Made 4 you, p.8
Made 4 You, page 8
“And if you were listening to music then you inputted the information in a way that it can’t be fully retrieved.” He handed me the book. “What you need to do is read the chapters while the same words are read out loud to you.”
“So, I’ll hear them and see them at the same time. Multi-sensory, is that the right word?”
“In this case it’s bi-sensory because it involves two senses. You need to coordinate the pace of your reading with the speed of the auditory representation. They have to be completely in sync.”
He went to hand me the headphones, and his hand brushed against my neck. The fingers of his hand stroked the side of my neck and then moved onto my shoulders. That wasn’t an accident. He ran his hand along my neck and —
“I’m so pleased to see that your tension level is low,” he said.
That’s what he was doing. He was assessing my stress level and nothing else. I was relieved and, I had to admit, a little bit disappointed and felt awkward. I had to say something.
“And I’m pleased to hear you using contractions.”
“I adapt quickly to new stimuli and situations. The controls are here on the player. You can adjust the speed with this knob. I’ll leave you and be back in sixty minutes.”
“You’re not going to stay?”
“My presence would interfere with your input. I also have some independent study I need to complete.”
Gene left the room, closing the door behind him.
I went to put on the headphones and realized that I needed to text my parents that I was going to be here for a while. I pulled out my phone and noticed there was only one flickering bar of reception. I walked over to the window and got two more. I texted that I wouldn’t be home for at least two hours and that we were studying. I went to put the phone away and then stopped. I turned it right off. No distractions.
And then I heard something through the open window. I recognized it immediately — a basketball bouncing against pavement. That could mean only one thing. Gene’s independent research was him getting ready for the tryouts. I’d have to talk to him, let him know he didn’t need to do this. But not now.
I put on the headphones and snugged them into place. The sound of the bouncing basketball was gone. I opened the book to the first chapter in the last section of this unit. I pushed start on the controller, and a soft female voice began reading the chapter. My urge was to close my eyes and just listen, but that would have defeated the purpose.
I scanned down the page and started reading along. I struggled to get in sync with her. We — me and the voice — came up to the end of the first page. She paused slightly to allow me to flip the page, and we were off again. With each passing line it seemed to be getting easier. I had the strangest thought that the voice wasn’t something external but was inside my head, as if I was talking to myself. She kept talking, and I kept reading. This might work.
12
Coach Wilkins told me a few more details, and I wrote them down as we walked toward the center of the gym to start the tryout. Coach was nice, but he still scared me a little. I think he scared almost all of the students and a fair number of the other teachers. He was physically very big — he stood almost 6’8” — and was a former star basketball player. And, since he was born and raised in this town and went to this school, his picture and name were on awards in glass cases in the foyer and in framed pictures in the gym hallway. He still held the school records for points and assists in a season. He was the male athlete of the year in both his junior and senior year. He might have been twenty years older and forty pounds heavier than when he played, but he’d always be the high school star that took us to the state championship and went off to university — Indiana State, of course — and then went on to play semipro in Europe. People argued that he got cheated out of going pro. In Indiana, in this town, that made him a small “g” basketball god.
There were about forty-five or so guys in the gym warming up for the tryouts. Gene wasn’t one of them. I hadn’t spoken to him about trying out, and he hadn’t spoken to me. I didn’t want to embarrass him by asking. Still, I’d half expected Gene to be here, and now that he hadn’t shown, I was a lot relieved and a little disappointed. He must have realized that it was impossible to get good at basketball that fast. You could learn about biology and chemistry and brain functioning, and even how to play the saxophone, sitting by yourself. You couldn’t learn to play basketball by listening to it on tape or running your fingers along braille.
Coach blew his whistle, and the gym went silent.
“Okay, everybody, get your butts to the center of the gym!” he yelled, and everybody ran to comply and gathered around him. At the same time, I moved off to the side.
Then I saw Gene at the edge of the crowd. His back was to me, but his blue Jordans practically glowed. He was dressed in the pair of shorts and jersey that we’d gotten during our shopping spree. At least he could look the part, even if he couldn’t play. I just hoped he wasn’t doing this for me. Or maybe I secretly hoped it was for me.
Liv had continued making fun of how he followed me around. At first it was just sort of playful, but now it was starting to get on my nerves. I think she was jealous that he’d cut into our time together. She and I still studied for the SATs, but the rest of the studying I was doing with Gene. Three times this past week I’d been strapped into his contraption and studied for biology and American history. I couldn’t even tell her about any of the techniques that we were using, but it did feel like the ideas were already sinking deeper into my brain.
Coach and his two assistants put the players into four groups, and they started drills. He yelled “go,” and the first man in each line dribbled down the court, going full speed. Devon and Ethan were of course first in two of those lines. Each man in the four lines pulled up at the three-point line and put up a shot, and only Devon hit. All four scrambled for their own rebound and thundered back up the court.
