A week of frustrating nights went by for Jesse. He tried to go back to those dreams somehow, but each morning he woke up and couldn’t remember dreaming at all. A few nights he actually went to bed a little earlier than usual, even though he spent most of that extra time tossing and turning.
Now he just wanted memes. But Jesse kept seeing social media posts about Chayne Sauze and yet another rivalry he was starting with a new up-and-coming rapper from Missouri, named ON$l0tt. Someone posted a sloppily edited video about the feud.
“This Okie?” Chayne Sauze said on a clip from the entertainment show GZN. In his signature look, shiny gold chains dangled from his toned and tattooed bare chest as he walked down the sidewalk away from his special-edition silver- and-gold-trimmed, personalized Ford Bronco. It reminded Jesse of a luxurious tank. “What a fu--BLEEP--ng Okie jokie,” he said as his entourage all chortled and whooped behind him. “Nig--BLEEP can’t rap! He should go back to being a farmer. Or whatever that b--BLEEP--ch did before.”
Then the video cut to a dark background displaying the words:
ON$l0tt responds to Chayne Sauze shit talking
“Keep talking shit. See what happens. I ain’t even gonna murder ya on the streets. Imma murder ya on the billboards, N--BLEEP,” ON$l0tt yelled into a microphone on a smoky and dark stage during a performance. “You gon’ be beggin’ me for money, Chayne, cuz yer shit cringe. It’s old, like you. I’m the new sher’f up in this bi--BLEEP!” The crowd roared.
The black screen returned and now displayed:
Who going be on top? Like if you think Chayne Sauze, Share if you think ON$l0tt
Jesse was about to press the like button, and then hovered over the share button. Then he tried thinking about what it was he’d been looking for before he saw the video, then tried to decide on who to favor again. His mind went back and forth, and he stared at his phone. “What the fuck?” he blurted out and shrugged his shoulders, almost tossing his phone out of his hands. “What the fuck was I doing?”
Within the first quarter of the first semester Jesse’s grades had fallen to F’s. He had ditched or managed to get kicked out of almost all of his classes at least once, except for one class that he had near-perfect attendance in: Spanish with Maria Fonseca. Now looking up from his phone, Jesse was trying to be as patient as possible for her to arrive.
When he wasn’t in class, Jesse was usually walking around trying to look busy so no adults or security would give him any trouble. Really, he had his eyes out for Maria, hoping he would just happen to run into her and finally have a proper self-introduction and conversation with her. But that was hard when he would ditch with Racha.
“’Ey, kick it, Jesse.”
It was Monday, and Jesse had been looking forward to Spanish class all weekend. A heatwave had come and Maria was bound to swear a skirt, something sleeveless, and would likely have her hair up. Jesse discovered that he really liked her neck. Her fair skin gave her neck a soft look, which contrasted with her toned physique. It stirred an assumption in Jesse’s mind that Maria possessed an untapped passion, heated and bound by the delicate and tiny chain necklaces she would wear on any given day. When there was hair loose from her bun and it hung over her neck, carelessly and wondrously wavy like a lick of flame, it drove him a little wild. He wanted his hand to caress her soft neck and trail his fingers back up into her hair.
“Nah.”
“The fuck, Jesse? Let’s go.”
“Mm.”
Racha shook his head. “You better hope neither one of them catches you looking at her like that.”
“Wha’?”
“Nothing, pendejo. You’re so fucked and you don’t even know it.”
“Uh, excuse me, Mr. Villalobos--”
“Nyyyyeeeeeeeeeee!”
Racha kept up his screech as he got up from his desk and only stopped as he reached the door. The class snickered as usual, but only some of them turned around to watch Racha go, as they had already grown accustomed to him and were bored with his antics. Mr. Padilla rolled his eyes and picked up the phone from his desk and started dialing.
After class, Jesse watched Maria as she hurried to her next class, but first stopped at the student leadership room. By this point, Jesse had gathered that Maria was incredibly involved and interacted a lot with upperclassmen, teachers, and other adults on campus. For the first time in his life he was legitimately intimidated, and by a girl, no less.
He had kept telling himself that he needed the right place and time to introduce himself to her, because she was always in a hurry or had a friend nearby. Even though Racha had told him that she had a boyfriend, he never seemed to see her with him. Did she really like him? If only Jesse could find the right way, the right words, to explain to her how beautiful and impressive she was to him, that she was making him feel things he never felt before, maybe it would be enough for her to take notice and give him a chance. This had to be real. She would see it; she would know it.
When the final bell had rung for the day, Jesse started heading toward the practice fields. At the far end there was a gate, used for the stadium that led directly out into the neighborhood. It was his new shortcut home, which actually added time to his walk because of the maze of streets behind the school. But there was always the chance that he would see Maria conditioning for volleyball even though they mainly met in the gym.
“¡Esperaté!”
Jesse didn’t need to look back. “’Sup?”
Xotchitl skipped up to Jesse as they walked on the grass. Jesse kept his eyes around the fields.
“We getting faded?”
“Nah. Well, maybe. You got some?”
Xotchitl laughed. “No! I thought you had some.”
“Nah, I wish. I just… I gotta be careful, you know?”
“Yeah, yeah. I remember you telling me. Ever since you came here and shit.”
“Yeh.” For a few weeks now, Xotchitl and Jesse had started hanging out here and there for a few minutes during lunch or between classes. He had her in his English class, which he slept through or ditched depending on Racha being around. She had cute freckles on her nose and cheeks with olive skin, and a great body. They laughed at each other’s jokes. But there was something annoying about her starting to pop up out of nowhere to chat him up. He didn’t want to be seen with her and have Maria think they were a couple.
