The Show-off

As it eventually will with every young man, he sees her and is struck. He is struck by her beauty, struck by his own youthful incapacities, and struck by the giddy paralysis of a fear so deep it can only be known by one whose own status is deemed by themselves to lie below that of their infatuation’s. “I cannot,” he reasons as he gazes upon her, “be worthy of her. Yet who else would ever love her as I would? Who could?”

“But, how to make her notice me?” He wonders, until presently it occurs to him to display for her that one thing that he can do well, as that one thing might somehow reveal to her the feasibility of other, hidden potentials within him which she, and only she, might manifest within him given time… if only she would look at him now.

And so the boy shows himself off to her. He is young. His skillsets are few and mostly outlandish, but he is completely unmindful of what the rest of the watching world may think. The urge is strongly upon him to somehow impress her in ways which he has not yet had time enough in this world to formulate, but he will try. He must try. And if the lad has wit he will manage it in a convincing and winsome enough manner that he will gain some however-so small affection from her... a smile, a touch, a peckish kiss. Any of those would be enough for now, as he would have been seen.

It began two Thursday’s ago, and has not let up since. Out of the blue the boy began showing up nearly every day, some days two or three times a day, dribbling his basketball on the sidewalk out front of Trisha’s house. He could only bounce it, as there is no basket out there to shoot at, so sometimes he bounces it up high, or sometimes he dribbles it down low, wrapping it effortlessly behind his back and then scissoring it between his legs, spinning the ball on his finger, and then on his forehead, and then dribbling it some more and more and more as he spins and jukes and out-fakes invisible sidewalk defenders.

Oh, she sees him all right. Trisha watches him through the window slats, her face a torpid mask meant to hide her curiousity away from sniggering parents. The boy was actually quite good at bouncing his ball, so she waited to see what tricks he might do with it next.

He made dribbling the ball look so easy that once, when the bouncing boy had finally gone, Trisha went out to the garage, where she picked up her brother’s ball and tried dribbling it herself, but her hands moved awkwardly, and the ball was too heavy. It always bounced too high, so that she couldn’t even begin to do the boy’s tricks. In fact, it was all she could do to keep the stupid ball bouncing near enough to her that she could bounce it again. She quickly discovered that what the boy made to look so easy was really not so easy at all.

Of course, at least initially, it wasn’t just her parents, but even Trisha who found the bouncing ball annoying. The infernal thump, thump, thumping of the ball drug her to the window from her daytime bed where she laid listening to music, or from the couch when she was watching television. The thumping was out there during supper, and when she was dressing, and all the time it seemed. When she could do so without it being obvious Trisha would sneak over to peek between the blinds at him dribbling the ball, and spinning it, but the boy never, ever looked over at her window, or even towards her house, but only dribbled his ball as though neither she, nor even her house, were even there.

But our girl Trisha was no one’s dummy.

Who was he, she wondered? And why was he doing this? It seemed to be a very strange thing to do, but then it also didn’t. At first it had appeared to be a random act, as though her house just happened to sit on his route home from the basketball court or something like that, but it quickly became obvious that there was a greater purpose to his dribbling here, that it was for someone’s benefit, and her vanity allowed her to suspect that the someone he was doing it for might be her, not that she really cared about the boy one way or another. She didn’t even know him. But why else other than to impress her? Why did he always stop right here in front of her house every day? And why bouncing a ball? If he was truly coming to impress her, or any other girl for that matter, why bring a basketball? Why not sing, or dance, or anything more romantic than bouncing a ball? It was a curious mystery, but then… she did enjoy a curious mystery.

Regardless of their intent Trisha came to look forward to his visits, her heart leaping at the first thump. She no longer felt the need to go peek every single time, though she did it quite often anyways. It was enough just to know he was there. After all, she knew very well by now what he looked like, and what he was doing, and she suspected that she was the reason, so there was really no need to peek, was there? If he truly was coming here to dribble in front of her house in an attempt to impress her then not peeking was almost a form of playing hard to get, wasn’t it? A way of showing him that she had more important things to do than to watch him play with his ball? So she shouldn’t make herself available to him every time, should she? The boy might get the impression she was easy, or uninteresting. No. She could not allow that.

