EIGHTEEN-YEAR-OLD Josiah Tucker sat up in his bed and stretched his arms above his head. It had been a long twelve years. Thirteen if kindergarten counted. Fourteen if he included having to repeat the third grade due to excessive absenteeism. Despite the impressive 4.1 GPA that netted him the title of valedictorian of his graduating class, nothing about school had been easy for Josiah. The teen had many fond memories of his time at King College Prep Academy, a school known as Martin Luther King High. If Josiah never saw the painted halls of the school again, it would be just fine with him. He’d been there … done that.

The sounds of faint popping noises echoed in the air of Josiah’s bedroom as he snapped his head from side to side, ridding his neck of the stiffness that set in every night as he slept on the lumpy pillow and sunken mattress, both of which were probably as old as he … if not older. At six two, he’d outgrown the twin-size mattress at least four years ago, but it was the best that he could do. The bed was the perfect centerpiece among the other tattered, outdated, and unmatched bedroom furniture. Josiah’s cedar wood chest still wore the original ugly scars it had when it was purchased from a local Goodwill three years ago. A makeshift computer station made of a standing, portable, wooden dinner tray and a metal folding chair was tucked in the corner. And to prove once and for all that one man’s junk was another man’s treasure, only half of the drawers were usable in the black lacquer dresser that had been left behind as garbage by the apartment’s former tenants.

Like any teenager, Josiah desired to have the best and latest of everything, but his part-time job as a fast-food cook just didn’t pay enough to buy new furniture. It barely paid the bills and kept food on the table for his family.

Family, right. That was a joke, but not the ha-ha kind.

Josiah was an only child. At least, as far as he knew, he was. He was the only one that his mother had given birth to, but there was no telling how many other siblings he had by way of his dad. His father lived in … well, to tell the truth, Josiah didn’t know where Al was these days. Al… It sounded so generic and fabricated. No last name. Just Al; that’s all he’d ever heard. Sometimes Josiah wondered if it were even his real name or if his mother truly had any idea who his father was. That was another one of those not so funny running jokes in his life.

Last Josiah heard, “Al” lived somewhere down south, but even if there was any truth to it, that could have changed a hundred times over by now. Josiah had no memories of his invisible father. He was told that he had inherited Al’s smooth brown skin, lean, muscular build, and thick, coarse hair. But the only real proof Josiah had that he looked like his dad was his short, dark, rail-thin, wavy-haired mama. He definitely hadn’t gotten any of his physical traits from her. None except his eyes, that is. The hazel eyes that stared back at him every time he looked in the mirror came compliments of Reeva Mae Tucker.

Reeva claimed that he had spent time with his father. She said Josiah was five … maybe six years old the last time he saw Al. Josiah didn’t believe her. Reeva was always lying. She timed her lie just right. She made sure that it would be too long ago for him to have any firsthand memories of him and too long ago to have any firsthand love for him. He couldn’t miss a father that he’d never had.

And speaking of the elusive parent, Reeva wasn’t much better. She was still around, but she might as well not be. From the time of Josiah’s birth, she’d been in and out of his life like a babysitter with a second, more important, higher paying job. Two sunrises and two sunsets had come and gone since Josiah had last seen her. He wasn’t worried though. Her disappearance wasn’t abnormal. She’d come banging on the front door when she sobered up enough to remember where she lived. Josiah imagined that his alcoholic, drug-addicted, man-hungry mother was somewhere coming down from her latest high. When the drugs wore off, the hunger would set in, and she’d come raiding the refrigerator like she’d been the one to purchase the food that was sparsely stocked there. Like she ever spent what little money she got her hands on buying anything other than her poisonous vices.

“Ugh!” Just thinking about it annoyed Josiah. “Can’t wait to hear what excuse you’ll have for missing my graduation, oh loving mother.” Sarcasm dripped from Josiah’s words as he released them into the air.

In frustration, he pounded his fist against the headboard, and the worn sheet on his bed floated to the side like a slip of paper when Josiah freed his legs from the thin covers. He came to a standing position and gave his body one last stretch, and then removed his sweaty T-shirt. Two things were certain about his home. In the winter it wouldn’t be heated evenly, and in the summer it would be sweltering. Central air was for rich folks, and the rickety ceiling fan that twirled above his bed did little more than stir the stale warmth.

