like pussy-ass bitches,” she moans, her chest heaving.

  “Ivy, goddamn, how many times do I gotta tell you that I’m a pussy-ass nigga and I like being one?” G-mo shouts. “That’s how I keep my life.”

  “That’s ’cause you literally got nine functioning brain cells. You keep being a pussy-ass nigga, and that’s what they gon’ keep treating us like.”

  “Whatever, I guess,” G-mo says. “When’s the damn rapture? Because that was so fucked up.”

  “Who do you even call when the cops are the ones being the bad guys? Who do you even beg to protect you?” Ivy asks, putting her hands on my sore shoulders.

  I shrug. And I have no answer—not a good one, at least. But I know not all cops are bad. Auntie Nicola was one, and I know she’s a good person. In her time as an officer, she did a ton for the community: got people the help they needed and made them feel whole and safe—what good cops are supposed to do. I remember Auntie Nicola telling me stories about catching bad guys and how she’d seen some of her colleagues use their power to do some pretty messed-up things to people, but she always made it known that there’d be cops like her on my side.

  My mind flashes back to when Tyler and I used to spend our middle school spring breaks with Auntie Nicola in Indiana. She’d take us to the skating rink on the east side of Indianapolis on the weekend. There was something about picking each other up off the floor when we fell, laughing, that made those times mean everything to me. Tyler’s laugh slips into my head. I never thought I’d miss it, as loud and gut-busting as it is, but I do. It’s been a while since I’ve heard him laugh and actually mean it. All the happy, funny, quiet little moments between the two of us growing up get stuck in my head, like me and Tyler just sitting on the ground, putting together thousand-piece puzzles, and making peanut butter sandwiches, saying nothing, just watching each other eat. It’s the thought of not getting any of this back that has my chest constricting. Tyler may have strayed away, but I need to find him.

  I don’t know how long I blank or how long I just sit there not saying anything, staring at a single point, a crack in the street, my thoughts splitting into a million fragments. But, somehow, I snap back together, and I’m on my bike, pedaling fast.

  The whole time, I feel like I’m just drifting with no real sense of direction. In the air, the pigeons fly in salute to the pale, rubber sky, and this is what comes to life, like a giant machine built against me, paining me, all the way until I get home to face Mama. I’m going to tell her the truth about everything. About the party. About Tyler. I have to.

  • 12 •

  When I get inside, Mama grabs her first-aid kit and applies all kinds of stuff to the cut on the side of my face: rubbing alcohol, peroxide, and some type of fast-healing cream in a little yellow-orange tube. I gasp—not because of the sting, not because she’s heavy-handed, but because I have to tell her the truth, and it’s making me wince.

  “It’s all right,” she reassures me in a hushed tone. “You gon’ be all right. You safe now.” She kisses my forehead and thumbs my cheek.

  I’m fucking shaking.

  I have to take deep breaths and run through all the words in my head, because I don’t even know how to say what I’m about to say. I open my mouth, and I almost trip over the words. “Mama, I have to tell you something,” I say. It feels like there’s a pillow on my face, a pang in my chest. “I don’t know where Tyler is,” I say. “I thought that I—”

  She interrupts me, furrows her eyebrows. “Wait—what do you mean you don’t know where he at?”

  My stomach twists and turns. I tell her about the party, about Tyler and Johntae, about the gang, about how I lied, about how I’m sorry and how I’m blaming myself for everything. Everything.

  “After the party, he just vanished,” I say. I’m about to throw up.

  She cranes her entire body around and rips through her purse for her cell phone, and I know she’s about to call the cops again. She’s not called this many times in one week since that night Dad got so drunk and high that he crashed their old green Yukon XL into someone’s backyard.

  Mama holds her hair away from her face as she calls the police to report Tyler missing. I try to remind myself of what Ivy said, telling myself that he’s out there and that he’s alive and that he’s safe. Mama paces while I stand still in agony.

  It feels like the world stops rotating.

  Mama glances at me, a hand over her heart like at any moment she’ll have a heart attack, as she tries to explain everything. I move over to sit on the couch, familiarizing myself with its holes like usual, pulling out cotton and putting it back.

  It takes her far too long to get the report filed. I guess if you’re black, there are some additional steps that you’ve got to take. The person’s low voice streams out of the phone, and I hear everything. They ask her if my brother is in a gang, if he’s been in any trouble with the law lately, if he has any enemies—after each of which Mama says, “No.”

  When Mama gets off the phone, she has this ghostlike look in her eyes. “We gotta go down to the station and talk to them,” she says without looking at me, her head hoisted up. “They got more questions.”

  I throw on one of Tyler’s hoodies, which is stained with his cologne—it’s too big, but I need it to consume me, to remind me that he’s still out there.

  In the car on the way to the station, Mama and I don’t say a word. She just sobs as I stare out the window, looking at the lights, and the stars, and the people, too. I can see her glancing at me through the reflection in the window, but we keep quiet, and her silence makes me wish this hoodie really would swallow me into a black hole.

