Jacob

a short story

Photo by R.D. Smith on Unsplash

Jacob

Jacob is a short story that takes place in 2005, when we were still trying to figure out if Jack and Meg White were siblings or exes.

Part I

It was autumn and there were pumpkins outside every door. Maybe that made the neighborhood cliché, but Jacob secretly loved it. It felt like people had agreed on something for once. He was outside raking the leaves off his driveway, listening to a new song by Iron & Wine when John, Becket, and Kenny pulled up in Kenny’s mom’s Toyota Camry. “Come on, man. Hop in. Let’s get you outta here,” Becket yelled out the passenger window.

Jacob was constantly battling between what a seventeen-year-old should like and the things he actually liked: like pumpkins, and neighbors, and raking leaves. His parents’ driveway was long, and he wasn’t even halfway finished. In truth, he didn’t want to go. He liked the mental music video he was creating, sweeping dried leaves into piles with The Trapeze Swinger playing through his headphones in the background. There was a rhythm to it. A repetition that felt comforting.

“Dude, come on!” Kenny honked, and Jacob realized he had gotten lost in the song again.

“Coming,” he shouted, ripping off his headphones and throwing the rake into some bushes. He hopped in, bumping his knee on the car door.

“Dude you were spacing out majorly,” Becket said, laughing.

“Ha, I know, right?” Jacob settled into the backseat next to John, who had a piece of licorice pursed between his lips like a cigarette.

“Let’s go to the 76th on Walnut. I need a lighter,” Becket said.

“Yeah, I’m thirsty,” Kenny added.

They piled out and flooded the aisles of the gas station. John rifled through the candy section. He was quiet and particular. He only liked certain flavors. One of the few times he would speak up was when he was informing a store owner about the type of candy they should stock—about how everyone would be happier if they had a greater selection.

Becket was eighteen and loved to prove it. Jacob concluded that this was the only reason he bought cigarettes, so he could show his I.D. They had yet to see him smoke one. “I wouldn’t do that to Kenny. His mom will smell the cigarettes in her car and have it out for him,” Becket would say. Kenny would reply with a smirk.

They drove around until the white, rainy sky turned dark blue. “Guys, I better get home,” Jacob said.

“Same,” John murmured. They pulled up at the end of Jacob’s driveway, and he hopped out. “See ya guys,” he said, as Kenny squealed down the street.

Jacob looked down and saw his headphones on a pile of wet leaves. “Dangit,” he said, holding them up and watching them drip. He tried plugging them into his iPod shuffle, but there was only a crackle, then silence.

He looked up and saw that Mrs. Kendrick had put a candle in her pumpkin, which sat outside her front door, carved to look like Minnie Mouse. Through the window, he could see his sister setting plates on the dining room table, and could hear his dad playing the piano. He sighed and walked up his driveway. His sister had carved their Jack-O-Lantern and had gone for a “surprised” look, which resembled a bowling ball more than anything else. He reached into his pocket and pulled out one of Becket’s many abandoned lighters. Flicking it on, he lit the bowling ball up, adding another small bit of illumination to his street.

Part II

“I’m worried about you,” Jacob could hear John’s mom say from the kitchen. Becket was on the computer in the family room, cracking up at his new obsession: YouTube.

“I mean it, this isn’t normal behavior,” she continued, and Jacob tried to turn his attention to Becket, so as not to eavesdrop. John came in a few minutes later, shaking his head. He flopped on the couch, sucking on a blue airhead.

“Chewing you out again?” Becket said.

“Whatever,” replied John. “She’s mad at my dad, not me.”

Jacob wanted to ask more, but he knew that John had probably reached his threshold of vulnerability for the week, so he didn’t say anything.

A few weeks later, John’s comment made more sense. On their drive home from school, Kenny was teasing John about “making early alliances” at the Bridgeport County Correctional Facility.

“My dad sure hasn’t,” John scoffed. Then he rolled down the window and stuck his head out, ending the conversation.

“They’re playing Anchorman at the dollar theater this week,” Becket suddenly announced.

“Let’s do it,” said Kenny.

Kenny filled Jacob in later that night. It turns out that John had been visiting other prisoners on his weekly visit to see his dad. He had to fill out paperwork and everything to do it. “If you think I’m socially awkward, you should meet my dad,” was John’s explanation. He had made the decision to be an advocate for his dad. He figured, if he did some favors for his dad’s fellow inmates, maybe his dad would get beat up less often.

“What kind of favors?” Jacob asked.

“So far, just family stuff, like going to their kids recitals and baseball games and stuff, then telling them about it.

“Seriously?” Jacob said.

“Yes, it’s pretty weird, man,” said Kenny.

