Wired Man and Other Freaks of Nature

by Sashi Kaufman

  When he went to bed, his head felt pinched as though he were wearing a too-small fitted hat, and he tried not to think about his mother’s comment about how he looked like crap. And he found, as he tossed around beneath his sheets and comforter, that he was both too hot and chilled at the same time.

  Chapter 14

  As soon as Ben woke up, he knew something was wrong. First of all, it was a Sunday morning and his body had decided to wake him at five in the morning. Second, he was drenched, absolutely drenched, in sweat. His back and chest and even the insides of his legs were soaked and slippery. He rolled out of bed and staggered to the bathroom, where he pulled off his boxers and T-shirt and mopped himself off with a hand towel. He fumbled around in the medicine cabinet, wiping his palms off twice before getting the child safety lock off the container of ibuprofen. He swallowed two pills with a handful of water before staggering back down the hall and crashing into his bed.

  He woke up hours later to his mother’s cool hand on his shoulder. “Ben?” He could hear her, but her voice was fuzzy, distant. He clawed around on the nightstand for his hearing aids. He felt his mom place them in his hand. He slipped them in, but when he tried to open his eyes the world felt too bright to look at. He pulled the covers up over his head.

  “Too early,” he groaned.

  “It’s three in the afternoon, Ben. Did you go back out last night? I thought I heard you go to bed, but Dad and I went out to Home Depot this morning and you were still out cold.”

  “No, I didn’t go out,” he said. “I think maybe I’m sick.”

  Mom’s cool hand snaked underneath the covers and found his forehead. Her hand was so blissfully cool. He closed his eyes and tried to will himself to become the hand, to live in the place where flesh was cool and comfortable. His own felt stretched and stiff and sore. “Jesus! Dan,” his mom yelled, “get the thermometer!”

  A few seconds later he heard the door open again. “What’s going on, buddy?”

  “It’s just a fever, Dad. I took some ibuprofen or something. I just need to sleep some more and then I’ll be fine.” But he wasn’t even convincing himself and was a tiny bit relieved to feel his mother push the rubber core of the digital thermometer to his temple. Both his parents stood over him. He could feel their anticipation like he imagined he could feel the digital pulse of the thermometer measuring the speed at which the atoms of his skin were moving and translating that into a numerical measurement of heat. It beeped.

  “104,” his mom said. “When did you take the ibuprofen?”

  “I don’t know,” Ben said. “Early.” Mom pressed a few more pills into his hand, which he downed with a glass of the most incredibly cool and delicious water.

  “Can you eat anything?” she asked.

  He shook his head. “I just want to sleep.” As he drifted back into slumber, he could feel the worried whispers of his parents outside the door. He slept through the rest of the day and most of Monday.

  Monday afternoon, his mom bundled him into his track pants and his soccer sweatshirt and hustled him out to a pre-warmed car. He slept most of the way to the doctor’s office. The doctor’s waiting room was so bright, and the primary colors and burbling fish tank seemed like instruments of torture rather than cute throwbacks to his childhood. “How old do you have to be before you can get a real doctor?” he grumbled in the waiting room.

  When the nurse called his name, he stood and shot a backwards glance at his mother when she tried to follow him. “I got this,” he said.

  “Well, just make sure he doesn’t tell you it’s a cold virus. I really don’t think it’s a cold.”

  “Thanks, Mom.”

  Dr. Ellsworth’s exam was quick and painless. At one point, Ben almost nodded off as the doctor listened to his chest and felt his lymph nodes. “It could be a virus, Ben,” he said. “But we’ll have you do the blood draw for mono just to be sure. There’s a lot of nasty stuff going around right now.”

  “My mom made me come in.”

  Dr. Ellsworth smiled. “That’s pretty common.”

  The test came back positive for mono, and after briefly researching the topic online, Ben realized he was completely screwed. He had to get extensions on all of his semester finals, and he was bedbound for a week and housebound for another.

