Tyler Johnson Was Here: Chapters 21–34

Two weeks later, in early December, the preliminary hearing finally comes around.

The grief comes in calmer waves now, though it still wreaks total havoc on my life.

The bailiff shows me and Mama to the front, where we've got designated seats behind the assistant district attorney, a white lady, who turns around to shake Mama’s hand, and then it gets so painfully silent I can hear Mama’s heart beating.

The bailiff continues, spewing words that don’t quite make sense to me, and he stays still—so still, his voice so monotonous.

“... the presence of the flag of our nation and the emblem of our Constitution in department forty-seven, we are now in session. Please be seated.”

The room is a stark and startling white, except for the seats.

The defense attorney speaks up. “Objection! Inconclusive. We’ve all reviewed it, and it’s clear that he resisted.”

The world is muffled in my ears, and it sounds like I’m in a glass jar and there are vibrations bouncing off me, not quite clear, like I am floating in a hazy vertigo.

"Objection!"
“Sustained,” the judge says.

“Noted. So, you were aware there was the potential for gang violence and police intervention?”

“So, you’re saying that you went to this party oblivious to the consequences?”

“No. He was just asking why he was being targeted, which anyone would do if they were scared. The officer didn’t have to resort to the gun as his first option.”

Mama’s in the kitchen, pots and pans rattling together in a cacophonous symphony.

“Communities, I hope, will gather and show their respect first and foremost, but I believe there is definitely a divide in our area. And I also strongly believe that it’s up to everyone, regardless of race, to heal that divide and come together to fight police brutality.”

I sit close to Mama on our small slashed-up couch, feeling numb all over. And it’s in this moment that I start to feel sorry for myself again, and I’m not sure if that’s at all what I’m supposed to be feeling, but it’s consuming.

When I go back to school two days after the hearing, news of Lance Anderson’s protest has spread to just about every Sojo High teacher, every student, every janitor, and this means that everyone’s now having serious, hard, racially charged discussions for once in the school’s history. Sojo High, though predominantly black and Hispanic, is still divided.

The news anchorman, who has the whitest button-up to match his skin, hair long gone, is describing the protestors—the ones who are advocates for justice, the ones who want the best for the world, the ones who want to do the right thing.

And I’m scanning everywhere, wondering if all hell is about to break loose, trying to convince myself that this isn’t a scene from some dystopian movie.

I look back over at the line of police officers, and I see a few of them on top of a protestor, one of them with his knee in the protestor’s back as he lies sprawled on the ground.

The fist in the air originated as a symbol of black power and pride, but it’s also a symbol of solidarity and unity, and I think the fact that so many protestors showed up says a lot about how we stand as a people, and about how we can bring change. Together.

Rubber bullets hail down on my skin like sharp droplets from the sky.

The entire street becomes a panorama of oranges and reds and yellows. Fire everywhere.

G-mo has this huge, sneaky grin on his face, like I am full of dirty little details and he’s about to get an earful.

And suddenly, all I can think about, all that is running through my mind, is firsts. My first time hearing the sound of a gun, my first time feeling loss, my first time meeting my best friends, my first time without a brother, my first time seeing bigotry, my first time being told I was not good enough, my first time being told that I was—and am—good enough...

Mama, still smelling like hard work and cigarette smoke, cleans out Tyler’s room. The pain on her face causes me an intolerable amount of agony, and it takes a herculean effort to blink away the tears when she asks for my help.

Mama keeps on keeping on with picking apart his room, until it’s nothingness, until it’s bare, until all that is left is a mattress and a bed frame and a box in the corner filled with all the tangible things we’ll remember about him.

And even G-mo tells me that he put in his application to UCLA and is pending late admission. It turns out the girl he’s talking to has some sort of connection with the head honcho over there, like an aunt or uncle or cousin or something, and his chances of getting in have, like, doubled.

I sit down and she starts going on and on about the Sterling Point Estuary, and how she thinks it’s the most peaceful place in all of Alabama to put him, about how Auntie Nicola thinks so, too.

We pick up G-mo and Ivy from their places on our way to the Sterling Point Estuary, which is just a strait separating three different cities far away from Sterling Point, and it takes what feels like hours to get here.

I take another breath and begin pouring the ashes into the water, watching them float and then sink and disperse.