Wince: George and Trayvon

I want to see Trayvon Martin alive and well. I want to see Trayvon Martin do an interview on The Today Show and reveal this whole thing is a reality-TV-show hoax. I want to see Trayvon Martin cutting class and making B’s and C’s and getting the lecture about applying himself and the lecture about setting goals and the one about potential and the other one about priorities. I want to see Trayvon Martin blow off his parents because old people don’t know anything. I want to see Trayvon Martin make cradle-robbing jokes about the girl he asks to the Krop Senior High School prom, maybe a girl like my daughter, just four months older than Trayvon but old enough to make jokes. I want to see Trayvon Martin show up at my door in a rented tux and a pencil mustache that just barely made it with the help of his mom’s mascara brush. I want to see Trayvon Martin light up when he sees his dolled-up date—maybe not my daughter but maybe—appear in her dress. I want to see Trayvon Martin put a corsage on her arm, and watch her put a boutonnière in his lapel, knowing they only do the flower ceremony for the photos and they’ll ditch the greenery as soon as they walk out the door. I want to see Trayvon Martin bringing my daughter home in the wee hours and want to see my own face in the mirror, resisting the urge to knock his lights out, but she’s fine and he’s fine and I’ve been up all night pacing the floors, afraid their car has landed in a ditch but afraid to call the cops because cops mistake black children for paper targets. I want to see Trayvon Martin recognize that I’m proud of him. I want to see Trayvon Martin fall a little in love with his prom date and her fall a little in love with him, except 18-year-olds don’t fall a little in love, they fall hard and fast and gloriously and there will never be anyone like you and I’ll never love anyone else and where were you and whose number is that and how could you and the whole relationship over in six hot weeks. I want to see Trayvon Martin rematched with his prom date at the Class of 2013 reunion for before-and-after pictures and a second dance more awkward than the first. Except I can’t see what I want to see. I’ll have to settle for what’s left.

I want to see Trayvon Martin completely ignore the 2012 elections since he can’t vote until 2013. I want to see Trayvon Martin register for Selective Service. I want to see Trayvon Martin buy his first car. I want to see Trayvon Martin take the SAT and the ACT and fill out college applications. I want to see Trayvon Martin on the roster for my literature section. I want to see Trayvon Martin take off his headphones and stop texting in class. I want to see Trayvon Martin in my office so I can ask What grade do you want in my class and hear him say I’ll settle for a C but I want a B+ or an A so I can say Let’s figure out what you need to do because you have potential, you have so much potential but you’ve probably heard that before. I want to see Trayvon Martin get turned on by Zora Neale Hurston, by Ralph Ellison, by Kurt Vonnegut, by Emerson, Hughes, Eliot, O’Connor, Faulkner, by a Sonia Sanchez reading required because these kids may never have another chance to see Sonia Sanchez. I want to see Trayvon Martin paint his face in school colors. I want to see Trayvon Martin working out at the gym because he’s still so skinny. I want to see Trayvon Martin pledge a fraternity and dance in a step show. I want to see Trayvon Martin get pissed off in class and speak his mind. I want to see Trayvon Martin major in engineering or music or psychology or whatever he wants, have a career, make money, buy a house, survive a health scare, switch jobs, retire, un-retire, but still have a soft spot for Sonia Sanchez. Except I can’t see what I want to see. I’ll have to settle for what’s left.

I want to see Trayvon Martin at his 65^th birthday dinner tell the story about the Skittles for the millionth time. I want to see Trayvon Martin and his wife, probably not my daughter but who knows, who knows you know but there’s potential there, I saw it on Prom Night. I want to see Mrs. Martin smile wistfully at Mr. Martin and see their kids roll their eyes. I want to see Trayvon Martin describe how a nutcase chased him when he was 17, how the dude shot at him but the bag of Skittles deflected the bullet harmlessly and before then he was kinda headed down the wrong path, hanging out with guys that never amounted to much, but he got a second chance at life and had to make the most of it so he ran all the way to his girlfriend’s house and apologized and declared he would ask her to marry him after they both graduated from college. I want to see Trayvon Martin’s grandkids videotape the story and post it online, because granddad Martin is the shiznit, for the video to go viral, for pundits to start arguing about the physics of Skittles and claim this is all just a socialist hoax to take away our guns. I want to see Trayvon Martin buy stock in Mars, Inc. after they change the Skittles slogan from “Taste the Rainbow” to “Makes You Bulletproof.” I want to see Trayvon Martin get his 15 minutes of fame as the old man marketing a line of hoodies with his face on the front and stylized Skittles on the back. Except I can’t see what I want to see. I’ll have to settle for what’s left.

Not George Zimmerman’s arrest. Not George Zimmerman’s trial. Not Black Panther posers collecting a bounty, not wannabe Nazis patrolling the streets, not grainy footage of a jailhouse beatdown. Not a made-for-TV reenactment of a 140-pound boy approaching a man my size and shoving his head into the pavement, although that would be some cool ninja-ass shit. Not the pundits, protests, petitions, press conferences or presidential candidates. Not Spike Lee making an ass of himself on Twitter. Not congressmen getting kicked off the House floor. Not the resignation of the Sanford police chief and an investigation into witness tampering. Not an elegant essay comparing Trayvon Martin to Emmett Till on The Huffington Post and reposted on TheGrio. I want to see Trayvon Martin reflected in George Zimmerman. I want to see a sharp shard of that boy inescapably lodged in the eyes of his killer. I want to see George Zimmerman wince every time he blinks. I want to see the lens of George Zimmerman’s soul permanently skewed towards what could have been. I want to see that sharp shard close up. I want to see Trayvon’s last moment, when his short life flashed before George’s eyes and revealed everything Trayvon ever meant to see and do and love. If I can find that small reflection of humanity in George Zimmerman, if anything of Trayvon landed in George, I will settle for what’s left. Because I’ll have to.

Andy Johnson (Tuscaloosa, AL) is a father, brother, and son. He’s also been a concert stage manager, a comedy show director, a sex reporter, and a foreign aid worker in Liberia. Andy is a former nonfiction editor at Black Warrior Review and a former assistant editor at Fairy Tale Review. His work has appeared in Whoopsy! Magazine, Dangerbunny, and on his blog Absinthe Party at the Fly Honey Warehouse. He will graduate with an MFA in Creative Writing from The University of Alabama sooner rather than later.