Tyler Johnson Was Here

by Jay Coles

  And I lunge my body down to pick her up, and she fights me at first, before her body goes limp and she screams into my shoulders and chest, her voice’s vibration rattling my organs. My eyes fill fast with tears, and I blink and blink so many times, but everything’s a mess and there’s an entire apocalypse going on inside my chest. I’m going to split at the seams.

  Is this real? This can’t be real. Tears keep rolling down my face. I try to wipe them away with my arm, but they won’t stop.

  She’s pounding on my chest as I lift her up, her face tear-streaked, eyes shut tight.

  “May we come inside?” Detective Bills asks.

  Mama doesn’t stop wailing.

  I nod, walking Mama to the kitchen table, her legs not wanting to move right.

  The detectives follow us to the kitchen, glancing at each other and then at us and then back at each other. They stay quiet—real quiet.

  I pull up a chair next to Mama, and the detectives sit across from us. I’m taking turns patting her on the back and wiping my face with my sleeve.

  “Oh, God!” Mama wails even louder. “My baby boy!”

  “I’m so sorry,” Detective Bills says.

  “Yes, Mrs. Johnson,” Detective Parker adds. “I know this isn’t the news you were hoping for, but I assure you all the details will be transparent soon. There wasn’t a police report on file, but our team is gathering all the details as we speak.”

  This doesn’t stop Mama from breaking down. And it doesn’t take my heart from out of my stomach or stop me from feeling like there’s a house fire inside me, burning everything to ash.

  It hits me—so damn hard.

  Tyler didn’t even disappear. He was dead all along. And realizing that a part of me is now gone, I can’t stop shaking my head and my chest goes numb. I can’t believe it. From here on out, every memory between us will be one-sided, and only I will be able to piece together all the little details, without Tyler correcting me, telling his version of them.

  A lump rises in my throat. I forget how to swallow.

  This ain’t even fair, man.

  I place my hands in front of me, looking at them and wondering why Tyler and not anyone else? Hell, why him and not me?

  Detective Bills clears his throat and leans in. “We think this death was somehow linked to the gang fight that occurred on Friday, where we arrested Mr. Johntae Smith and two other minors.”

  Mama shakes her head, sobbing. These words bang up on one another in my head.

  “Detective Bills and I could take the two of you down to identify the body right now, if you’d like, ma’am,” Detective Parker says.

  “I gotta see if it’s real. I gotta see if it’s really my baby,” Mama says, her voice breaking. We all rise from the table, and my legs feel tingly and weak. The detectives open the front door, and I help Mama walk out to their black car.

  The inside of the car smells like mints and coffee. Mama and I soak the black leather seats with our tears. It’s so hard to breathe, but I squeeze Mama’s hand and shut my eyes and try my best to allow air into my lungs.

  The ride to the county morgue is painfully long. Mama wraps her arms around me and presses my head into her shoulder. It’s soft, and I can hear her heart beating fast, no, breaking, over and over again.

  When we arrive at the morgue, Detective Bills opens the door for us and Detective Parker walks us toward the building. I look up, taking tiny steps next to Mama, keeping my eyes on the brown-and-red brick building that gives me chills. Each step closer to the concrete stairs leading to the door makes something inside me tighten.

  Detective Bills comes up behind me and places his hand on my back.

  Walking inside, it feels like I’m stepping into a hospital, and the smell of bleach and glass cleaner hits me in the face. I expected it to smell like death—sulfur or rotten eggs. The smell of sterilization is too strong, so I cover my nose with my shirt.

  We’re greeted by two people in long white lab coats, Mr. Garcia and Ms. Collins. They lead us down a long hallway of doors, and we walk into a small room with three normal walls and one made of glass. It’s cramped and looks like an interrogation room, four chairs around a metal table in the center.

  Mama and I sit on one side.

  Mr. Garcia and Ms. Collins sit on the other, pulling out manila folders and paperwork.

  “Where is he? When can I see him? I need to see him,” Mama says, her eyes looking up at the ceiling, lips vibrating, legs shaking.

  “The body is in the other room,” Mr. Garcia says.

