Crazy Messy Beautiful Read online

  For me, writing, especially essays, can feel like being stuck all alone in a dark cave when all you’ve been given to dig yourself out is a tiny plastic white spoon. I have dysgraphia, and it affects how I process information. Almost everyone knows about dyslexia because famous people have talked about it and said that even though they struggled with reading as a kid, they still went on to become a successful actor or a professional basketball player or something.

  No one ever talks about dysgraphia.

  Basically, if you tried to read something I wrote, you’d think two things: One, he has terrible handwriting, and two, he doesn’t know anything about the English language. The first is true. I can barely read my own writing. The rest isn’t, but I do have difficulty putting letters in the correct order to spell the words I mean to use, or I leave out vowels entirely, even though I think I’ve included them, so it can seem like I don’t know how to spell or use proper grammar.

  I’m also slow in the literal sense of the word. It takes me longer to process and organize. I’m not stupid, though. My reading comprehension is high. But for most people slow equals stupid, especially if you’re in public school. Everything is measured by timed tests, as if how quickly you can do something signifies intelligence.

  Fortunately, there are tools that can help people with dysgraphia write better. When I have a homework assignment that involves writing, I usually speak into a recorder at home. It helps me organize my thoughts. I also have this software that will type up what I’m saying. At first Mom and Dad didn’t think it was a good idea—they thought that I needed to learn to write on my own. After a few months of trying harder and still getting shitty grades, a teacher in middle school explained to my parents that the software could make a real difference for someone “like me.” My parents had to admit that it helped when I actually started getting better grades on writing assignments.

  Still, every year I get lumped into some remedial English class (aka the “Academic Success Program!”) with the other struggling students. I know it’s designed to help, but it only makes me feel worse.

  It’s like they went, Okay, this is everyone who sucks at the system in some way, so instead of changing the system, let’s just throw everyone who sucks together so that eventually, maybe, they’ll suck less.

  But it never changes. Year after year they give us the same information about how to organize our notebooks and take notes and go over how to write a thesis statement five thousand times, as if that is the real problem.

  I know how to write a thesis statement. I just don’t like to.

  • • •

  In seventh grade I had this one teacher who told me, “Neruda, there’s genius inside of you. But no one’s going to believe it until you show them.”

  The dictionary says a genius is “a very smart or talented person with great natural ability.”

  I am not a genius. I don’t want to be a genius. It has taken me a lot of time and practice just to feel above mediocre at best. Why can’t I practice and become amazing, the best in the world even, at just one thing? What makes natural ability so much better?

  Without sounding conceited, I’m actually really good at drawing. Which is a good thing for someone with dysgraphia to be, because even if I can’t express myself that well in words, I still have art. Plus, writing can be pretty objective; art isn’t.

  I keep a sketchbook with me at all times that I fill with images of lots of different things, but mostly of people. Portraits are my thing. I know this because my art teachers tell me so and keep investing. In fact, I’ve just been commissioned to design a mural for the school library. Mr. Fisher, my art teacher, is overseeing the project. He’s got a thing for murals. I’m not really a muralist, but I’m up for the challenge. Before working on the project, I hadn’t noticed how many murals there are in LA. Now I see them all the time.

  If anything, I figure I can always get one of those jobs as a cartoonist at Disneyland. They probably make decent money.

  • • •

  From the front of the class, Mr. Nelson’s voice is white noise. I’m trying to draw Callie’s hand. It’s in a fist on the table. Her fingers are small, with black chipped nail polish on short bitten nails. There’s a hangnail, red and raw, on the side of her pointer. Her thumb has a ring that looks like an elephant, the trunk circling her finger to form the band. Two freckles dot her pinky just under the cuticle.

  Luis taps at the table with a different pen, which is loud and annoying. We’ve been in class together off and on since freshman year PE, and he has been annoying me ever since.

  During the swimming unit, we had to shower afterward. As if that wasn’t enough, Luis would steal people’s towels just to be a jerk. We’d find them stuffed in the trash or rolled up on top of the lockers. Then he’d laugh and say, “We’re cool, right?” like we were in on the joke. It was never a joke for me.

  Two years later and Luis has found new ways to be an asshole. Like sketching a woman’s breasts and waving his hands in front of me until I look over. I can’t help but glance at them. They look like large, round bug eyes. They’re so terrible and ugly and not at all like a woman’s breasts. There’s no artistry in them, no flesh, no beauty. The worst is that there’s no imagination.

  I ignore him and Luis grabs my sketchbook. He opens it, flipping around.

  “Give it back,” I say.

  He stops at a drawing of Autumn I did last week. It isn’t complete—most of the sketches in the book aren’t. They’re whatever I can get done in the short amount of time that I spend watching the subject. Autumn had been sitting with her back against the brick wall near the front of school, earbuds in, legs folded in front of her and talking on the phone.

  Luis shows Josh. Josh laughs that stupid idiot SpongeBob kind of laugh.

  “Gentlemen, eyes up here, please,” Mr. Nelson says.

  I glare at Luis, trying to get him to give me back my book. Instead, Luis just folds his hands over the page and stares up at Mr. Nelson.