Josiah shuffled to the green folding chair that sat behind the dinner tray in the corner of his poorly decorated room. He stared at the gold and black keepsakes that he’d so carefully placed there last night. His graduation cap rested on top of the matching gown, and his diploma lay beside the cap. Josiah forgot his disappointment long enough to smile, but the moment was fleeting.

Since ninth grade, school had been an escape mechanism for Josiah. His advance placement classes and elevated GPA were probably a bit deceiving. Josiah wasn’t a prodigy by any stretch of the imagination. He only kept his head buried between the pages of his textbooks so he wouldn’t have to breathe the air of real life. World Literature, AP Calculus, Spanish III, AP Chemistry … all of them were coconspirators in his quest to avoid reality. Computer Programming III was his favorite. His fascination with technology gave him hours of relief from reality. Maybe he’d fire up his laptop later today and try and find something interesting enough to erase the memory of having no one sitting in the seats that had been reserved specifically for the family of the valedictorian.

Reeva had promised she’d be there. Said she was so proud of him that she didn’t know what to do. No way would she miss out on seeing the first step to her baby becoming a man. That’s what she said. But she said a lot of things. If Reeva kept only half of the promises she made, Josiah would be satisfied.

“Come water or high… whateva it is, I’m gon’ be sitting right there on that front row screaming to the top of my teeth.” Even then, she was drunk. Too smashed to understand that she’d gotten her words twisted. Too smashed to realize that she was talking way too loud. Too smashed to notice the disgusting particles of spit that flew from her mouth as she slurred out the lie.

Josiah should have known better than to believe her. But even with all the fabrications and broken vows Reeva had made in the past, he was sure that she’d make good on this one. What mother—perfect or imperfect—would miss her child’s graduation? What brand of liquor … what kind of drug … what breed of man was so irresistible that she would choose it over the opportunity to hear her son speak on behalf of his graduating class or see him march across the stage with honors cords and medallions draped around his neck?

Josiah shook his head. He almost felt too sorry for his mom to be mad at her. Almost. He hadn’t been the perfect child. Mistakes and bad decisions had been made on his part over the years too. But drugs and alcohol were two things that would never come nigh his body. Josiah had made that declaration a long time ago. He’d seen what they could do to a person. How their dignity could be stripped, how their outlook could be jaded; how their esteem could be shattered, how their dreams could be tormented; how their beauty could be robbed. A five-by-seven framed photo of his mother as a beautiful young teenager sat on Josiah’s dresser as a constant reminder of the latter. No. Josiah wanted no parts of drugs or alcohol. Life was hard enough as it was.

Turning back to face his bed, Josiah’s eyes fell to the grey piece of carpet that he had kneeled on just about every morning and every night for the past five years. Since the age of thirteen, he’d had a personal relationship with God. He hadn’t been the model Christian though. There had been times when he’d said the wrong things, gone the wrong places, and made the wrong decisions. But in the midst of his wandering, God would remind Josiah of how much He loved him, and somehow, Josiah always found his way back to his knees, the same posture he’d been in when he first met Christ.

His introduction to Christianity, and subsequently, the grey prayer mat, had come during one of his many stints in foster care, when the state would separate him from Reeva to give her time to seek permanent sobriety. Josiah’s Christ-connection was the only thing that kept him sane and focused. Prayer had gotten him through some of the roughest times of his life. Like the miracle that God worked when He gave Josiah just enough of a raise on his two-year anniversary at Bionic Burgers to pay the gas bill so he and his mother wouldn’t have to live without heat in the latest harsh winter that Chicago had endured. Or the pregnancy scare he got when he exchanged everything he knew to be right and righteous for fifteen minutes of pleasure with head cheerleader, Serena McCarthy, on the night of their junior prom. Josiah had prayed harder about that one than he did about the gas bill thing. He would have chosen any day to shiver himself to sleep for a few cold months than to have been forced to take on the lifetime responsibilities that came with fatherhood.

Why the Lord had been so merciful in the midst of his rebellion, Josiah didn’t know. He was just glad to have unmitigated proof that his heavenly Father really was a God of second chances. The scare was enough to make him a celibate senior despite the bait that adoring female classmates dangled in his face on a daily basis.

