“But I didn’t do shit!”
“Maybe not recently, but you’re at a new school for a reason, Jesse.”
“Not this again.”
“Alfredo looks up to you, Jesse. Not only are you his oldest brother now, but he looks to you as a father figure. He needs guidance.” Lita stood quietly in the hallway to the kitchen. She stared into the floor as she listened to the argument unfold.
“I didn’t tell him to punch that kid. He probably deserved it, anyway.”
“Jesse! That’s what I’m talking about. It’s the things you say as well that influence him. It’s the things you don’t do that also teach him how the world works, and what a man is supposed to be and not be.”
“Yeah, I bet you would know about that, wouldn’t you, Dominique?”
Ms. Arcos scowled at Jesse. “You leave their dad out of this, Jesse!” She hissed as she pointed back in her room of the apartment, where her toddler, Alexia, and her baby, Antonio, were currently playing with Alfredo and Marcy, who had her earbuds in and stared down into a phone on her lap. “That is not fair to them or me. Or you!”
Mrs. Ramirez had to step in now. “Jesús! ¡Espérate! Say you’re sorry. ¡Ahora mismo!
“I’m sorry I’m not perfect. And you don’t know how the world works now. For me, for us. That kid probably needed to get punched, and Fredo probably needed to be the one to do it. Now who gonna fuck with him? He needs to fight his own battles, Lita.”
“He needs to stay in school and get good grades, Jesse,” Dominique went on. “And now he’s suspended. Do you really want him following in your footsteps? Making the same mistakes you and Hugo and your father made?”
“What’s wrong with us?” Jesse threw his arms in the air. Then he looked past Dominique and turned toward Mrs. Ramirez. “We gotta make it, Lita. No one is going to take care of us anymore. We’re on our own to make our own way. That’s life, that’s the fucking truth. The sooner Fredo knows that, the better.”
Mrs. Ramirez spoke up again. “Look at where your Papá and Junior are now! And Erik, pobrecito. God rest his soul.” She performed the sign of the cross over her body and head. “You want to bury Alfredo, también? Porque if something happens to him, it’s your fault now.”
“Oh, my God! Fuck you, Lita!” Jesse could feel his veins pumping. His muscles felt tensed up, like he was getting ready to jump into an epic fight. He stormed out of the kitchen and went to go put on his workout gear. Yusef was always telling him about turning losses into victories, turning bad into good. When you get pushed, pull in and use that momentum to your advantage. So now that he was pumped up with anger, Jesse decided to use that energy to get his daily workout done. And it was looking like this workout was going to be a really good one.
It was November now and three weeks since Jesse began his training under Yusef. By this point, Jesse had figured out a regular running route that took him through numerous neighborhoods and led him to the city hall parking structure, where he stormed up four flights of stairs to the top of the structure, then ran back down the winding parking levels and back home.
Yusef had been making sure that Jesse was being consistent with his physical training, meditation, school work, diet, and tutoring, to the point now that Jesse was beginning to keep up the consistency on his own. But it was a rough start. Jesse would now expect a call from Yusef later that night to check in on Jesse’s daily progress. Yusef had a special knack for knowing when Jesse was lying or even stretching the truth a bit -- and that was just on the phone. When Jesse saw Yusef in person, he could smell the dishonesty on Jesse before even seeing him. Getting caught in such a lie meant extra physical training: extra laps around the field, burpees, push-ups, wall-sits, planks, or whatever painful creation Yusef could come up with.
Still, despite the punitive training exercises on top of his routine workouts, Jesse felt frustrated that his body wasn’t reflecting the effort he felt like he was putting in. He convinced himself that he should have a six pack at this point, or at least the beginning of one. Jesse felt stronger, more energetic, and alert. But it wasn’t enough. He needed to grab the attention of Maria. He felt like he was on the path to making her seek him. But he still wasn’t anywhere close to where he wanted to be. So why put in all of this work?
As soon as Jesse got back in from his run and stretched, he went to the bathroom and took off his shirt, sucking in his stomach and flexing his core while standing up tall and straight. There still wasn’t much to look at. He did notice that his body felt tighter and maybe even looked a little slimmer. Jesse wasn’t overweight, but if there was a six pack, it was hiding under a subtle layer of flab. His neck appeared to be a bit thicker now, and the constant soreness in his arms, legs, chest, and back suggested that muscles were forming and getting stronger, but Jesse wanted to see it. All of that hard work and nothing to show for it! At this rate, Maria would be off to some college far away before Jesse’s body was anywhere near he wanted it to be. A wave of rage overtook him and he was about to punch the mirror, but in a last-second touch of caution, opted to punch the sink counter, instead.
“Fuck!” he yelled out as he recoiled in pain and cradled his right hand. He instinctively shook it, as if to shake off the pain, but that only made it worse. “Fuuuuuuckkk!” he groaned out in anger.
“Mijo?” Lita yelled from the kitchen.
“I’m fine!” Jesse yelled back. This was now one of those opportunities that Yusef advised Jesse about: he needed to practice dealing with his pain in less destructive ways. Of all Yusef was training him to do, he struggled most with meditation. It felt like such a waste of time. But he had to admit that he sometimes did feel a bit more relaxed after practicing.
His training did come in handy at times like this: when pain was almost unbearable. Yusef had been teaching Jesse to block out pain by learning how to focus on happy memories and positive images about the future; Zen is how Yusef kept referring to it, but apparently it wasn’t the right word for it, he had tried to explain. He didn’t want Jesse getting too caught up in all of the weird terms. But he had remembered that Yusef explained the original word as “dhyana.” At any rate, by practicing this technique with the other steps in meditation that Yusef had trained him in, Jesse would essentially be able to block out physical pain. Jesse was practicing this more and more as his physical training continued, even when not in his typical meditative poses. “Ultimate meditation and focus is when one can become Zen in any form, any place, and any time,” Yusef had explained over and over.