Still, most times she peeked. She couldn’t help it. And when she did so she wondered if he noticed the break in the blinds, and if that break gave her peeking away? Sometimes she even hoped that he did see it. Trisha was alone a lot, which did not make for a particularly happy girl, and during those times when she was not peeking she took on an unconscious habit of brushing her hair until the thumping echoes of the ball faded away into the twilight, and of smiling as she brushed.

Oddly, Trisha began to wish the boy was out there even when he wasn’t, and she found herself discouraged when he was not. Depressed even. She began to wonder where he was, and what he had found that was more interesting to do? And then she would hear ghost balls thumping on the sidewalk. She would run to the window but the boy wouldn’t be out there; this seemed always to happen while lying in her bed at night for instance, or when she was naked in the bathroom. And even more strangely, she found herself peeking out when there was clearly no ball out there thumping, hoping that the boy might be just down the street, bouncing it up the sidewalk towards her house.

”Is that boy a friend of yours?” Her father finally asked her. “Why don’t you go out there and make him stop?”

Go out there? Was her father a fool? She couldn’t go out there! Going out there would break the magic. The boy would see that she was not so special, that she was just a girl and not so pretty, and was infinitely awkward at that.

”What’s the matter? Scared?” Her father taunted, making fun when there was nothing funny about it. But was she scared? Scared of what? Of a boy bouncing a stupid ball? Of course she was not scared. She would show her father. She would go out there! But first she would go see how she looked. Once in front of the mirror she touched her hair a few times to little effect, but it wasn’t really her appearance that she wanted to see, was it? What she needed to see lay deeper than that, so rather than primping she gazed into her own eyes, gauging their strength, asking them if this was truly what she wanted, to meet this boy whose attention she had somehow attracted, and to take a chance on driving him away? Wasn’t it better to leave things alone, and to keep this little thing between them as it was? The eyes in the mirror told her no. Trisha saw in them a readiness, almost a hunger to meet the boy, to find out who he was. Taking a deep breath, she hesitated no longer.

It was actually a relief to find herself on the tiny front porch, and to hear the door click shut behind her, and to see that he had not noticed her there yet, but there was no turning back from here. She was committed.

“Hi!”

The ball got away from him for just a second. It was a little thing, but it was the first time in all her peeking that she’d seen a fumble from him, which meant nothing really, while also meaning very much when she considered her own continuous fumbling in the garage when she had attempted to dribble her brother’s ball. Trisha’s initial thought had been that he was a boy, so dribbling the ball was easier for him, but that was not right. He was obviously athletic, but where did that come from? Was it genetics, hand-eye coordination handed down from mother or father, or both? And how did speed play into that, and balance, and dexterity, and strength? No, he could only reach the level of skill he had achieved through diligence. She wondered where he found such a thing as diligence, and why?

He was really not very big, seen from a closer perspective, not much taller than her actually, yet he looked strong, if lithe. He caught up with the fumbled ball and tucked it under his arm as he turned to face her, his weight balanced evenly on both feet, his chin held high in an exaggerated, almost comically masculine posture.

“Hi.” He did not smile, though his expression was soft, his eyes kind. His voice was surprisingly deep for such a youthful looking face.

“What are you doing out here? Why do you keep bouncing your ball in front of my house.“

The boy shrugged.

“You are driving my parents crazy.”

”And you?”

There was a pause as she considered her answer. Her eyes refused to look at him as she gave it, though she longed to see his response. She had never suffered rejection and didn’t know if she could take it, but she had a feeling that she needn’t worry. He instilled in her that feeling. “Yea, I guess you could say that you’re driving me crazy, too.”

With that said she did look up. He wore a brilliant smile now, which she could not help returning. “Good, then I’ll be back tomorrow.” He said it as he turned to go.

”Hey!“ His still smiling face glanced back at her call. “Why don’t you try ringing the bell?”

The boy nodded and took off running down the street, the ball thumping expertly at his side.