Adequate Yearly Progress

by Roxanna Elden

  “Yeah. I’m kind of a regular on poetry night.”

  Hernan turned off the car and walked around to open Lena’s door. They crossed the street together, close enough to renew his hope that this might be a date.

  It soon became clear that Lena was more than a regular. The bouncer knew her by name and waved the two of them past the cash box. They got drinks and found a table next to the stage, where a woman in tiny shorts was reading into the microphone from behind a paper.

  “I’m ready to find a man who respects me for me,” she said, shifting nervously from one exposed leg to the other, “who sees all I can be / If you can see me as more than just the skin I’m in / I can see past your past sins / and at last we’ll build something that’s built for last-in’.” Then she hurried off the stage as the crowd clapped politely.

  The emcee reappeared, his skinny build and giant Afro giving him the appearance of a walking microphone. “One more time for our new poet. She a poetic virgin, y’all. Show her some love!”

  The applause blended into an old-school hip-hop song that reminded Hernan of his college days in Austin. By the time he turned to share this with Lena, however, the emcee with the microphone hair had appeared at their table.

  “This is Deejay Jay Jay,” said Lena, rising from her chair to hug him, “from Radio Four-Twenty.”

  The deejay handed Lena a clipboard, then turned to greet Hernan. “You a poet, too, or just here to watch your girl perform?”

  “Just watching.”

  “Well… enjoy.” Deejay Jay Jay waited for Lena to hand back the clipboard, then vanished into the backstage darkness.

  “I usually try to do a poem when I come here,” Lena explained. Her eyes perused the room as if she were expecting someone.

  Hernan, too, surveyed the club. Except for a dim glow near the bar, most of the illumination came from the spotlights focused on the stage: red on one side, blue on the other. The colors highlighted the contours of poets’ faces as they performed. There was a poem about smoking weed that got a lot of applause, poems by women in various stages of heartbreak, a lone white guy doing a poem about being the lone white guy doing a poem. Also, Hernan had been right about the dress code: most of the guys in the club were wearing jeans. The women were dressed up, though, and Hernan watched two skinny women wobble toward the bar, tugging at their dresses. Nearby, a group of bigger women talked and laughed loudly at a table, as if to say, This club was built around us.

  And then there was Lena, who projected a mix of assurance and insecurity that made her hard to categorize.

  The music paused, and Deejay Jay Jay came back onstage. “One more time for our favorite white guy! Okay, okay—our only white guy.”

  “I think I’m up next,” Lena whispered. “Wish me luck!”

  “Next up, we have the teacher y’all wish you had when you were in high school, here to drop some inspiration. Let’s give it up for Miiisss Leenaaa Wriiight!”

  “Good luck,” called Hernan as Lena hurried into the darkness.

  A moment later, she stepped out onto the side of the stage, beaming at the cheers of the crowd.

  “Okay, y’all. This poem is called ‘What You Really Need to Know.’ ”

  “Yeah!” came a yell from the back of the room.

  “Lesson one: never hide.” The blue spotlight caught the angle of her cheekbones.

  “Lesson two: show your pride.” The red light highlighted her eyelids and full, shiny lips. “Because your fate is not for the world to decide.”

  From the stage, she exuded a confidence Hernan had never noticed in person. She slowed, sometimes, to let certain lines sink in, then suddenly sped up, rhyming within rhymes in a display of verbal acrobatics that would have left most speakers breathless.

  “You say / you want extra credit / well, I don’t give that / you go get it.” The crowd fell under Lena’s spell, listening, watching, listening-and-watching, listeningandwatching until the senses became inseparable, and Hernan felt himself pulled along with them. He was one of those rare scientists who knew magic when he saw it.

  Then, at the end of a fast-paced drum roll of a stanza, Lena stopped, looked around the room, and raised one eyebrow dramatically. “And that’s…” She held the microphone out to the audience.

  “What you really need to know!” The crowd finished the poem for her.

  “Thank you,” Lena whispered. Then she left the stage to a roar.

