Tyler Johnson Was Here(33)

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 blank 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.”