Stand Your Ground: A Novel Read online

  “Okay, I won’t tell him that he has to turn in,” Tyrone said, saving me from myself. Because thoughts of Heather were getting me riled up. Now that Tyrone had mentioned Heather, I was beginning to think maybe we should keep Marquis on lockdown (and away from that white girl) until he left for college in the fall.

  “Thank you,” I said to Tyrone.

  “But I’m still gonna talk to him. Make sure that his head is on straight since I did let him go out earlier. And I’m going to talk to him about the suspension . . .”

  This time I did roll my eyes.

  “Make sure he understands the seriousness of it.”

  “He does.”

  “Make sure he knows it could’ve messed with his scholarship to UPenn.”

  “He knows.”

  “Make sure he understands why he won’t be valedictorian now, even though he earned it.”

  “He understands.”

  “Well, if you can guarantee that he knows all of that, then he’s off lockdown.” Tyrone shook his head. “You’re a softy, you know.” He kissed me again as he tied his robe. “Our son better thank you, ’cause if you weren’t so cute . . .”

  I laughed, but then stopped suddenly when the doorbell rang and a hard knock followed.

  Tyrone and I frowned together. It was just a little after nine now, and I couldn’t imagine who would be coming by our home. Marquis and his friends knew that they couldn’t hang out on school nights, even when Marquis wasn’t on lockdown.

  No more than a couple of seconds passed before the visitor on the other side of our front door rang the bell again and then another knock.

  “Who can that be?” I asked, pushing myself up from the bed.

  Tyrone held up his hand. “You stay here. I’ll get it.”

  But before my husband could make it to the top of the staircase, I had wrapped myself inside my robe and stepped into the hallway. Marquis’s bedroom door was closed, which was the only reason why I was sure he hadn’t bounced down the stairs to get to the door before his father.

  By the time I made my way to the top of the stairs, Tyrone was at the bottom and opening the door.

  “Mr. Johnson?”

  The door was open wide enough for me to see the two policemen, one black, one white, standing shoulder to shoulder, looking like soldiers.

  “Yes,” my husband said, his voice two octaves deeper now, the way it always dropped when he stood in front of men wearing uniforms.

  “May we come in?” the black one asked.

  Those words made me descend the stairs even though I wasn’t properly dressed for company. Not that two policemen showing up in the middle of the night could ever be called welcome visitors.

  “What’s this about?” My husband asked the question for both of us.

  The policemen stepped inside, though Tyrone hadn’t extended an invitation. Both men glanced up at me as I stood on the second stair, gripping the lapels of my bathrobe to make sure it didn’t open and trying to come up with a single reason why two officers would be in our home.

  “Ma’am.” It seemed that the black officer had been assigned to do all the talking as the white one just nodded at me.

  “What’s this about?” Tyrone asked again.

  They still stood shoulder to shoulder, at attention, as if this were a formal visitation. “Would you mind if we went in there?” The black officer twisted slightly, nodding toward our living room. “I’d like for us to sit down.”

  If the officer had been speaking to me, I would’ve said yes just because it seemed like the right thing to do.

  But Tyrone said, “That’s not necessary; just tell me what this is about,” because that was right to him. My husband had been raised on the hard streets of Philly, where a policeman, no matter his color, was never an invited guest.

  The officers exchanged glances before the black one said, “Marquis Johnson, is that your son?”

  Tyrone’s eyes narrowed while mine widened.

  “What’s this about?” It felt like that was the fiftieth time my husband asked that question, and now I needed to hear the answer, too.

  “There’s been a shooting . . .”

  “Oh, my God,” I gasped, and covered my mouth. “Did something happen to one of our son’s friends?”

  The officers looked at each other again before the black one continued, “No. It’s your son, Marquis. He’s been shot.”

  “What?” Tyrone and I said together.

  “That’s impossible,” Tyrone continued. “Marquis is upstairs. He’s in his room.” And then he yelled out, “Marquis, come down here.”

  I didn’t let even a second pass before I dashed up the stairs, taking them two at a time, moving like I hadn’t in years. Not that I had any doubt. Of course Marquis was in his bedroom. He’d come home while Tyrone and I . . . had been spending some personal time together. I mean, he hadn’t come into our bedroom, but he never did when we had the door closed.

  Tonight, he’d been home by eight, nine at the latest. I was sure of that.

  Since Marquis had become a teenager, I never entered his room without knocking. But tonight, I busted in. And then I stood there . . . in the dark. I stood there staring at the blackness, though there was enough light from the hallway for me to see that Marquis wasn’t sitting at his desk, he wasn’t lying on his bed, he wasn’t here.

  “Marquis,” I called out anyway, then rushed back into the hall and headed to the bathroom. “Marquis!” Just like with his bedroom, I busted into the bathroom and stared at the empty space.

  It was only then that I felt my heart pounding, though I’m sure the assault on my chest began the moment the policeman had told that lie that my son had been shot.

  “Marquis,” I called out as I jerked back the shower curtain that revealed an empty tub.

  “Marquis,” I shouted as I now searched our guest bedroom. No one, nothing there.

