Tyler Johnson Was Here

by Jay Coles

  It takes an hour, but Faith and I finally arrive at Metropolitan Detention Center, the prison where Johntae is being detained. I’m shaking as I get out the car, and I don’t know if it’s entirely because of the cool breeze.

  This place is dusty and grimy and looks like one of those dungeons from the Antigone video we watched in Ms. Tanner’s class. Gnats and mosquitoes clog the air, funneling into some of the light posts surrounding the building.

  The inside smells like bleach and salt and sterilized depression, and I stand and walk at attention, my eyes racing from right to left, as I take in everything around me. Darkness, orange jumpsuits, and police officers giving us dirty looks.

  Faith talks to the officer sitting at the front desk.

  “We’re here to bail out a close family member,” Faith lies.

  The woman sits behind a glass wall with a speaker in front of her. She has a huge, pissed-off frown from years of seeing people like us bail out criminals.

  “Name?” she booms in an annoyed tone.

  “Mine, or…?” Faith goes.

  “Both,” the lady says, chewing hard on a stick of gum.

  Faith gives her the information.

  “You may be seated in the waiting area. Wait to be called up,” the lady says. I wipe beads of sweat from my top lip, looking around at all the people who’re also sitting in the waiting area, which is just a big rectangular room with chairs around the perimeter.

  Faith and I sit in the only two empty seats. The room is packed with people and shuffling feet and rustling bags and a wailing baby. My legs shake and my eyes frenzy around the room. Is this what the waiting room would look like at my dad’s prison? Will I have to sit in a waiting room like this to see Tyler again, if he’s put in jail, too? Is this what I’m going to have to do for the rest of my life—sit in waiting rooms?

  “You okay?” Faith asks.

  Suddenly, it feels like this room is Hell, and I’m meant to burn in it. “I… just… this—”

  “I get it,” Faith interrupts me, putting her hand on my shoulder. I gaze into her dark brown eyes, realizing how much she does get it. I’m crumbling. I knew that this would be hard, stepping foot inside a prison, because of my dad, but I didn’t think I’d begin to fall apart.

  “If you want to wait in the car, here you go.” She hands me the keys. And I realize that maybe she needs to be the one to bail him out.

  I grab the keys. “Thanks,” I mumble, and wipe my forehead.

  “Yeah, of course,” she says with a forced smile. “I’ll meet you at the car with Johntae. Okay?”

  I wait in the car, taking deep breaths and scrolling through Tyler’s Instagram and Snapchat. His Snapchat story is of him chugging a beer and making a face like he just downed a bottle of Windex or something. I know this isn’t the first time Tyler has had beer, but seeing him do it on camera makes me feel like this is a whole new side of him I didn’t know existed. I wonder what else he does with Johntae and his gang.

  After scrolling through Tyler’s Instagram for what feels like an hour, I see Faith walking out the door, Johntae close behind her.

  Johntae’s shouting something—I can see his mouth moving. He holds his junk like he has to remind himself that he’s a man.

  I get out the car.

  “All I’m sayin’ is, you couldn’t call? You couldn’t make sure I was all right?” Johntae shouts.

  She rolls her eyes and walks toward me, leaving him behind. “You don’t own me,” she says over her shoulder.

  “Johntae,” I call out to him. He doesn’t even notice me. He’s still staring at Faith, invested in whatever argument they’re having.

  “What the fuck you mean?” he says, following her.

  She presses her body against the side of her car. “You may not want to see it,” she says, “but I am my own person, and you make me feel broken. Took me a while to realize I’m not.” And she just stares at Johntae, taking her life back from him… like in the marrow of her bones there are a thousand cities and hoods being constructed. Like she’s learned to love herself and to stop trying to complete herself with Johntae’s shattered pieces.

  “Whatever!” He slashes the air with his hand, starting to walk away, not saying anything to me.

  “Johntae!” I say, running after him. I yank at his shoulder.

  “What, lil nigga?” He turns around sharply, his nose turned up.