Josiah turned his eyes away from the prayer mat at his bedside and decided that he’d bathe and brush his teeth first. The heat had him feeling sticky, and he hated feeling unclean. Plus there was a bad taste in his mouth that he needed to get rid of. When he cupped his hands across his lips and nose and blew into them to test the severity of the damage done by the chicken pizza he’d eaten late last night—the one with the extra onions—Josiah rocked on his heels.

“Ooooo-wee!” He had to laugh at the magnitude of the lingering reek. Josiah was sure that God wouldn’t get close enough to him to hear his prayers if he didn’t freshen up first.

A half hour later, Josiah felt refreshed, having showered, brushed, and said his prayer before he stepped in the kitchen wearing a grey Hanes T-shirt and a pair of black Dockers shorts. He filled the sink with hot soapy water and wiped down the kitchen counter before preparing his favorite breakfast: a glass of orange juice, a bowl of Cinnamon Toast Crunch, and one slice of dry wheat toast. Then he took the same cloth and cleaned the already clean surface of their card-playing-sized dinner table before sitting in one of only two chairs. Shoving a spoonful of the sugary cereal in his mouth, Josiah picked up the small stack of envelopes that he had tossed on the kitchen table when post graduation activities left him too tired to thumb through them last night. It was time to determine which invoices would take all of his hard-earned dollars this month.

To Josiah’s surprise and delight, there was only one bill in the pile. The electric company would get theirs, but right now, he was more interested in looking in the other three envelopes; all from colleges. He’d begun getting and filling out college applications during the summer between eleventh and twelfth grades. The GPA he maintained at Martin Luther King had gotten Josiah noticed by some of the nation’s top universities. Opening these newest envelopes was just a formality. Josiah liked the feeling of having colleges kiss up to him in hopes that he’d choose them over their worthy opponents.

He had decided long ago to attend the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, accepting the offered full academic scholarship into their Department of Computer Science. North Carolina would do three important things for him. Give him the same alma mater as his basketball hero, Michael Jordan; empower him with all the computer knowledge he would need to become a systems analyst, and put just enough space between him and his mother so that he could keep pretty good tabs on her without her having easy access to him. Every time Josiah admitted to himself that the last reason was probably the most appealing, guilt hit him like a ton of bricks.

He knew that when his mother disappeared for days at a time, she was somewhere using or being used, but sometimes he looked forward to her drug-induced and/or sex-driven mini-vacations. It was a sad truth, but for Josiah, Reeva’s absent days were the only ones that carried a hint of what peace of mind must feel like. When his mother was home, he had to hide his belongings as though he shared his life with a kleptomaniac. When selling her body didn’t bring in enough money to support her expensive addictions, Reeva stole everything that she could get her hands on in order to make up the difference.

When Josiah left to go to school every morning, he carried his books in his hand. His backpack was too cluttered to accommodate any school supplies. His digital camera, MP3 player, laptop computer, collection of CDs and DVDs, and other valuables were kept there. The backpack went everywhere with him, to Bionic Burgers on days that he had shifts there, and to the vacant lot where he and his friends sometimes met to shoot hoops on Saturdays. Josiah even took the backpack of belongings with him to church on Sundays.

He had just eaten the last of his toast when the banging on the front door began. “Who is that knocking on my door like I stole something,” he whispered.

Josiah’s shoulders slumped, and a lung full of regretful air that released through his parted lips showered particles of toasted bread onto the surface of the table. In quick swallows, Josiah tried to drown his disappointment with the remaining juice in his glass. Reeva had returned a day sooner than normal. Usually when his mother took extended leave, she was gone for at least three days, sometimes longer. At the earliest, Josiah expected to see her when he returned home from tomorrow morning’s services at Everlasting Praise, the church down the street where he worshiped on Sundays.

“I’m coming,” he barked in aggravation as the hammering continued.

Josiah wanted to slip on his shoes before entering that part of the house, but the annoying banging demanded his attention. He walked on his heels, carefully examining the carpet before taking each step. The fibers of the matted, stained, puke green carpet that covered their living room floor felt like a tattered wig beneath Josiah’s bare feet as he made his way to the door. The man he saw on the other side wasn’t who he’d expected to see.

“Does a Ms. Reeva Tucker live here?”

The man who asked the question was one of Chicago’s finest; a man so tall that even Josiah had to look up at him. His stature was threatening, but his face was not. He had to be about six six and had short, mousse-spiked red hair and ruddy skin to match. He held his hat in his hand, and the early morning sunlight ricocheted off of the badge that was pinned to the front of his police uniform.