Hours later, while trying unsuccessfully to fall asleep, Jacob continued to think about John and what he was doing. He had always assumed that he was the sensitive one of the group. The one that thought deep thoughts and wrote novellas in his head. But what John was doing was on another level of strange and selfless, and Jacob was kind of in awe.

So he decided to join him. At first, John would have none of it.

“This is something I have to do on my own, man,” he said. But after some prodding, he told Jacob that he could come with him to the ballet recital for the daughter of a prisoner named Anthony.

“I have to take notes and stuff, so I can remember the details.”

Jacob watched John scribble away while little girls bounced around on stage, falling over and missing their cues. One little girl stole the show, though. She was confident and exaggerated every move. The crowd loved her.

“I hope that one’s his kid,” Jacob pointed. John shook his head.

“It’s that one,” John said, pointing to the girl in the back row who was fiddling with her shoulder strap.

“I think you should embellish it a little bit,” Jacob said on their drive home.

“Dude, he knows his daughter’s personality. I can’t make stuff up.”

“Well you don’t have to lie, but you could add some flourish to the description. Read me what you wrote.” John flipped through his yellow legal pad.

“Hm...I said: purple dress, blue sh--”

“It’s a leotard,” Jacob corrected him.

“Oh,” John scribbled some more. “Okay, then I wrote: danced with her friends to a peppy song, bowed at the front of the stage at the end and…”

“And…?” Jacob pushed.

“And she seemed happy,” John said.

“Oh. That’s good.” Jacob said. “Keep that.”

Part III

No one made a better breakfast than Kenny’s mom. She purchased real maple syrup to go with her pancakes, and her refrigerator never seemed to run out of whole milk. Mrs. Jeffers has been divorced from Kenny’s dad for a few years now, and seemed to enjoy the company of her son and his friends. She was always asking if they wanted anything else: more orange juice, or more bacon. Jacob figured she liked to feel needed.

“I think we should practice today,” Becket said, rolling his last pancake into the shape of a taquito, “we haven’t practiced in forever.” “Yeah maybe,” John replied, looking down with wide eyes at his plate, which had just been refilled by Mrs. Jeffers.

“Okay, but we gotta stop covering Weezer. I want to do some older stuff, like The Ramones or Bowie,” Kenny said.

“Agreed,” Jacob said, downing a glass of milk.

They went down to Kenny’s garage where they plugged in chords and turned on amps. Kenny ran back upstairs to get a pillow to put inside the bass drum. They had never once played a show, but they had designed three different t-shirts and had three different band names, so they were pretty legit.

Their current name was “The Assassinations” which, admittedly, had way too many syllables. Jacob was the bassist, with Kenny on drums, Becket on guitar and vocals, and John on electric guitar.

“Erin’s coming over by the way…” Becket said, straightening his mic stand.

“You called her?” Jacob asked, with more volume than he intended.

“She wants to watch us rehearse,” Becket said, opening a case filled with guitar picks. He never seemed to notice how Jacob felt about things, which in this case was a good thing. Because Jacob felt angry. He was baffled that Becket could so easily call Erin up and get her to come over. Like it was nothing!

“Jacob, don’t you wanna go fix your hair?” John teased. Becket was oblivious and Kenny smirked behind his drum set.

“Maybe Sarah will come with her...” Kenny mumbled, forgetting for a moment that the others could hear him. John laughed and shook his head. Kenny began a quick beat on the drums, to drown out his transparency.

“I hope she brings the whole swim team with her,” Becket said. “Now, let’s rock!”

Most of their practices ended in a debate over whether or not Flea from The Red Hot Chili Peppers was really the best bassist of all time. This time, however, there were girls watching.

Erin not only brought Sarah, but Jamie, Kelsey, and Andi, to watch them practice. They sat on some boxes marked for Goodwill, and whispered back and forth repeatedly. Jacob noticed Erin’s hair, which fell over one shoulder in a two-toned braid. They made eye-contact and Jacob quickly looked away, hoping she didn’t think he was staring. Erin was the kindest person he had ever met. She helped people with their homework, even when they didn’t thank her. She was the only senior who still walked her little sister to school every morning.

“Do you know any Avril Lavigne?” Jamie asked, startling Jacob from his thoughts. Kenny moaned.

Thankfully, the band was rescued from playing Sk8er Boi when Mrs. Jeffers came down the stairs, holding a plate of steaming pizza rolls and the telephone. “John, it’s your mom for you,” she said. The girls gathered around the tray of food, and John took the call upstairs.

“John,” his mom said, “I need you to come home.”

“Why? What’s up?”

“It’s about your dad.”

“What about dad? Can’t you tell me now?”

“Come home and we’ll talk.”

“Please, mom. What is it?” John pleaded.

“They can’t find him,” she said, “He’s gone.”

