In the week that followed, Jesse earned himself two disciplinary referrals for insubordination. He was hanging out with Racha more and getting familiar with other faces he saw while ditching classes throughout the day.
Jesse realized he didn’t like being stuck in class ebcause he just thought about Maria and how frustrated he had become. In order to even be noticed by her, some things about him would have to change. For the first time in his life, Jesse could not muster up the courage to approach someone. Hr was ill-prepared to converse with her. A first impression was really important and Jesse didn’t want to blow it.
He found out from Racha that she had all Honors classes, of which Jesse had none. Maria was also the Freshman Class President and on the volleyball team. Jesse didn’t stand out at all and was probably really unimpressive to her, on top of being new to the school and a complete nobody. As he entered his neighborhood, he saw several neighbors hanging out in front of some apartments and he instantly felt comforted. They wore large, baggy white t-shirts, black or blue jeans, white sneakers, and a cap. He looked down at his clothes, and he could have fit right in with them. “Fuck,” he said to himself, “I just blend in.”
He thought about how much he had found out about Maria. She was so unique, unlike anything he ever thought he would like about a girl. There was nothing he could distinguish about himself that set him apart from other guys. Sure, he was handsome, well built, and had enough luck with girls in the past. That was never really a problem for him. But Maria was different.
Jesse got to his apartment and took out his keys to open the door, but it was already unlocked. He went inside and took off his backpack, yelling out “Lita, you forgot to--”
“Hello, Jesse. It is nice to see you again,” the old Arab man said from the couch, sipping a glass of water.
Jesse’s eyes got big and his gut told him to fight, but the Arab’s demeanor was calm.
“¡Jesús! Tu teacher está aquí,” Jesse’s grandmother yelled from the kitchen.
“Please, call me Mr. Abdel,” he responded toward the kitchen. “I’m his tutor, Señora Ramirez. Right, Jesse?”
Jesse looked on with wide-eyed confusion and anxiety. “Uhh… what?”
Mr. Abdel put the glass of water down on the coffee table and leaned forward. “Don’t you remember, Jesse? You made an arrangement with me.”
Mrs. Ramirez walked up to Jesse and handed him a glass of water. “Jesús, Señor Abdel say he has many success with other students. He is here to help you,” she said, her eyebrows raised with encouragement.
Still, Jesse didn’t quite know what to do in this situation with this man, whom he recently robbed, sitting politely and patiently in his living room in front of his grandmother.
Alfredo walked out of the hallway as he stared into a tablet and swiped mindlessly. Then, without looking up from his device, he noticed Yusef sitting on the couch and instantly turned around and walked back into the hallway. His swiping didn’t miss a beat.
A moment later, Jesse heard Marcy yell from their room, “Where’s my Cheetos? You better didn’t eat ‘em!”
“Shut up, Marcy! Someone’s here! He’s weird! Go out and get ‘em yourself.” Then a door slammed shut.
“Jesse,” Mr. Abdel said, “I do not have my watch with me. Can you tell me what time it is?” his eyes locked into Jesse’s, as a stern look took over the old Arab’s face. The diving watch was on Jesse’s wrist at that very moment. Jesse began to understand.
“Yeah, that’s right. My tutor…” Jesse said, but couldn’t find any more words.
Mr. Abdel set his glass down on the coffee table and stood up. “Señora Ramirez, do you mind if I speak with Jesse right outside? I think he might be a little nervous in front of his dear abuela here.”
“Ah, sí. Yes, por favor,” Mrs. Ramirez said as she gestured toward the door and walked over to open it for Yusef and Jesse.
“Thank you very much, Señora Ramirez,” the old man said as he put a gentle but firm hand on Jesse’s shoulder as they walked outside onto the walkway, which overlooked a courtyard below with an identical two-story apartment building on the other side.
The door closed behind them and Jesse didn’t wait one millisecond longer to shove off Mr. Abdel’s hand. “The fuck?” Jesse exclaimed in a hushed and harsh voice.
“I am serious about tutoring,” Mr. Abdel said solemnly. “And I will make sure you get into better classes, teach you how to properly condition your body, and defend yourself. Among other things,” he said with a gentle smile.
Jesse stared back at him. “The fuck?” he asked again, this time with genuine confusion.
“You need these things. Maybe you realize that you need some and not others. But you need them. And I will teach you more. So much more.”
“First of all,” Jesse said, “How did you find where I live?”
“Well, it was not too difficult since you robbed me a few hundred feet away.”
Jesse adjusted his posture a bit and looked around. There were a few people outside, but nobody of consequence, and they weren’t really paying attention, anyway. “What do you want? You’re not getting that watch back.” Jesse hid his arm behind himself.
Mr. Abdel took a deep breath and sighed. “It is not about the watch.”
Jesse looked right at him. “We had a deal. I said you’d get fucked up if you clowned me.”
