Wired Man and Other Freaks of Nature

by Sashi Kaufman

  Chapter 10

  He couldn’t remember agreeing to let Tyler drive, but then he couldn’t remember arguing with him about it either. He sank into the seat and licked his lips to see if he still tasted Darcy’s lip gloss.

  “Pizza rolls at my house?” Tyler said.

  “Sure.”

  “Pepperoni? Or no, wait, I noticed you’re going vegetarian?” Tyler smirked and slapped the steering wheel. “Nice moves, man!”

  Ben shrugged his shoulders, but he was grinning too. “Shut up,” he said easily. “And you better not be lying about those pizza rolls.”

  “You get her number?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Ahhhhhh!!!!” Tyler yelled and laid into the horn, sending a blast of stale-sounding air into the darkened neighborhood.

  “Cut it out!” Ben yelled. “We’re going to get pulled over. Besides, it was just a hookup.”

  “But you got her number,” Tyler said. “She gave it to you. Which means it could happen again. She wants it to happen again. That is not just a hookup.”

  Ben didn’t really want him to shut up. That was exactly the kind of information Tyler was good for. And he didn’t have to ask and risk looking like an inexperienced idiot. He could count on his uninjured hand the number of times he’d hooked up with a girl in high school, and this was by far the most promising in terms of potential for a repeat performance.

  When they got to Tyler’s house, they were locked out.

  “Shit,” Tyler said as he grappled for the key that was hidden underneath the back porch. “It’s not there. Jer’s dead. How many times do I have to tell him to put the damn thing back after he lets himself in?” Ben jumped up and down, trying to stay warm. They threw rocks at Jeremiah’s window for a few minutes, but his bed was on the other side of the room and the kid was a notoriously sound sleeper. They tried the windows, but everything was locked down for winter. “Shit,” Tyler said. “I do not want to wake the professor. Can we go to your house?”

  “Hell no! Not like this. My parents would give us a breathalyzer. What about the apartment?” The Manny’s apartment had a separate entrance back by the pool.

  “No one’s been in there in forever.”

  “So? Maybe it’s open.”

  Tyler shrugged, so they walked around to try it. They found a sliding glass door that had been left unlatched and walked quickly into the spare, unheated space. There was a futon frame against one wall with a navy blue comforter pulled up over a bare mattress. A large flat-screen TV sat on a dresser of drawers, and a Ferrari poster featuring girls who were definitely not race car drivers hung slightly off-center on one wall.

  “It’s gross in here,” Tyler muttered.

  Ben followed behind him through the apartment and through the den into the main part of the Nusons’ house. They went into the kitchen and concocted a disgusting booze-fueled feast of previously frozen potato products and pizza rolls. When Ben was on his fifteenth pizza roll, he pushed back from the counter, clutched his stomach, and groaned.

  “Let’s crash,” he said.

  They tiptoed through the too-big house to Tyler’s room, which had a second bed always made up and pretty much reserved for Ben. Ben kicked off his shoes, threw his jeans and his jacket on the floor, and crawled underneath the covers. When he woke up a few hours later, the room was flooded with a pale light. It was still night, but it was snowing lightly and the sky was quilted with thick clouds. Tyler’s bed was empty. Ben found his hearing aids stuffed into his jeans pocket—he didn’t even remember taking them off—and walked down the long hallway to the bathroom, took a leak, and gulped water straight from the faucet. When he came back into the hallway, he thought he heard someone crying downstairs. Sometimes their neighbor’s cat made a sound that was just like a baby crying, but this was different. It wasn’t a high whine. There were distinct sobs. He stood poised at the top of the stairs, wondering if he should just go back to bed, but instead he followed the sound.