  “I need to see him,” Mama says over and over again. My face feels so hot and my throat tightens.

  “We don’t wish to trigger any further trauma, so we give the option of showing a photograph of the body instead,” Ms. Collins says.

  “I want to see him,” I blurt out, not really realizing that I even opened my mouth.

  The two of them nod at each other.

  “Very well,” Mr. Garcia says, putting away the manila folders.

  Ms. Collins murmurs, like she’s trying to keep her voice down, “Mr. Garcia will show you the body and the autopsy report.”

  I hate how they keep saying “the body.” My heart stops and then starts and then stops all over again every time they say it.

  “I’m here to answer any questions you might have, and will be with you throughout the entire identification process,” Mr. Garcia says. “Sound good?”

  Silence washes over the room for a moment.

  Mr. Garcia gets up to hold the door open for us. I’m taking so many deep breaths, and my lungs feel so damn heavy. We all file out the room, my arm interlocked with Mama’s. I can feel her shaking, like she just stepped inside a freezer or something. And I’m shaking, too.

  We turn and take a few steps down the hallway, and Mr. Garcia says, “Right in here.”

  I blink harder and slower as we enter the room. It’s cold, and I can hear an unseen air-conditioning unit blasting air inside. Mr. Garcia leads us to a metal table on wheels with a blue sheet over it.

  My heart pounds. I can’t move. I can’t breathe. I can’t feel anything. Mama’s eyes get real wide and she’s shaking even harder now.

  Mr. Garcia pulls back the blue sheet. I squeeze my eyes shut. I don’t want to see. I can’t see this.

  Mama loses it. “Oh my God!” she screams, her voice splitting in so many places.

  I swallow. Then, I look.

  The boy on the table is Tyler—that’s what my eyes tell me; that’s what my brain says. Same fivehead forehead. Same nose. It’s Tyler, but it’s also not. His eyes are so glossy and pale, not the familiar brown I remember. His skin is different, like a plastic mannequin’s that’s grayer than his brown. His mouth is open, like he was letting out a final breath of air. There’s dirt and grass and blood still in his hair.

  My stomach twists. A sob slips out from deep within my gut.

  Mama leans over Tyler’s body. She doesn’t touch him—just looks at him, like she’s trying to press in her mind that he’s really not coming back to us, or like she’s trying to scrape up some hope that it’s not really him.

  I watch Mr. Garcia walk over to the other side of the room and grab a clipboard. He comes back and writes something down. “Is this Tyler Johnson?”

  I can’t even nod right now.

  Mama says, “That’s my son,” and I feel the whole world shake inside me.

  Mr. Garcia begins to read the autopsy report. “There are three holes in the body. One in the chest, near the heart. Two in the stomach area. We found three bullets belonging to a Glock 22 lodged inside.”

  My mouth goes numb.

  I’m going to be sick or faint or both.

  I run out the room, not even looking back. As soon as I get outside, I’m throwing up all over the steps. Everything I’ve eaten is coming out my mouth and it’s like every drop of water in my body pours from my eyes.

  I wipe my mouth with my sleeve. My chest fucking hurts.

  And I f
eel like I’m dying.

  The detectives drive Mama and me back home, and the two of us have finally gone a whole five minutes without busting out into tears. We just sit on the couch, staring straight ahead, lights off and curled up into each other, like how we’d do when I was a little kid and Tyler and I would take naps with her.

  Everything inside me feels emptied out. And I don’t know what to do. I can’t think about anything, and I don’t want to think about him being gone. I would be okay if the two of us stayed like this forever.

  • 16 •

  The next day, Mama stays in her bedroom, the door closed but not blocking out the sound of her crying. I sit alone in the living room, staring at the TV but not really watching it, trying to distract myself from my new reality. This reality—where I’m alive and my brother is not.

  I text G-mo and Ivy to tell them what happened, and they come over a couple hours before school even lets out, catching me by surprise, tears streaming down their faces, hands shaking, and it almost seems like they’re trying so hard not to look me in the eyes.

  And as if words are the hardest things in the universe, Ivy stutters, “Th-th-there’s a v-v-video that leaked online.”

