“Fuckers.”
Jesse Ramirez’s stomach grumbled as the last of the cafeteria service windows closed shut just ahead of him. The workers inside pretended to ignore him.
By the time he had walked through the front of Portola High School around 8:00 a.m., the tardy bell had already rung and most students were in class. He was exhausted and felt the weight of his eyelids drag his entire body down. His first day at his new school was going as well as he could have imagined.
He then turned toward the 800 building. The crinkled print-out of his new schedule read for first period: Spanish I - Padilla - Room 811.
There were still a few stragglers scurrying to various classrooms when he entered the hallway of the old brick building.
Room 811 wasn’t too hard to find as he quickly noticed all of the odd-numbered classes to his left. The hallway was mostly cleared out except for two guys leaning on the lockers across from 811. They both had earbuds in and bobbed their heads in different synchronizations.
The bigger of the two was fair-skinned with a fade haircut and wore a baggy white t-shirt with black sweatpants. He had all-white sneakers and a black Corsairs football cap with a silver pirate’s skull on the front. The wide-framed, calmly intimidating young man flicked his fingers in front of him so they snapped as they flailed.
The smaller one was a squirrely-looking, dark Latino-mixed kid who wore a gray t-shirt with the words “Save the Trees” on the front over a graphic of a few marijuana leaves. A beat-up skateboard rested under his foot, rolling back and forth as he cussed. He slouched as if he was always ready to dodge something, his head and neck slightly twisting to catch any surprises.
As Jesse approached, their conversation trailed off with expressionless stares toward him. “What?” Jesse exclaimed, irritated.
“You look lost, homie. Are you lost?” the bigger Latino quickly asked with a cocked eyebrow.
Jesse snickered. “Psh. Nah. I’m right where I should be. What about you?” he asked, lifting his arm and pointing his index and middle fingers together directly toward the cholo’s face, then the skater’s. “You schoolies need some directions or some shit?”
The skater and the cholo looked at each other and laughed. They nodded and dapped, ignoring Jesse. The cholo said to his friend, “A’ight, Racha. Stay black.” Then the cholo walked away, giving Jesse one last look and a chuckle as he passed him.
“Blunt or die, bitch.” Racha watched the big cholo swagger down the hallway and open a classroom door, stick his head inside, and then continue trudging down the hall. A male teacher in 808 opened his door and poked his head out, staring down the hall at the cholo. “Hey! Anthony, is that you? Get back over here!”
But he walked on without flinching, lost in the deafening beats of his earbuds, all the way out of building 800.
“Damn that kid. And you two,” he yelled, now glaring at Racha and Jesse. “Get to class! I’m calling security!” He then shut his door.
Both Racha and Jesse said “puta” in unison as his door shut closed. Then they looked at each other for a second, nodded, and grinned.
“So what’s up with you?” Racha asked. “Never seen you before. Must be a newbie.” Racha asked Jesse. “You slinging? Rolling?” He then tried to get stern and more serious, despite his smaller stature and youthful voice. “You in a squad?”
“Nah. I’m just… I’m trying to get through this shit, you know?” Jesse threw up his arms and gestured toward the walls surrounding them.
Racha nodded. “Alright, I feel you. These pendejos are trying to take my Moms to court again. Fuck that, you know what I’m saying? I feel you, I feel you.”
“Yeah, fuck that.” Jesse hesitated, then added. “Fuck the police.”
Racha stared back at him with a slow nod.
Jesse went on. “And fuck this school, and fuck this Spanish class. I haven’t even been to it yet and I already hate it.”
“Oh, no shit? Right here with Padilla?” Racha asked, gesturing at 811. His back was slouched, and his arm bent lazily toward the door.
“Uh, I think. 811, right? I don’t know this puto’s name.”
“Yeah, yeah, Padilla. Fucking boring. He’s a joto, too. Fucking cocksucker and shit.”
“Fuck.”
“Yeah, I feel you. I feel you.”
The two boys then stood in silence for a few seconds, nodding at each other. Jesse looked at the door and back at Racha. They both shrugged at each other and then walked in.
Mr. Padilla was leading the class through choral practice of irregular verbs and didn’t skip a beat when he saw Racha and Jesse walk in. He continued on speaking with the class and simultaneously gestured at Jesse, waved with a smile, and pointed at a desk for him to sit in; and just as quickly and smoothly, he continued on with the class in their practice and gave Racha a stern look while pointing at his watch. Mr. Padilla was calling him out on being late again.