  “Where’re you going?”

  “I gotta leave this town,” he says. “Somebody snitched.”

  “Snitched? Snitched on who? About what?”

  He pauses, looking over my shoulder at Faith, mugging her hard as shit, then glares back at me. He rolls his eyes and smacks his lips. “I gotta go, thug.”

  “So you played me? All this was a plan of your own? To get me to bail you out, so you can be on your way? You never really meant to help me find Tyler, did you?” I’m screaming, my throat scratchy. The skies still, and everything stops for a second. And he doesn’t answer, just looks around, nostrils flared and head tilted back.

  I take a short step closer, leaning in. “DID YOU?!” I repeat, pointing at his chest, my fingers in the shape of a gun.

  “I’m sorry, Marvin.” He sighs, unfazed. “But it was all I could do.” And the way he says such a shady apology is just fuel to the fire.

  “No. No!” I pace around. “I’m not going to let you do this to me.” And the breeze becomes stale, and my blood feels icy-hot.

  “Go home,” he mumbles. “Get out of these streets. They ain’t safe. This ain’t no amusement park. This is the hood.”

  “You said you’d help me find Tyler.” I feel this sting in the back of my throat.

  “I’m just going to tell you the truth,” he growls, looking away. “I don’t know where Tyler is.” He turns his back and starts to walk off, like that’s all I deserve from him, after everything.

  I feel like I am sinking into the bottom of the ocean, or in quicksand, my vision blurring, hands itchy and clammy. And the worst part is that I’m not surprised. I knew he didn’t know where Tyler was. But it was the only hope I could cling to—and now I have nothing.

  I grab his shoulder a second time, and I draw my arm back, and I sucker punch him right in the jaw, and there’s a cracking sound as his head cocks back. I bite on my lower lip, my heart beating so ferociously in my chest.

  He holds his face, spits on the ground, and glares at me, his eyes wide open and mouth drooling, his chest heaving.

  He gives me a mean mug before curling up his fist.

  He swings at me, and his fist connects with my face so hard it feels like he fractures my nose. The impact makes me fall to the pavement, my head colliding with the ground littered with tiny stones, beer caps, and cigarette butts.

  He turns around and runs, runs, runs away, shouting, “You gon’ regret that. You ain’t one of us. You ain’t nothing but a lil bitch.”

  Faith helps me up off the ground as blood streams out of my nose like a running faucet.

  “Are you okay?” her small voice says.

  “I’ll be okay,” I say, feeling a different, warmer wetness come from my eyes. “Fuck him!” I’m broken like a promise, and all I really want to do is scream and cry on repeat.

  And the world blurs and darkens. There’s no sound other than my heavy sobbing into a set of arms.

  Faith drives me to my place, taking the long way there. And I just stare at the moon, like it’s cradling me and knowing me through and through, like I’m finding some sort of hope in its luminescence. “Bounce Back” by Big Sean plays on the radio. Faith has the volume on low, but it’s still loud enough for the bass to bounce off my pulse. And strange enough, the tears dry on my face. If you a real one, then you know how to bounce back, Big Sean sings.

  She does her best to keep me calm. “You’re not like rest of them—you’re not like Johntae. You’re so much more,” she says. “You’re a fighter, so keep on fighting. I’m just… so sorry.” It’s her saying these things t
hat keeps me from falling apart. And now I’m imagining myself keeping up the fight, finding my brother—imagining a future where all of this just looks like the world’s worst joke to my twin and me.

  This sky is full of the same old writing, and tonight’s story is a warm reminder, something I remember Dad writing to me in one of his letters: You’ll find light in your darkest times, always.

  Faith stops the car in front of my house, and we just sit there, staring straight ahead for a moment, listening to music play on the radio and counting each other’s breaths, our bodies totally motionless. The song’s an oldie that my dad used to play.

  “Thank you, again,” I say. She’s done so much for me, and I can’t help but feel less alone, less filled with anxiety, less of everything awful. Because of her presence.

