There I was, under the Friday night lights of a church gym in suburban Syracuse, N.Y., playing center (badly) for the junior varsity basketball team at St. Joseph’s parish.

It was an away game at nearby St. Charles and, standing there on the opposite sideline, a cheerleader from the opposing team was calling out my number.

“51!” she shouted as I posted up under the boards. 

Who was that girl yelling at?

Not me. It couldn’t have been me. No girl had ever looked me, never called out my number, never called my name.

Then I looked down at my jersey.

51.

Oh, no.

“Hey 51,” she yelled again. “You’re cute!”

Thing was, I was not cute. I was goofy-looking and stoop-shouldered, a decidedly un-athletic kid. 

Football? Forget it. 

Hockey? What a joke. I couldn’t even skate. 

Instead, I played on the golf team, the definition of a non-contact sport.

But I did shoot baskets at the hoop in my driveway, which qualified me, in a vague way, to play basketball.

Our high school team was good, so no hope playing there, but there were other options for kids like me — cretins and sad genetic mutants who had to do something with their after school hours.

There was the Optimist’s League, where my younger brother and his friends played.

And there was Christian Youth Basketball, or CYO.

The only league that would have me.

But I was so bad, so ungainly, I couldn’t make the varsity team, so instead I played JV.

The coach for both squads was an overweight local banker named Ric, who was single and lived with his mother and lavished us with the best uniforms (ours were the same worn that year by Marquette University) and crates of spanking new sneakers.

But there’s a price for everything. 

Word was, Ric was gay and he used to sit on a folding chair outside the showers after games and practices and watch players parade by naked en route to their lockers.

Years later, Ric went to jail for embezzling money from his bank, for purchases that no doubt included our basketball team equipment.

Rick never looked at me, of course, and I was fine with that.

So, the JV team was a safe place to be, outside Ric’s direct gaze. Our coach wasn’t much older than us and we were oddly competitive.

That night against St. Charles, I figured that cheerleader was just trying to distract me.

And she was doing a good job.

“51!” she yelled. “After the game!”

I can’t remember whether we’d won or lost, I was so flustered.

“51!” she cooed. “I’ll be waiting for you!”

When the final buzzer sounded, I hurried into the locker room, hoping to escape my embarrassment.

Fat chance.

Everyone in the gym had heard the girl, include my teammates, who called me Peach because of the furze of hair that had begun to sprout on my chin and under my nose.

I was 16.

“Peach is gonna get laid!” they said, slapping my back.

“Laid?”

I hadn’t even kissed a girl. 

I liked them, of course, but they terrified me.

What did you do with your nose (and mine was big) when you went to kiss head on, I’d always wondered?

Didn’t it get in the way?

And there was that teenage boy vanity. You never wanted to be caught with a girl who knew more than you did, who would expose you for your clumsy virginity, your complete lack of knowledge of anything carnal.

Boys were supposed to know.

I didn’t.

I didn’t have a clue.

And there it was again.

“Peach is gonna get laid!”

Oy vey.

I was trapped.

I lingered in the locker room as the other players showered and dressed and went out to watch the varsity game. We all took the same bus.

When I finally poked my nose out the door, the clank of the errant gym jump shots in the distance, there she was.

She was standing there in the hallway, waiting for me.

“Hi 51,” she said.

I gulped.

I hated my life.

But then instinct kicked in.

“Hi,” I said.

I wanted to run back into the locker room.

I excused myself and ran to ask our JV coach if he could drive down to the local convenience store and buy me a six-pack.

Nothing gave you confidence like a few brewskis, I’d found.

“Sorry man, I can’t,” he said. He didn’t have his license.

The cheerleader solved the problem.

She took me by the hand and led me into the darkened cafeteria.

She laid down both of our coats and we cuddled.

I was petrified, but she seemingly had some experience.

She giggled and kissed me a few times and I feared what would come next.

Then I was saved by a nun.

She had flipped on the lights and ordered us back out into the gym.

The cheerleader gave me her number and told me to call her.

Apparently, I hadn’t been a total failure.

On the bus ride home, my teammates cajoled me for details.

“Peach, did you get laid?”

“What happened?”

Details, they demanded details.

I waved them off.

There was nothing to tell, I thought.

Because nothing had happened.

I did have my first girl’s telephone number.

But I never called her.

I was too afraid to use it.