The old man looked away. His eyes focused on some place very far away. “I have had many students under my wing, Jesse. They all learned much and achieved great things. In doing so, they have served a greater purpose than themselves. They still do, on their own.”
“Purpose? The fuck you mean?”
“You can keep the watch. You will gain things that are invaluable.”
“What’s the catch? You’re still not telling me why.” Jesse’s upper lip quivered with anxiousness and annoyance.
“It is… complicated, Jesse. In time, I can explain. But you are perfect to serve this purpose. You do not know it yet, but this is your purpose. I have learned much about people. I already know a lot about you, Jesse. Just in the few days since we have met.”
“¡No mames! You don’t know shit, hijo de puta! You don’t know nothin’ about me.”
Then Mr. Abdel turned his far-away gaze to Jesse and he looked right into his eyes. “I know your bed has been wet recently.”
Jesse’s eyes sprang wide and he felt his face get hot. “Who the fuck--” He quickly recovered from his stunned state and his embarrassment turned to anger. He fumed past the old man and reached for the front door, yelling out “¡Lita!”
Jesse’s hand reached the doorknob, but then in that impressive speed Mr. Abdel grabbed Jesse’s hand as it reached the knob and he came closer to Jesse. “And I know about the prison, with no windows,” he continued on. “Your Lita did not tell me anything. I have seen your father, Papá drinking his beer in his undershirt,” the old man came in even closer, to Jesse’s ear. “I heard the voices.”
Jesse recoiled. His eyes began to well up with tears. “Who… what the fuck?” Jesse stared at Mr. Abdel, slouching and feeling powerless.
Mrs. Ramirez yelled out from inside the apartment. “¿Jesús? ¿Estás bien?”
“Tell her you are fine, Jesse. You will be.”
Jesse was still in a state of confusion and helplessness. “I didn’t tell anyone. How the fuck do you know that shit?”
“¿Jesús? ¿Jesús?” Mrs. Ramirez’s footsteps could be heard getting closer to the front door. Jesse wiped away the tears from his eyes.
“Your life will do only one of two things from this moment on. You will work the hardest you ever have and live a life you never thought possible for yourself. Or you will share a fate similar to your father and brother, and you will never have a chance with Maria. That choice is yours, and it needs to be made right now.”
The door swung open and Mrs. Ramirez stood staring at Jesse and Mr. Abdel. “¿Jesús?”
Jesse remained staring right into the Arab’s eyes. He stared back and did not flinch. “This fool is wack,” Jesse said, as he turned away and walked back inside the apartment.
Mrs. Ramirez gave Mr. Abdel a long look of bewilderment and disappointment, then turned away back inside the apartment and shut the door. As Jesse heard Lita slide the deadbolt and the old man’s footsteps fade away, he noticed a business card on the coffee table. It read:
Mr. Yusef Abdel
Social Sciences Teacher
Portola High School, Room 33
* * * * *
The bell rang, and the hallway exploded from both sides as doors flew open and students flooded out. Skateboards clanged on the tiled floor; hands and arms flailed in the air as students greeted each other and waved to get attention. Yells, screams, and loud cursing echoed off the steel lockers lining the walls. Jesse stood next to a door on the right side of the hall, watching the mayhem of classroom transition. Someone slammed a locker shut, but it sounded too loud and alarming.
When Jesse looked around, he saw a handgun held in the air with smoke drifting out of the barrel. Now surrounded by a blue sky, a blinding sun beat down on him. A rooster cawed nearby. To his right, looking past a familiar chicken coop from the backyard of his old house, Jesse saw the quad of Portola High School below.
Suddenly, he was walking through the center, but the buildings had switched around. He was lost all over again like his first day of school. He saw buildings from junior high, and yet others that were familiar but not identifiable.
He entered a building hoping to find his way, and as he passed classrooms with unfamiliar numbers, the windows took a darker tint, became thicker and smaller. The color of the walls turned into a worn, pale white and the doors became heavy-looking and the knobs were gone. He saw metal bars replace one of the corridor walls. Someone called to him. Jesse walked over and he was suddenly face-to-face with his dead brother Erik. “Where did you go, Jesse?”
Before Jesse could even think of a response, he saw other faces and heard other voices from old.
“Homies for life.”
“Let’s square up.”
“I love you, Baby. I love your everything.”
Then, a more distinct voice that struck at the very core of Jesse.
“Ay. Escucha, pendejo. Mira,” his father said from a dark corner of the jail cell. Jesse’s eyes opened wide and the hairs on the back of his neck stood up. “Jesse…” but he couldn’t hear his father’s voice again.
Someone grabbed his shoulder from behind and whipped Jesse around. He faced his oldest brother Junior directly, looking up at him, way up. Jesse was a child again. “Jesse, you’re too small. You’re not tough enough,” and he turned away from Jesse and walked away from the front lawn of their old house, through their gate onto the sidewalk. Erik brushed past Jesse and snickered, following Junior.