  “It’s the least I could do.”

  “You’re not just saying that, right?”

  She puts the car in park. “No.” She smiles.

  “Good.” I nod. “Thanks.”

  “When you’re in a state of despair, not having someone there to have your back is ugly and awful,” she says, lifting my head up with her index finger. “Seriously. It’s the least I could do.”

  I stop picking at a hole in the seat. “Oh yeah?”

  “Yeah,” she murmurs, rolling down her window a little. “And when you feel lost and alone, lying on your bed, staring at your phone or scrolling through Tumblr and Twitter and trending hashtags as if it’s meant to bring you peace from all the demons tugging at your head, I know that feeling. We’re in this together now. I guess, in some messed-up way, we always have been, even when I didn’t know you.”

  This girl has a heart like a forest, so vast and beautiful, and the twinkle in her eyes captures it. But there’s so much more to her than just flesh and bone and beauty.

  I stay quiet, letting her words spill over me like water—washing me clean, her words actually doing something, like supplying hope.

  “The human heart is like a sponge. There’s a way to squeeze out all the hurt you don’t want. And somewhere in that hurting heart of yours,” she says, “you’ll find some strength to go on.”

  “It doesn’t seem like that.”

  And her mouth straightens. “It never does.” She puts her head down on the steering wheel for a moment.

  I take a deep breath. “Do you really think he’s out there and safe?”

  Her head hits the back of the seat, and she stares at a stray cat walking across the street. “If your brother is anything like you, he’s a fighter, too. I believe he’s out there somewhere. Maybe what happened at the party was the last straw for him, and he wanted to get his shit together, leaving this city behind for good.”

  “I needed to hear that.” I sigh. “Thank you.”

  She unbuckles her seat belt and leans over slowly, closing her eyes, and kisses me softly on the cheek, which still stings from the punch.

  She flickers her long eyelashes until her eyes are wide open—so wide. I watch her settle and relax back in her seat, with a smug and amiable expression. “I like you a lot, Marvin,” she says.

  “You do?” I sit up. I’ve never felt so tingly before. It’s so dope to hear those words out loud.

  “Yeah. You’re smart, a little nerdy, and so, so caring. And I adore how you’re keeping yourself together. It’s so damn hard, losing someone. Besides, my mama told me that boys come with cracks in them and that I’ll be able to see them for what they really are once I crack them open. But you’re different, and I feel it when I’m around you. These other niggas out here aren’t as genuine.”

  I smile, even though my jaw hurts. “Can I tell you something else?”

  “Just spill it already,” she mutters through the gap between her front teeth, staring at me.

  “I’m not sure if anyone’s ever told you this before, but you deserve the world and so much more. You deserve more than the world has—more than what this universe even holds.”

  “You really think so?” Her eyes start to water up, dimples waving hello.

  “Yeah. You are hella bomb, hella beautiful, and anyone in this divided world would be lucky to have you.”

  Her eyelashes flutter and it’s like she’s glowing. “That’s really sweet, Marvin. Your mama raised you right.” She lets out a laugh. Something in her voice makes me think she’s never been told this.

  “Yeah,” I say. Mama taught me to love my blackness and to appreciate the blackness of others.

  She puts a hand on my knee. Everything is so hot I have to look away because my face burns, and I’m left thinking: Sometimes people need reminding that they matter, more than they need reminding that they’re alive, because sometimes being alive just isn’t enough.

  I’m really wishing I’d told Tyler that he matters. When I find him, that’s exactly what I’m going to do.

  • 15 •

  The next morning, Mama has the day off, so she gives me a ride to school, and it feels different.

  It’s quiet as shit, no sound at all, except for the roaring motor. There’re only a few clouds out, but I can smell that smell that says it’s going to rain no matter what.

  I watch Mama glance in all of her mirrors, like she thinks she’ll see Tyler hitchhiking, his backpack on his back, thumb out. Her eyes are bloodshot red, like she’s not slept in weeks. She takes a sharp left turn, going the opposite way of Sojo High, and I’m compelled to speak up. Maybe she’s completely lost it. And maybe I’m close behind.

