Tyler Johnson Was Here

by Jay Coles

  I scroll through the comments.

  Maybe if he wasn’t holding a bag of dope, he’d be alive.

  Fuck black people. #WhiteLivesMatter

  He looks like he’d rob a store.

  What did you people want? To give him a freebie to commit a crime cause he’s black? He was a bad dude.

  Tyler ≠ a bad dude.

  Tyler = bright and loving.

  Tyler = my brother, who was killed.

  There are also comments and replies to posts that are lighter and just more, uh, human, and I don’t fucking know why, but they still hurt.

  Tyler, you’re in a better place. Heaven ain’t racist.

  This kid was a fucking Basketball prodigy! I’ll miss playing after school with him. #RIPBro

  You deserved better than this. Your family is in my prayers. Always.

  Everything in the world is just a divided and blurry mess. The real world. The online one. All of it has just become too fucked up for me to even feel human. The more I scroll and see all the photos and hashtags, the more I feel monstrous.

  It gets to the point where even the hurt fucking hurts.

  I try to sleep, but I can’t even get my eyes to close. I’m lying on a soft mattress, eyes wide, and Tyler’s somewhere in the morgue.

  • 17 •

  I really want to just stay home and lie in bed and watch episodes of A Different World on Netflix and block the world out, but I can’t—and I don’t. A part of me hopes that Sojo High will help clear and ease my mind.

  I’m hoping for a distraction.

  I don’t want to look at my phone.

  G-mo and Ivy meet at my house to walk with me to school. Ivy’s eating an Oatmeal Creme Pie. I remember debating about them with Tyler. He thought Fudge Rounds were better. He always had bad taste. My chest gets tight.

  When I walk through the doors of Sojo High, people do one of those Red Sea splits like I’m Moses or some shit, and everyone’s staring at us up and down, whispering to one another.

  “Mr. Johnson.” Principal Dodson stops me as I’m walking to my locker.

  I turn around, shrugging my shoulders. “What?” And it comes out a bit ruder than I meant, but it’s too late to take it back, and besides, Dodson’s a dick. And I don’t even feel like talking right now.

  He walks up to me, angry-eyed and flustered, gripping a coffee mug in his hand. “Are you ready for today?” His nose is pointed up, flaring.

  I almost talk myself out of it, but I reply like a decent human being would. “Yeah, as ready as I can be, emotionally and all.” My gaze drops to the floor.

  “Very good. Carry on, Mr. Johnson.”

  In first-period English class, Ms. Tanner goes easy on us, and we discuss, as a class, the themes and motifs in Antigone and Oedipus the King.

  But Tyler.

  My twin is gone.

  “Guillermo,” Ms. Tanner says, pointing at him as he dozes off. “Please write a theme on the board.”

  G-mo takes his precious time getting up there. He uses an orange Expo marker, so light that it’s hard to see. Power, he writes in big, bubbly, graffiti-like letters.

  Ms. Tanner calls on a new girl who started a few weeks ago. She writes The role of women on the board in curly letters.

  “Mr. Johnson,” Ms. Tanner says with a smile. “Would you like to finish our list off?”

  And I inhale, getting out of my seat. Hands shaking, I write in black marker a few more themes that come to mind. Determination. Greed. Hate. Mortality. Fate.

  It’s like Antigone and I are one and the same. It’s like the themes of her story are the same themes in mine. I stand at the front of the classroom for several agonizing seconds, everyone staring at me.

  I sit back down, all eyes on me like I’ve suddenly become the most popular dude in school because of what happened to my brother.

  “These themes are all important and relevant to your lives,” Ms. Tanner says, walking to the front of the room and underlining each theme as she speaks. “Power, greed, hate, determination, fate and free will, mortality—these are all things that you see in your community around you. We live in a society where attaining power is of the utmost importance, resulting in greed for very many of us.” She walks to stand next to her desk and leans against the surface. “Some of us, unfortunately, learn the hard way about the tension between individual action and fate. Like Antigone.” She pauses before she walks back to the board and circles tonight’s homework.

