Not My Brother's Keeper

Chapter 2: Everlasting Remnants

            I was with Marlon at his place on June 22, 2013; the night Tommy was attacked. We watched a movie together and after making love, we fell asleep cuddled up on his sofa. The next morning, Tommy's brutal attack was all over the news. The bloody crime scene image was shown over and over again. Everyone on-campus was talking about the incident and it practically dominated everything for nearly two months. It truly was like living in a nightmare that I couldn't wake up from. For the people who'd known Tommy since he and I became students at Calhoun University, he was the popular black gay guy that everyone liked being around. For me; his best friend and confidant, he was family. No one understood what I was going through. No one understood what Stephon was going through either.

"Are you ready?" I asked Stephon as we stood outside of the storage unit I'd rented for Tommy's possessions. "Because if you're not, I'd understand."

"I'm ready," he declared confidently.

Without any further hesitation, I unlocked and removed the padlock before letting the garage-like door slide up. Immediately, I was overcome with all sorts of emotions as I looked at all of Tommy's personal belongings. My parents had hired movers to move everything into the storage unit, so it was my first time seeing most of the stuff in months. Since his parents didn't want anything, I decided to donate whatever Stephon didn't want to the local Goodwill. However, there were a few items I planned on keeping.

"That's a good pic of you two," Stephon told me as he noticed me admiring a photo of me and Tommy from high school.

Tears filled my eyes as I informed him, "We were in tenth grade. We took this picture at the county fair."

"I bet that was fun." He picked up a photo of me and Tommy in our freshman dorm and asked, "Do you mind if I keep this one? Tommy's wearin' the shorts I loved seein' him wear."

"Sure, you can have that one."

As we split up to go through Tommy's stuff on our own, I noticed his phone charger and immediately thought of something I'd never thought of before that evening. What happened to Tommy's phone? Just two weeks before he was attacked, he'd upgraded his AT&T phone plan and the upgrade came with an exclusive iPhone 5S, which was new at that time. He loved that phone and had it with him every time I saw him during those last two weeks before the attack. I kept thinking there was probably a reasonable explanation for why it wasn't in the storage unit; but the more I thought about it, the odder it seemed.

"Stephon," I called out from where I was standing.

"Yeah?" he responded from another section of the unit.

"Do you see Tommy's phone anywhere?"

"Nah. Why?"

"He kept that phone on him at all times and I'm pretty sure it was on him that night. The hospital gave me everything he'd had in his pockets after the cops cleared it all."

"Maybe the cops took it for their investigation."

"Yeah, they probably did. I didn't even think of that." After grabbing Tommy's HP laptop, iPod Touch and digital camera, I made my way back to the front of the storage unit and waited for Stephon to finish getting what he needed to get.

After a few minutes, he came back to the front holding a teddy bear, some of Tommy's clothes including his favorite sweater, and a few photos of Tommy. He smiled as he told me, "I bought him this teddy bear on our first date."

"It's cute. I remember it always being on top of Tommy's dresser."

"Yeah, he did always keep it up there. Cameron, thank you for having his clothes stored away in these airtight bags. The scent of his cologne and the lotion he used is on them. I miss that scent." Tears filled his eyes and then rolled down his face as he sat down on a nearby box.