  “Where’re you going, Mama?” I say, wrinkling my forehead as I give her a worried-as-shit glance.

  She looks at me as she speeds up, running through a red light. “I think I just saw him.” She has this hopeful look all over her, and it warms me up, and then she pulls up alongside a boy walking into a coffee shop, screaming, “Tyler, Tyler, Tyler!”

  The boy doesn’t hear at first, and then he takes his hood off, unplugs his headphones, and looks around. This boy’s too light-skinned and looks a couple inches too tall to be Tyler.

  He gives her a weird look before going into the coffee shop.

  She pulls to the side of the road, parks the car next to a meter, and just sobs into her hands, like she’s allowing her world to end. And her weeping turns into wailing and her sobbing turns into a frenzied breakdown and her frenzied breakdown turns into her beating away at the steering wheel.

  I’m not gonna cry. I’m not gonna cry. I can’t.

  I reach over, unbuckling my seat belt, and I grab her into a forced hug and I squeeze hard, like it’s the last hug we’ll feel in this life. And she hugs and squeezes back and kisses my forehead and cheeks, like she thinks I’m going to slip away from her grasp, too.

  “You’re all I’ve got right now,” she says. “You’re all I’ve got.”

  School seems to last long as shit, and everybody wants to ask me about Tyler, about what I know, about what the cops are doing, and about how it feels to be the twin brother of a missing boy. I try my best to avoid most of it, because it’s just too much. I end up missing two of my classes, sitting in the unused, freezing-cold orchestra room, hiding away from everyone, just to clear my mind and let myself cry when I need to. I don’t eat lunch with Ivy and G-mo because I can’t seem to shut off the feelings knotting in my chest.

  When I finally get home, Mama starts making Tyler’s favorite for dinner—cheesy broccoli and white rice—and soon I realize it’s going to take a lot longer for everything to cook, because she has to take little meltdown breaks, where she cries into the wooden table and smokes a couple of cigarettes. And I wonder why she even decided to make his favorite meal, besides the fact that it’s all we have left in the fridge. Maybe it’s her motherly way—her far-fetched motherly way—of praying that he’ll smell her cooking from afar and come barging through the door.

  I head to my room. The rain picks up, and I leave my window open, just listening to the raindrops pummel the ground. There’s something about the sound that completely relaxes me. And I stare at the b
lank screen of my jank laptop, hoping words will start pouring out of my head so I can have my MIT application finished before my interview.

  After dinner, we stay at the table, flipping through pictures of Tyler and me. She pulls out Tyler’s yearbook photo from tenth grade and kisses it softly, eyes closed.

  There’s a sudden pounding on the door, beating a familiar beat.

  Mama jumps up, her chest heaving. And she looks through the peephole first, like all those times when police visited us.

  “Marvin?” she calls, concern oozing into her voice. “Come here.” She wipes the corners of her eyes and adjusts her bathrobe. “Stay close.”

  She opens the door, the wind and rain rushing in. Detective Bills and Detective Parker share an umbrella on the front step, flashing us their badges like we forgot who they are. Detective Parker shouts over the rain. “Ma’am, we’re here to inform you that we believe we have found your son Tyler.”

  Mama holds her heart, attempting a smile, exhaling so hard. She lets go of the door and, touching her cheek, looks back at me. “Thank you, Lord. God is good.” She turns to the detectives, a half smile on her lips. Eyes alert—so alert. “Where is he?”

  The detectives glance at each other. “Unfortunately, Mrs. Johnson,” Detective Parker says slowly, “we’ve come to tell you that we found his body a few blocks away from the old Pic-A-Rag flea market. We need you to come down and identify the body.”

  I lose all the air in my lungs. Mama blinks hard, her face wearing shock, before she stiffens and falls to the floor, screaming like she’s being tortured, crying like she’s supplying the world with another body of water, grieving like grief is a living organism hugging her tight.