  During that first week, whole days seemed to pass in a blink and then two hours might crawl by in infinitesimal increments—the approximate length of commercials on the low-budget cable channels. Ben floated in and out of consciousness, getting so bored with TV that he tried to read, but he found it too draining and the words began to undulate on the pages. On one semi-lucid afternoon, Tyler stopped by and sat at the end of his bed.

  “Your mom said as long as we don’t make out I can’t get it,” he joked.

  “I’m not really in the mood anyway,” Ben said. He lay there while Tyler told him about some random gossip at school. Apparently one of the Driver’s Ed teachers was arrested for peeping in windows.

  “Perv,” Ben said.

  “Yeah,” Tyler agreed.

  “What have you been up to?”

  Tyler shrugged. He looked almost self-conscious. “Not much. Hanging out with Megan a lot, I guess.”

  “Huh,” Ben said. He watched the afternoon light sparkle on the wall above his bed. He was pretty sure he was hallucinating at least part of it. “Do you love her?” He wasn’t even sure the words had come from his mouth. It seemed he could see them in the air like the specks of light against his wall.

  Tyler made a choking sound and then gave a small, constrained laugh. “No,” he said. “I don’t think so.”

  “Oh,” Ben said. “How do you know?” He felt like the words were just floating out of his mouth on their own.

  “I don’t know. I don’t feel that way about her. Not like—”

  Tyler paused. Ben looked at Tyler, taking in without discomfort how uncomfortable Tyler looked.

  “Not like Jer, or you.” He was quiet for a minute. “That’s weird, right? Those are the only examples I can think of.”

  “Not weird,” Ben said. He shook his head and closed his eyes against the spinning sensation it produced.

  “I can’t ever imagine her knowing me like you do. Is that gay?”

  Ben shrugged. He wasn’t really sure what Tyler was so afraid of. What did he really have to worry about? The more anyone got to know Tyler Nuson, the more they loved him. “It’s okay to have flaws,” he said, thinking of his hearing. He felt a bit angry being the one to explain this to Tyler, who seemed to have none of his own. But Tyler didn’t pick up on his tone. There was more Ben wanted to say. More he thought he probably should say if he were a really good friend. But he was so tired. He let his eyes flutter shut. When he opened them again, it was dusk and Tyler was gone.

  Chapter 15

  Even small excursions to the Rite Aid—or on one daring night, pizza with his family—left him completely drained. Christmas came and went in the same fashion. The only difference was that Shannan was home and humored him by playing a lot of Risk and Stratego. Tyler was away, but they texted back and forth about the ski conditions and whatever else was going on where he was, since Ben didn’t have much to report. They said nothing about Megan, and Ben even began to wonder if he had imagined most of their last strange conversation. Finally, a week into the new semester, he started getting some energy back.

  He still had finals to make up and two new second semester electives that he hadn’t even been to yet. One was Tennis, a gym class reserved for juniors and seniors. No big deal there; he already knew how to play. The other was Popular Culture Since the 1960s, a history elective known as a blow-off. The class was supposed to cover the time period from the 1960s to the present, but each year the students reported that they never seemed to get much past the Vietnam War. The teacher, Mr. Kapstein, routinely brought his guitar to class to play folk songs reminiscent of the period. He liked to punctuate his lectures with little bits of The Beatles or Bob Dylan.
/>   The class was famous for the television assignment: a twenty-four hour period in which the students were required to watch TV on one of the major networks without changing the channel or turning it off. They were required to log every show and every commercial. It was legend around Easton. But it was another week before he could make it to that class, since it was eighth period, the very end of his day. He was exhausted and had contemplated calling home for a ride, but he decided to tough it out to at least make an appearance and see what he had missed.

  Kapstein’s room was in a weird location, at the end of the foreign language hallway. Ben eyed the posters of the Spanish countryside and French cheese as he dragged himself along, dreaming about a siesta in a sun-warmed hammock. Darcy came out of a classroom on the left, a pile of books pressed against her chest. He felt somewhat safer seeing that her hands were full. She smiled and gave him a little finger-wave without shifting her books around too much. They were moving in opposite directions, which made things less awkward, but he wondered if she was blowing him off and if he even cared.