So Jesse started taking slow, deep breaths and calmly left the bathroom and went into the vacant bedroom. He sat down and slightly leaned himself against the wall. His muscles relaxed and his exhales and inhales were full and maximized. He went deep into his mind, syncing the throbs of his hand with the pounding of his heart. As he focused on calming the beat of his pulse and imagined sunny days holding Maria’s hand, festive nights with Hugo and his Papá, and somewhere in some unknown time ago smelling his mother’s hair and hearing her laugh, Jesse’s heart calmed and so did the pain in his hand. It would still be sore, but now Jesse could focus on other things. Like his dreaded science project.
After brainstorming with Yusef a few weeks ago, Jesse had decided to conduct his research on something that had never really occurred to him as even being a thing. Since Yusef had begun to turn Jesse’s world upside down, he was learning quite a bit about how the world worked. Yusef was even teaching Jesse things about the Black community, and it made a lot of sense to him. When Yusef had explained to Jesse that Blacks made up about 13% of the U.S. population, but made up about 34% of the total prison population in the country, Jesse had to let that process for a few seconds before it made sense in his head. And even then, it didn’t make sense.
“Why are Black people in prison so much?” he asked Yusef.
“Ah! That is a powerful question. And now I have one for you. Have you ever heard of the school-to-prison pipeline?”
“Uh… I think one of my cousins is a plumber if you’ve got a problem, jefe.”
“I will take that as a no.” Then Yusef had immediately sent Jesse off to get his phone and do a quick web search. But when Jesse didn’t come back right away and Yusef had gone to find him, Jesse just had more questions to throw at him. It was instantly decided that Jesse had already started his research for his science project, and he just needed to refine his question and perhaps make it more relevant to himself.
“But shouldn’t I be doing something with like, chemicals and shit?”
Yusef stared back at him for a second and thought about his response. “Let’s imagine that I was your doctor, Mubtadi, and I knew you were dying.”
Jesse’s eyes grew big.
“Don’t worry, you’re not dying. Not right now, anyway. But let us continue with this hypothetical explanation. Pretend you are dying. I know it, you know it. As your doctor, I know how to cure you. You just need to be shown how to change some habits in your life, take some medicine, and have it explained to you why some of the things you eat or do in your life are causing you to die.”
“Okay. That makes sense so far.”
“Right. But, the problem is, you are not coming in to see me. I cannot show you what is wrong with you, explain to you how to fix it. You are going to keep doing the things wrong in your life that are causing you to die.”
Jesse was getting bored and impatient. “So what the fuck? Am I going to die or what? Why can’t I come in to see you?”
“That is the point of this project, Mubtadi. The reality is that we are dying. Our civilization is crumbling. Our doctors, scientists, and teachers are not able to reach and communicate with people to teach them how to fix ourselves. Because the people that can and should be making the most difference, people like you, are not learning about how to save ourselves. They are not learning in our schools. They are getting kicked out. Eventually they go to prison. Then they become part of yet another problem that we have, and that makes saving our civilization -- our people -- harder.”
Jesse stood in silence, deep in thought. “I still don’t get it.”
“What is the point of the knowledgeable people all together in the same room showing off the typical scientific findings to each other, when the world outside is burning? We have to show each other why all of this knowledge matters, and why everyone needs to know about it. If people are not able to learn about it, then we need to find out why and do something about it.”
“Ugh,” Jesse groaned. “It is hot,” he said with a grimace.
“That is precisely the kind of response that indicates a need to properly inform people. It is so much more than the weather feeling a little warmer or colder than usual. Those changes have devastating effects across whole parts of the world. If you cannot see it or it is not directly impacting you in ways that drastically endanger your well-being, then you are likely to ignore it. Until it actually does. But by then, it will likely be much too late. So it goes with the poor, the marginalized, and the oppressed.”
“So why don’t those smart people solve it? They have all of the answers, don’t they?” Jesse asked.
“This is not a math equation, Mubtadi. There is no great invention that will reverse all of the damage that has been done, and will continue to be done at our current rate. We have no Superman to save us. And the causes are driven by people that profit from it.”
“What do you mean people profit from it? From the world being destroyed?” Jesse asked.
“You have much to learn, my mubtadi. And much to do if we are to make a difference.”
“Pues, how does changing the school-to-prison pipeline save everyone?”
“Alone, it will not. It is but one pillar of many that needed to bolster our survival. But no one person can replace all of these foundations that have cracked.”
Jesse didn’t have more to say or ask, but looked like Yusef’s words were working their way around in his mind.
“Now, back to training. We will come back to this question. Perhaps you will begin to realize what role you will play in this life… what kind of hero you need to be.”
Jesse opened his eyes from his meditative state, back in the bedroom against the wall. That conversation was from two weeks ago. Since then, Jesse had researched the school-to-prison pipeline. He was shocked at how many teens were being sent to juvie, and then prison. Sometimes, straight to prison because their judge decided to put them on trial as an adult -- just like his brother, Junior. One statistic that really stood out to Jesse was about the likelihood of going to prison, based on your ethnicity: 1 in 23 for white males, 1 in 6 for Hispanic males, and 1 in 4 for black males. Jesse wondered what it meant for his chances if members of his family had already been in trouble with the law.
My life is shitty. But it’s not prison-shitty. I want to see Maria. And be with her. I guess I want to graduate and make my family proud, too.
Just then he looked down at his arm because he noticed a slight throbbing. He saw a vein which he hadn’t really noticed before. He examined it and also noticed that his forearm had a little more shape than usual.
“Huh,” he said. “Guess this shit working.”