The alarm on his phone blared at 6:00 am. Lita hadn’t come to wake him up in weeks, maybe even months, as he thought about it.
And now Jesse was even more motivated by Yusef’s words and more of his life story. In the weeks that followed the chaotic incident on the Plane, Jesse focused on his schoolwork and bringing up his grades. Even Math class was now pretty easy since Jesse had begun paying attention, did his work, and asked the occasional question in class. Yusef had started making him ask at least one question in every class, no matter how stupid, every day.
Aside from school work, Jesse was also busy with science fair research, physical conditioning, and lucid dream training.
In his dreams, he was getting better at not just remembering and recording his dreams in the night and in the morning (Yusef bought him a light-up pen and a journal he kept at his bedside), but also being self-aware in his dreams. He was getting closer and closer to full lucidity. A few entries from his dream journal read:
Started after school. played NBA Live like I use to. Was I playing the game or actually playing b-ball? I was good. Then Racha was on my team. Then the other team. Couldn’t tell which.
Was trying to train at home, school. Kept ending up in a bathroom to pee. Woke up fr, ran to piss. Think I drank too much water before bed.
Maria. Again. She’s in my kitchen. We standing next to each other at the sink. There’s something out the window we’re looking at. But I don’t see it. All I can think is reaching over to her. I want to hold her. Fuck. I want to hold her.
He had also done a lot of research. There was so much info on the school-to-prison pipeline. Too much. It became overwhelming for Jesse after a few days and he found himself starting to avoid it and procrastinate. Getting up early in the morning allowed him time to record his dreams, do a quick workout, eat a decent breakfast, and try to get some studying or research done before heading into his classes. But he was still working on that last part.
The hot weather had finally subsided and the sunny Southern California days were now interspersed with some clouds and occasional polar winds. Back at Portola, Maria’s skin-revealing wardrobe changed but she took to wearing form-fitting workout pants. And her hair. She let it down in waves of mahogany. The shine of her thick locks caught the light every time she turned and carelessly tossed her hair over her shoulders.
“Señor Ramirez!”
“Huh?”
Mr. Padilla stood next to Jesse with a clipboard. “I was just complementing you -- en español -- on how you’ve brought your grade up in this class. I peeked at your other grades and noticed that you were doing better in all of your other classes, too. Muy bien, Jesse.”
The desk next to him was empty and that made Jesse grateful. “Uh, yeah. Thanks.” If Racha had been here today, he never would have let Jesse live this down.
“Is everything alright?” Mr. Padilla went on. “You seemed to be a million miles away a few seconds ago.”
Again, so grateful Racha wasn’t here. “Yeh. I’m good.” Jesse straightened up and shook off a blank look from his eyes. “Let’s conjugate some shit.”
Padilla raised an eyebrow. “Muy bien, Señor Ramirez,” he said sternly. Then he walked to the front of the class and announced he was done with grade checks.
Jesse tuned out again because Maria was tuned out. He saw a book opened in her lap. Yesterday it had been a poetry book by some white dude from back in the day. Keats, or something.
He had looked it up later and read some of his poems. He barely made it through “On First Looking into Chapman’s Homer.” He read “On Seeing the Elgin Marbles” twice and gave up on the third try. Didn’t even make it past the first line of “Ode on a Grecian Urn.”
But “Ode to a Nightingale” caught his eye. He didn’t understand a lot of its references and the centuries-old language was too archaic for him to fully grasp. But he recognized that desire and yearning for something beautiful -- something that would bring completeness and some other kind of reality. Maria would be that doorway for him. His guide and light through the dark forces that dictated his life.
Now he was trying to see what she was currently reading. It was an old book with a plain, worn scarlet cover. There was small gold lettering on the front cover and the spine. He waited for her to close the book when she’d occasionally look up from her lap to pretend to pay attention. There was no title. Or was that the title?
“Oscar Wilde? The fuck?” Jesse cursed under his breath.
When lunchtime finally came later, Jesse quickly made his way to the library. He needed to know who this clown was. A search on one of the computers brought up some photos of another white dude. More poetry. One stood out, probably because it was short and easy to read: “In the Forest.”
Out of the mid-wood's twilight
Into the meadow's dawn,
Ivory limbed and brown-eyed,
Flashes my Faun!
He skips through the copses singing,
And his shadow dances along,
And I know not which I should follow,
Shadow or song!
O Hunter, snare me his shadow!
O Nightingale, catch me his strain!
Else moonstruck with music and madness
I track him in vain!
The nightingale again, also in a dark forest. Was it a guide? he thought. Something that fights against dark forces? That’s definitely her. But why would she want to be my nightingale? I need to show her that I’m worthy: something more. More than everyone else. I need to be a nightingale for her. And we’ll lift each other.
Jesse closed the web browser and clicked on the library’s inventory app. He searched for “poems” and the search brought up more than a hundred hits. He sighed. “Chingame.”
Ms. Irons, the peppy school librarian, had shown Jesse how to narrow down his search and look up books on the shelves, among other tricks. He’d been to the library quite a few times -- careful not to be seen by Racha -- for his science fair research.
“Back for more?” Ms. Irons’ gentle but firm voice asked from behind the check-out counter. Her thin-rimmed glasses hung at the tip of her nose.
“Uh. Kinda,” Jesse replied as he looked around the library to make sure she was talking to him. And to make sure that no one else of note was listening.
She walked over and locked her eyes on Jesse’s computer screen. “New project? Did you finish your report on the school-to-prison pipeline?”
“Uh. Kinda.”
Ms. Irons looked away from the screen and then at Jesse with a fair amount of surprise in her eyes. “Is this for English class now?”
“Uhhh… kindaaa.” He went on to make up and explain a fake assignment to her. “So I need to write a poem. I just don’t know a lot about them.”
She politely nudged Jesse away from the keyboard and began to scroll up and down the screen. After some more clicking and clacking of the keyboard, she turned to Jesse. “Yes, there are quite a few poetry books currently checked out at the moment. Nevertheless, I can still help. Follow me!”
He followed her down and around a few aisles before she slowed down and grazed the spines of books with the tip of her finger. She grabbed a book here and there; then lifted her hand for him to follow her back to the check-out.
There were old-looking books, like the kind he saw Maria with, colorful new ones that were small and compact, and one wide, flatter paperback.
“Alrighty. Hopefully this does the trick for you,” she said over beeps and clicks as she checked them out.
“Yeh. Hopefully.”
“And don’t forget to update your works cited page if you add these to your research. For whatever project this is.” She deliberately looked at Jesse now, searching his face for a reaction.
He nodded. “Huh. Yeh.”
Ms. Irons grinned. “Maybe this is one of those personal projects, huh?”
Jesse quickly stuffed the books in his bag before anyone could see he had them. He didn’t respond and shuffled away, then tried to remain calm and casual as he walked out of the library.
Later that night, Jesse sacrificed his dream training and recovery time to skim through the books. An idea struck him and he took to paper, writing a poem around the idea, and what would later become the title, “Nice Dream.” It began:
I wake up
To the sound
Of heavenly bells
I look around
To see a different me
With a different you.
It went on for lines and lines, one continuous giant stanza reflecting his unrequited love, and how bright and wholesome his life would be with “her love” in it; by the end the narrator wakes up back in his stale, boring life.
“Nice Dream” was placed in the back of his binder, where hopefully no one would see. It was yet another distraction and reason he was continuing to procrastinate on his research for the school-to-prison pipeline report he really needed to finish for the impending Science Fair.
The other big distraction was his progress on the Plane. He couldn’t wait to get to sleep so he could train more. Tonight Yusef had a challenge waiting for him. Jesse was eager to crush it.