  He went downstairs and the sound got louder. Ben passed through the den and saw that the door to The Manny’s apartment was open a crack. He walked over to it and pressed his face into the opening. He could see Tyler hunched over on the edge of the futon. His head was against his knees, and his shoulders were shaking. Suddenly he stood up, reached back, and punched the wall. Grabbing his hand, he twisted around and pressed himself against the sliding door. Then Ben saw Tyler slide down to the floor and collapse against the glass. There was a look on his face Ben didn’t recognize, even after all their years of friendship. If anything, he reminded Ben of Jeremiah: softer, younger, like when they told Jeremiah to get lost or shut him out of Tyler’s room so they could pre-party with some stolen booze. Scared, vulnerable, sad, hurt. Why didn’t he walk in and find out what was wrong? Ben couldn’t move his feet forward. He didn’t feel he had the right to. He didn’t know this person weeping on the floor.

  Outside, the most beautiful oversized flakes of snow were slowly drifting downward, each one with its perfect arrangement of geometric patterns. Ben watched them float down so close to Tyler, where he lay. Slowly Ben backed away from the door. He walked quietly back up the stairs and got into bed. He did not sleep for a long time. Finally, close to dawn, he must have dozed off. When he woke, Tyler was passed out in the bed across the room.

  Chapter 11

  Ben didn’t mention what he had seen the night before. He wasn’t sure what he had seen. But he thought about it.

  He thought about it constantly that week before States. He searched Tyler’s face for anything that would tell him if Tyler knew he’d been overheard. He looked for signs that Tyler wanted to talk, but there was nothing. He thought of all the questions: Hey, are you okay? or What’s going on? He told himself that Tyler was keeping him out of this part of his life for a reason—even if Ben didn’t quite know what it was. And a certainty took over this idea that he was being excluded. It bordered on resentment. It was enough to keep him from reaching out.

  When he wasn’t thinking about Tyler, he had the beautiful purples and yellows of his right hand to distract him. That it was only a deep bruise meant he was good to play in the State final. And then there was Darcy. He had tapped several texts into his phone since Saturday night but discarded them all as being too casual or too serious. Finally he settled on:

  Hi

  To which she responded:

  Who is this?

  Ben

  Hi Ben

  And then, horrifically, he was stuck, completely unsure of what his next move should be.

  He finally saw her on Wednesday when he went looking for Tyler in the library. Tyler didn’t usually hang out in the library, but it was their day for double lunch and Ben had checked everywhere else. He walked up and down the rows of books, walking through both of the computer labs—even though Tyler had his own laptop at home—and poked his head into the conference rooms where occasionally a study group or club met. That was where he saw Darcy again. She was sitting with a group of three other girls. Bio books and lab notebooks covered the surface of the table. He gave her a little wave and then beat a hasty retreat in the other direction. What if she thought he was looking for her? What if she thought that?

  He stopped in his tracks. Wait, he wanted to see her, didn’t he? God, he felt like an idiot. He was about to give up on Tyler and turn in his lunch money for a sad school cheeseburger and some soggy tater tots when he saw Darcy coming toward him down the aisle of books.

  “Hey,” she said. “Again.”

  “Hi.”

  “How was the rest of your hangover? I mean, weekend.”

  He smiled. “Not too bad, I guess.” She was leaning against the bookshelf, blocking him from exiting the row. He glanced past her at the clock on the far wall.

  “Oh,” she said without moving, “do you have to go somewhere?”

  “Just lunch,” he said, realizing too late that the correct answer was no.

  “Okay,” said Darcy. “I had fun on Saturday.”
>
  “Yeah,” he said. “Me too. I guess there’s still hope for me,” he joked.

  “Maybe,” she said, and she moved a step closer.

  “AND THEN SHE DID IT?” Tyler shouted. They were changing in the locker room for practice.

  “Yes,” Ben said, but he hushed Tyler with his hand. “I don’t need the whole team to know.”

  “She seriously stuck her hand down your pants?”

  “Yup.”

  “Were you hard?”

  “No! I was, like, completely shocked.”

  “But then you got hard?”

  Ben shrugged. He was embarrassed about the next part. Truthfully, he hadn’t known what to do. So he kissed her and she kissed him back and her hand was still in his pants, her wrist pinned between his stomach and the waistband of his jeans. He couldn’t really enjoy it, though, because he was sure at any second Mrs. Passarelli, the school librarian, was going to come around the corner and ask if she could help him find anything in the stacks. She was a petite woman with a sweet smile and small, dark eyes. The kind who might shush you in church but then offer you a candy from her purse afterwards.