“No!” Jesse yelled out. “Fuck you! I hate you!” he screamed in his shrill little boy voice. His brothers crossed the street in the distance and were met by their friends, much older than little Jesse and very intimidating.
A hand tapped his shoulder and Jesse turned around. He was his older self again, and was standing on his apartment rooftop. The chicken coop was there, too. Yusef stood nearby, admiring the rooster inside.
“Where do you want to go?” Yusef asked, without taking his eyes off of the bird.
“What?” Jesse asked.
Yusef pulled himself away from the wire cage. He closed his eyes, and the bright blue sky turned to a dark blue, then purple as the sun dimmed and turned into the moon. With a wave of his arm, the rooftop and cage blurred and fell away like sand. As they crashed into the ground, the discolored sand bounced back up and reshaped into a green lawn, darkened by the night. They stood near a window on the side of a house. A small, white fluorescent glow dimmed through the half-drawn blinds of a bedroom, and Jesse was able to see Maria’s face barely lit by her phone as she held it in bed.
“With whom is she talking? What if that could be you?” Yusef asked from behind Jesse.
Jesse looked back at Yusef. He suddenly became aware that he had been in a dream and still was. His mind bent as if adjusting to the sudden weight of the realization: he was weak and atrophied in this new world, as if he was completely unable to use his muscles and make any movement. He turned back toward Maria, expecting her to not be there anymore, but there she lay, still texting. “I’m dreaming right now,” Jesse said to himself as much as he said it to Yusef. “I’m in a dream.”
“Yes, you are. And I am in yours right now.” Yusef waved his arm again and Jesse’s surroundings swished away again. Now he was in the hot sun, draped in shiny dark blue, polyester robes. He was sweating his ass off and feeling incredibly nervous, excited, happy, uncertain, and sad all at once. Jesse was on the AstroTurf of a stadium standing with hundreds of other robed, older students, and he realized that he was older now. Bigger, stronger. He felt confident, knowledgeable… powerful.
His neck and chest were weighed down with medals and sashes. He was standing near the front of the crowd of graduates, and thousands of people stood and cheered in the stands. He caught a glimpse of a slightly older, even more beautiful Maria through the crowd. She was also draped in blue robes and heavily clad in sashes, ropes, and medals hanging from her neck. She was looking back at Jesse and smiling admiringly, adjusting the slipping graduation cap from her head. A foghorn blew from the stadium and Jesse looked to see his abuela waving from the stands, tears pouring down her cheeks as she jumped up and down in joy. The tassel from his own cap slightly blocked his vision. Yusef still stood next to him. Tears began to well up in Jesse’s eyes.
Yusef waved his arm again and it all went away. They now stood in a dingy kitchen, and Jesse yelled to Yusef, “Take me back!”
He ignored Jesse and walked to the doorway of the kitchen, peering out into another room. Jesse was crying, and didn’t know why. He had never felt so many wonderful and empowering emotions--he had never seen a future in that way. He had never seen himself that way, and he didn’t think anyone else had either. Now he wanted the entire world to see it.
The old man looked back at Jesse and nodded for him to follow as he walked out of the kitchen.
Jesse turned the corner and froze. His father, younger than Jesse had ever seen him, stood facing a thinly draped window. A small baby was wrapped in his huge left arm, and in his other a beer bottle was held by its neck, dangling below his hip. A boy -- Jesse recognized his brother Hugo -- played with a toddler on the ground and ran around in the room near the towering mountain of a man. His father stared into the baby’s eyes as it cooed, and Jesse saw a smirk come across his father’s face, and a twinkle in his eye that he had never seen before.
Jesse realized that his father was holding him, as a baby. Jesse dropped to the floor on his knees, and his shoulders slumped over. There was a sudden mass of weight he felt in his chest as a cavernous part of his heart suddenly became apparent to him. The tears fell uncontrollably and Jesse’s nose stung as snot flowed. His throat swelled and his head and body thrust forward, beyond his control. He reached out to his father as his words got stuck in his throat. The room fell away, and Jesse knelt on the pebbled floor of the apartment rooftop again.
Jesse took a moment as he touched the small pebbles on the rooftop floor. It was so detailed and real. He wiped mucus away and rubbed the tears from his eyes. He stood up and faced Yusef. “Take me back. Take me back to all of it.”
“No.”
“What?” Jesse’s heart sank.
“I will teach you how to go there on your own. And so much more.”
Jesse shook his head. “Fuck that. Fuck you, puto. Stay the fuck out of my head.” Jesse rushed forward. He was surprised at how real this felt, and how much control he had now.
He saw a smirk on Yusef’s face and it enraged him. Jesse reached Yusef and shoved him all the way to the edge of the roof, and over the ledge.
A pained look came across Yusef’s face just before he vanished over the edge. Jesse leaned over to see his body but didn’t see any sign of him.