  The bell rings. I can finally exhale.

  I run out of class, not saying anything to anyone.

  It’s time for my interview with an MIT representative, and already I know that it isn’t going to go well. I forgot to “dress for success,” like I want to really be somebody someday. And I’m going to be late.

  • 18 •

  I’m a total of two minutes late to my interview in room B252, a biology lab around the corner from the media center. In the hallway, I pass booths of local community colleges and other universities—random and faraway ones, like the University of Chicago, Florida State University, Cornell, and a bunch of others—each a part of the college fair. They’ve got flags and banners and balloons and little sign-up sheets.

  I round the corner and walk into room B252, and suddenly I’m taking a step into what could be my future, what could be my way out of the cycle—a step that Tyler never got to take.

  My heart pounds like it’s drumming the MIT fight song to get me ready. And I can taste the anxiety on my tongue as I stare into the face of a light-skinned man with grayish hair. I can already tell this is going to be messy.

  “Oh, hello! I’m Dave Ross. Are you Mr. Marvin… uh… Johnson?” the man says, standing up and smiling hugely, like he’s shocked to see a black boy walking into the room.

  We shake hands. “Yes, I am.” There’s a short pause before we sit simultaneously.

  The man shuffles through a large stack of papers in front of him. “I can’t seem to find your application,” he says finally, organizing the stack again.

  I flinch. “Oh, I’m sorry, sir. I meant to send the application in early, before the college fair, but I didn’t end up having a chance.”

  “Young man, MIT is looking for students who are goal-oriented and want to be there and nowhere else. We expect to sit down with students who are truly committed to their futures.”

  I nod, looking away from him, wanting to explain everything that’s been happening, but I don’t. And I can feel the sweat forming all over my body in hidden crevices.

  “So, what makes you an MIT man?” he says, skepticism creeping into his voice.

  “I don’t know, sir. It’s just been a dream of mine to get into MIT, change the world, show people what I can achieve. Sometimes it feels like people don’t think I can achieve anything, and I want to prove them wrong.”

  He runs a hand through his scruffy hair, frowning. “If I had a dime for every time someone gave me that answer, I’d have a year’s salary.”

  I pause, feeling my heart sink, the sting of defeat pinching me.

  “Let’s rephrase the question. What do you want out of MIT?”

  “A decent education.” My shoulders shrug.

  “You can get that at a lot of schools.” He pauses, tilting his glasses down from his face a little. “So, why MIT?”

  I blink, feeling beads of sweat on my forehead. My back sticks to the chair like a wet page.

  “Sir, MIT is all I’ve ever wanted,” I say. “Since I was in the fourth grade, I knew that I wanted to be at this school. I knew I wanted to be someplace where I’d defy all the odds, where I’d grow and become a better person, where I’d get one of the finest educations this country has to offer.”

  “Now, that’s more of an answer for us, Mr. Johnson.” He nods slowly, marking down notes. “What do your parents think of your dream of attending MIT?”

  My tongue presses up against my cheek, and I look at the ceiling, thinking about Principal Dodson telling me not to embarrass
him. I tell him the truth. “Dad is in jail for a crime he didn’t commit, because our justice system is corrupt, and sometimes it feels like I don’t even have a dad anymore because of that.”

  I watch his eyebrows furrow and he gives me a side-smile, like he feels sorry for me.

  “What about your mother?”

  “Mama doesn’t know much about this interview,” I answer him. Really, she doesn’t know about it, period.

  “Why?” He leans back, chewing on the cap of his pen. “Why doesn’t your mother know?”

  “Her mind is somewhere else.” I sigh. And now I’m realizing that mine is also.

  “Where, Mr. Johnson? Where is her mind? Is it drugs?”

  I sort of roll my eyes, a bad taste in my mouth. “No. Sir.” My chest feels tight, my throat is numb, and it’s so fucking hard to breathe right now.

