Wired Man and Other Freaks of Nature Read online

  Text copyright © 2016 by Sashi Kaufman

  Carolrhoda Lab™ is a trademark of Lerner Publishing Group, Inc.

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  Cover and interior images: © WIN-Initiative/Getty Image (woman); © Ken Jacobsen/Illustration Works/Getty Images (ear cover); © Karin Smeds/Folio Images/Getty Images (man); © iStockphoto.com/magurova (lines); © iStockphoto.com/ilbusca (ear interior).

  Main body text set in Janson Text LT Std 10.5/15.

  Typeface provided by Linotype AG.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Kaufman, Sashi.

  Wired man and other freaks of nature / Sashi Kaufman.

  pages cm

  Summary: “Ben has to wear hearing aids, but being inseparable from the super-popular Tyler allows him to think of himself as normal. But Tyler blows him off senior year and Ben needs to rethink who he is—and who Tyler is” —Provided by publisher.

  ISBN 978-1-4677-8563-1 (lb : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-1-4677-9564-7 (eb pdf)

  [1. Interpersonal relations—Fiction. 2. Identity—Fiction. 3. Hearing impaired—Fiction. 4. People with disabilities—Fiction. 5. High schools—Fiction. 6. Schools—Fiction.] I. Title.

  PZ7.K16467Wir 2016

  [Fic]—dc23 2015017912

  Manufactured in the United States of America

  1-37918-19187-2/25/2016

  9781512404807 mobi

  9781512404814 ePub

  9781512404821 ePub

  Chapter 1

  Ben stared out the sliding glass doors into the backyard. The music inside was loud and was pumping through the speaker out into the night. Some kids were waiting for a turn at the keg. A few girls were standing in a tight little knot talking the way girls always seemed to. But Ben didn’t really care about what was going on outside. Staring out meant he could also see the reflection of what was behind him, and it was an easy way to keep an eye on Tyler, who was laughing and slapping the table with an open palm. The guys playing cards with him, Asshole or B.S. or some other game that was little more than a fun way to all get drunk at the same time, weren’t soccer guys. He knew them the way you knew kids you’d gone to school with since kindergarten: first names and random stats. He didn’t realize Tyler was friends with them. But Tyler was like that. He knew everyone.

  Ben took out his phone and shuffled through a few apps to look like he was doing more than just checking the time. Probably nobody noticed, but he did a lot of things to seem normal when probably no one noticed. It was only ten thirty and he was ready to leave, except his curfew wasn’t until midnight and he knew Tyler wouldn’t want to go. Sometimes it sucked having a best friend who knew everything about you, including the fact that you could probably break curfew with a simple phone call to let your parents know where you were. Ben’s eyes flicked back to the reflection of Tyler again. His nose twitched slightly as Tyler gave some goon a fist-bump. He was definitely wasted if he was fist-bumping at ten thirty. This was a party, so why wasn’t he having a good time? He was bored. He glanced at Tyler, who was wiping beer foam from his chin. And annoyed.

  It didn’t used to be a regular occurrence for Tyler to drink like this. Of course, they did have things to celebrate. That morning their soccer team had clinched a spot in the playoffs with a two-one win over Danvers. So it was expected that the team might relax their pact to lay off drinking during the season. But lately Tyler didn’t seem to care who saw him drinking, and he was treating tonight like his own personal last supper—a liquid diet version. But now wasn’t the time to tell Tyler to slow down, not in front of everybody. He would say something some other time when it was just the two of them. He looked at his phone again: 10:34.

  In his reflection-view, one of the other guys was whispering something into Tyler’s ear. Whatever it was, it made Tyler crack up and knock his beer all over the card game, causing everyone to groan loudly and make a pathetic effort to mop up the spill with their T-shirts. It was the kind of thing that Ben would never do. He always went out of his way not to call attention to himself, but it was the kind of thing that Tyler got away with all the time. Tyler stopped trying to pretend to clean up. He just hunkered down with the other guys and listened to the rest of whatever had been so funny and so fascinating in the first place.