  A moment later, she emerged from the stairwell, accepting compliments with the smile of a celebrity as she made her way back to Hernan.

  “One more time for Miss Wright!” said Deejay Jay Jay. “I bet there are a lot of guys out there hoping to be Miss Wright’s Mr. Right, if you know what I mean.”

  Hernan knew.

  Lena slid back into her chair and let out a breath, giving him a conspiratorial look.

  “Nice job,” said Hernan.

  Thanks, she mouthed.

  The speaker near their table drowned out any further chance at conversation.

  “Next up, we got a man who’s been missing from the scene for a minute. He’s been letting the whole country know how we do it down here, but now he’s back to show he ain’t forgot about us. I guess you could say he’s here to take us to the… Nex… Level!”

  The room burst with the biggest applause of the night as a tall man with dreadlocks stepped between the red and blue lights. He withdrew the microphone, then raised the stand with one hand and slowly placed it behind him, flexing his muscles—it seemed to Hernan—a bit more than necessary.

  “Tonight”—Nex Level smiled—“I got something for the ladies.”

  The cheering sounded noticeably more female now. The guys in the audience were busy arranging themselves into confident, heterosexual poses.

  “Or maybe I should say”—the poet licked his lips—“my queens.”

  Hernan crossed his arms and leaned back in his chair.

  “I gotta be careful with the words I choose, ’cause the words we use / contain the power of suggestion. That’s why when I rhyme / I say it’s high time we question…”

  This was no longer the intro to the poem, Hernan realized. It was the poem itself. Nex Level’s language had picked up speed and lifted into the air without warning. It seemed dishonest somehow.

  “The mechanism by which / we learn to call a woman a bitch / when what we mean is”—Nex Level paused, then slowed his cadence—“fellow soldier.”

  From somewhere in the dark, a woman’s voice called, “Rewiiiinnnnddd!”

  Nex repeated the lines. “I said it’s high time we question / the mechanism by which / we learn to call a woman a bitch / when what we mean is… fellow soldier.”

  Hernan, apparently, had missed the mechanism by which this lesson was learned. He did not call women bitches.

  “Strong sistas holdin’ the whole world on their shoulders / hustlin’ home from two jobs / to throw down in the kitchen / overcoming overwhelming odds under unfit conditions…”

  Shouts and claps and finger snaps crackled behind Hernan’s head as he watched the stage. He didn’t really follow the poetry scene, but he’d still heard of Nex Level. Over the summer, a video of the poet’s performance from a rally against police brutality had dominated Facebook for days. Even Hernan’s sister Lety was a fan. What he noticed now, watching from up close, was the way Nex Level locked eyes with various women in the audience who were “through with hopin’ and wishin’ / sick of single-handedly handling life’s mission…”

  The poem seemed to be nearing its end. Hernan snuck a look at Lena.

  “Understandably / asking for a man who understands you.”

  Lena’s eyes were fixed on the stage.

  “Ladies, I know life got you stressed / but true beauty manifests… in how you handle what life hands you.” It was on this last line, which set off a chorus of shrieks and applause, that Nex Level aimed his gaze directly at Lena. Then he smiled.

  From the corner of his eye, Hernan saw Len
a smiling back.

  Moments later, Nex Level descended from the stairs behind the stage, his eyes reconnecting with Lena’s as he emerged from the darkness. He offered an innocent grin, shrugging as if to say he didn’t know what the fuss was all about. Hernan waited for him to pass, but he lingered near their table as the applause died down.

  “Nice poem,” said Lena.

  “You, too. So you’re a teacher, huh?”

  “Yeah.” Lena giggled. “This is my friend Hernan. He works with me.”

  Hernan’s hopes for the night plummeted. One didn’t need to know much about human courtship rituals to know friend was code for ruled out as a potential mate.

  “Oh, yeah? Where y’all teach at?” The question was directed at both of them but clearly meant for Lena.

  “Brae Hill Valley High School,” she answered.