  “Then what is it, Mr. Johnson?” He squints at me, a small frown that passes quickly. I close my eyes for a few seconds, inhaling and exhaling hard.

  I see Tyler lying on that metal table. The video plays back in my head. Tyler’s voice swishes around the room like the blood in my veins, and I squeeze my eyes shut.

  Pop!

  Pop!

  Pop!

  I blink back the tears.

  “Her mind is on my brother. He die—no—he was murdered,” I say.

  “I’m so sorry to hear that, Mr. Johnson.” Silence takes over the room again.

  I nod, trying so hard to ignore the sourness in my stomach.

  “Your brother is dead, and you’re here?” He closes his files and points at me with his pen. “That says a lot about your character, Mr. Johnson. Very courageous of you.”

  Fuck that. Fuck courage. Fuck it all. And now I feel so shitty because he’s right. I’m here in a fucking interview and my brother is fucking dead.

  “Would you like to reschedule the interview? For an African-American male with your record—strong grades, glowing recommendations, and nearly perfect SAT scores—I’d love to give this a second chance. We need more students like you, Mr. Johnson.”

  I try to ignore his you-are-smart-for-a-black-kid suggestion. “Maybe this isn’t a good idea after all.”

  He leans back in his seat. “I see. How about this?” He drops his pen on the desk in front of him. “The first part of the application is due January first. How about you send your application in, and if everything is as impressive as we’ve been led to expect, I’ll be happy to recommend you. I wouldn’t normally tell a student that before seeing his formal application, but I think you’re potentially the right fit for MIT, and you’d help diversify our student body. How does that sound?”

  I brush my face with the palms of my hands, feeling my eyes blink one, two, three times. “Yes, I’ll have it ready by then.” My heart thuds and my ears ring, but there’s a blanket of calmness that suddenly wraps around me.

  “Very well, Mr. Johnson.” We shake hands again.

  As I leave the room, my phone buzzes in my pocket.

  I silently wish for it to be Mama, or maybe Ivy and G-mo asking how everything went down with my interview, but it’s just a Twitter notification that Faith is now following me.

  • 19 •

  DATE: NOVEMBER 16, 2018

  TO: MARVIN D. JOHNSON (MY SON)

  FROM: JAMAL P. JOHNSON

  PRISON NUMBER: 2076-14-5555

  MESSAGE:

  Son,

  I don’t have the words to express my pain. I know it’s a pain you’re feeling, too.

  People will try to convince you that you don’t deserve to live.

  That you don’t deserve to exist.

  They’ll ignore your voice. Lock you up.

  They’ll even kill you to take you out of this world.

  And through it all, you have to fight. Fight to remind yourself that you do matter. That you do deserve to exist. That you do deserve to have your voice heard.

  When the whole world’s trying to convince you that you don’t matter, it can be a constant struggle—day in, day out—to remember that you do.

  But you have to. Because if you don’t, then that’s really when you’ve lost yourself.

  Tyler is gone, and as his and your father I should’ve been there, should’ve protected him. I’m sorry, Marvin. But I want to do better by you.

  I know you’re feeling anger. You’re feeling hatred for the man who took Tyler away from us. But don’t let that anger and hatred consume you, or that man’s taken your life, too.

  I love you.

  Stay strong,

  Daddy

  If you have a brother, and he dies, what do you do? Do you suddenly stop saying that you have one? Do you pretend he was just a piece of your past that you’ll slowly start to forget?

  I remember the huge protests after other shootings of black and brown kids. I need to do that, too. I need to make people aware of what happened to Tyler. I have to lift my voice, and I can’t keep being quiet, sitting around as if I’m waiting for things to fix themselves.

  I stay home to be with Mama the next day, laptop turned away so that she doesn’t know I’m scrolling through pages and pages of Google searches on how to begin protests. I can’t just sit at home and cry and grieve because that ain’t going to do shit, and it ain’t going to bring Tyler back either.

