I’m a big fan of April Fool’s pranks. Usually I’ll just do something harmless like pretend to quit my job or come out of the closet to my parents but I’ve never really done anything big. I tried once. When Jena and I were first dating we orchestrated a big fight in public and then broke up on facebook (and myspace. It was a long time ago). When we revealed it was an April Fool’s prank our friends either didn’t care or were really pissed off at us. Since that one backfired on us I haven’t really a grand April Fool’s prank. I’ll just never be able to pull one off. Not like Ben.



My friend Ben executed the greatest AF prank I’ve ever seen.



I can’t remember if it was junior or senior year but Ben and I were in the backstage of the auditorium for after school rehearsal of the school play. There were these narrow metal stairs that went up about 20 feet to reach the catwalk. High enough that I’d only climbed to the top once due to my fear of heights.



Ben committed suicide by hanging himself off the catwalk backstage.



Not really. It looked like it, though. See, Ben had bought this book of magic tricks and one of them was a trick noose. It looked just like a regular noose but you put two more ropes in the slipknot that looped under your armpits and supported them so none of your body weight was hanging under the neck loop. You wouldn’t even notice the additional ropes if you were looking from straight ahead or far enough away.



Ben told a couple of us friends to help him set up the whole gag and he did it. He had somebody help him into the harness/noose and gently lower him from the catwalk platform, I made sure nobody wandered back into the area during rehearsal and when it was all ready, Steve ran out to tell everybody.



This was the most important task. He had to come out and pretend that he just found his classmate’s dead body. This type of acting is a little above the high school level but he did it. Sobbing and shaking, he ran out on stage and just said “You guy’s! Ben is… backstage… Oh, God!” and fell to his knees, pointing towards the backstage area with the catwalk stairs. There were a couple dozen kids at rehearsal and we all went back to see what was going on and there he was.



Dangling from the catwalk. Neck to the side, body limp. He was even swinging on the rope ever so slightly like you see when people hang themselves in movies. Kids started freaking out. People screamed and collapsed. Girls were weeping uncontrollably. It was complete pandemonium backstage at the Tartan High School auditorium and then Ben opened his eyes, smiled, waved at everybody and said “April Fools!”



Now when he told me about the prank I didn’t give the aftermath much thought. I just figured when it was revealed that he was, in fact, alive that everybody would have a good laugh but that was not how that played out at all. Girls were still crying. People were pale and visibly shaken. One kid was dry heaving off into a corner. Looking back I now realize that these were all kids. Drama kids, no less and for a moment they all thought that they had just seen their first dead body and it was their friend.



It was the first time I had ever realize a prank could go overboard and to this day was the best prank I had ever seen.