Dogs Don't Write

"Speak now."

I ignored him. 

"Speak." He barked again.

"Ni que fuera perro," I finally answered. 

"What did you say to me?" Said an offended Mr. Tudyk. 

"It means I'm not a dog." I replied.

"Well, we speak English here, Jose." Said an imperious Mr. Tudyk. 

"Jesus. My name is Jesus." I looked at Mr. Tudyk who sat across his desk from me and tried not to make eye contact. He always had a way of making me feel uncomfortable. So for now, I studied him. He dressed like every middle aged teacher who hated their life. He wore large rimmed glasses and a button up long sleeve shirt that had probably not been ironed since his divorce. He seemed to have more hair growing on his knuckles and poking out from the top of his shirt than he had on the top of his head.

"So, Jesus.” His craggy voice broke me from my reverie. “I already asked you twice. Why do you think I asked you to stay after class?"

I laced my fingers and looked at the corners of the room to think for a second before answering him. A knot had begun to form in the pit of my stomach and I was starting to wonder how he could have found out about me and his daughter. I couldn't let on that I knew anything was wrong at all. 

"I don't," I said. "I have no idea why you asked me to stay after."

"Alright. I can see that you are not willing to play straight with me, so let me make it easier for you, Jose."

I had to resist the urge of rolling my eyes at this guy. The nerve, he knew my name was Jesus. I’ve been in his class all Summer and he still didn’t care to get it right. 

Just then Mr. Tudyk opened a drawer in his desk and produced a small stapled stack of papers and slid them towards me. 

I squinted my eyes to study the paper, but I recognized it right away even before he turned the papers around. It was my final essay I had just turned in yesterday. 

Mr. Tudyk looked at me expectantly and I felt genuinely confused. I looked back at my essay to see what I had done wrong. The paper wasn't graded, no marking or anything and my name was printed on it. I hadn't forgotten that. 

I reached for the essay and skimmed the first page. I moved to turn the page to see if I missed something there when I caught a glance of  Mr. Tudyk glaring at me. He looked at me as if I was some fly caught on flypaper and he had a rolled up newspaper and was ready to finish the job.

"What?" I said, failing to hide my alarm. "What's wrong with my paper?"

"Your Paper?" Mr. Tudyk smiled. "I think it is quite obvious."

I widened my eyes. I looked at the paper one more time. I was clueless. 

"No." I said. "What?”

"Okay, Jose. I gave you a chance to speak up and own up to it, but I guess you lack the integrity to do so. You want to play ignorant." He seemed to pause for theatrical effect. "I don't believe you wrote this essay."

"What? You think I copied?"

“It's called plagiarism, Jose and it's a very serious offense at this school and every school in this country. 

“I know what plagiarism is. I don't know why you think I plagiarized my essay.” I felt more blindsided than offended, which speaks to the insanity of this moment. 

“Because Jose, I know what an essay written by a student sounds like and this is too good. Especially for a student like you.

I felt my mouth drop agape. Now I was fucking offended. I closed my mouth and I spoke. "You don't even know me. What makes you think you know how I write?”

“I know more about you than you think, Mr. Martinez.” He spoke more with arrogance than conviction. “I know you're nearly 20 and still in high school. That you play ball on our team and that you are pretty good. As a result, a lot of your teachers are charmed by you, but I'm not impressed by how good you are at baseball. I only care about how well you do in my class.”

This moment felt unreal to me. I felt my heartbeat accelerate and my hands go clammy as this teacher attacked me, and he wasn’t done. 

“I don’t care for students like you. Students who think it is okay to talk during my class. You wear your headphones and care more about your shiny new tennis shoes than what is actually being taught. You don't care. You think you are too cool for what is happening in here, but I’m telling you it does matter. You have to learn that there are consequences to your actions and behaviors. And finally, when you have a chance to own up to your mistakes - like plagiarism - a good man owns up to it.” 

The room filled with an uncomfortable silence, just the sound of the classroom clock ticking and tocking somewhere far away. 

I felt my fingers tighten and my knuckles go white as I looked off into the lower corner of the room. I had no words. All I could do was shake my head.

“Last chance,” he called. “Speak now.”

Out of all the things to get called out on… this? Fuck it. It’s only summer school. 

“I didn't copy my paper,” I answered defiantly. “I wrote it. I didn't cheat and I don't know why you think I cheated other than maybe you don't know me."

"Okay." Mr. Tudyk answered with a resigned sigh as reached for a red marker resting on his desk. He uncapped his marker, but I continued to speak. 

"I've been in AP and honors English classes pretty much my whole life." As I said this, I hated that I sounded imploring.

Mr. Tudyk looked up at me from over his glasses. He seemed only vaguely interested in what I had to say. He wasn't biting. 

"You can ask the kids in this class. Ask Ashley and Bree, I've sat behind them pretty much every year since my sophomore year. They'll even tell you I'm pretty good writer. 

"And how would they know that?" He growled. I was suprised, but not too suprised. I knew mentioning the name of his daughter's two best friends would get some sort of rise out of him. The three of them are practically inseparable. He may not have known I was in those classes, but he is sure to know that they are. Just as his daughter is in that class. My omition of his daughter might have done it. This could be actually dangerous, or this could be fun. 

"Oh, we've worked together. They are pretty smart girls. Probably the smartest in the class." I said innocently. 

 "Come now. I see what you are doing. My daughter is in that class and she is at the top of her class. Bree and Ashley are too, of course, but none of them have ever made mention of you, nor has Mr. Becker for that matter." He spoke defensively. 

"I don't know why they would talk about me. It's just a class." I answered. 