Part IV

It was weeks before they heard anything. Reporters waited outside John’s house morning and evening, hoping to get a soundbite from John or his mom. But they knew as much as everyone else: only that Dennis Parker had gone missing from the Bridgeport County Correctional Facility on a Tuesday night, and no one knew where he was.

John was extra quiet now, speaking up only when he had to. He stopped his visitations with the other prisoners, and seemed to be in his own world. When the band practiced, he didn’t do any solo stuff on the guitar, just the bare minimum. Jacob wondered if this is what depression looked like. Or maybe John was just processing.

You would think with all the cameras in a place like Bridgeport, they would be able to tell whether or not he tried to escape. But it was as though he had vanished. The inmates weren’t talking, and the police seemed more curious than concerned. Jacob remembered, wistfully, the days when the worst trial they had to deal with was boredom.

“Jacob, phone,” his mom yelled from the kitchen. He ran downstairs and grabbed the landline, running it back up to his room.

“Hello?” Jacob said, out of breath.

“Hey. Uhm. It’s me. Erin.”

“Oh, hey.”

“Hey.”

“What...what’s up?” Jacob asked, hands shaking.

“I just wondered how you were doing, with the John stuff and everything. Is he okay?”

Jacob smiled. She had called him. Him. “He’s doing alright,” he said, and they continued to talk for the next ten minutes, until Jacob panicked about running out of things to say, and abruptly ended the conversation.

“I, uh, have to hang up, but thanks. Thanks for calling.”

“Sure. Talk soon?”
“Definitely.”

Jacob fell backwards into his bed, holding the phone to his chest.

Before John’s dad went missing, Jacob spent hours helping John turn the softball games and ballet recitals into a newsletter with a ridiculous amount of adjectives, some jokes, and a few inspirational sayings. They had created four issues so far, and the prisoners had begun to look forward to getting them. They passed them around, proudly stating, “That’s about my kid.” If anything, it helped to assuage some of Jacob’s disappointment over not making it onto the school paper.

But these newsletters eventually made their way into the hands of local law enforcement and they, in turn, called Jacob and John in for questioning.

“We understand that you have been providing a service for your dad’s fellow inmates in the form of these...uh...reports.”

“Yeah,” John said, unintimidated, “I go to the events they can’t be at and tell them about it. That their kid scored a goal or did a good job at their piano recital.”

“I see. And what is it that you do?” the officer asked, turning to Jacob.

“Oh, I. I’m a writer, and I’ve just been...helping. You know. Adding some flourish.”

“Flourish?”

“Yeah, you know, descriptions and stuff. And I created that border, right there, on my computer.”

“I see,” the officer said again, looking over the stack of newsletters. “And how did the prisoners respond to these reports?”

“They really like them,” John said.

“A lot,” Jacob added.

And that’s how they eventually discovered what had happened to Denis Parker.

“Hey.”

“Hey.”

This is how most of their phone conversations began. Jacob and Erin had been making a regular habit of “checking in” on one another. Jacob’s phone-panic had begun to subside, as he realized how comfortable he felt talking to Erin.

“So they really broke him out?” she asked.

“Yeah, that’s what they’re saying.”

“Just so he could be at John’s graduation? I mean, won’t he get caught?”

“Oh, definitely. They are going to surround the place.”

“I don’t get it. Why would the other prisoners do that for him?”

“I don’t think they did it for Denis.” Jacob said. “They did it for John.”

Part V

Dennis Parker had always struggled to connect with his son. They were so different. While John loved to play guitar and read, Dennis could happily get lost in numbers and spreadsheets, and had no idea who Death Cab for Cutie was. On a good day, Dennis would get a one word answer from John about school or life. He wondered if maybe they would have more in common as John grew older. But time only seemed to increase their distance.

Jacob remembered the day when John’s dad visited their eighth grade classroom. The dads were supposed to share about their careers, and there was a fireman, a grocery store owner, and a lawyer presenting that day. When John’s dad got up in front of the classroom, Jacob remembers watching John sink lower and lower into his chair. You see, Dennis Parker sold megaphones. This in and of itself could have been impressive to a group of eighth graders, but Dennis Parker didn’t have the most social grace. He told corny jokes, and that day, he told them into a megaphone.

Jacob didn’t mind being at John’s house. He kind of enjoyed the corny jokes, plus John’s house was quieter than his, with no little sister to deal with. He often went there after school to do his homework. John would empty a box of sour patch kids onto the kitchen table and they would chew and solve equations in silence. Friends you can be quiet with are a rare treasure.

But two years earlier, while munching on malt balls and finishing their English assignment, there was a knock at the door. A heavy knock. A repeated knock. John finally got up to answer it. When Jacob walked over to see what was happening, he saw two police officers. They were asking about Dennis. Jacob saw John throw up his hands and point to the driveway.

“He’s not here. He’s still at work,” John said.

“Thank you, young man,” one cop said.

