DISCLAIMER: The Kids from Fame belong to MGM Studios.
This scene takes place in the episode "Savage Streets" where Jesse joins a street gang, The Ravens, in order to take revenge on a rival gang, The Skulls, who killed his father figure, Hector. The first part of this story is in the episode, and is my take on what went through Leroy's mind when Nicole was screaming at him. We never got to see a confrontation between him and Jesse - this is one interpretation of how it might have gone.
Leroy stood in the centre of the stage, looking around him as the dancers packed up to go to their next class. "We'll pick it up tomorrow," he called out, wondering vaguely if anyone was listening. There seemed to be a sense of foreboding hanging over rehearsal this morning, possibly something to do with the absence of their leading man, and their present, in body if not in spirit, leading lady. The same leading lady who was making her way in long angry strides across the stage. "Same place, same time," he concluded to the dancers, even as he began to follow Nicole over to her bag. Realising that in her state of mind, prevarication probably wasn't the way to go, he opted to cut straight to the chase. "Where is he?"
"Who?" Nicole wasn't giving an inch. Unfortunately for her, neither was Leroy.
"You know who."
Nicole picked up her bag. Her face was cold and impassive, her voice like iron. "I don't know and I don't care." She began to walk away.
Leroy's voice followed her, halted her in her tracks. "You know you would think with all the acting lessons you've had in this school you'd do better than that."
Turning slowly to face him, she spoke with rigid control, and extreme bitterness. "Yeah well, it's just gonna have to do. Now if you'll excuse me I have to get to my next class."
She turned to walk away again, but Leroy wouldn't let her go. "Nicole I'm not excusin' you." He was gratified to see her stop dead. "You know I would like to know what's going on."
"You wanna know what's going on Leroy? Do you really want to know what's going on?" Nicole was getting angry now, and Leroy had a feeling it wasn't just at him. "Jesse is out there somewhere in the barrio getting ready to take revenge for Hector."
The flat tone of her voice caught Leroy by surprise. He had been expecting something like this, but this was not the reaction he had been expecting from Nicole. "Then what the hell are you doing in here?"
Once again, Nicole's voice was cold and hard as steel. "I told you it's got nothing to do with me." She turned to leave.
"Nicole?" His voice was gentler, softer somehow. Maybe that's what made her stop. "I don't know what's going on between you and Jesse right now but this is the wrong time for you to turn your back on him. You gotta do something."
Her voice went up in frustration. Frustation at her inability to get through to Jesse, as well as to get Leroy to leave her alone. "Don't you think that I have tried? I have tried Leroy...."
She turned away, but this time he was ready for her, and circled around her to face her, to try to make her understand. "Obviously you are not trying hard enough."
The moment he said it, he knew it was the wrong thing to say. He could now see the barely contained hurt and pain glistening in Nicole's eyes. "And what the hell do you know about it? Do you even know what he's mixed up with? Do you have any idea what we're talking about here? We are talking about gangs Leroy. We are talking about people who kill each other."
Images of Leroy's childhood danced across his mind, and the implication in Nicole's words made him speak more sharply than he had planned. "For your information darling," he told her harshly, "I was raised in the same kind of neighbourhood Jesse was...."
Leroy really wasn't having much luck today. It seemed like whatever he said set Nicole off. She spun away from him and her voice was raised again, this time in anger. "Oh, here it comes, here it....... I am so tired of hearing about this you know?" She spun back around to look at him, and there was untold bitterness in her voice. There was also a thin film of tears in her eyes, and a glint that spoke of hysteria nearby. For maybe the first time, Leroy understood just how badly this was weighing on Nicole, and kicked himself for not realising how bad things were. "Of hearing about the barrio and about the ghetto and about all these damn tough neighbourhoods. Like people like me don't even know what life's about. Like I'm some little crystal image sitting up in Never Never Land just waiting to be broken."
He held his hand up to stave off the accusation. "I didn't say that."
You didn't have to, that's what you think. And that's what Jesse thinks." The anger was slowly dissipating, being replaced by pain and hurt. "He won't listen to me because I've never been hungry. Because I've always had a roof over my head and I've always had clothes on my back. I don't understand because of that. Well you wanna know what I understand Leroy, do you want to know what I understand?" The hysteria Leroy had glimpsed under the surface a moment ago suddenly erupted, as Nicole, speaking quickly, bore down on him, her voice rising with tears. "I understand that Jesse is out there in the barrio right now getting ready to do something that's' going to ruin him for the rest of his life and I can't help him!" The last was uttered with breath-taking speed, almost as if she was afraid that she would break down in tears before she got it out. She stared at Leroy for a moment, tears now running freely down her face. She had held in her anger for so long, it seemed like it had been the only thing holding her up. Now that her rage was spent, she was almost ready to collapse. "I can't help him!"
With those words, Nicole dissolved into loud sobs. Leroy stared at her helplessly, then did the only thing he could do, faced with her distress. He pulled her into a hug and let her cry.
He knew this thing with Jesse was weighing on her heavily - it had been obvious in her distraction during rehearsal, and also in some of her other classes. Leroy had eyes, he knew how much Nicole loved Jesse, how afraid she was that something might happen to him. He hadn't needed her to tell him that. He hadn't meant to upset her like this either. He just hadn't wanted her to give up on Jesse.