  Exhausted by the day, he collapsed into a seat at the back of Kapstein’s class. He thought for a minute that he was early, because everyone was out of their seat and milling around. Slowly he realized they were partnering up and then sitting down together. And when everyone was in place, there was only one person standing in the room without a partner. And she had blue hair. It was awkward as hell, but the girl didn’t seem to look uncomfortable. She stood with one knee bent, her weight back on her hips and her hands at her sides. Hips was really a misnomer. She was built like a skinny boy—and were those actually boys’ jeans she was wearing? The rest of her clothes—the red-and-black checked shirt and the black suede vest, the dark blue combat boots, and that backwards trucker hat—made her look like the lead singer of an indie band—either that or someone in line at a soup kitchen.

  “Okay,” Kapstein called out. “Who doesn’t have a partner?”

  The girl lifted her hand halfway; her elbow still locked in at her waist. She didn’t even turn around. “Well,” Kapstein said hesitantly. Teachers had to hate this part—pairing up the losers with each other. “Hey!” he said excitedly, his eyes lighting on Ben. “You must be Ben.” Ben nodded. “Welcome to the way-back machine!” Ben just stared at him. His bushy eyebrows were speckled with gray hair and seemed to be dancing up and down on his forehead. “So, this is great,” he said, clapping his hands too loudly. “You two can work together, and then everyone has someone.”

  Then Kapstein shot back to his desk and began to type furiously on his computer, leaving the two of them to sort out the pairing of the less-than-desirables. The girl took two steps toward Ben and flung herself down into the desk in front of him. She sat facing sideways and said, “What’s up, freak?”

  Ben was stunned. So he hadn’t imagined it. She wasn’t even trying to hide it. She had just said it to his face. His cheeks burned with embarrassment, or maybe it was the fever kicking back up. “What the hell is wrong with you?” he said.

  “Ah, a lot of things. Too many to list, probably.”

  “Why do you keep calling me that?” he hissed.

  “I dunno,” she said. She turned and looked him straight on. She had a light spattering of brown freckles on her forehead and cheeks. Her eyes were a dark green or hazel color and almond-shaped. “Why? You don’t think you’re a freak?” Before he could answer, she added, “I think we’re all freaks.”

  Ben shook his head and got up from his chair. He walked purposefully to the front of the room and stood in front of Kapstein’s L-shaped desk until the teacher swiveled to face him. “Is there anyone else I can be partners with?” Ben asked.

  Kapstein sighed. “It’s really a two-person project. I used to have kids do it in groups, but there was too much cheating. People seemed to miss out on the point of the project that way. What’s wrong with . . . ?” He paused, searching the class roster for a name. “Her?”

  Ben set his jaw. “I just don’t think it’s going to work out.”

  “Well, you haven’t really given it a try.” Kapstein looked at him. Ben stared back. They both knew what was what. Kapstein turned back to his computer, and Ben stalked back to his desk. It seemed he was stuck with her.

  “Tough luck, huh?” the girl said when he sat back down.

  “Whatever.” He was still trying to think of a way out of this situation. The idea of bringing this girl to his house for an entire day—or worse, spending a whole day at whatever weird hipster world she inhabited—was so beyond him at that point.

  He sighed. “I guess I should get your number or something.” He pulled out his phone. “What’s your name?”

  “Ilona.”

  “Ilana?”

  “Nope, wrong again, jockstrap.”

  He put the phone down. “Have I done something to piss you off?” he asked. “Like in a previous life? Did I run over your cat?”

  “I hate cats,” Ilona said. “So if you ran over one of the six or seven that live in my house, I would probably make you a cake. But ‘Thanks for running over my cat’ is hard to write with frosting, so it would probably just say ‘Thanks.’ ”

  “If you hate cats, why do you have six or seven of them?”

  “Because Judy likes cats.”

  “Who’s Judy?”

  “She is the witch-in-residence, a Satan-worshipping, utter nutcase. Also, though not definitively proven with DNA evidence, known as my mother.”