  If Luis were a day, he’d be Monday at 7:05 a.m.

  Mr. Nelson starts speaking again. Luis smirks at me and then draws the same huge balloon boobs on Autumn’s picture, defiling more than just my work. He defiles my Autumn.

  Something within me rises to the surface. I reach across the table, grab Luis’s shirt, pull him in, and hit him. Suddenly we’re on the floor and I’m on top of him. I think I climbed over the desks.

  Soon everyone’s yelling, or maybe it’s just me. There’s a scream that echoes in my brain until someone bigger and stronger tears me off of Luis—or maybe it’s Luis off of me—because now I’m in some kind of hold, pushed up against the wall.

  “Are you done?” Mr. Nelson asks, red-faced.

  I don’t answer him. Mostly because I’m afraid of what I’ll say.

  “He’s crazy,” Luis says, holding his neck. “I was just sitting there. I didn’t do anything.”

  “Everyone stay where you are,” says Mr. Nelson.

  The class is watching me, so I try to control my shaking.

  Then Mr. Nelson makes me walk out of the classroom like I’m some kind of criminal.

  LEANING INTO THE AFTERNOONS

  Principal Jones sits behind a big desk adorned with a line of superhero action figures. But the characters are all wrong. He’s combining the universes—Marvel intermixed with DC characters—as if there’s no order. He wants to know why I attacked Luis. I stare at Batman and Deadpool, because how do I explain a bastard like Luis?

  How do I say that he desecrated my artistic expression? How do I explain love? How do I tell him that Mr. Nelson’s class is soul-sucking and I was afraid that the longer I stayed there, the more I might die slowly and without honor?

  If I’m going to die in this crappy school, I want to die nobly.

  The principal asks me again about Luis. I just shrug.

  He says
that since I don’t have a history of violence, he’s going to give me an in-school suspension for the rest of the day and that’s it. He says it could be much worse; I could have been given an actual suspension that would have gone on my permanent record. Then he asks if I have anything to add.

  I don’t.

  The office assistant escorts me down the hall.

  • • •

  When I enter the room designated for in-school suspension, the middle-aged man in a red Adidas shirt and gray sweatpants points to the rules on the board, the sign-in sheet, and an empty desk.

  I scan the room and don’t see anyone I recognize. I’m not supposed to be here.

  After I sign the paper, I move to my seat.

  I get a text.

  Crap. My mom. The school must have called her about my little incident.

  Are you okay?

  Yes

  What were you thinking?

  Can’t text, I type, though this isn’t true. Despite the “no electronic devices” rule, everyone in the room is on their phone. Tell u later.

  Oh, we will talk later, that’s for sure. And don’t forget dinner.

  Gt it covered, I text her back.

  It’s Monday, one of my nights to “cook.” Tonight I planned bacon grilled cheese sandwiches, a salad, and tomato and red pepper soup from Trader Joe’s. Piece of cake.

  I check my email and see I’ve got one from Ezra.

  Neruda,

  You asked me once what I’d want to do when I got out, but I didn’t answer you. I didn’t want to think about it. Expectations can be a deadly thing. But now that I’m out, I can say they’re simple things too. I want to see the ocean. I can count on one hand the times I’ve been there. Can you believe that? Never had the time to go before. I want to drive cross-country and visit every state. I want to find the best taco stand in East LA. I want to go camping and sleep outside in the open, somewhere without four walls staring at me all the time. I want my life to matter. There’s so many things I want that I’m afraid if I write all of them down, I’ll explode from the wanting. You ever feel that way?

  This might sound strange, but here’s a truth that comes in the dark. The ugliest, hardest, meanest men cry when they think no one can hear. They would be ashamed if they knew others could hear, but through all these years, I’ve clung to that sound because it gives me hope. Makes me realize we are all the same in the middle of the night, fighting against the great tide of loneliness that threatens to drown us. All longing for someone to hear, to truly know us as we are.

  Thanks for knowing me.

  See you soon.

  Ezra

  Ezra and I have been writing each other for three years, since I was in the eighth grade, when Mrs. Dutton, my English teacher, made us write letters to prisoners. She said it would allow us to practice letter writing in a “fun and different” way, and also help the prisoners feel a little less lonely. Mrs. Dutton’s brother was serving time for robbery, so that’s why she was especially sensitive to the plight of people in prison. She told us that, on average, most friends and family stop visiting their loved ones in prison after three years. She had a list of prisoners we could write to, having already screened them to see who’d want to be pen pals with thirteen-year-olds. By the time it was my turn to choose, Ezra Hernandez was the only name left on the page.

  You have to write real letters to people in prison. They don’t have personal laptops or smartphones. No email or text messaging. I sent Ezra a short note because, back then, my writing sucked even more. I had to spell-check it a bunch on the computer first to make sure it was perfect, then copy it word for word. I didn’t want him thinking I was an idiot.

  The letter I sent was only one line long, questioning whether light is the same for both convicts and those who are free. It was a question from The Poet’s Book of Questions.

  After a week, Ezra wrote me back. His letter said:

  Dear Neruda,

  Only those who have known darkness can fully appreciate the light.