  Probably it had to do with a girl. Ben never read lips in social situations. Too weird to look like you were staring at someone else’s mouth—especially another guy’s. But he was pretty good at picking up the gist of a conversation from body language. Shoulders up, face leaning forward, and quick movements usually had to do with something school-related. But hunched over, elbows resting on knees, legs spread, and arms moving slowly, almost languidly—probably a girl. No one ever leaned forward to talk about sports.

  Ben looked toward the kitchen. Maybe he’d kill some time in there. He swished around the last quarter of warm beer in his plastic cup and thought about going outside to get a refill. But then the conversation behind him got louder. A few guys burst into loud laughter and the table got smacked a few more times.

  “No way, Nuson!” one of the guys was saying to Tyler. His name was Albert or Alfred or some other unfortunate grandfather inheritance. Everyone just called him Al. His hair was shaved high and tight for the football team.

  “SON!” another guy hollered and gave Tyler a high five. It was Tyler’s cool guy nickname.

  “Now, seriously, both of them?” Al was leaning forward, licking his lips and waiting for clarifying details. Now Ben knew what they were talking about. The twins: Alexis and Alicia Sheehan. It was one of Tyler’s infamous conquests from the beginning of the school year. Ben thought everyone had heard about it by now, but apparently this kid hadn’t.

  The story was that Tyler had hooked up with one of the twins at a party. Then he’d left the room to take a piss, at which point he had run into the other twin in the hallway, gotten confused, and hooked up with her too. It wasn’t until Monday, when they both confronted him, that he realized what he had done. But the most bizarre part of the story, at least as far as Ben was concerned, was that both girls were still friendly with Tyler and acted like it was some funny escapade that they had all been a part of. Maybe it was less embarrassing that way, or maybe, and more likely, it was just the power of Tyler—something Ben had come to accept, like the weather or the changing seasons.

  Thinking about the twins made Ben think about what else had been different about Tyler lately—the hooking up with girls had become more frequent, more random. It seemed almost desperate to Ben, ever since that weird rumor about Tyler and Lindsay Walker. But how could he say anything, even if Tyler was his best friend? How gay would that be? Hey, why are you hooking up so much? His stomach turned at the thought of it. What if Tyler turned the question back on him? Why don’t you ever hook up?

  Besides, Tyler had explained everything to a bunch of them in the locker room the Monday after. Lindsay was drunk and sloppy, he told them. She wanted it but he didn’t have a glove, and there was no way he was going there without protection. She got pissed off, a
nd he was stoned and for some reason got the giggles. Then she got even madder and made up that bullshit story about him crying when she went down on him.

  And it had all made sense, pretty much. Everyone on the team seemed to accept the story, and Brandon Rosetti tried to get Tyler to give details about Lindsay’s legendary giant tits. But Ben, even though he wasn’t sure what Lindsay had said was true, knew for certain that what Tyler had told them was not.

  There was a lull in the conversation. Ben glanced over his shoulder and saw all the guys staring out the window at the girls in the backyard. The twins were right there in the center, clutching their keg cups like life preservers and flipping their hair as if they knew the boys were looking at them. Then Ben saw Julie Snow come into the living room through the swinging door. She was a senior with curly brown hair that was now pulled back in a ponytail. She assessed the guys leering out the window at the younger girls. “Gross,” she said. “You guys have no class.”

  “It’s only because classy girls like you won’t even talk to us,” Tyler said winningly.

  “Yeah,” Julie agreed as she walked toward the kitchen. “Sorry that I’m not interested in letting your drunk ass slobber all over the side of my face while you try and stick my hand down your pants. Guess that makes me a romantic.”

  Tyler was undeterred. “You’ll never know until you try it.”