“Oh, it’s 8:10, homie. If your watch is broken, get a new one, pendejo! Nyeehhhhh!” Racha howled, but was only half heard over the chorus of the classroom. Padilla shook his head with an eye roll and continued with leading the class in their practice.
The rest of Spanish class was a blur for Jesse. There certainly was some kind of lesson and discussion on diphthongs and acentos, but all Jesse paid attention to and remembered was Maria Fonseca.
From his seat in the back of the class, he tried to see her face completely as she sat unimpressed but still scribbled occasional notes in a lined notebook where she sat along the side wall near the front. Her honey-brown hair waved and curled at the tips like a fire stretching down and outward, flames licking at her tanned shoulders. The shape of her big eyes convinced Jesse that she could see things in the world he couldn’t. She wore a white sleeveless top that was see-through enough for Jesse to notice the floral embroideries on her bra underneath. A delicate-looking gold watch was strapped to her left wrist, which she kept turning toward her to see the time slowly pass. She had squeezed into a bright blue skirt that was currently riding up to her bronzed mid-thighs, revealing the toned curves of her muscular legs.
Maria Fonseca felt eyes on her body and instinctively tugged her skirt out toward her knees and adjusted her blouse to make sure it was covering the side of her bra.
Jesse couldn’t take his eyes off of her: there was something beyond her sexiness, something deeper. She seemed so innocent and beautiful in a way that he knew deep down and not so much saw with his eyes.
He knew this when Racha said something in response to Mr. Padilla’s explanation of how a “small D” has to be used instead of a “big D” for a word. The class laughed and Maria turned her head to watch Racha be a fool. He could see the side of her gentle face now that she turned toward the class, but her flowing hair still covered part of it. There he still saw an effortless grin that dropped his stomach, and a twinkle in her gaze just before she rolled her eyes that made Jesse feel like the world had just ended and was created again in that twinkle.
Jesse convinced himself that in order for this girl to have this effect on him, she must have something or come from somewhere different than other girls he had come across.
“Damn, Newbie. You want to be her pet or what? You feel me?” Racha blurted out.
“‘Ey, fuck off, puta.” Jesse could feel his face getting hot and sweat breaking down his back. “It’s not like that. I’d fuck her,” he said, perhaps too carelessly.
Racha scoffed back, “Yeah, get in line.”
“She taken?”
Racha shrugged.
“Don’t be a bitch,” Jesse said in a threatening whisper.
“I don’t care about her. Why bother with what you can’t have, Newbie?”
“So she has a boyfriend?” Jesse asked, and he almost showed his disappointment.
“¡No mames, guey!” Racha let out a screeching laugh. “Nyehhhh!”
Mr. Padilla stopped writing under the document camera and stared over the podium at Racha. “Señor Villalobos. ¡Por favor!”
Racha ignored him and continued on with Jesse. “Don’t fuck around with Maria. That bitch is bad news. Trust.”
Jesse thought for a moment as Mr. Padilla returned to his lesson, shaking his head in annoyance. Jesse turned again to Racha. “A’ight, then. Who is this guy? So, you know, I can swing at him first. If I got to.”
Racha seemed to hesitate at first, then he seemed to make up his mind. “Oh, you’ll know him when you see him, Newbie,” he said with a slight grin. “He’ll be the one with Maria sucking on his face. Nyehhhhhhh!”
Mr. Padilla reacted almost instantly this time. “Rogelio!”
“You can’t call me that. Shut up,” Racha replied loudly, but he looked at the floor when he said it, and directed the statement to no one and nowhere in particular.
Mr. Padilla straightened up and sighed. “Not this again, Mr. Villalobos. Do we need to write another referral or can we get along today?” Racha was silent, and Mr. Padilla turned his attention to a student nearby who was raising her hand. “Un momento, por favor, Sara.” He then looked back at Racha. “Well?”
Racha didn’t say anything and began tagging something on his desk. A few minutes went by. Then Racha got bored with etching something on his desk and got up. He started casually walking toward the door.
Mr. Padilla was crouching near the front, helping Sara with acentos on the whiteboard. He stood up quickly and sternly yelled out, “Villalobos! No one has been excused yet. Return to--”
Racha cut him off. “Bathroom. Emergency.” He kept walking, raised his arm up to throw a peace sign behind him without looking, and shoved himself out the door.