Jesse looked ahead to the open door of the fenced gate in the distance. He saw a group of slender girls running swiftly along the edge of the fields and making their way through the gate. One not-so-slender girl trailed behind.
“So what happened? You never told me.”
Jesse looked back down at the dried-up grass he was trudging over. His mind was constantly thinking about Maria and all of these new, intense feelings he had for her. This was on top of the heavy guilt he constantly carried about what he had done. It suddenly felt good to talk about what was going on inside his head. “I fucked up. I, uh… I really let my family down. When they really needed me.”
“Oh. That sucks. Why?”
He instantly regretted going along with her questions, and suddenly was embarrassed and afraid to tell her the truth. Although he didn’t really care for her, he still didn’t want her to not like him anymore. He looked away and didn’t respond.
“Well, there’s other things we could do,” Xotchitl said with a slight grin as she leaned over to look in his eyes.
“Yeah? Like what?”
“I don’t know. Something. You always look like you’ve got something you’re thinking about.”
“Yeah, you know who.” Jesse said, looking down at the ground.
“Ughhhh. What? Not her again. I thought you just wanted to fuck her real bad.”
“Yeh,” he lied.
“Chinga tú madre. You know she’s taken. And have you even talked to her yet?”
“Nope.”
“Fuck that bitch. I’m right here. Talk to me!”
The pair continued across the grass, talking about their teachers, memes, and rumors, and when they passed the gate, they both stopped talking and began listening to something else from a few houses down the street.
Next to a parked car, they saw a girl facing away from them. She was curvy and coffee-skinned, wearing shorts and a t-shirt, on all fours by the curb, huffing and wheezing violently.
Xotchitl took out her phone and started filming as she and Jesse walked along the sidewalk to get a closer look. She was an Asian girl, maybe about his age, with a reddened, sweaty face. She looked like she was focusing really hard on her pain or her breathing. She didn’t look up.
“Oh, shit! It’s La Puta! What the fuck is she even doing out here? Ahhh!” Xotchitl bent down to bring the camera on her phone right up close to the girl, almost shoving it to her face at one point. Xotchitl laughed the entire time. “And look at those shoes! Ahhaha!”
Jesse stood on the sidewalk in confusion and looked around to see where the other runners had gone. He didn’t see any sign of them. The houses on the small street stood silent and still with no signs of life. He’d started toward the girl when a small, bright green car gave a slight screech as it made a hard turn onto the street they were on. It sped to the end of the cul-de-sac, made another sharp turn to meet the curve of the street, and stopped abruptly in front of the gate, with yet another screech of the tires. Everything on the car seemed to be customized, although with what appeared to be homemade or generic kits. Some parts were uneven or off-color. The car stood still for a few seconds, the loud engine still running. Jesse tried to not look obvious as he stared, but he couldn’t see through the heavily tinted windows.
Then the passenger’s side opened, and over the roof of the car Jesse saw her wavy hair, her now unmistakable figure and stature: Maria.
Jesse took small steps in the direction of the car, the wheezing and huffing completely shut out of his mind. Maria stooped down out of sight as she reached for something in the car, and just then the driver’s side opened and out came a hulking young man.
He had wide, muscular shoulders. His hair was faded and buzzed short, wide black sunglasses rested on his broad face, and he had a dark, thin mustache. Jesse was pretty sure he could see a tattoo on his neck from this distance, but the guy didn’t stand still. Jesse knew this kind of guy. It was the same guy his father was, and his brothers, and the same guy Jesse was supposed to be. The cholo immediately walked around the car to Maria in a hurried but stocky manner.
“Oh, shit,” Xotchitl said right next to Jesse’s ear. “That’s Raymond Bravo! I heard a rumor last week that Maria had broken up with Moises. But I saw her with him today. Sooo… yeah. True, but not true?”
Maria had slung her backpack on and hung her gym bag over her shoulder. Raymond came over and put his arm around her, pressing her body against his. His face came close to hers and he said something to her. Then he kissed her, almost smashing his face into hers as his arm quickly moved from her lower back up to a tight grasp just under the back of her head. He pulled his body back as she pressed her hand against his chest and turned toward the gate. His arm went out and his hand slapped her butt. Maria giggled and playfully skipped up the path through the gate back to the field.
Raymond slammed the passenger door shut and walked back to the driver’s side. Jesse heard gears shift as the tired screeched and the car drove back up the street toward them. It suddenly halted right in front of them with a small screech. Xotchitl scrambled to put her phone away and look casual. She looked around innocently. Jesse, on the other hand, had his eyes locked on Raymond as soon as he came out of the car. Raymond briskly walked over to the curb.
“’Ey,” Raymond said with a cock of his head. “What the fuck? You a tourist or some shit?”
Xotchitl brought her attention back to Raymond. “Oh, hi, Raymond! I didn’t know you had a car. Sick! How fast does it go? Can you--”
“You cabróns didn’t see shit. Right?”
“I didn’t even -- pues, I didn’t see you until right now.”
“What about you, cabrón?”
Jesse didn’t flinch. “Yeah, I saw you.”
Raymond stepped forward onto the yellowing grass and stood right in front of Jesse. He could smell weed on him. Raymond reached up quickly and took off his sunglasses. “You wanna see me? I’ll show you the ground, puto. Your bitch, too.”
“I’m not with her,” Jesse said, as he took the opportunity to step away from both Xotchitl and Raymond. She looked over at Jesse as her shoulders slumped down. He kept his eyes on Raymond. “But I know who that was. That was Maria.”
Raymond lunged forward and swung his arm at Jesse. He barely dodged it, but he couldn’t get out of the way of the second blow. Jesse was stunned; then Raymond charged and knocked him to the ground, mounting himself on top of Jesse. He was helpless.