  “I’ll take my chances,” she said and sashayed past them. Ben smirked. Julie was part of a small group of senior girls who seemed permanently unimpressed and even annoyed by high school. Being a senior girl had to be a little different from being a senior guy. His older sister Shannan and her friends complained bitterly during their senior year about the maturity of guys their age. But Shannan didn’t really party anyway, and she was as charmed by Tyler as everyone else. Julie really was the only girl he knew who talked to Tyler like that; she was pretty much the only person who talked to Tyler like that.

  “Which one is which?” one of the guys was asking Tyler.

  “Dude, don’t ask him, clearly he can’t tell the difference!”

  Tyler grinned, unashamed. The girls outside seemed to notice they were being talked about and were staring in at the living room while chatting more intensely.

  “What are they saying?” Tyler said loudly to the room. No one responded.

  “Hey, Wireman,” he called out again. “Stick your head against the glass and turn up the volume so you can hear if they’re talking about me.”

  Time froze while the words bore into Ben’s skull. His body knew first and sent an immediate surge of bile up the back of his throat. Hot pangs of anger climbed up out of his collar and raked his neck. He caught Tyler’s eyes. Tyler looked away. Good, he knows what he said. Everyone else looked at the floor.

  “Sure,” Ben said easily. His voice seemed to come from somewhere outside his body. He leaned his head against the glass. He didn’t let the glass touch his ears or his hearing aids hidden beneath his shaggy haircut. The hell if he was going to give anyone a full show just to prove a point. He acted for a second like he was listening intently. “Nope, nothing,” he said. And then, “Oh wait. I can hear them.” He paused, drawing out the anticipation. Making sure he had everyone’s attention. “Something about a tiny, hairless . . . uh, wait, not sure I got that last part. Oh yeah, tiny, hairless Asian dick. Yup, they’re talking about you all right.”

  The room erupted in laughter.

  “Wireman, that was clutch!”

  “Freaking hilarious!” someone else called out. Al looked like he was going to need someone to deliver a couple chest thumps to get him breathing again. Ben heard them all but was watching only Tyler. Anyone else would have seen some good-natured embarrassment and then laughter, enjoyment even at being the butt of a good joke. But Ben saw more. He saw the slight twitch around Tyler’s eyes, almost a blink. Ben knew he’d made his point.

  He collected a few high fives from the guys at the table and walked into the kitchen. He thought seriously about walking out to the street and calling a cab, but pride got the best of him. He wasn’t going to skulk out of there like some loser. He tilted a few bottles of booze that were sitting on the counter, trying to guess which ones might contain something drinkable. He settled on a lemon-flavored vodka, pouring himself a measure of it and mixing it with some half-flat Sprite he found in the refrigerator. Whose house is this anyway? He studied the family photo stuck to the fridge door with a Domino’s Pizza magnet.

  Then the kid’s name came to him: Josh. He was a freshman who played on their JV team. Everyone was talking about how he was the future of the varsity program. Ben looked around. The kid’s house was going to get trashed tonight. He hoped his parents were far away and not coming home until late on Sunday.

  “What are you making, bartender?” Julie Snow said, coming into the kitchen. She was wearing jeans and a hooded softball sweatshirt cut open around the neck. She looked like she was someone’s older sister hanging out at the party to keep an eye on the better furniture.

  “Nothing good,” he said, glancing down at his cup.

  Julie shrugged and handed him her empty cup. “Make it a double. The party can’t get much lamer.”

  Ben poured what was left of the lemon-flavored vodka into her cup and added some of the flat soda. As an afterthought he went back to the fridge for a splash of orange juice. Julie smirked. “Getting fancy?”

  “Nothing but the best,” he said.

  They took a quiet drink together. The kitchen was wrecked. An open jar of salsa sat on the counter with two drowning tortilla chips poking out. There was a pizza box on the round kitchen table, its only occupant a greasy piece of wax paper with a few blobs of cheese and a single green pepper stuck to it. Popcorn and some pretzel sticks were scattered around the feet of the four kitchen chairs. In the corner there was a small pantry, and sticking out of the pantry Ben could see a pair of sneakers and pair of brown UGG boots. He could hear the low murmur of conversation but couldn’t make out any words.