  “No shit. You work at the Hill? Them roughnecks don’t give you a hard time?”

  “Nah, I’m from Philly. We got worse schools up there.” She didn’t seem to mind that she did not sound like an English teacher.

  “Well, I wish I had a teacher like you when I was in school.”

  Hernan hoped Lena recognized Nex’s lame-ass pickup line for what it was.

  But she gave no sign of this. “I saw you at that rally over the summer. Love your stuff.”

  “You mean you never saw me rhyme before? Don’t tell me this is the only poetry spot you go to.”

  Lena nodded.

  “Well, we gotta get you to another club one of these days—all that talent you got. How about I give you my number?”

  “Nah,” said Lena, though her voice held a flirtatious modesty. “I don’t take men’s numbers.”

  Hernan’s heart soared. She’d asked for his number at the back-to-school meeting.

  “If you want to talk to me, you’ll call me.”

  Hernan’s heart sank. She’d asked for his number at the back-to-school meeting.

  “Oh, I see. So you the old-fashioned type. Well, Missss Lena”—Nex swept out an arm and bowed in an exaggerated display of gallantry—“any chance I could get your number?”

  Hernan rose from the table. “I’m gonna get another drink.”

  “Hey, I got a hookup on drinks here,” offered Nex Level. “When you go up there, just tell them you with me.”

  “That’s okay,” said Hernan. “I’m good.” Seven dollars was a more-than-reasonable price for an excuse to leave the table. The plastic cup of Jose Cuervo was a bonus. Hernan squeezed the wilted sliver of lime into the tequila. He sipped slowly, keeping his eyes on the stage, until he glanced over and saw Lena sitting alone again.

  “Sorry about that,” she said as he slid back into his seat. “I’ve been wanting to see if he would come do some poetry for the kids.”

  “Okay. Well…” The statement didn’t seem to call for an actual response so much as a beat of response-like noise.

  “Most of his poetry isn’t like that,” she added.

  Hernan looked at his watch to avoid looking at Lena. She didn’t really owe him anything, he reasoned. She’d been planning to come here anyway. And she’d invited everyone at happy hour. It was he who had jumped at the possibility, and then later offered to pick her up. He was the idiot who thought they might be on a date. At least he hadn’t done anything to give himself away.

  “You look like you’re ready to go,” said Lena.

  “Yeah. It’s getting late.”

  They cheerfully avoided the subject of Nex Level the whole way home.

  “So, you think we won our first game?” asked Hernan.

  “Oh, wow,” said Lena, “that was tonight, wasn’t it? To be honest, I don’t really pay that much attention to football.”

  “Uh-oh. Don’t tell the rest of Texas.”

  Lena drew out her laughter as far as it would stretch. Then she asked, “Did you have fun?”

  “Yeah. Good club.” He tried to sound like he meant it. “You’re very talented.”

  He turned up the radio to drown out the silence that followed.

  CHARACTERIZATION

  “THINK BACK TO the first day of school, when you met your teachers. How did you figure out what kind of teachers they were going to be?”

  “Their attitude.”

  “Okay,” said Lena, “their attitude. But how did you know what kind of attitude they were going to have? What did they do?”

  “Like, if they yell at you the first day and say you can’t come in the class without a notebook. Like how Ms. Grady—”

  “Okay, Rico, but we’re not mentioning names.”

  “Sorry, miss. If a teacher yells at you the first day and says you can’t be in class without a notebook and asks if you thought you were coming to the circus.”

  A few other students laughed.

  “So, one of the ways you can figure out what type of person you’re dealing with is by paying attention to what they say.” Lena wrote on the marker board as she spoke.

  FIVE METHODS OF CHARACTERIZATION

  Character’s words.

  “Yes,” agreed Rico. “That’s exactly what I meant.”