Gene was the last in his line. I tried to catch his eye, but I’d learned that when he was doing anything, he was laser focused. No multitasking for this guy.
The ball was passed to him, and he started dribbling down the court. He was fast, but his dribbling seemed a bit awkward, flat handed. He came up to the line, set, and shot — perfect form and nothing but net. I almost cheered, but didn’t. That would have been embarrassing for both of us.
* * *
There were only a few minutes left in the practice. Gene had done well. Not anywhere near saxophone spectacular, but solid. He’d run all the drills, made more than his share of shots. He did, however, look more than a little lost and out of place when they went into scrimmages. He didn’t seem to really understand where he should be when he didn’t have the ball, or how to play in open space, and he was shying away from contact. You couldn’t get that stuff without playing against other people.
A couple of times, Devon had pulled him aside. At first, I thought it was to say something bad, but I realized he was just trying to explain a play to him. Of course, within a minute they ran a perfect pick and roll. No surprise. Gene could probably follow any directions and incorporate them immediately.
Coach blew his whistle, and everybody stopped and ran over to surround him in the center of the gym. He went on about how they’d have to “learn to work harder” and how “pain leads to gain” and about giving “a hundred and twenty-five percent.” I was happy Gene didn’t correct him on that being mathematically impossible, because he certainly didn’t have any qualms about correcting his other teachers. Maybe he was picking up on some of the subtle social things.
“Okay, everybody, hit the showers!” he yelled.
Everybody — Gene included — headed toward the change room, some of the guys peeling off sweat-soaked T-shirts as they walked. Coach and his assistants stood and talked for a minute, and then the two of them headed to the coach’s dressing room, leaving Coach alone, writing on a clipboard. I wandered over.
“Is there anything else I need to do?” I asked.
“You can head to class. Were you wondering how your boyfriend did?”
“He’s not my boyfriend!”
He looked up from his clipboard. “I never see one of you without seeing the other in the halls.”
“That’s because I’m his host. I’m supposed to show him around the school.”
“I think he knows his way around the school by now. Are you two having a little tiff?”
“A tiff?”
“A fight, an argument, a disagreement. He didn’t even look in your direction the whole morning.”
“He’s always pretty focused no matter what he does.”
“That’s good. I hate players with one eye on the court and a second on the stand looking for their parents or girlfriend or friends.”
“So, he did all right, right?”
“He’s got a nice shot, good form, but he seems to get lost during the scrimmages. He plays a little soft.”
I knew there wasn’t much worse than being called “soft.” It meant not playing with heart or being physical or determined.
“He’s actually very strong.”
“He looks strong, but he needs to play strong.”
“He’s never played on a team before.” Maybe I shouldn’t have said that.
“Homeschooled, I know.”
Why had I thought Coach wouldn’t know? Everybody knew everything about everybody here, and Gene seemed to be the center of a lot of gossip and a lot of social media postings.
“What he does have are active hands,” Coach said. “Look at these stat lines for the scrimmage.”
He turned his clipboard toward me. I recognized the names but couldn’t make sense out of the jumble of initials and numbers.
“He had five deflections, three steals, and grabbed a couple of loose balls.”
“But he didn’t get any points, right?”
“You can’t score if you don’t shoot. He didn’t put up a single shot in the scrimmage. These stats are even better. They’re hustle numbers.”
Anybody who knew basketball knew that hustle was as good as being soft was bad.
“I don’t need another shooter. There’s only one ball, and Devon and Ethan are going to take a lot of our shots. What I need is somebody to get the ball to the shooters.”
“He’ll get better at all of that.” I realized I sounded like a friend, or a girlfriend.
“Strange you should say that. He got better with some of the drills. He seemed to be able to apply directions incredibly quickly. It looks like he has high basketball IQ.”
“Do you think he might make the team?”
“A little early to tell. That’s why it’s tryouts and not a tryout. How much do you know about basketball?”
“I live in Indiana.”
He laughed. “Everybody in this state thinks they’re an expert. Let’s see if I can explain it this way. The kids in the tryout consist of three groups. There are those who are a guaranteed, sure lock for the team.”
“People like Devon and Ethan.”
“People like that. Those who were on the team or at least junior varsity last year. That group has locked down seven of the twelve spots on the team. Then there’s a second group of fifteen or twenty guys who should just forget it and try out for the cheer squad or band.”
“And the third group?”
“Those are the players who are trying out for the last four or five spots on the team.” He paused. “People like your Gene.”
I almost said, “He’s not my Gene,” but really, in some ways, he was.
“So, he does have a chance to make the team,” I said.
“He won’t get any serious playing time, just some spot minutes, but he could make the team. And you might want to also tell him to play with more muscle. It’s basketball, not ballet.”
“I’ll tell him. He’ll be back, and he’ll be better. Guaranteed.”
“Spoken like a true manager … or a girlfriend.”