“I don’t understand, what’s wrong?” John asked, but they had already started to walk back to their cars.

“Hey...it’ll be okay,” Jacob said, trying to provide some comfort to John as they walked back to the kitchen table. “I’m sure it’s nothing.” But John seemed to know that it wasn’t.

Oddly enough, it wasn’t until Dennis Parker was sentenced to four years in jail for embezzlement that he found out how much his son actually cared about him. John’s visits were consistent, and he talked more than he ever had before, about school, the band, and what he was reading.

“Chris McCandless completely misunderstood the writings of Jack London,” he explained to his dad, with passion, after being assigned Into the Wild for English class. “Nature always wins.” Dennis smiled, and nodded.

When John started visiting the other prisoners, Dennis watched in awe. They liked John. He made them feel connected to their families. He took notes. He was faithful. And over time, they began treating Dennis with dignity and respect. John’s plan had worked.

The day Dennis was handed a copy of the newsletter John and Jacob had created, he made a decision. He would be at John’s graduation. Even if it meant more jail time. Public humiliation. Crawling through a man-made tunnel. He would be there.

But he would not be there long.

Part VI

Jacob straightened his graduation cap, but there was no position that didn’t look awkward. Kenny was chasing Becket around with a Santa hat, while John sat quietly on the steps outside Jacob’s house. Everyone knew what would happen if Dennis showed up. The cops were ready. Jacob hadn’t been able to get John to voice his feelings about it. It was like waiting for a tornado, without knowing how much damage it would cause or if they should just stay home and hide in the bathtub.

The boys piled into the Toyota Camry, and Jacob yelled out the window: “See you there, mom!” They drove fast with the windows down. Jacob wanted to remember this moment. He grabbed Kenny’s ipod to find the perfect song.

“I don’t get why he’s doing this,” John said.

They all stopped what they were doing. Jacob paused the iPod.

“Doesn’t he know what’s going to happen?”

They remained quiet. Jacob patted John on the back.

“I think he does,” Jacob said. “And thinks it's worth it.”

When they arrived, other seniors were milling around the school courtyard in cap and gown. Parents and grandparents were taking pictures with their digital cameras. And Jacob noticed the presence of more than one armed officer on campus, one by the gym entrance and another by the basketball court. This would not be a typical graduation.

Jacob was a fan of grand gestures. They reminded him of the movies, and sometimes he daydreamed of how he would propose to Erin. He pictured one day, after college, casually inviting her to the movies. Her favorite film would be playing, and he would have secretly bought out the entire theater. Then he would slip away to “buy popcorn,” and walk to the front of the theater where he would grab a microphone, get on one knee, and declare his love.

But John wasn’t like Jacob. He didn’t like talking about his feelings or having people know about his family, but the entire school was buzzing about the prison-break and inevitable recapture of Dennis Parker. John stayed in the car for a while before joining the others.

On the football field at 6 p.m., the marching band started up, and the graduates were ushered onto the grass, to sit down in folding chairs. Their friends and family filled the bleachers. Jacob scanned the crowd for Erin. He waved at his parents, and began looking for any sign of Dennis.

John, too, was scanning the crowd. During the first speech of the night, he noticed a man with shaggy brown hair. What caught John’s eye was not the man’s attire or facial features, but the fact that he was scribbling something on a notepad. John smiled quietly, wondering.

The police maintained a visible presence throughout the entire ceremony, but graduates were throwing their hats in the air and dispersing to Vitamin C’s Graduation (Friends Forever) playing over the loudspeaker, and Dennis Parker still hadn’t made an appearance.

Months later, after news of Dennis Parker's mysterious reappearance at the Bridgeport County Correctional Facility had spread, died down, and disappeared, John was finally allowed to schedule a visit. Dennis has been disallowed visitors for three months, as one of his multiple punishments. When John arrived, there were three guards present instead of one. Dennis looked much thinner, but he was smiling from ear to ear.

“I want you to meet with Frank this week,” Dennis said. “He could use some encouragement.”

“I will dad,” John said. And they talked about John’s college plans until the guards made it clear that their time was up.

Jacob drove John to visit Frank, and waited in the car. Ten minutes later, John came rushing out, with a wild look on his face.

“Go, go!” he yelled at Jacob, and they squealed away, parking at a Foster’s Freeze.

“He gave me this,” John said, handing Jacob a piece of paper, written in pencil, with an attempt at various font styles and sizes. The biggest headline read: “My son graduated!” and contained a three paragraph description of the entire ceremony.

“Look right there,” John said, “It says: ‘By Dennis Parker.’”

“So he was there after all?” Jacob asked, incredulously.

“He was there.”

They sat in silence, shaking their heads, then began to laugh.

“I think this demands ice-cream,” Jacob said.

“With Reese’s cups and Butterfingers,” John added.