  “I’m so done with this,” Julie said.

  Ben gave a noncommittal shrug.

  “You can’t tell me you’re not ready to move on,” she insisted.

  “And leave all this behind?” He gestured grandly at the food scraps and half-empty keg cups littering the kitchen. He took a slow sip from his cup. He was trying to be ironic, but her question bothered him. To even make it through the door of a party like this one would have been unthinkable as a freshman, maybe even as a sophomore. And now, midway through their senior year, when they were at the top of the social food chain, they were supposed to act like it was all suddenly beneath them?

  He shook his head and pretended he’d actually been listening to Julie talk about the colleges she was applying to. It was a conversation that everyone seemed to be having lately and not one that he especially liked. He dreaded the thought of so many new things being thrown at him at once. He nodded and made eye contact occasionally as she talked. The sound of her voice was calming, smoothing out the flashes of anger that coursed through him every time he thought about Tyler.

  “So?” Julie said.

  He’d missed the question. “So what?”

  “So, where are you applying?”

  “Oh.” That question. “Um, I don’t really know yet.”

  Julie stared at him quizzically. “Ben, you know the deadline for early decision is like the end of next month?”

  “Yeah. I mean no. I didn’t know that. But yeah. I don’t really know where I want to apply yet. So I guess it won’t be an early decision.” He tried to make it sound like a big joke.

  Julie laughed, but she seemed surprised. Impressed even? “Okay, Ben,” she said. “Badass Ben. Didn’t really know you had it in you.”

  Was she flirting? Before he could consider the question, Tyler staggered into the kitchen. He smiled winningly at Julie, who rolled her eyes, and then hesitantly at Ben.

  “Gotta take a piss,” he said and pointed in the direction of the ba
throom.

  “Charming,” Julie said.

  “What do you see in him?” she asked when Tyler left the room.

  “What do you mean? It’s not like we’re dating.”

  “Might as well be. You’re always together.”

  “Whatever,” Ben said. He felt prickly, even defensive about his relationship with Tyler. Two girls could be tight and no one made a big deal about it. So what if he and Tyler were always together? Why did it have to be a big deal?

  “Don’t get annoyed,” Julie said. “Why can’t guys talk about their relationships without getting paranoid that they’re being called gay?”

  “I don’t even know how to answer that.”

  “It just seems like you’ve got a lot more going on. I mean, Tyler’s just Tyler. We all know what he is. But you’re different.”

  Ben felt that hot feeling creeping up his shirtsleeves. The angry fingers starting to tighten around his neck. He didn’t want to know who Julie thought he was. Or who she thought Tyler was. Everyone loved Tyler. That’s just the way it was. Why did she act like they didn’t? And why did she think he was so interesting? Was she just messing with him?

  Tyler was standing in the door. His fly was down, but since Ben was still pissed off about the hearing aid comment, he decided against telling him. Tyler looked at Julie and then raised his eyebrows at Ben. Ben could hear the question as if it had been spoken. “Is this going on?” Ben shook his head slightly. “Hey,” Tyler said. “Justin Greenwood’s going to smoke us out. You want to come? You too, Julie,” he added generously.

  Ben shook his head. “No. I want to get out of here.” He wanted Julie to hear how forcefully he said it. Just so she’d know he was more than Tyler’s entourage.

  “All right,” Tyler said. But he looked uncertain. “How about we toke up—just a bit, you know, to top the night off—and then go home?”

  Ben could argue, but what was the point? Tyler would get his way in the end. “Whatever,” he said. Julie declined to join them, and he followed Tyler out of the room without meeting her eyes. He knew what he looked like to her. But it wasn’t really like that with him and Tyler. They didn’t have to discuss every decision they made like girls did. They just knew each other well enough that most of the time they could decide stuff without even talking about it.