As an only child growing up in a military family, Jay Ellis was in constant search of stability. He swapped cities and schools with every change of the calendar, due to his dad’s Air Force assignments. Interpersonal connections were fleeting. But his bond with Mikey was different.
Ellis — the 42-year-old actor best known for portraying Lawrence in HBO’s now-defunct dramedy series “Insecure”—describes Mikey as the big brother he’d always wanted: a fly-guy hybrid of “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air”-era Will Smith and Kadeem Hardison as Dwayne Wayne of “A Different World.” The two youngsters were inseparable.
Mikey was suave, smart and always down for shenanigans; together they’d assemble time-travel machines, evade bullies, and speculate about the appropriate ratio of tongue and saliva for one’s first kiss.
But Mikey wasn’t like other kids.
For all of the low- and high-stakes mischief they’d partake in — from pre-K to well into middle school — Mikey could be neither seen nor heard by anyone other than Ellis himself.
“For a long time I thought I was the kid, Haley Joel Osment, from ‘The Sixth Sense’ and maybe, just maybe, there was the possibility I was seeing dead people,” Ellis writes in his debut memoir, “Did Everyone Have an Imaginary Friend (or Just Me)?” (One World/Penguin Random House, out July 30).
Thankfully, for Ellis’ sake, the only “medium” in his youth referred to clothing sizes. His make-believe friendship with Mikey now serves as the focus of Ellis’ new book, a vulnerable, knee-slapping, and occasionally heartbreaking series of vignettes that depict a Black boy’s innocence and ingenuity in a sincere, relatable manner.
The juvenile episodes abound, recounting stories of a child’s search for acceptance and adventure.
When Ellis transferred to an elementary school in Texas where most students spoke Spanish, he gelled down his hair with Luster’s S-Curl Activator, studied telenovelas, rebranded himself as Romon (his middle name), and unsuccessfully cosplayed as a “Latin lover” — all under Mikey’s counsel.
On another occasion, Ellis made a mess at his dad’s office while he and Mikey straddled a push broom that he visualized as an aircraft soaring over Disney World.
“I went from imagining flying jets back in that hangar in Austin, Texas, to literally flying jets in movies,” writes Ellis, who appeared alongside Tom Cruise in 2022’s “Top Gun: Maverick.”
Ellis’ book takes readers back to simpler, more wholesome times, fortified by references to Ice Cube, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, “White Men Can’t Jump,” and other millennial pop culture totems. For parents, it’s a testament to the importance of encouraging a child’s creativity, despite the occasional collateral damage.
“[My parents] not only tolerated me having an imaginary friend, after a while my mom was even encouraging,” Ellis writes, adding that on one birthday, his mother, finance executive and television producer Paula Bryant-Ellis, baked a separate cake for Mikey. “I’m sure many Black parents would have had me prayed over and bathed in anointing oil… or told me to sit down, be quiet, and quit it.”
The stories aren’t all so trivial, though.
Ellis recalls narrowly escaping a shootout between rival gang members at a Sacramento movie theater at age nine. Mikey’s “bubble guts” foreshadowed the impending danger.
Two years earlier, Ellis’ imagined bestie helped him process the death of a cousin murdered as a result of mistaken identity.
As Ellis matured, Mikey’s presence faded, becoming more subconscious guiding voice than conjured entity. But the lessons remained.
Through Mikey, Ellis understood the importance of loyalty after he discovered he was being tricked by a high school sweetheart. His confidence had already been fortified when he faced intimidating opponents as a high school hooper. He knew not to tolerate classmates’ racial slurs while attending a Tulsa, Okla., magnet school.
Still, nothing could fully prepare Ellis for the trauma of being pulled over by police nine times in one year —before the age of 18 — seemingly without cause or reason. Or the “Scared Straight”-like prison visit he endured after violating city curfew.
“Mikey helped me feel safe in questioning why the world was the way it was, and in imagining how the world, and my life, could be,” he writes.
The anecdotes in Ellis’ book are vivid and whimsical — stories that feel ripe for a TV retelling. (Perhaps his friend and “Insecure” co-star/creator Issa Rae could help make that a reality.) He doesn’t explore beyond high school, but it’s clear how those formative years with and without Mikey shaped Ellis as a man and an entertainer.
Ultimately, Ellis’ boyhood chapters remind readers of how fulfilling it can be to tap into your inner child. And maybe talk to yourself every now and then.
“We all have a voice that guides us and helps us become the person we are today . . . for good and bad,” he writes. “Sometimes, if you listen close enough to that voice and allow yourself just a few minutes to tune out all the adult stuff that our very serious and very busy lives are throwing at us, that voice is our sense of play, our sense of joy, and our sense of imagination saying, ‘Let me back in!’ ”
