Don’t Talk About It
By J.L. Scott
John Jacob tried to keep his eyelids from falling over his eyes, his chin resting in his left palm. The 7th-graders had to report to school at 7 a.m. now, which meant a bus pickup time of 6:15 and a wake up at 5:30. His mother grumbled about it nearly every morning, about how they didn’t have to be to school until 8 back in her day, and how they got out at 3. Three pm!! With a release time of 5 p.m., John Jacob could barely imagine what it would be like to be released from school so early in the afternoon. He blinked and held back a yawn, completely tuning out Mr. Benson in his attempt to stay awake.
Mr. Benson wasn’t a bad teacher. In fact, he was about the best kind of teacher you could expect at public school these days. He had a real college degree, not just a teaching certificate. He volunteered as the boys’ basketball coach, and none of the girls had a secret code about him. Not that John Jacob knew of anyway. He wasn’t really friends with any girls, but he knew what the codes meant and tried to make sure they never made one up for him.
Mr. Benson taught social sciences, which was a lot about how governments worked and what an economy was. They also learned about stuff like propaganda, and John Jacob was supposed to be working on a project with Emmerson Klank making a commercial for the upcoming election. John Jacob wanted to use the “bandwagon” approach, but Emmerson wanted to use the “glittering generalities” approach and get an AI generator to make a video with that actress Piper Rubio in a bathing suit, so they hadn’t done anything for the project yet.
Today, Mr. Benson was going over ways propaganda had been used in the past and John Jacob found it intensely boring. His best friend, Omari, was out sick with covid, so there was no one to distract him with joke-notes or silly faces. He’d tried looking out the window, but there wasn’t much to see but the blacktop under parked cars and the chain-link fence. The sleepy feeling had started in last period, Mrs. Meyer’s language arts class. Mr. Benson’s room was warm, the sun pouring through the curtained windows, and John Jacob had stuffed a protein bar down his gullet in the hall as he walked the three doors down, so now his stomach was full, too. He felt his mouth start to gape as his resistance finally failed and sleep began to steal over him.
BANG!
John Jacob startled awake hard enough to make his desk squeal against the floor tiles. His mind screamed “shooter!” and his heart answered by thudding hard enough to make his chest hurt. His eyes darted around while his brain registered that the other students seemed calm, though everyone’s attention had snapped to the classroom door.
The door was always locked once class began, inside and out, and only the teacher and the principal had the pass key to open it, so John Jacob wasn’t surprised to see Mr. Culver and his bushy mustache under his tiny button nose. It was surprising, though, to see the three police officers behind him. John Jacob sat up a bit straighter, the sleepiness banished. He could already see from the corner of his eye that a dozen students were livestreaming from their ER watches, and he reached under his desk to activate his own as well. His was only basic, with a tracker, camera, and 911 button, but his mother had sprung for the grey and blue band he’d asked for instead of the red that came standard. All of them could livestream once enough of the watches were activated so that people outside could Witness.
There clearly wasn’t an active shooter, but the livestreaming had kicked on. His mom’s phone, wherever she was at this moment, would be displaying Mr. Benson getting more and more aggravated with Mr. Culver’s whispering, the officers crowding in closer and closer behind him.
“Seriously, Phil?” Mr. Benson finally cried loud enough to startle the students, throwing his hands in the air. “Is this the state of education this country has come to? We can’t discuss confirmed facts anymore? We dare not attempt to prepare our students for their future because it isn’t part of our current understanding?”
Mr. Benson was red in the face. John Jacob was surprised. He’d never seen Mr. Benson angry before, never heard him raise his voice except at basketball games, trying to be heard over the squeaking shoes and thudding of the ball. The outburst seemed to be all the police officers had been waiting for because they shoved Mr. Culver to the side and practically barreled into Mr. Benson. One officer shoved the teacher into the white board, crushing Mr. Benson’s face into the lesson he’d been teaching, the dry erase marker smearing from the wetness of his breath and sweat. While the second officer pulled his arms behind him to cuff him, the third officer delivered a punch to Mr. Benson’s side that had the whole class gasping, including John Jacob. He’d seen plenty of people beat up by the police on the news, but somehow, that single low blow seemed like the most violent thing he’d ever Witnessed.
“Now, c’mon, that isn’t necessary!” Mr. Culver cried, but he didn’t move from the wall he’d been pushed up against.
“Suspect is resisting arrest,” one of the officers declared from behind his plastic mask. “Actions of officer are warranted.”
“What resisting?” Keisha Jefferson said from behind him, and John Jacob nearly turned to give her an impressed smile, but the police were staring the class down as they crushed Mr. Benson into the white board.
After a pause that seemed to stretch into long, long minutes (but that John Jacob’s watch clocked at only four seconds), the officers began hustling Mr. Benson through the door. The sounds of their boots reverberating down the hallway was cut off as the door slammed shut. Quiet returned to the classroom.
Mr. Culver adjusted his tie as he stepped up to the white board and attempted a nervous smile. “All right, now, the . . . event is over. No need to worry your parents any further. You can put those watches away. An announcement will be made by the school board later today.”
• • •
John Jacob yawned over his plate of soggy vegetables. The frozen chicken strips and tater tots had disappeared down his throat before they’d even warmed the plate, but the vegetables his mother insisted he eat (asparagus today) sat on the plate until they’d gone cold. It was already 7:30 and if he didn’t shower and get into bed soon, he wouldn’t get a full eight hours. No sports or activities for John Jacob. His mother insisted that sleep was more important.
“There’s no time, J.J.!” his mother would sigh each Fall when he asked again. He was never quite sure if she really meant there was no time or if it was that there was no money. Sports were expensive, he knew. Perhaps it amounted to the same thing.