“Rogelio! I’m calling security!” Mr. Padilla uselessly yelled from the front of the class. He looked at the class and put his hands on his hips. He shook his head and walked to his desk to pick up the phone. He dialed and put the receiver to his ear, waiting for the phone to ring on the other side, but instead he heard the bell ring. “Dammit,” then he slammed the phone receiver back down. The classroom erupted into a cacophony of binders snapping and backpacks zipping, heavy chairs and desks grinding against linoleum flooring, students talking and shouting, all while Mr. Padilla was trying to yell over it and explain the night’s homework.
But Jesse hardly noticed the entire altercation. He didn’t want to be anywhere else at that moment, and he certainly didn’t want to take his eyes off of Maria. He waited near the back of the classroom to see which direction Maria was heading out to class so he could talk to her; he needed her to know that he existed.
She gathered her things and walked toward the back. Jesse watched her turn and face his direction. She stepped with a confidence and grace that made Jesse think she was a natural at this school thing. Now that she was completely facing Jesse, he was awestruck at how beautiful she really was. Maria walked past him without ever looking up at him and he wanted to stop her, then he decided to follow her, and for the first time ever, he couldn’t make an approach. The door clicked behind her as she left, and Mr. Padilla looked up at Jesse, now the last and only student in the class, as Mr. Padilla was shuffling papers at his desk.
“Ah, yes, Mr. Ramirez. I’m so glad you decided to stay after class and get acquainted with m--”
Jesse snapped out of his trance, let out an annoyed “Psh!” and then quickly left the classroom. Stepping through the doorway, Jesse found a renewed confidence to approach Maria since as far as he could tell, she had no idea who he was, or the kind of past he had for that matter.
He looked around for her in the busy hallway but didn’t see any trace of her. He realized that he had another class to find and more teachers to be unimpressed by. There would be other girls, too, he reassured himself. Hot ones. But could any of them make him feel that same way Maria did, with just a look?
As the day dragged on, Jesse kept an eager eye out for Maria. Every time he was about to walk into a new classroom, he held his breath just before turning the doorknob and exhaled quietly as he pulled the door open and entered, subtly but carefully scanning the room for that fiery hair or her white top and blue skirt.
At lunchtime, Jesse didn’t want to do anything else but get another glimpse at Maria, but wandering the campus and looking like a lost kid didn’t seem too helpful or favorable in his mind. He found an unclaimed wall in the shade that he could put his back against as he ate dried out potato slices with watery ketchup and a spongy chicken patty suffocated by a pair of stale wheat buns. He tossed his condiment packets on the ground after each squeeze, noticing that the label read “Catsup” and below it in smaller print “Tomato Sauce.”
“What the fuck?” he said to himself annoyedly. He shook his head and powered through the rest of his meal. The rest of the time his eyes scanned the passersby, looking for that fiery hair, those defined legs in that surprisingly loud blue skirt, the golden glisten of her fragile watch. But still, he felt like he needed more chances to interact with her.
By the end of his last class, sixth-period Reading and Writing Support, Jesse told himself that at least he had one class with her and that was so much better than nothing.
In the same moment as that realization, from out in the hallway Jesse heard the unmistakable, unlikeable, and unforgiving siren that was Racha’s laugh: “Nyehhhhhhh!” He looked to the door, which had a window in it, and a few seconds later saw Racha pass by. For a split second, their eyes met, and then Racha was gone.
Jesse considered leaping out of his seat and running out so he could ask Racha more questions about Maria. Then Racha popped back into the frame of the window. He nodded his chin upward and grinned at Jesse, then followed up by flipping him off and smiling. Jesse smirked at him, made sure Mrs. Richardson wasn’t paying attention, and then returned the favor. Racha motioned to Jesse to come out into the hall. Mrs. Richardson was still at her desk with a student and didn’t have eyes on Jesse. He grabbed his backpack and calmly but quickly walked to the back door of the classroom where Racha was waiting outside.
He got about halfway when Mrs. Richardson stood up and exclaimed, “Excuse me, uh… Jesse! Jesse, where do you think you’re--”
“Bathroom,” Jesse interrupted confidently. “Emergency.” From the hall as he walked out the door, the class heard a screeching “Nyehhhhhh!” followed by Jesse’s laughter.