  “A video?” This can’t be real. And I feel like the smallest thing in the room.

  “Some anonymous account posted it. It’s everywhere, man,” G-mo adds. And he asks me for my phone.

  I try to ignore that it’s the same phone I shared with Tyler as I hand it to him, my heart rate picking up. I sit back down on the couch.

  He returns the phone to me and then places a hand on my shoulder, leaving it for a while. “We thought you’d want to see it, too.”

  G-mo and Ivy sit across from me. Maybe it’s all in my head, but our living room seems to be closing in on us.

  I mute the TV and hold up the phone to see the footage for myself.

  I press play.

  I can see him: It’s night, and there’s Tyler, walking beneath a streetlight so bright it might as well be day, his hands in the air. I hear my brother’s voice. He’s saying over and over again: “Leave me alone. I’m just going home.” There’s a cop in his uniform, his back to the camera. Tyler turns to him. My brother’s face, my brother’s body—alive. He pushes the cop away. And then the pop of a gun. Pop. Pop. The camera tilts and goes completely black.

  I hear the shots replay on loop.

  Pop! One.

  I fight for breath.

  Pop! Two.

  I’m about to black out.

  Pop! Three.

  No, no, no, no, no. This. Can’t. Be. Real.

  I stare at the dark phone screen. And then my chest expands and retracts fast, my throat drying, a lump burning up in my gut.

  “That’s not him,” I say through tears, the words falling out all jumbled and wet. “It can’t be.” I want the world to swallow me up. And it sinks in, kind of like how all the sand sinks to the bottom of an hourglass.

  Tyler is gone.

  I’m just going home. My brother’s last words echo in my head as I shudder, mostly out of fear and so much damn misery. I could vomit right now. My stomach folds from my racing thoughts.

  I’m going to be sick. All of my breath leaves my body. And suddenly, I can’t be in this room anymore.

  I storm outside, hop on my bike, and ride away as fast as I can. I don’t have a destination in mind. I just need to get away. I need to go somewhere I don’t have to think about what I just watched, where I don’t have to think about how my own brother died at the hands of a police officer, where I don’t have to think about a world without Tyler.

  I need a safe place. The tears keep coming before I can stop them, drying on my chin as huge gusts of wind come over me. I let the world distort around me until I’m slamming my bike down in front of Faith’s place. There’re two cars in the driveway, so I know she’s not alone. But I don’t care. I need to be with her.

  I knock on the door, hands shaking. My head feels heavy, and my throat is so dry it’s like I’ve eaten an entire box of saltines.

  I clutch my elbows, waiting for her to answer, spilling my tears on her porch.

  Faith opens the door. “Marvin. Oh my God. Are you okay?”

  She lets me in, and I sit on the couch and tell her everything. It takes so long for the words to come out between my sobs, but she’s patient and keeps her hand on my back, rubbing it slowly. I show her the video and she flinches and says, “What the hell?”

  Before I know it, there’s a set of brown eyes and long eyelashes in front of me. It’s Faith’s mama. She puts her hands on my back, telling me, “Let it out, honey. Let it all out, honey.” She doesn’t even know me, but I don’t care and she doesn’t either.

  “I just don’t know what to do,” I keep saying over and over. The video is stained in my mind, playing over and over again. I shut my eyes tight, trying to shake the footage out of my head, but I can’t. I just fucking can’t.

  Pop! One.

  I shake my head hard.

  Pop! Two.

  I imagine Tyler’s final gasp of oxygen.

  Pop! Three.

  I’m suddenly throwing up in a small trash can. I’m powerless and I have no control over my own brain or stomach. I don’t move. I can’t. I just cry, throw up, cry, and throw up again.

  Faith puts a hand on my arm. “Hey, I’m so sorry.” I look up at her and see she’s crying, too.

  She hugs me.

  I hug her back and let out a slight breath.

  Faith’s mama offers me some hot tea. I tell her no, thank you.

  She gives me a regretful face, opens her mouth, and keeps it open for a little while. Then she says in a sympathetic voice, “I’m sorry for your loss. The man who did this to your brother is going to be punished.” I think this was supposed to be a way to reassure me or something, but I only feel stunned.