He knew what that was like, to be given up on. To feel as if no-one cared about what happened to you. It had happened to him most of his life. His mother had done her best for him, but it was hard to support two kids on your own in the ghetto, and she was away at work most of the time. LaMar was God knows where, so Leroy took care of himself. It wasn't until he came to the School of the Arts that people took an interest in him, cared about him enough to help him. To help him learn to read properly, to care about himself, about others.
Who would have thought when he started at that school that he'd end up teaching there?
He knew how important it was not to give up on people.
And he'd been on the other side of the story too.
How many times, he wondered, had he seen his mother cry like this? Not only over Leroy, although she'd never really figured out how bad things were for him.
LeMar was another story however.
He'd done all the same things Jesse was doing now, albeit for slightly different reasons. He hadn't joined a gang to get revenge, he'd joined to get respect. He'd had the same dumb-assed idea that the only way to be a man was to join a gang, wear the colours, do the crimes with the rest of them. Along the way, he'd gotten shot at, stabbed, beaten up, robbed, and eventually, to no-one's real surprise, ended up in jail.
He'd never known the toll it took on his mother as she watched her eldest child sink slowly into the gutter. She'd cried, she screamed, she raged at the fates, just like Nicole was doing now. And Leroy had tried to comfort her and help her, just like he was doing for Nicole now.
As a kid, he hadn't been able to help LeMar, or his mother. Maybe now, he'd be able to help Nicole and Jesse.
All this went through Leroy's head as he held Nicole.
He took a deep breath, and looked heavenward as he realised that his choice had been made for him. He knew what he was going to do. "Where is he?"
***************
Jesse was right where Nicole said he'd be, on the roof of Hector's shop. Nicole had told him that Jesse was spending a lot of his time there, trying to come to terms with Hector's death, and whether or not to join the gang. Now that he'd joined the gang, he was trying to figure out what to do about it.
Leroy knew that under ordinary circumstances, Jesse Velasquez was not a man who was capable of murder. However, these were no ordinary circumstances. Leroy know how passionate Jesse got about things, how he never did things by halves, and how loyal he was to his friends. If revenge was the motive, and given the chance to justify it to himself, Leroy was afraid that murder might very well be in Jesse's capability.
He just hoped that he wouldn't get a chance to put that theory to the test.
"Jesse," he said.
Jesse didn't even look around. "Go away Leroy," he said. The tone of his voice made Leroy afraid. It was flat - there was no life, no emotion, nothing in it. It was the voice of a man who didn't care anymore, who was capable of anything. He'd never heard Jesse sound that lifeless before.
"What are you doin' man?" Leroy asked. "This isn't you."
"Yes it is. It is now."
"It don't have to be."
"Yes it does. Hector was the closest thing to family I have in this country." Still his voice was calm. All of a sudden, he screamed at Leroy, "And they killed him!" Leroy wasn't alarmed at this, realising that Jesse was probably trying to intimidate him. It was a nice try, but it wasn't going to work.
"What about Nicole? Don't she count for nothin'?" Leroy raised his own voice. "Is that how it is now, your new brothers mean more to you than she does?" He injected as much scorn into the word "brothers" as he could possibly manage.
"You don't know what you're talking about."
"Don't I? I know that you're in a whole mess of trouble Jesse. I know that you've got one hell of a woman, who loves you, who I've just spent the last hour comfortin' 'cause she's so afraid you're gonna get yourself killed, or worse. I know you've got a school full of people who want to help you get through this. And you're gonna throw all that away. For what?"
"For Hector."
"Hector's dead! Ain't no helpin' him. Killing ain't gonna bring him back."
"I know that."
"So what, you think it's gonna solve your problems, make you feel better? It's not Jesse, you're gonna feel worse."
"Wanna bet?" Jesse's voice was quiet again, and he turned away from Leroy, and stared out across the city.
"Look at me!" Leroy grabbed Jesse by the arm and pulled him off the ledge. "You look at me, and you listen good. You think I don't know what I'm talkin' 'bout? My brother was in a gang. I heard all the speeches, about respect, about brotherhood, about backin' each other up. You know how many of them backed him up when he was on trial? How many of them went to see him in prison? None of 'em. They didn't want to know." Leroy held him by the arms, a hairs breadth away from shaking some sense into him. Jesse tried to break his grip, but Leroy was too strong. "How many of your brothers will be there if you go to jail Jesse? How many?"
"Let go of me!" Jesse half pulled away from Leroy, as Leroy relaxed his hold. "They'll be here soon. You'd better go."
Leroy shook his head. "You think about it Jesse. Is this what Hector wanted you to do?"
"Hasn't Nicole already told you?" The bitterness is Jesse's voice was as strong as the anger had been in Leroy's moments earlier.
"You're making a mistake Jesse."
"I want justice. For Hector."
"Justice ain't your job. And this ain't justice. And it ain't for Hector neither." There was no response. "Think about it Jesse. You've got your gang, trying to ruin your life. And you've got Nicole, trying to help you save it." He turned to go. "Ain't much of a choice for me."
He walked up the stairs, and turned when he reached the top. Jesse was sitting on the edge of the roof, looking out of the city.
Thinking.
Watching.
Waiting.