My name is John Abels. Today is my final day in high school at a big school in a quiet well connected suburban town.
Just a few days ago, my friend Jake was showing off his new snake tattoo he got this past Memorial Day weekend. “The artist said it symbolizes temptation. Just like how tempted Melissa is to get this D!” Yeah…Jake is kind of a douche. But he had also been my friend since fourth grade, and I sort of felt for him. He was your typical athletic blonde haired green eyed rich kid lax bro stereotype. His parents hardly cared what he got into, as long as he maintained somewhat of a good GPA. They were almost always away anyways, so most of Jake’s other friends just used him for his house to throw parties in.
One person who probably didn’t believe Jake had an ounce of good in him was our english teacher, Mr. Phillips. You could ask nearly every student and they’ll tell you they love Mr. Phillips. Some say he was previously a writer before teaching, but not much was known about him other than rumors. He is easily our schools most charismatic, enthusiastic and yet somewhat mysterious teacher, and has such a passion for what he teaches. “COME NOT BETWEEN THE DRAGON AND HIS WRAITH!” He’d scream standing atop one of our desks.
If Mr. Phillips disliked Jake, than Jake really disliked Mr. Phillips. I never understood completely why. Maybe he was jealous of all the attention he got. Maybe he just didn’t like Mr. Phillips’ challenging nature. “The guys a nut. He actually makes you try in class. Like I’m going to get a career as a playwright or some shit. It’s so pointless, it’s senior year and I’m nearly out of this shithole. His class should be the easiest A ever.”
Jake was constantly interrupting his class, calling Mr. Phillips by his first name (Howard), swiping through tinder, and unfortunately - was that douchey kid that would draw tiny dicks on the whiteboard before class. “What do you think, HOWARD? Would Shakespeare approve?” “Hmmm. Very interesting. Is this scaled to size, Jacob?” Our class erupted into laughter. It was like a game of cat and mouse between Mr. Phillips and Jake.
Our final paper was to be a creative writing assignment, five pages - double spaced and needed to be an original story.
“Johnny boy, how about you help me with this assignment? You’re way better at this than me. I’ll even pay you and have Melissa put in a good word for you to Megan, so you two can hook up this summer.” He gave me a playful nudge.
Unfortunately, there lies my kryptonite. So I wrote some story that was kind of like another retelling of, “Its a Wonderful Life,” and tried to half ass it a bit to make it look like Jake actually wrote it. That Monday, Jake turned it in, and midway through the week we were to get them back. As the final bell rang I started to walk out.
As I started to walk out, Mr. Phillips called out to me:
“Mr. Abels, can you hang back a moment?”
My heart sank…
“You have slowly grown to be one of my favorite students throughout your years here, and I think you have some really great potential.”
“Thank you! Hah I don’t think I could ever be as entertaining as you though.”
“John, I want you to succeed in this life, and I don’t want you to mess it up. Like cheating…and helping Jake write his story for him.”
“Mr. Phil-“
“Don’t worry. I’m not going to rat you out. But I do think you need to hold yourself to a higher standard. I know Jake and you are close. But….well let me put it this way, the British poet A.E. Waite once said, ’Behind the man is the Tree of Life, bearing twelve fruits, and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil is behind the woman; the serpent is twining round it.’ He is that serpent. Does that make sense? Probably not..oof god I hate snakes…I’m going on a tangent. Sorry. My point is - I want you to be successful and hope you don’t succumb to such foolishness.”
Last Friday we got our papers back, and obviously, Jake wasn’t happy with what happened next.
“He gave me an F!? What else did he tell you?”
“I don’t know, some lecture about you being a snake and how I shouldn’t be around you anymore or something.”
“That’s such bs.”
“It’ll be fine, you’ll still graduate. And next week will be the last time you ever see him.”
“I got something else in mind, and you’re gonna help me out.”
“I want nothing to do with this, I already helped you.”
“Yeah, helped me fail! You’re gonna help me or we’re through.” He quickly shifted his frown to his cocky grin again. “C’mon, you’re my boy, right?”
So there I was, spending my Friday night in some bushes across the street from Mr. Phillips’ house. Jake’s truck pulled up behind me, with four other friends in tow.
“We’re seriously gonna egg and teepee his place? Way to get him back, Jake. Really badass.”
“Put this on and grab a roll. This is just the beginning, wait until the grand finale.”
Apparently we needed balaclavas to teepee and egg a place. Just as I started to chuck a roll on his tree, I saw Jake in the corner of my eye, starting to spray paint on Mr. Phillips’ garage.
“What the hell, Jake! I didn’t agree to property damage!”
“Shhhh. He’ll hear you.”