  I returned to his bedroom, turned on his light, then swung open the door to his closet before I crouched down and searched under his bed. “Marquis,” I screamed as I went into my bedroom, wondering why my son was playing this game of hide-and-seek, something we hadn’t done since he was four. When he finally came out of hiding, he was going to have to deal with me!

  I rushed back into the hallway and bumped right into Tyrone.

  “He’s not up here,” I said to my husband as he grasped my arms. “He’s downstairs somewhere. Did you check the kitchen? Wait, I know,” I continued, without letting my husband speak. “He’s in the family room. I know you said he couldn’t watch the TV in there, but you were about to take him off lockdown anyway and you know that Marquis—”

  “Janice.” Tyrone shook me a little.

  I looked up into Tyrone’s eyes, which were glassy with tears.

  “What?” I frowned. “You don’t believe those policemen, do you?”

  He nodded at the same time that I shook my head.

  “No, they’re lying.”

  “They’re not lying,” Tyrone said softly. “They showed me a picture, just to make sure.”

  Now I whipped my head from side to side because I didn’t want to hear anything else from Tyrone. I couldn’t believe that he would accept the word of two men in blue. Wasn’t he the one who always said that you couldn’t trust the police?

  Well, if he wasn’t going to look for our son, I was. “Marquis!” I screamed.

  Tyrone still nodded, and now a single tear dripped from his eye. “Janice, listen to me.”

  For a moment, I tried to remember the last time my husband had cried. And I couldn’t think of a single time.

  “Janice.” He repeated my name.

  “No!”

  “Marquis is gone.”

  “No!”

  “He was shot over on Avon Street.”

  “No!”

  “He’s dead.”

  “Why would you believe them?” I cried. “Why don’t you believe me?”

  My husband looked at me as if I was talking foolishn
ess. And I looked at him and begged with every fiber of my being for him to tell me that he was wrong. Or for him to wake me from this nightmare. Either scenario would work for me.

  But Tyrone did neither of those things. He just held me and stared into my eyes. And as I stared into his, I saw the truth.

  Not many words that Tyrone had shared had made it to the understanding part of my brain. But four words did: Marquis. Gone. Shot. Dead.

  “Marquis is gone?” I whispered.

  Tyrone nodded.

  “Someone shot my son?”

  He nodded again.

  “And now he’s dead?”

  This time, Tyrone didn’t nod. He just pulled me close, so close that I could feel the hammering of his heart. But though there were few times when I didn’t want to be held by my husband, I didn’t want him to hold me now. I didn’t want him to comfort me. Because if what Tyrone and these policemen were saying was true, then I didn’t want to be in my husband’s arms.

  If everything they said about my son was the truth, then all I wanted was to be dead, too.

  Chapter 2

  Death.

  I couldn’t get that word out of my head.

  Death.

  Even though I kept trying to.

  Death.

  I had to stop thinking about it because if I didn’t, the whole world would have to end.

  “Okay, Mr. and Mrs. Johnson,” the officer said as he opened the door, “if you can have a seat in here, I’ll be right back.”

  “Please, I need to know about my son,” I said. They had already kept us waiting in the front of the police station. Had us sitting there like we were in the reception area of a doctor’s office or something. And now they were herding us back to some room, just to leave us to wait some more?

  But our waiting didn’t seem to be any kind of concern to the officer. He looked at me with eyes that didn’t seem happy about having to explain himself again. “I need to get the detective and we’ll be back.”

  “But when will I see my son?” I asked right before he closed the door.

  Turning around, I moved farther into the room and imagined this had to be how it felt to be confined in a prison cell. This room was that small . . . and that cold. A rectangular table consumed most of the space, which was lit only by a single bulb hanging loosely from the ceiling. There was a window, a small one, but no light came from the outside. There was only darkness.

  Edging toward the table, I took in the glass on the opposite wall and I wondered if the police were behind that mirror, like on TV, watching me. Though I wasn’t sure what they expected to see . . . I was just a mother about to die from grief.

  I wanted to stand, but there was this blackened cloud that hung over me, making me weary. So I sat on the wooden chair that felt harder than it probably was. But I sat on the edge, ready to jump with joy when the police came back and told me this had all been a mistake.

  It wasn’t until Tyrone took my hand and squeezed it that I even remembered he was with me, and if I’d had the strength, I would’ve thanked him. He hadn’t left my side since we’d heard this news—what? One, two, three hours ago? He’d done just about everything he could, except breathe for me since. From dressing me (to make sure that I didn’t walk out of the house naked), to holding me steady on my wobbly legs, it was because of Tyrone that my heart was still beating. He didn’t know it, but he’d kept me away from the medicine cabinet that housed all kinds of old prescriptions that I never threw away, but couldn’t stop thinking about from the moment he’d convinced me that what the police had said about Marquis was true.

  “What are the police doing?” I asked Tyrone. But I didn’t let enough time pass for him to answer. “Why do they have us locked in here? And why won’t they let me see Marquis?”

  He held my hand tighter as if that gesture was part of the answer. “They want to talk to us first. Get some answers.”

