Stand Your Ground: A Novel (3 page)

My husband looked at me as if I was talking foolishness. 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.

D
eath
.

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, he 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.

“Mr. Johnson.” Those were the first words Detective Ferguson spoke since his greeting, and he called my husband’s name in a tone that sounded like he was giving him a warning. “We want to find out what happened as much as you do.”

A couple of long moments and hard stares passed between the two black men before Tyrone finally sat back and held up his hands. “We’ll answer your questions, and then you answer ours.”

The detective gave a slow nod. “Fair enough.” He paused, glanced at the white officer, then leaned over. “Okay, so did your son have any guns?” Ferguson asked, taking over the interrogation.

“No.”

“Not that you know of?” the other officer said.

With a glare, my husband repeated, “No.”

Then, “What about anything else that he had in his car?” Ferguson asked.

“What do you mean?”

“Any kind of weapon?”

“Look, my son wasn’t like that. Let me answer your next ten questions for you. My son wasn’t violent; he was probably eight the last time he had a fight. He wasn’t in a gang, he didn’t sell drugs, he didn’t carry any weapons of any kind.”

“What about a baseball bat? Did he carry a bat?” Detective Ferguson asked.

I squeezed Tyrone’s arm, but this time it was more for me than for him. Because this time, I wanted to stand up and punch somebody.

Tyrone said, “No, he didn’t
carry a bat
.”

“Not that you know of,” the other officer said again.

Detective Ferguson must’ve known that was all my husband was going to be able to take. “Okay, so let me tell you what we know,” the detective offered. “Your son and Heather were sitting in his car . . . just talking, maybe. And this is where it gets murky. It seems that your son and the man who approached the car exchanged some words, but the man walked away. Apparently, that was when your son got out the car and there was some kind of confrontation that turned into an altercation.” Then the detective stopped as if that were enough of an explanation.

“So how did my son end up dead?” Tyrone asked.

“That’s what we’re trying to figure out.”

“So some guy just shot my son?” I said. “For no reason?”

“Your son got out of the car, ma’am,” the white officer said as if that were reason enough.

“And now there’s a death sentence for getting out of your car? That’s why he was murdered?” I cried.

“As we explained”—Detective Ferguson was back to talking—“we don’t have the full picture yet.”

“I just want to know one thing,” Tyrone said. He glanced at the men as if he were telling them that they’d better have the right answers. “The boy who killed my son . . . Has he been arrested?”

“Not yet . . .”

“Why not?” I screamed, feeling my tears on their way.

“Because we’re still working on this,” Ferguson said.

The other added, “He’s claiming self-defense. And if it was self-defense, then . . .”

I frowned. “Self-defense? But I know my son. He didn’t attack anybody.”

“He got out of the car and there was a confrontation, ma’am. And if anyone feels as if his life is in danger, he doesn’t have to retreat. He can stay and protect himself.”

My frown deepened as I thought back to the times when I’d heard words like that, similar ones on the news, with all of the recent killings of young black men. But that was down south. In Florida. That kind of thing couldn’t happen here. Not in the North. In Pennsylvania. And it certainly was never used when one black man shot another.

“You’re making it sound like . . . like this . . . like he’s saying he was standing his ground or something,” I said.

The officers nodded together and one said, “Pennsylvania is a stand-your-ground state, ma’am.”

“But . . . I thought that was just in Florida?” I was doing all the talking now.

“No, it’s not.”

I wanted to burst into tears right then. I didn’t know much about self-defense and stand your ground, except that everyone who used it in court seemed to get away with murder. Did this mean that the boy who shot my son was going to walk, too? And that’s just what I asked the officer.

He shrugged. “We’re going to do our best to find out what happened and to make sure justice is served . . . either way.”

I sat there, stunned. The way these men were talking—this was just some black-on-black crime to them. They weren’t giving any indication that they would put much effort into this case.