He didn’t draw any dicks this time. This time, it was a giant snake. I never knew just how bad Jake was truly going to make it until I saw what happened next. Him and his friends started breaking things, throwing rocks at his house, breaking windows, slashing his tires, keying his car, tearing up his walkway and denting his siding. It escalated so fast and I got out of there before anyone else did. It sounds dumb but I couldn’t leave. I perched up in my hiding spot to see what would come of this.
All of a sudden, a dim light came on in Mr. Phillips’ house. Then came Mr. Phillips inspecting the damage from his top floor window. Except, he didn’t look angry…he had a dull expression. Almost as this was expected. He came back with a coffee cup, sat down at a desk, and started clicking away on a typewriter as if he was inspired by what he had just seen. I watched for an hour (sounds weird, I know), and he didn’t do anything but type. No cops were called, nothing.
The next morning, I was so panicked by the whole ordeal, that I went back. I was expecting to see Mr. Phillips speaking with cops or cleaning off his garage, but it was all gone. The garage was clean, the windows repaired with no damages in sight. And there was Mr. Phillips walking up to his window, staring out at the undone damage, coffee cup in hand and a slight smirk on his face. I immediately texted Jake.
10:10 am: “Dude, I went back to Mr. Phillips’ house this morning, and everything is fixed. How is that possible? And what the hell were you thinking? What if we get busted for all of this? He clearly knows it was us.”
“John, settle down. Idk, he must just know some people, maybe he went to that weirdo insurance salesman down the street.”
“This was your idea, if the cops come, this will be all on you. What if we can’t graduate?”
“I’ll just say it was a group effort!”
“F*** you Jake.”
“Hahah I’m joking, I’m joking. We’ll be fine, just lay low this weekend and hold down the fort.”
My entire Memorial Day weekend, I was in full on panic mode. Every time there was a knock at the door or the bell rang, I’d practically jump out of my skin. Not only that, but I started to get nightmares. Nightmares of Jake getting me into more terrible situations. Nightmares of me always being Jake’s scapegoat. Nightmares where I’d be left cleaning up his mess. I was clearly tired of it. I couldn’t be friends with someone who treats me this way, but that’s much easier said than done. I’d jolt up in the middle of the night thinking I was hearing the loud and obnoxious clicking of a typewriter. Click click click click click DING. Click click click DING.
I tried keeping myself busy - Tik Tok scrolling, saw a movie, and before I knew it, it was Monday night and Jake was back and knocking at my door. I was less than enthused to see him. I almost wondered if I should open the door. For an entire weekend, I had to suffer over something I didn’t even want to take part in. I wondered if that should’ve been the last time I saw him. But just like always, I let him in.
“My weekend was wild bro. I went to my future college campus, got shitfaced and got this snake tattoo. Mr. Phillips will love it haha.”
He stuck around for a few minutes, and off he went. Not a worry in the world.
I woke up Tuesday morning to 6 missed calls from an unlisted number (I put my phone on sleep mode so nobody could wake me during the night). I also had three texts from a number that wasn’t a contact in my phone…but it was Jake’s number. The texts read:
3:15am: “Help me”
3:19am: “Its so dark no one”
3:21am: “It’s cold and I’m starting to chan-”
I called back immediately and got a message saying the number was invalid. I quickly got ready and raced over to Jake’s house before school, but of course, no one was home. 2nd hour came and I sat down and spoke with Melissa before class.
“Hey Melissa”
“Hey you, what’s up!? How was your weekend?”
“Pretty good, I didn’t do much. What’s up with Jake? He tried calling me like 6 times last night.”
“Jake who?”
“Jake…our friend Jake, the only Jake you know.”
“Who are you talking about?”
I tried showing her the texts but they were now gone. I asked everyone who knew him, and they all denied ever knowing Jake. Either I was going crazy or this was his greatest, most elaborate senior prank ever. Then finally came my last class of the day, English literature.
“Welcome back young scholars! Only a few more days until graduation!”
The entire time I couldn’t focus. I still had very real, very vivid memories of Jake tearing up Mr. Phillips’ property. I thought of those texts and the last thing he gave me. The final bell rang, and the class dispersed.
“Ah Mr. Abels, I have something I want to show you!”
He reached under his desk and pulled out his briefcase.
“I don’t tell many people this, but I sometimes dabble as a writer.”
Out of his briefcase, he grabbed some papers.
“I wanted to show you the short story I had made. You were my inspiration. I worked on it all weekend and thought you should be the first to take a look.”
I started skimming through his story in shock.
“You’ve made such improvements this year, I’m so proud of you and will miss having you as a stu-“
Drowning out whatever Mr. Phillips was saying, I read the last few lines of his story:
‘Jake was so fierce, a most awful something. Jake was a snake, And then he was nothing.’