Less Than Human Read Online Free Page B

scantily-clad Miss Andrews watering her plants while all the men on the block watched from their garages as their wives writhed their noses at her from their living room windows; the elderly Philip Morrow trimming his hedges symmetrically even though they were already immaculate.
    Someone. Something. Anyone.
    As strange as it was to see no one, Ben didn't dwell on it for very long. Instead, he went inside and plopped himself on the couch, drained from his mailbox excursion.
     
    B en knew he had to call Melissa. She wasn't his favorite person to talk to, and he knew she wasn't going to have anything pleasant to say, but he had to do it. It was a phone call he dreaded, yet enjoyed at the same time. He missed her voice, her nice voice, not the screaming, psychotic voice she so frequently displayed when they were together. Every time he picked up the phone to call her, his thoughts wandered into memories of her, both joyful and painful. They had been married for ten years. They had good times and they had bad times. Ultimately, the bad outweighed the good, something he kept reminding himself of, especially when he was alone with his thoughts, missing the sound of her nice voice.
    Ten years, he thought. What the hell was I thinking? Really, they shouldn't have stayed together that long. They only tried to work things out for one reason, and that was Jake.
    Jake was eight when his parents split. Like most kids when words like separation and divorce are brought to the dinner table, Jake blamed himself. He cried and moaned about it for days, telling everyone, teachers and classmates included, that his parents hated him and their main goal in life was to ruin his. He acted out in class, on the bus, and at home. Sometimes violently, but mostly Jake verbally disrupted daily routines, using words children his age shouldn't. Before Ben started sleeping on his colleagues' couches, Jake had been a real treasure. He always received fantastic grades and his teachers had nothing but positive things to say about him, especially when it came to manners. “A polite little boy,” a teacher once said. “A real joy to be around.”
    That changed quickly once his mother threw his father out. Jake started playing the role of class troublemaker, spending at least one day a week in the principal's office. Getting Jake to do schoolwork—or any work, for that matter—was like pulling teeth without any Novocaine. Teachers began hating him. He lost the friends he made the prior year, creating enemies. Many hours were wasted in after-school detention. Jake Ackerman began his trek down a dark, lonely path.
    Then came the decision to leave New Jersey and take Jake to the state his mother grew up in: Pennsylvania. The decision came as quite a shock to Ben, considering he was told his opinion didn't matter, that he had no say in the future whereabouts of his only child. Enraged, he argued with Melissa, even threatened to take her to court, but in the end he gave up fighting and Melissa got her way. Just like she always did. A kid needs his father, his mother's voice chirped inside his head. She pushed for Ben to get a lawyer, but he declined. It was only going to make things worse for Jake, and the kid had been screwed up enough over their inability to stay cordial. So, for the sake of Jake, Ben signed the necessary paperwork and let him go, a decision he'd always second guess.
    A kid needs his father.
    Ben had no plans of being an absentee father. He would see Jake as much as he could, which the way he figured it, would be at least one weekend a month, sometimes two. The town they moved to was just outside of Pittsburgh, about a five-hour drive from Red River. It wasn't convenient, but they'd make it work. Unless, Melissa wanted to be a bitch about it. And why not? She had been about everything else.
    “ It's almost been a year,” she said. “It's time to get over it, Benjamin.”
    Benjamin. He hated that name. And she knew it. That's all she called him