“Uh… no,” Josiah lied. He knew God wasn’t pleased with his blatant dishonesty, but Josiah wasn’t about to rat out his mama. Whatever Reeva was being accused of, she’d probably done, but he couldn’t be the one to put her behind bars. Not his own mother.

The officer cocked his head to the side and gave Josiah a look that told him that he wasn’t a good liar. “This is the address that we have for her.” He paused as if to give Josiah a second chance. “Are you sure she doesn’t live here?”

“I’m sure.” Josiah stood his lying ground. “Somebody must’ve given you the wrong address. I don’t know Reeva Mae Tucker.” When he tried to close the door, the strong arm of the law stopped him.

“Just a moment,” the uniformed man said. After a brief hesitation, he removed his hand from the door. “My name is Lieutenant Richard Slater.” The officer made the introduction, but was so busy looking over Josiah’s head to scope out the house that he never made eye contact. “Do you mind if I come in and take a look around?”

What on earth had his mother done? Had she gone and robbed the wrong person to try and pay her drug debt? Had she solicited an undercover cop? When the policeman made a move that looked like he was going to just take the liberty to walk inside the house, Josiah stepped in front of him, blocking the entrance.

“You got a warrant?” Josiah swallowed, not believing his own audacity. He’d never been in any legal trouble before, but he’d heard plenty of stories about people who got arrested for hindering an investigation. Josiah didn’t want to go to jail, but he didn’t want to be the one to let this man find whatever evidence he was looking for so that he could lock up his mama either.

“Son, don’t make this any harder than it has to be.” The officer didn’t seem threatened by Josiah, but he also didn’t seem to be threatening toward him.

“Why you looking for where my … I mean, Ms. Tucker lives? Is she in trouble?” Josiah tried to look nonchalant, but his heart was pounding with the strength of a tidal wave.

“How did you know her middle name was Mae?” The officer’s voice remained calm, but his eyes dared his challenger to lie.

“Huh?” Josiah felt moisture gathering in his armpits. “What?”

“I asked you if Ms. Reeva Tucker lived here, but just a few moments ago, you said you didn’t know a Reeva Mae Tucker. How did you know her middle name was Mae?”

“I… I… Huh?” Josiah felt like a trapped mouse.

“How old are you, young man?” Slater looked him up and down.

Josiah tensed. Why was he looking at him like that? Was the policeman trying to determine whether he could win if it came down to a physical brawl between the two of them? Josiah tried to swell his chest. That ought to be enough to tell the cop who was the man of this house. “Eighteen.” He said it with as much attitude as a nervous teenager could muster.

Lieutenant Slater shook his head as though Josiah’s attempts were, at best, pitiful. “Are you related to Reeva Tucker?” When Josiah didn’t answer right away, the policeman sighed heavily like he was starting to get fed up. But when he spoke again, his voice remained friendly and bordered on pleading. “Talk to me, young man. This is very important.”

Josiah’s chest deflated under the pressure and was replaced by quick breaths. He didn’t like the officer’s overly friendly tone. Josiah would rather have the man yell at him, hold a flashlight in his face, or manhandle him like he’d heard cops did when they wanted to make somebody spill the beans about something. At least then Josiah wouldn’t think he was about to be devastated. But Slater didn’t do any of those things. His eyes were compassionate, sad even.

“She’s … she’s … she’s my mother,” Josiah confessed, feeling the emergence of tears that hadn’t yet been given a reason to rise.

“May I come in?”

On unsteady legs, Josiah stepped aside. He watched as Lieutenant Slater walked midway into the living room before coming to a stop, then turned to face him. Josiah remained at the door. Unable to close it. Unable to breathe. Unable to move.

“There’s no easy way to tell you this, son.” The officer held his hat to his chest as he spoke. “I’m sorry, but your mother was found dead this morning.”

As Josiah’s legs gave way to his weight, all seventy-four inches of his body crumpled to the floor. By most standards, he was a grown man. Old enough to drive. Old enough to vote. Old enough to die for his country. But as he wept uncontrollably, Josiah felt like a helpless orphan. Reeva Mae Tucker may not have been much of a woman, a role model, a provider, or a mother. But she was all he’d had.