I could tell Mr. Tudyk was processing this development. Maybe he didn't know, but I can see that I've at leasted seaded some doubt into his mind about me being able to write this paper. I decided to press on. 

"We learn a lot in AP and we cover plaigarism and how to properly cite our sources. I know that whenever we turn in a paper, it gets run through some software that lets you know exactly how much of our essay was takem from online." I explained. 

Mr. Tudyk for the first time started to seem like the uncomfortable one in this encounter. 

"So, I'm just wondering… how much if my paper came up flagged or copied? Do you have any proof that I plagiarized?"

That question seemed to shove a stick right up Mr. Tudyk's rear. He suddenly sat up straight. Could he really not believe that I'd ask for proof of my transgressions? Did he think so little of me? What a fucking ass. 

"Listen here," he said. "Not everything comes up on those software checks. You think I don't know ow how you kids do it. I know perfectly well that sometimes students just pay each other to write original essays. That too, is plagiarism."

"But if that were the case, then you don't have any proof that I cheated?" I asked, this time not feigning innocence. 

Mr. Tudyk grounded his teeth at me. It wouldnt have suprised me if the man snarled. 

"That's not what happened, Mr. Tudyk. I swear to you that I wrote this paper and frankly it is insulting to me that you don't believe me," I said. I guess if I had your daughter look at it, it might have been. A little…"

"You keep my daughter out of this, and her name out of your mouth." Mr. Tudyk cut me off. 

"I didn't say her name." I said calmly. 

Mr. Tudyk still held in his hand the uncapped red marker over my essay.

I decided to ask one last time, "Mr. Tudyk, do you have any proof that I plagiarized."

"It doesn't matter," answered Mr. Tudyk after a moments hesitation. "That's not the only thing wrong with this paper."

I guess once that red marker's cap came off he was going to use it. 

"There is something else wrong with this paper," He continued. "It's not that I just think it may have been plagiarized. Your final assignment was to write a 4 and a half page essay for this class on driver safety.

"Yeah, and that's what I did." I said. 

"I'm sorry to say that your essay did not meet the specified requirements," he explained. 

Again, I had no idea what he was talking about. 

Mr. Tudky took my essay that was laying between us and folded the sheets in half. He then flipped to the final page and drew a red line across the center crease he had just created. 

"You see this, Jesus,"  he asked amusingly. 

"Your essay does not touch this red line. 

He pointed his finger at the blood red line he had just drawn. The line was only about a half inch below the final line of text of my essay.  

"Are you serious?" I looked at him wiith true incredulity. 

"I'm very serious. An essay that does not meet the minimum criteria cannot receive a passing score for this class."

"You're giving me an F because my essay is off by one line," I blurted. 

"No. You are recieving a non-passing grade on this essay because you don't meet the minimum."

"Right, because you couldn't prove that I cheated because it didn't happen." I said, finally realizing how unfair this whole thing was. 

"I never said I was giving you an F. I said you could not receive a passing grade. You will receive a D for this final essay and you'll be lucky if you pass this course." Mr. Tudyk spoke with finality. 

I had to stop for a moment to consider Mr. Tudyk's words. He was giving me a D because I was off by one fucking line. A D in Summer School Driver's Education. I was beginning to feel sorry for myself when the realization hit. My God! It is only Summer school. 

"Wow, Mr. Tudyk", I said. "I can't say I'm not sorry to see things playing out this way, but fine. I'll take the D."

If my sudden surrender seemed odd to him. He didn't show it. As soon as I had spoken he had drawn a large red D across the front of my essay. 

"But Mr. Tudyk, this is Summer School Driver's Ed. This class is a requirement for graduation."

"Oh yeah," he spoke bemused. "Are you afraid that you may not graduate on time? You should have thought of that before you decided to goof around in my class."

I tried my best to look pitiful for just a moment. I would need to in order to pull this off. 

"If I get a D it would lower my GPA and hurt my chances for a scholarship." I said with some fear in my voice.

"Again, you must learn that actions have consiquences." 

"So I'm getting a D in this course overall, not just this essay."

"Correct, with your performance in this class and this low score, I'm afraid I must be inflexible."

"Okay, that works for me," I said suddenly changing my tone. "That's all I really needed to know."

"It doesn't impress me that you don't care. Students like you seldom lying do," he said trying to lord his psuedo-superiority again. I wasn't taking it. 

"Mr. Tudyk, I do care about my grades and my GPA. I don't expect a teacher like you to get it, but there is something you've probably forgotten," I said. 

"What?" He asked. 

"Well. Maybe not have forgotten, but refused to believe. I am pretty smart and I'm going to be just fine and so will my GPA."

"Oh, how do you figure?" He said sounding amused. 

I decided to be amused myself. 

"Oh, because this is summer school and I enrolled in the Pass Fail option for this course." I announced. 

Mr. Tudyk looked genuinely surprised for a moment. 

"As I'm sure you know," I continued. "Students can opt-in to take summer school classes and recieve a pass fail grade upon completion of the course so it doesn't affect their GPA. That's what I did."

"But," he started but I plowed through.

"And you just told me I'd be getting a D for this course. In summer school that counts as passing. 

IThank you Mr. Tudyk for letting me know that I just passed Drivers Ed."

I grabbed the essay with the big red letter D written on across the front from Mr. Tudyk's desk and started to saunter towards the door. Just as I made it to the threshold I decided to turn around.

"Oh, but Mr. Tudyk, you were right about one thing. Students do pay each other to write their essays." I beamed at him.  

"I know your daughter Jess doesn't have a job, so I guess I can thank you for my new shoes. They're Jordan's by the way." I spoke to him as I signaled down at my shoes with a glance. 

Then I walked out the door, finished with summer school.