  Sincerely,

  Ezra Hernandez

  We’ve been writing once a week ever since.

  Even though Ezra and I talk frequently and about all kinds of things, he’s not an open book. Over the years, I’ve teased out bits and pieces of his story. From what I can tell, he was trying to help his brother, Rafa, and ended up going with him to rob a house. I think Ezra was trying to stop him from doing it. The house was supposed to be empty, but it wasn’t. Rafa was shot and killed and Ezra was sent to prison. He was eighteen at the time and served ten years for an armed robbery conviction. But as soon as I got to know Ezra, I immediately doubted his guilt. He just didn’t seem like the typical stereotype of a Mexican guy in jail, the one you see portrayed on TV shows and movies—shaved head, arms covered in tats, maybe even one circling his neck or a teardrop close to his eye.

  Even still, I was surprised when Ezra showed up at my door a couple of months ago looking like some fashion model with his tapered jeans and suspenders, his dark curly hair styled in a perfect-looking mess on his head, a trimmed beard, and emerald-green-framed glasses. His arms were naked of any tattoos. Even his white shoes were cool.

  First, we stared at each other awkwardly, and then he smiled and pulled me in for a big bear hug. He told me I wasn’t what he expected either. He never explained what he meant.

  Ezra doesn’t like to talk about his prison time much, but when he does talk about it, he says that he can’t focus on the past. He can’t change it. He can only affect the future. I can get on board with that.

  • • •

  Ezra and I have become pretty close these past few years. I introduced him to The Poet, and he taught me about history—specifically World War Two—working out, politics, cars, and anything he was reading about in prison. He must’ve read five books a week because, he said, that’s all you do in prison: read. That or work out.

  Ezra is crazy smart. He got two degrees while he was in jail: one in political science, the other in business. Sometimes he wrote me letters explaining the laws of commerce. And in my letters to him, I’d always start with a paragraph about how life was on the outside. Current events and stuff. He called me his man on the street. He didn’t want to get out and feel as if the world had passed him by.

  Now that he’s out, we don’t just write letters. We email and text. Meet up for basketball or food sometimes. Whatever.

  Ezra’s kind of like an older brother, but without all of the older-brother baggage, and he’s kind of like my best friend. He’s really introspective, probably from all of those years being locked inside his own head. Even now he’s always talking about how I should never take things for granted. How I should work to find the good in everything and not be afraid to dream big. That every experience, the good and the bad, can teach me something. He says we all have a choice to move forward or to let the bad stuff knock us into retreat. He used to close his letters with “onward and upward, my man, onward and upward.”

  I read his email one more time before I write him back. It’s sloppy because I can’t use the app that I speak into at school. I tell Ezra about the fight with Luis. Ezra doesn’t condone fighting for dumb reasons, but he’s all for defending yourself. He’s even taught me some moves, which is why I knew I could rush Luis like that.

  I write about how stupid high school is and how maybe I should just take my GED. Ezra won’t like the last idea. I’ve mentioned it before and he always responds that I should stay in school. He’ll want to know why I want to grow up so fast. And besides, aren’t there girls?

  There is a girl.

  I picture Autumn’s face, her high cheekbones dotted with small freckles and eyes like deep almonds. She’s so pretty, she doesn’t need any makeup. I replay the way she said my name today, her voice a little higher and louder than usual, like there was real feeling behind it. It could have been
the fact that she had earbuds in, but even with that, there was definitely some emotion in her words.

  Autumn is the kind of girl I know I could have a real relationship with. She’s different from the others because she’s not only beautiful, she’s smart too. She’s in AP classes, plays in the orchestra, and I’m pretty sure she volunteers to read to little kids at the elementary school. She just has something special. Everything seems brighter when she’s around.

  I go into my photos app and find the one I took of her yesterday. I have to zoom in a little to really see Autumn because I was trying to take the picture without her knowing. She was walking to lunch with a group of her friends. Her face is tilted toward someone, but it’s in my direction, so it’s like she’s looking at me. Her mouth is open in a small smile.

  I flip through the other photos I have of her. It’s not like I have a hundred of them or anything—I’m not a stalker. I have a good, healthy six photos.

  Feeling inspired, I reach in my bag for my sketchbook. It’s not there.

  First he defiles my picture, then he steals my sketchbook. Leave it to Luis to take advantage of an already bad situation and make it ten times worse.

  I bum a couple of lined pieces of paper off the person next to me and do warm-up sketches of some mural ideas. I’m thinking a collage of faces. I’m not sure how and who yet. But Mr. Fisher wants it to be a reflection of our school. I’m sure he’ll be pissed when he finds out I’m in here and not in art class, so I might as well try and be productive. Maybe I’ll draw different students standing, facing forward, like they’re in a lineup. I can stamp the name of our school off to the side, like we’re all potential suspects stuck in lockup. Mr. Fisher would probably laugh, but it would never get past the school board.

  As I continue to draw, my sketches quickly morph into portraits of Autumn. By the time the bell rings signaling that school has ended, only different versions of Autumn stare up at me. Perfect, beautiful Autumn after Autumn, and my heart aches.