  “So you just went for it right there in the library?”

  Ben shrugged again. Honestly, he hadn’t really enjoyed it that much. It was too weird to mix making out with Darcy and the World Religions section of the Easton High library.

  “I like this girl,” Tyler said appreciatively.

  “Hey, where were you anyway?” Ben asked. “I was looking for your sorry ass so we could get some lunch.”

  Tyler’s face darkened. “Oh, you know, just chatting with Mr. Higginbotham about my feelings.”

  “Why?” Ben asked. But he felt a surge of relief. Maybe Tyler could tell someone else what was bothering him.

  “Because apparently I’m deeply screwed in the head.”

  “Who said that?”

  “One guess.”

  For a second Ben had the irrational fear that he was the one who had gone to Guidance on Tyler’s behalf.

  “Coach,” Tyler said before Ben could let the thought go any further.

  “Oh.” It was the perfect opener for him to ask Tyler about Saturday night or even just express some general concern about Tyler’s moodiness lately.

  But before he could say anything, Tyler sneered and said, “Some people don’t know when to back off already.”

  Ben nodded; his question froze in his throat.

  “Besides,” Tyler said, more lightly now, “we’re going to States. He should focus on bringing home that trophy.”

  Chapter 12

  They lost States. Ben played, but it wouldn’t have made much of a difference if he hadn’t, since the rest of the team was so completely outmatched. If anything, Ben could feel good about keeping the score to a respectable 4–1 by blocking ten direct shots on goal.

  Midway through the third quarter, Tyler was red-carded and ejected from the game for punching an opposing player in the chest. Ben couldn’t see the events that led up to this, but he could hear Tyler screaming to the ref that the guy had his hands all over him all game. The fans on their side were quiet as Tyler stormed to the bench and kicked over a bunch of water bottles. After that display, Coach sent him to the bus for the rest of the game.

  When Ben and the rest of the team finally climbed onto the school bus after watching the state trophy be presented to Longmeadow, Ben found Tyler, his head resting against the glass, his earbuds in his ears. Ben elbowed him when he sat down. “It was a good season,” he said.

  Tyler nodded, removing only one of his earbuds. “Yeah,” he agreed. The bus started up, the loud diesel motor coughing and then roaring heavily to life. “Hey, I think I’m going to go out with Megan tonight.” He held up his phone so Ben could see the text exchange.

  “Brandon said he was going to have people over to watch Apocalypse Now or Full Metal Jacket in his basement,” Ben said.

  Tyler nodded. “You should go.”

  “I might.” He was somewhat surprised that Tyler would choose to hang out with Megan after losing the game. He thought about offering to do something just the two of them, but he didn’t. He had a feeling his offer would have been rejected anyway, and this made him sadder than losing States.

  They didn’t talk the rest of the way home. When Tyler dropped him off, Ben said, “Have fun with Megan,” but Tyler was already fiddling with the radio. He felt crappy throughout dinner that night. His parents made a few weak attempts to console him about the loss, which he ignored by changing the subject.

  “How’s Tyler taking it?” his mom finally said.

  “Fine, I guess,” Ben said. “He’s going out with Megan.” He immediately hated how this might sound to his parents: jealous and petulant.

  His parents kept up the conversation at dinner, rehashing some of the better moments from the game and from his four years of playing soccer at Easton. He was only half listening; he thought about calling Shannan but felt guilty about bugging her on a Saturday night. And he didn’t want her to feel bad about the loss. She already felt terrible about missing the game. He thought about going over for the movie at Brandon’s house, but that sounded even more depressing than sitting around by himself. He considered calling Darcy, but he doubted she liked him enough to tolerate his mopey mood.

  After dinner his phone rang. He smiled when the picture of Shannan he’d taken on last summer’s trip to Martha’s Vineyard popped up on his phone.