  Ben shook his head. He had no response. “How do you spell it?”

  “Judy?”

  “No, your name. Whatever it is.”

  “Ah-lone-ah,” she sounded out and then fed him the letters. “Yup, get it out. Say it. Ilona—a loner.”

  “I wasn’t going to say that,” Ben said, although he had thought it.

  “Coward.”

  He shook his head and tapped her number into his phone. “Do you want mine?”

  “Nah, I don’t have a phone.”

  “Seriously? So what’s this number?”

  “Home phone. But I make an effort to be home as infrequently as possible, so we should probably just agree on a date now.”

  “Anytime in the next two weeks, right?”

  Ilona nodded.

  “How about next Friday, then?” Ben said, figuring that would give him enough time to find a way out of the project, or the whole class if necessary.

  “Whatever, fine with me.” She seemed annoyed, like she knew what his game was.

  Ben made it through about ten more minutes of class before signing himself out to the nurse’s office to call his dad and go home. Once home, he barely kicked his shoes off before falling asleep facedown in his bed.

  When he woke up, the sky was dark and his phone was buzzing. It was Tyler. He felt a surge of annoyance; he’d hardly heard from him, and now, when he was completely depleted, now Tyler wanted to talk?

  “Hey,” Tyler said.

  “Hey,” Ben said back.

  “I’ve been texting you.”

  “I was asleep.”

  “You want to see the Hobbit movie with me?”

  “Tonight?”

  “Yeah.”

  Ben tried to gauge his own level of exhaustion and annoyance. Being sick, Tyler’s weirdness—it all seemed to blend together in a way that made it difficult for him to know how he felt. He wondered whether he’d even be able to make it past the front door without his mom giving him the full-scale inquisition about his health. But wait, it was her chorus night, and she wouldn’t be back until nine.

  “Yeah, all right. I already saw it with Darcy.”

  “Oh,” Tyler said.

  “But I’ll see it again, I guess.” He wanted his voice to sound cool and indifferent, though it was not at all how he felt. The less time he spent with Tyler, the more he felt the known parts of the friendship slipping away from him.

  “Cool. Pick you up in twenty.”

  His dad seemed nervous about letting him go out, bu
t Ben convinced him that he wasn’t even sick anymore, just tired, and he let him go without too much hassle.

  As soon as Ben slid into the leather seat of the Saab, things felt right and good again. He was back. The seat heaters were just starting to kick on, so only the very center of his seat, right below his butt, was warm. Tyler, as usual, was fiddling with the radio. “Hey,” he said without looking up. “You’re better, huh?” He held out his hand at an angle. Ben grabbed it in an odd sort of handshake hug.

  “Mostly,” he said.

  Tyler pulled away from the curb, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel without connection to any particular song. At the end of the street, he turned right instead of left toward the movie theater.

  “Gas?” Ben asked.

  “What? No.” There was a pause. “Megan’s coming. I gotta pick her up.”

  Was Tyler actually going to pretend this was normal? They never hung out with girls, even the ones Tyler was sort of or not really dating. Suddenly the fatigue of the day seemed to have him by the shoulders, rocking him gently, asking him what the hell he was thinking, leaving the house at this hour. Was he overreacting? “So you guys are still hanging out a lot?” he tried to ask casually.

  Why the hell couldn’t he ask what he wanted to ask? Why couldn’t he just say, why the hell is she coming? Ben remembered that Danny Fisher, in sixth grade, before he’d reworked himself into a well-liked weed supplier, had been a dirty kid—the kind that even the other kids could tell was being neglected. He always wore the same gray sweatpants and SpongeBob T-shirt to school. Danny was assigned to work with Roz Peterson on a pairs project—a moon-faced girl who chewed the ends of her hair into wet, pointy spikes. After receiving the assignment, he stood up in front of the whole class and said, “Why the fuck do I have to work with her?” It was the one stand-out memory of sixth grade. Ben remembered being shocked by Danny’s complete disregard for all norms and expectations, but mostly he was just in awe of Danny for standing up and saying exactly what he thought. He wished he could do that now.