  Mama gets up to go into her room, but I barely look away from the laptop. The sites provide lots of advice, like to have a goal in mind, and to choose a time and location that will work for the most people, and to remember that even if someone tries to shut it down, my voice deserves to be heard just as much as anyone else’s. Some sites say I need permits to start a protest, but permits don’t always get approved. The most important part of planning a protest is making sure people know about it. Some of the biggest protests took off because word spread through social media, like Twitter and Facebook and Tumblr.

  I spend most of my day looking up the most successful protests, like the 2011 Egyptian revolution, and the Black Lives Matter protests, too. And after hours of searching through sites on protests, I find contact information for a man named Albert Sharp. He coordinates protests right here in Sterling Point for civil liberties and unjust events, like the killing of my brother. I send him an e-mail. He’s the perfect person to help me plan the protest that Tyler deserves. My blood runs hot just thinking about it.

  Ivy and G-mo stop over after school. They come bringing me Hot Fries and peanut butter M&M’s and stories about all the mess going around—mess ranging from general high school drama to people spreading lies about Tyler, like how he was a gangbanging thug.

  I squeeze my eyes shut and practice breathing in and out.

  “How’d you sleep?” Ivy asks me, breaking the quiet.

  “Fine,” I lie. I couldn’t sleep last night. Something in my head, in my chest, in my stomach refused to shut off and allow me to fucking sleep. The whole night I just stared at the cloak-like darkness of my ceiling, hoping to at least feel Tyler’s presence.

  My mind replays the video of Tyler’s murder—over and over again.

  Pop! Pop! Pop! Man, I’m losing it.

  Ivy takes my hand. “You don’t need to lie—not to us, Marvin.”

  I tear up. The air’s burning my skin. I take my hand away, wipe my eyes. “I’m just sick of sitting here and not doing anything.”

  G-mo raises his eyebrows. “What would you do?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve been looking up ways to protest. And there’s this guy, Albert Sharp. I don’t know.”

  We sit there for a while, and Mama comes out of her room. She doesn’t say anything, just shuffles into the living room, her hair a mess and dark circles around her eyes. Ivy and G-mo greet her, but she doesn’t say anything—just fiddles with a cigarette and a lighter, struggling to get it lit. I look at Mama and my heart breaks all over again, because I don’t think I’m looking at her—not really. I’m looking at a shadow of her, since the real Mama is gone, just like Tyler.

  But I can’t los
e myself, too. I have to focus on getting him justice. Letting the whole world know that he was murdered. Having the whole world screaming his name. That’s what Tyler deserves. That’s what Tyler would want.

  Mama sits down beside me on the couch.

  Something’s pulling at my lungs. And my throat feels like it’s getting tight.

  Shit. Shit. Shit. I lay my hands out in my lap and put my head down.

  “He’s fucking gone,” I mumble, my voice cracking.

  Mama’s shadow grips my hand, squeezing tight as if she’s trying to tell me something without using words, like We’re in this together. Like she’s trying to bring herself back into this life.

  A breaking news alert flashes red on the TV with the caption STERLING POINT OFFICER ARRESTED FOR THE DEATH OF TYLER JOHNSON.

  “Finally” is all Mama says, and it comes out in a really hopeful breath. “All I want is for that man to pay for what he did.”

  A picture of the officer’s face flashes across the screen. He has chilling blue eyes and balding blond hair and a yellow mustache. I know he’ll be seared into my memory as the man who took my brother away from me. The man who looked at my brother, a living person, a working body, an actual soul, and decided to take him out of this world because of his own hatred, his own darkness. I don’t want to look at that man’s face on the TV screen, because if I do, I think I’ll scream and cry and throw up all at the same time. But I can’t let myself look away. I have to look evil in the eye—have to face him, the way Tyler did. This man’s face was the last he saw. I try not to imagine what that must’ve been like for him—the pain of bullets ripping through his body, the shock as he hit the ground, and the only other person with him is this man, his killer.