  “What kind of answers can I give them? I’m the one with all the questions.”

  “I know,” my husband said. “But let’s be patient.”

  That was when I knew for sure that the world had turned on its axis. My husband was calling for patience? With the police? For the first time I realized that he was in shock, too.

  Tyrone kept on: “They have to talk to us now because if they let us see Marquis first . . .”

  He didn’t have to finish. Talk first because after seeing Marquis, not only would I no longer be able to speak, I doubted if I’d even be able to breathe.

  I moved to stand, but before I could get out of my seat, the door opened and in marched the white officer who’d come to our home and with him this time was a different black man. This one wasn’t wearing a uniform.

  It was the one I hadn’t seen before who said, “Mr. and Mrs. Johnson, I’m Detective Ferguson; I’m really sorry for your loss.”

  “Thank you,” Tyrone said, though I didn’t say a word. For me, for my heart, it wasn’t official yet that I’d lost anything.

  “We just want to ask you a few questions.”

  “I understand,” Tyrone said. “But the thing is, my wife and I have questions, too.” My husband continued in a soft voice that I’d never heard come out of him before. “What happened to our son? All we know is that he was shot dead.”

  The men exchanged a glance before the one named Ferguson nodded to the other. The other officer said, “Yes, but I think if we get some questions answered, we’ll be able to fill in a lot of the blanks. Just a few questions.”

  Tyrone nodded his cooperation; I didn’t move a single muscle.

  The officer asked, “Do you have any idea why your son was over on Avon in Haverford?”

  Tyrone said, “He was probably heading home after dropping his girlfriend off. She lives somewhere over in that area . . . I think.”

  The officers looked at each other before the one who’d been doing all the speaking asked, “Girlfriend?”

  Tyrone nodded. “Wait, was she with him? Is she all right?”

  The officer asked, “What’s her name?”

  “Heather . . .” And then Tyrone stopped.

  He liked Marquis’s girlfriend so much, but he didn’t even know her last name. I answered, “Nelson. Heather Nelson,” because I didn’t like her. So I knew everything about her.

  “And Heather lives in that neighborhood?”

  “Yes, but is she all right? Was she with Marquis?” my husband asked again.

  “She’s fine. She was with him. We only asked because we wanted to make sure that we were talking about the same young lady.”

  “Oh, my God,” I pressed my hand against my chest. “She was with him when this happened? Then I need to talk to her.”

  “We’ve talked to her, ma’am, and that’s why we needed to talk to you. Your son, is he a member of a gang?”

  “What?”

  “No!” Tyrone said at the same time. And then, the way my husband’s shoulders rose up, I could see that the patience he’d told me to have wasn’t a part of him anymore. “And why would you ask us that?” he asked, his voice once again strong, once again two octaves deeper. “You need to answer that question and a whole lot more for me. What happened to my son?”

  They had mistaken my grieving-and-in-shock husband for a passive black man. But the way he sat now, leaning forward with his palms flat on the table, and his eyes giving them a stare that could have sharpened stone, the policeman decided to answer.

  “The reason we’re questioning you is because we don’t know exactly what happened and we’re trying to put it all together.”

  “Well then, tell me the part that you do know,” my husband said as if he was the one in charge now.

  There was a brief moment of silence as the men glanced at me, then back at my husband. “It seems your son was in the car with his . . . girlfriend . . . and they were approached by someone,” the one who’d been doing all the talking said.

  “A gang member?” Tyrone asked, then before the police could answer, h
e added, “I don’t care what that other boy told you, my son was not in a gang.”

  Another glance exchanged, and then, “Well, that’s why we’re asking you these questions.”

  “So do you have the shooter in custody? Do you have the boy who murdered my son?”

  “We’re still trying to gather the information,” he said, his voice as steady as a weatherman’s.

  “So are you going to tell me the name of the punk who killed my boy?”

  “We don’t want to tell you something and then later find out we were wrong.”

  “Well, right now you’re not telling me anything!” Tyrone’s volume rose.

  The officer kept his voice level as he said, “We’re telling you what we know and we’re trying to gather everything so that we can give you a full account.”

  “How are you gathering information from us when we weren’t there?” I asked.

  “You know things about your son—”

  “Like whether or not he was in a gang?” Tyrone spat.

  The officer nodded, as if he were now the one with patience. “We had to ask that.”

  “Because that’s the first thing you think of when you see two black boys, right?” my husband said, his tone accusing them. “Well, I don’t know about the other boy, but our son wasn’t in a gang.”

  The officer glanced at the detective, but the white officer was the one who kept speaking. “We had to ask, just like we have to ask did your son carry a firearm.”

  Tyrone slammed his fists on the table, startling me and making both officers jump, though only the white one raised his arm as if he were reaching for his gun.

  Just as quickly, I placed my hand on Tyrone’s arm, feeling the bulge of his biceps. My husband was ready to punch these men out. But since I’d just lost one-half of the reason why my heart beat every day, I had to do everything that I could to keep the other half with me.

  So I kept my hand on him, and just like I always did, I calmed him down by my touch alone.