  When we get to the police station, two cops escort us to the detective’s office, walking us through a long hallway, passing other offices on both sides. The offices look like tight glass boxes, letting me see inside them. Some of them are neat, while others are messy as shit, papers everywhere. Voices come through on walkie-talkies, and some cops type on computers. Many of them are just standing with each other in the hallway, staring Mama and me up and down.

  We pass by a wall full of photos of missing people in Sterling Point. There’re so many of them, so many of them black and brown, and it gets harder and harder to breathe. When we get to the detective’s office, a man in a fancy suit with an American flag tie shakes Mama’s hand. He offers Mama and me hot chocolate and those mini bottles of water.

  I take a deep breath before I chug down my entire bottle. Fuck slow sips.

  Mama starts to explain everything, but the detective stops her to say that he was the one who she spoke to on the phone. Then he looks square at me. He puts this sneaky smirk on his face and opens his mouth as he extends his hand. All I can smell is coffee on his breath, and his sweaty palm grips mine.

  “And what’s your name?” He’s talking to me like I’m some little kid. This is already some bullshit, man.

  I tell him my name anyway.

  “I’m Detective Conaway.” He pauses, pointing to his name tag on his desk, papers scattered everywhere on top of it. “I’ll try not to keep you two here all night. Okay?”

  We don’t say an
ything. I can tell even Mama is ready to slap his smiling ass.

  “Well, Marvin, you know that you’re essential to the whole investigation, right?”

  Mama starts to say something, but he interrupts her.

  “I mean the investigation for the party and finding your brother. We need your help to put all the pieces together. How does that sound?” He’s still fucking smiling at me. I’m not in the fucking smiling mood.

  He takes my nonresponse and says, “Okay, let’s get started, shall we?” He shuffles through manila folders on his desk and pulls out a blank notepad and a blue pen.

  “Why aren’t you sending some of these people to find my son?” Mama asks thickly in such a pleading voice. “They ain’t doin’ nothin’ but standing around.”

  “I understand your concerns, but, Mrs. Johnson, this is standard procedure,” the detective says. “We have to know the facts so we know what we’re dealing with. Besides, we can’t go looking for any missing person when we don’t even know where to start our search.”

  “Can you just ask your questions already?” I say. They both look at me with widened eyes, like they thought I’d snuck out in the middle of their conversation.

  The detective clears his throat, reclines in his chair, adjusts his tie, and begins. “Mr. Marvin Johnson, your brother’s name is Tyler, huh? And you both attend Sojourner Truth High School?”

  “Tyler Jabril Johnson,” I reply. Naturally, my voice cracks. “And yeah.”

  He writes it down and pulls out a recording device. “Standard procedure,” he adds. “So… you and your brother were at the party in the abandoned Pic-A-Rag building?”

  I hesitate to answer, afraid of saying the wrong thing. He’s talking about the fucking party, and all I want is a full city sweep. Everyone should be looking for Tyler.

  “Is this how all this gon’ be?” Mama says. “’Cause I ain’t bring him here to talk about no party. You got questions? Okay, but make sure they’re relevant to finding my boy.” I can feel all the emotion in her voice, just like I can feel my heart beating in my chest.

  The detective’s face gets all red and flushed, but he turns back to me. He asks me a bunch of other questions, like if I know Johntae, whether or not I knew about the guns and drugs in the building, about the raid. And now he’s asking me if I’m in Johntae’s gang.

  I pause, feeling the entire world as it spins faster. I know Mama will be heartbroken to hear the truth.

  I swallow down the lump in my throat. “No. But Tyler is.” I try my best not to look at Mama, but I hear her gasp, her shaky breath. For years, she tried her best raising us so that we wouldn’t give in to the streets.

  Detective Conaway leans forward like I’ve just given him the golden answer. “Excellent.”

  Excellent? What the hell is that supposed to mean? Is Tyler being in a gang like a pass to not look for him? Just because he fell for the gang life doesn’t mean he’s not savable, that he’s not worth risking everything for.

  I pick up the hot chocolate and try to swallow some.

  “If I asked you to write down all of the people your brother hangs out with, could you do that for me?”

  I look at Mama and she has her head in her hands, and I can tell she’s beating herself up inside as much as I am about losing him at the party when I told myself I’d keep an eye on him. I look back at the detective and nod.

  I take a few minutes to write down all the names of who I know are in Johntae’s gang. “I hope nicknames will do,” I say.

  “That’s totally all right,” he answers me.

  When I finish, I ask, “Are you going to start looking for him now?”

  He glances around the room. “These kinds of things take time. And by the length of the list of names you’ve provided, it could take anywhere from forty-eight hours to up to a week after interrogation.”

  I sit up straight. “So you should start right now, then.” I have to remind myself where I am and who I’m talking to.

  “Just a few more questions,” Detective Conaway says.

  Mama sighs and I try to match hers, finishing off the small Styrofoam cup of watered-down hot chocolate.

  He asks me how long I was at the party and if I stayed the whole time.

  “I stayed the whole time, until everything went down.” My chest is tight.