  “Sorry about the game,” she said before he could even say hello.

  “Yeah.”

  “You all right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “How’s Tyler?”

  “I don’t know. He’s fine too, I guess. Why is everyone in this family always so worried about Tyler?”

  “Uh, I guess because he’s been your best friend since fourth grade, jerk face.”

  But he was afraid. Afraid that his parents or Shannan understood something about Tyler that he was missing. Afraid to confront Tyler about what he’d seen that night at his house, and afraid that he might be a terrible friend for avoiding it. If Shannan had a similar falling-out with her friends senior year, he had been clueless about it. “Shannie,” he said, “do you still talk to Marcy and Eva?”

  “Sure, sometimes. I mean, we text. We don’t actually talk that much.”

  “Did you think you would? I mean, when you were a senior?”

  Shannan laughed. “You know what’s funny? I think we were more worked up about it when we went from middle school to high school. Everyone wrote these super-dramatic things in the middle school yearbook like, ‘Don’t just be a face in the hall!’ But by senior year? I mean, I think we just kind of accepted that we were all moving on. I don’t actually miss them as much as I thought I would. Freshman year was harder. But it’s weird how quickly high school starts to feel like the past. I mean, I think of my friends here as my friends, you know what I mean?”

  “Yeah,” he said, trying hard to imagine a new group of friends he would think of as his friends.

  “Are you worried about next year?”

  “Not really,” he lied. Sometimes he wondered how much Shannan and Mom talked about him behind his back.

  “Do you want help with your essays?”

  “No!” he said a little too forcefully.

  “You know you do actually have to apply to go to college?”

  “Yeah, yeah,” he said, ignoring her sarcasm.

  “Tyler’s going to go to BU, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Why don’t you apply too?”

  He laughed. “I think I can probably find my own place to go to college.”

  “Okay, whatever. It’s just a place to start looking.”

  Shannan had to go study, but when they got off the phone Ben pulled up the BU home page on his phone. He couldn’t do it, could he? He wasn’t sure which made him feel like a bigger loser: following Tyler to college or going somewhere without him.

  Finally, around eig
ht, he got tired of thinking about it, made himself a bag of microwave popcorn, and put in the first of the Lord of the Rings movies. His mom walked past the living room and stood for a minute, watching a scene of bloody carnage between the Fellowship and the Orcs who were chasing them. “Which one is this?” she asked.

  “The first one.”

  She reached down and grabbed a handful of popcorn. “I can never tell which is which.”

  “That’s because you never watch the whole thing,” Ben said.

  “I just don’t understand why they all have to kill each other all the time.”

  “They’re on a quest, Mom.” He wasn’t annoyed, but he liked pretending that he was. “And they’re not killing each other. They’re killing Orcs and cave trolls and whatever other minions of Sauron are trying to destroy them and send Middle-earth into the dark ages.”

  “Well, I just wish they didn’t have to be so bloody about it.” She sat down on the arm of the couch and winced as Gimli drove his axe through a particularly nasty-looking Orc.

  After a few more minutes of battle, she shook her head and stood up to leave. But then she reached back and rubbed her fingers on the top of Ben’s shoulder blade. It was one of those moments when Ben could almost feel the things she wanted to say or ask—about soccer and Tyler and his lack of plans for the future.

  He kept his eyes glued on the screen. It was easier to focus on Sam and Frodo making their way toward Mordor with the ring heavy around Frodo’s neck.

  He watched the first two movies and thought about putting in the final part of the trilogy, but he decided to go to bed instead. It seemed like he had been asleep for only a few minutes when there was a rapping on his window. The house was a single-story ranch, a fact Tyler frequently took advantage of when he needed somewhere to crash. Ben sat up, pushed the window open, and then flopped back down. Tyler knew where he kept the sleeping bag and the extra pillow. But Tyler wasn’t there to sleep. He crawled into the room and perched at the end of Ben’s bed, squatting and rubbing his hands together like he was sitting in front of a campfire.