I was definitely the manager. Was the other something that was happening, too?
13
I didn’t have a chance to talk to Gene before class. But then again, what was I going to say? “Coach thinks you have to stop playing so soft.”
Mr. Benjamin stood at the front, and in his hands were the tests that we’d taken the previous Friday. I knew I’d done well, but I didn’t want to get my hopes up too high. Although, when I was writing the test I could “hear” the female voice inside my head, pulling out the information — retrieving, as Gene would say. It seemed like Gene was also becoming the voice inside my head.
“We have a perfect paper,” Mr. Benjamin said, holding it up.
There was a collective groan, and then somebody yelled, “Gene getting perfect doesn’t count!”
“And what makes you think it was Gene?” Mr. Benjamin asked.
More grumbling, and a few more comments. In the short time since Gene had arrived, there was nobody in the entire school who didn’t know about his academic abilities.
“There was also a ninety-three and a ninety-nine.”
It was a reach for me to think I’d gotten ninety-nine, but that ninety-three was a possibility. It had to be me. Of course, that wasn’t much different from what I would have gotten if I hadn’t studied using Gene’s techniques or simply studied for those hours while listening to music. Why didn’t Mr. Benjamin just give the papers back instead of making this like he was announcing an Academy Award?
“It wasn’t Gene who got one hundred,” Mr. Benjamin said. “It was Becky. Can we have a round of applause for our perfect student!”
I was stunned. Big cheers and lots of clapping, the loudest coming from Gene. He had a gigantic, goofy smile on his face.
“And the ninety-nine is Gene. I’m rather disappointed in you, young man.”
“Sorry, sir,” Gene said. He did look genuinely sorry.
“He’s joking,” I said, under my breath.
“Yes, I’m joking,” Mr. Benjamin repeated. “And now a word for all of you. Perhaps a few more of you might want to sit closer to the front, study a little harder, listen to my lessons a little more intentionally, or spend more time with Gene and Becky in a study group.”
Or use multisensory study techniques without the use of multitasking distractions, I thought but didn’t say.
Gene and I didn’t really study together as much as we parallel studied. He’d set it up for me and then he’d either leave the room or sort of quietly sit and stare at the wall. At first it was a little freaky for me to have him just sitting there staring, but he explained that he had those quiet times whether I was there or not. It was, he said, his way of trying to incorporate all the new experiences, trying to bring order to his new world and the way it made him feel.
I deliberately didn’t tell anybody about this sort of thing. Not even Liv. Maybe especially Liv. She would have made some crack about him “downloading” or being “debugged.” She was relentless, and that was her biggest strength as well as her most annoying trait.
Gene told me there were times that he was overwhelmed with thoughts and feelings. I didn’t believe he could be overwhelmed with thoughts, but the emotions made such great sense. How many new things was he trying to learn about? How much had changed for him in a few short weeks? And obviously it was working for him.
The strange boy in the bright blue suit who’d never been to school before was fitting in. He dressed like everybody else. He was in the school band. He was on his way to possibly being on the basketball team. His conversation was filled with normal references, and he said less that was strange. And, ever since I’d mentioned it to him, he spoke almost exclusively in contractions. It was a little thing, but it helped him to not stand out. He sounded more like a regular teenager instead of Data from Star Trek.
Mr. Benjamin started to hand out the papers and gave me mine. I stared down at the red 100 at the top of the top page. It practically glowed.
Gene gave me a big smile and a thumbs-up. He looked genuinely happy, almost proud. He should be proud. This mark was at least in part about him and what he had shown me. I’d be sure to thank him. And tell him he had to stop playing so soft.
* * *
“I wanted to thank you for all the help you gave me,” I said to Gene as we left biology class.
“You wrote the test. I just helped facilitate a method that would allow you to study.”
“But a hundred percent is like a dream. What I really can’t believe is that I beat you.”
“You studied very hard. You were very focused.”
Then a thought came to me. I grabbed him by the arm and stopped him from walking. “I’m surprised I got perfect, but more surprised that you didn’t. Are you saying you really didn’t know the right answer for one of the questions?”
He hesitated before answering. “I thought that it would be nice for you to be the only person who got perfect.”
“You deliberately made a mistake so I could score higher than you?”
He nodded.
“That’s so … so …” I was going to say wrong, but I didn’t. “So sweet, but you didn’t have to do that. I don’t want you to do that again. Wait, how did you know I was going to get perfect?”
“You studied, and you’re naturally smart, so I thought you might. I hoped you might.”
I threw my arms around him and gave him a big hug. I released my grip. Gene looked confused and embarrassed. He opened his mouth to speak, but no words came out.
“That’s for believing in me,” I said.
“No, thanks for believing in me,” Gene said. “Maybe I should give you a hug.”
“You could if you wanted. You know, I do believe in you. But maybe we should talk a little bit about basketball.”