  “So, there was a shooting that took place before authorities arrived at the scene. Where did you last see Tyler, then? In the midst of everything?”

  Mama makes a grunting sound like she’s going to say something, but doesn’t.

  “No. Tyler didn’t have anything to do with the shooting. He’s innocent and he’s missing, but you’re still talking about a shooting.” I shake my head. It gets fifty degrees hotter in here.

  He scribbles as he asks me to recount the last conversation I had with Tyler. It’s been replaying in my mind over and over again, and I will never forget seeing him angry and afraid, telling me to leave him alone.

  I smell Tyler’s scent again, remembering I’m wearing his hoodie. There’s a moment of silence before the detective asks, “How much influence did the gang have on your brother?”

  A lot is what I should say, because it’s the truth, but I don’t want to say it out loud. “I don’t know” is what I say, feeling the lie run through my body.

  “I’m sure you’re aware of the lives lost at the party, correct?”

  “A little,” I answer. I’ve been forcing myself not to think much about it, because I don’t want to think about Tyler being one of them.

  Before Mama and I leave the station, the detective has us write down our contact information and all the places Tyler could be. Five or so minutes later, I leave the police station with Mama. Neither of us says it out loud, but we both know we’re going to have to look for Tyler ourselves if we want him to be found.

  Back at home, Mama stays on the couch, talking on the phone with Auntie Nicola about everything. I can hear her voice as I lie across my bed, trying to sleep, but I can’t.

  I’m looking at my dingy, dark ceiling, praying to God over and over again, asking for a lead, a sign—something.

  A sign doesn’t come, but I know I need faith that Tyler will be safe. I try to close my eyes, letting this very moment hang in the air for a while, allowing myself to breathe and slow my thoughts. Then, Faith slips into my head. I hop up out of bed and slip into my nearest pair of shoes, and without saying anything to Mama, I climb out my window.

  • 13 •

  It’s been over twenty-four hours since Tyler went missing, and the moon hangs from its neck in the darkened sky. My thoughts echo like shadows behind me as I mull over the very fact that I’m part of the blame for Tyler’s disappearance. If I’d just kept a closer watch on him, I wouldn’t have lost him. I know it.

  When I arrive at Faith’s place, there’s a light on in the living room, and through the window I can see a shadow of her dancing, the music so loud I can hear it from the porch.

  I walk up to the door and knock hard, looking around me, up and down the street.

  The music clicks off, and I hear a latch being undone on the other side.

  She opens the door a little bit, just enough for me to see her eyes.

  “Hi. It’s me—Marvin Johnson,” I say, waving and offering a slight grin, as if I’m simultaneously trying to assure her that I come in peace, but also in so much damn panic.

  She opens the door all the way so I can see her. She’s in sweatpants and a tank and with no makeup, not like how I remember her at the party, but she’s still fine as hell.

  “What’re you doing here?” she says in a confused voice, scanning around outside, too. She grabs her elbows as a chilly gust of wind blows.

  My heart thumps loudly. “Please. I need your help.”

  She pauses, and I can tell something inside her is fighting the urge to slam the door in my face.

  “Come in,” she finally says, eyes searching up and down the block. “No one’s home. My mom’s workin
g and my stepdad is probably either passed out in an alley somewhere or at a casino.”

  Her house smells like old grease and candle wax. Everything is brown and gold and beige and beautiful. She’s got a bunch of black celebrity paintings all over her house, like Tupac, Biggie, Beyoncé, and Rihanna, and even older ones, too, like Diana Ross, Gladys Knight, Janet and Michael Jackson, and Prince. Everything is clean and crisp, like it’s brand-new—even the sandy-brown carpet. I follow her to the couch like an amazed little kid at a museum. And I try to hold off from blinking because I don’t want to miss a single second of this moment.

  And then she clears her throat and cuts on some music again. The first song that plays is “Keep Ya Head Up” by Tupac. She likes Pac, too. She lowers the volume before she sits next to me on a brown leather loveseat. It’s quiet for a moment, except for Tupac in the background: Look to my future ’cause my past is all behind me. Is it a crime to fight for what is mine?

  “She taught herself,” Faith says, pouring two glasses of iced tea. “My mom painted all those celebrity paintings. That’s how she stayed out of the streets. Painting saved her, and it left her with a gift.” She pauses and smiles. “One day, I think I’ll be as talented as her. Even though she’s out driving one of the city buses now.”

  Faith hands me a glass. And I take a huge gulp, cringing inside from the sweetness, but it quenches my thirst. “Those are dope!”

  She smiles, but something about her seems stiff.

  “So about Johntae and bail and finding my brother,” I say, brushing my hands on my pants.

  Her smile fades. “I can’t help you.” She sighs, looking away. “As much as I want to, I can’t.”

  “Why? He specifically told me to go to you for his bail money.”

  “He still thinks I’m holding on to his savings. I used it to pay for my mother’s surgery. She had to have a device implanted because of her heart failure. I never told him because… well…” She stops and looks at her palms. “If I did, he would send somebody to hurt me.”