  I don’t even feel like being.

  As I keep my head in my hands, Faith and her mama take turns trying to comfort me. “There’ll be justice for y’all,” her mom says. “You have all my empathy.”

  But I don’t even deserve empathy. If anybody does, it’s Mama.

  Part of me regrets leaving Mama alone. I wasn’t thinking when I left. She needs me, and I need her—now more than ever.

  I leave Faith’s house, and as I ride back under a fading, starry sky, my stomach feels like a churning abyss, and I hurt too much not to start tearing up.

  At home, G-mo and Ivy are still at my place. Mama’s come out of her room, and I take one look at her, and I can tell she’s seen the video, too. The TV is on with the volume down low, and on the news I can see images of the video that captured the last minute of my brother’s life. Tyler Johnson has become breaking news, and I feel raw and pissed off that the last few seconds of his life and his death are on display for the whole fucking world to see. He wouldn’t have wanted that.

  There’re Chinese food cartons scattered across the coffee table, the smell of soy sauce and fried rice reminding me that I’m hungry and that I still have to eat because I’m alive, even if Tyler is not.

  “Hey, Marvin,” G-mo says. He’s standing next to Mama. She’s still and quiet, just staring forward.

  I nod at him and walk over to Mama. I pat her on the back, doing my best not to have a breakdown again. There’s so much I want to say and so much static in my brain, and I can’t find a way to say it. I just keep rubbing her back.

  Ivy’s lying on the floor, going through a photo book Mama put together last night, showing me some of her favorites.

  Ivy points to this one picture of Tyler and me when we were little, playing cops and robbers with Dad. The two of us are in tank tops and shorts. In the picture, Tyler and I are each holding a water gun, and Dad’s chasing us.

  Ripples of nausea and ache creep up on me.

  And I don’t know when the pain is going to end.

  After G-mo and Ivy leave, Mama and I remain a mess in the living room. Mama calls Detective Conaway and asks him if they’re
going to get the man who did it, if they’re locking him up. They talk about the video and about Tyler and about the investigation and about standard procedure, but Mama doesn’t take their mess. She stays on the phone for hours, and after she hangs up, all frustrated and broken, she decides that she needs to be alone in her room again.

  I open up the video while lying in bed, and I’m not even sure why. Each time I watch it, I feel like someone is surgically ripping out all of my insides without any anesthetic. It’s as if I notice something new—something fucking worse—the more I see and hear it. I don’t really know why the news keeps calling it an event, an altercation. I’ve never heard murder pronounced that way. What happened wasn’t just an altercation. It was fucking slaughter, man. The officer’s name is everywhere: Thomas Meredith. I feel sick.

  When I click off the video, I try my best to stop myself from scrolling through the hashtags—to keep from diving headfirst into such a shallow pool of hatred—because I know there’ll only be white people waiting on me, wanting to try to hold me under the water until I go silent, waiting until I’m in total fear of blue and white. But after the tenth time of playing it, I have to take a break, before I fucking die from brokenness and rage.

  I close the video and scroll through my timeline.

  All I see are hashtags floating around: #PrayersForTylerJohnson and #EndPoliceBrutality, and oppressive ones, like #BlueLivesMatter.

  Clicking on each brings up a slew of posts. Photos. Videos of people speaking out on their own phones. Links to similar cases. It’s all so overwhelming.

  I’m seeing so many All Lives Matter bullshit posts that have my entire body shaking. People don’t fucking know that black folks were never included in the All. All-American means white. All-inclusive means white. All lives means white lives. It’s bullshit. White folks always make it about them, and I’m pissed off that they’re trying to mask their hatred with these tags.

  But the craziest thing to see is all the pictures snatched from Tyler’s social media pages—pictures that even I haven’t seen before. Some of them are of him dressed in a black suit and tie; some are of him in his everyday wear: dark jeans and a hoodie. Others are close-ups of his face, as if they’re mug shots, even though he’s never been arrested once. People are saying that my father was a criminal and a monster, so Tyler had it coming. I guess that’s the most fucked-up part of all the social media bullshit.