  Rico Jones, a short, expressive kid with a tattoo on the side of his neck, was the student Lena had first thought of when the topic of neck tattoos came up at happy hour. He seemed capable of original observations on any subject. During class discussions, he sparkled. Reading, however, was a different story. When called upon to read aloud, Rico was like a car with a weak battery, starting and stopping, losing momentum with each try, finally resigning himself to bump slowly along the page in a clatter of mispronounced words. Lena knew if she didn’t point out his errors, he’d never learn to fix them. Yet the thought of correcting teenagers’ reading in public filled her with humiliation on their behalf. In her hesitance, she often let errors slide.

  “What else do authors do to help you get to know a character?”

  Rico raised his hand again.

  “Someone I haven’t heard from yet.” Lena looked around the room.

  “Their actions?”

  “Good. Their actions. Good.” Lena wrote, 2. Character’s actions.

  The clock was ticking toward the bell. She hoped her students would come up with the remaining items on the list without too much prodding. The Curriculum Standard of the Day, posted online even later than usual today, had caught Lena in the middle of an entirely unrelated lesson. Now she was trying to cover the required material as an add-on during the last fifteen minutes of class.

  “How about in the first few seconds? What forms your very first impression?”

  “Their attitude?”

  Before Lena could point out that someone had said that already, another voice chimed in. “Their clothes?”

  “Good.” Lena wrote, 3. Physical description. “And not just their clothes, but the way they look, the expressions on their faces. Anything physical that the author thinks is important enough to describe.” She knew she was filling in information students hadn’t actually supplied, but she didn’t have time to do the whole guide-on-the-side-not-sage-on-the-stage thing that professional-development trainers were always talking about.

  “Raise your hand if you’ve ever known about a teacher before you even stepped into a classroom.”

  A few hands went up.

  “Okay. So number four is what other characters say about the character. And there’s one more thing—something the author might know, but no one else does.”

  Near the back of the room, someone unzipped a backpack.

  Quickly, Lena wrote, 5. Character’s thoughts.

  “Okay. Just copy this list into your notes. And at the end, write this.” She talked loudly as she scrawled on the board in giant letters. “A plot is the development of character over time. Then you can pack up, and we’ll talk about this again during our fiction unit. Just remember: No character? No story. Perfect character? No story. Character who never changes? No story.”

  The bell rang. Students folded the day’s worksheets and s
hoved them into their pockets. One girl removed her sweatshirt, the better to display her cleavage and nonuniform shirt in the hallway. Another left the classroom and began making out with her boyfriend almost immediately. On a normal day, any of these actions would have annoyed Lena, but today nothing could put her in a bad mood.

  She had a date tonight.

  * * *

  There was something about Nex Level’s features that made Lena never want to look away: the intensity of his eyes as they focused on the road, the hint of a scar above his eyebrow. It made him look unafraid, as if, in some other life, he might have been an African warrior. Lena wondered if everyone noticed this about him, or if it was something only she saw.

  “Whatchu looking at, boo?”

  “Nothing.” She hoped the lightness in her voice kept him from thinking she’d been staring. “Just trying to figure out where you’re taking me.”

  He stopped at a red light and turned to look at her fully. “I was gonna bring you by this poetry spot I go to on Wednesdays. Let you show off your talent a little bit.”

  “Sounds good.” The words felt overly eager coming out, as if they held traces of how many times she’d rehearsed her newest poem, hoping for exactly this.

  “Only problem is, this place ain’t downtown, like Club Seven—actually, it’s kinda hood. I don’t want to take you anywhere you feel uncomfortable.”

  “Don’t worry about me. I work at the Hill, remember?” She dropped the nickname Nex Level had used for Brae Hill Valley when they’d met, hoping to spark his memory.

  “Oh, right. Yeah, you’ll be aright.”

  They were on the freeway now. Slow, thumping music pulsed through the speakers. Lena tried to think of something that might be worth talking about over the music but instead settled on looking out the window until Nex pulled off at an exit she’d never taken before. It was a ramp she’d always assumed led to an industrial road, and there were, indeed, darkened factories visible in every direction. Yet up close, she could see there were also houses. They were in a neighborhood—one so economically and physically ravaged that she tried to conceal her alarm.