On the TV behind them, the news channel was showing clips of the livestream from social studies class. From across the room, John Jacob watched again as Mr. Benson and Mr. Culver spoke quietly, and then as Mr. Benson threw his hands in the air and the cops cuffed him. It took so much less time on the video than it had seemed in class.
“Mr. Benson will likely be charged with exposing minors to harmful materials, a charge that falls under child abuse and carries a $500,000 fine or up to ten years in prison,” the reporter said, her blonde hair bobbing just a bit as she spoke. John Jacob frowned.
“Ten years for telling kids something they could’ve seen or heard on any screen or radio outside of school,” his mother exclaimed, tossing her fork down on her plate, her own soggy asparagus abandoned. John Jacob quickly laid his fork across his plate and pushed it away.
“I was kind of confused about what he did that was so bad,” he confessed. He was glad the look of disgust and anger on his mother’s face was not directed at him. He was familiar with that look, the one that meant she was going to Do Something.
“They’re mad about that day y’all talked about what kind of government or religion or economy The Aliens might have.”
“Why?” John Jacob felt his nose and mouth and eyebrows try to scrunch all together. “That lesson was actually fun. Even Emmett Smith talked, and you know how he is.”
“I know,” his mother said, both to his point and to the bit about Emmett Smith. “Didn’t y’all do that economy project because of that?” John Jacob sat up a bit straighter on his stool. It had been the best assignment they’d had all school year. He and Tommy Kennard had spent days researching money systems from all over the world and even in ancient times and then had designed a system they thought The Aliens might use.
“Peanuts, huh?” Mr. Benson had chuckled when they’d done their presentation. Most of the other kids had used a system based on lithium or gold, things that are rare and valuable.
“Well, yeah,” John Jacob had explained. “Cause you said something rare and valuable. But if The Aliens have spaceships, they can find all those metals and stuff in any old asteroid. But they definitely won’t have peanuts.” Mr. Benson had chuckled and told them to sit down.
“We got an A on that assignment,” John Jacob reminded his mother, who was nodding.
“I remember!” It wasn’t hard to remember, probably, because John Jacob didn’t get very many As. It wasn’t that he got bad grades, but they were usually Bs and Cs.
“That was a good assignment,” she went on. “Real-world stuff, got y’all actually engaged.”
“So why are they mad about it?” John Jacob asked. He scooted his stool away from the island and went to the fridge. He wasn’t allowed to drink real soda, like his friends. Too much sugar, his mother said. But she bought him the Olipops, the pro-bio something drinks that came in a can and at least looked like an off-brand Coke. He pulled one out and cracked it open. His mother was snorting in rage again.
“They’re trying to say that The Aliens are part of a belief system and ya ain’t supposed to talk about belief systems at school.” John Jacob let his eyebrows raise as he swigged his drink.
“They don’t believe in The Aliens?”
“Some people don’t.” His mother rolled her eyes. “They think it’s a hoax, a deep fake.”
“Is it?”
His mother stopped and regarded him for a moment, an expression on her face that John Jacob didn’t know. It was . . . thoughtful, maybe? He sipped his soda, waiting for her to say something. She took a deep breath and relaxed her shoulders. A softness entered her eyes like it did sometimes when she came to check if he was asleep and she’d smile and brush her hand across his forehead.
“Nothing is ever for certain until you see it with your own eyes, J.J.” she said calmly. “But I believe the scientists at NASA and SETI are telling the truth. I believe the images they released of satellites circling an Earth-like planet from the Hawking telescope are real. Now, the light being captured is old, I know. Those satellites and the people who made them could be long gone, so it doesn’t mean we’re going to meet them. But it does mean humans aren’t the only species in the Universe to be smart enough to make satellites, and there are a lot of people who don’t wanna believe that.”
John Jacob took a big gulp of his soda to hide his confusion. He could tell his mother was waiting for him to say something, but he wasn’t sure what. For a second, he tried to think of something good, something that would impress Mr. Benson. But the 15-hour day caught up to him in the quiet and his body sagged.
“That’s dumb,” he said. “You can’t just not believe the Truth.” He chugged the last of his soda and chucked the can into the recycle bin.
“Anyway, I’m gonna go take a shower now. Love you, Mom.”
His mother smiled at him, the softness still in her eyes. “Love you, too, J.J.”
He had to go to his room to grab his shower stuff, and an image on his open laptop caught his eye. He dropped his clean pajamas on the floor beside his chair and clicked into the article about what the images from the Alien planet could really mean. That led to a video interview with a set of astronomers and physicists, and that rabbit holed down a long path of articles and videos. John Jacob started sharing on TikTok, which Omari (who was bored at home and jealous of having missed the excitement at school) started reposting with comments linking back to more information he’d hunted down. Soon, their whole class was trading what they’d found about The Aliens.
Three hours later, John Jacob had abandoned the idea of a shower or bed. He stayed on his computer until his mother came in and slapped the screen down. The familiar sleepiness took over instantly when his head burrowed into the pillow, images of small dots of light circling a far off green-and-blue marble playing across the inside of his eyelids.
J.L. Scott writes poetry and fiction from rural Ohio where she teaches composition for the Ashland University Correctional Education program using her two textbooks, First Things First: Foundational Skills for Collegiate Writing and Reading for College. She also teaches creative writing classes for Literary Cleveland, is a Team Leader for Pen Parentis (a non-profit out of NYC for parent-writers), and is an editor at Mom Egg Review. Her poetry and fiction can be found in places like the Black Fork Review, Moonflake Press, and Rising Phoenix Review. She can be found on BlueSky @jscottroller or on her website.
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