Tyler Johnson Was Here(40)

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 lose 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.

And I’m feeling really conflicted right now. This sort of thing happens too often. Innocent people getting killed by the cops. I’ve heard it so many times. No indictments. No convictions. No punishment at all. I mean, this is a step in the right direction, and I should be happy, right? They’re treating this officer’s actions as a crime. But for now at least, he’s still alive, and that’s more than what can be said for Tyler.

Ivy and G-mo exchange looks, and Ivy keeps shaking her head, like they’re having a telepathic conversation.

“What?” I say. “What’s going on?”

Ivy lets out a breath, and G-mo leans forward in his seat. “There’s been anger, you know, for what happened,” he says.

“Just say it, man.”

He sucks in air. “Well, some people are angry that there’s anger.”