Called her Ball. Called her Ball, the round circle of us red-face laughing, we’re in love with the name, in love with ourselves for coming up with it. Called her Ball because she was round-like, like she had a round face, a round little button-nose, round, wide eyes and a round, little body. She had round little breasts and round little nipples too we guessed, but what did the group of us jackasses know about nipples at the time? Ball had extra sweat-glands in her feet and hands – we would have called her Niagra Palms, but the name was already taken.

Called her Ball, the round circle of us with our idiot faces laughing hard, we’d point over at her and say, “Hey look, there goes Ball”, or “Watch out, Ball’s on the loose”, proceed then to laugh our asses off, that is until the day Ball became the girlfriend of Reynolds. Called him Reynolds The Rot, The Rot for short, he was the humongous-hittingest, the hugest-hardest, the shortest-fusest dude in school and his two fists were snarling Rotweilers. He’d hold them up at shoulder height, point them out at the mass of students in the courtyard so to sniff out the fear with their fangs bared, they’re growling, they’re menacing, they’re just begging for something to latch onto, to maul.

Ball and The Rot. It was a surprising combo.

The Rot seeks us out one day, the group of us in the round circle immediately dropping our stupid, dumbass grins, the clenched Rotweiler fists snarling at his sides and a devastating glimmer of violence in his eyes. His teeth are bared though just barely, and he asks us, why? “Why you callin’ her Ball?” Silence but for the fear vibrating through each one of us to chip holes into the pavement, the circle of us skinny, pathetic little toothpicks tunneling ourselves into the sidewalk, the terror streaming from us as sweat, tears, urine, and diarrhea to pool about our ankles, not one of us dares say a word. “I kinda’ like that,” says The Rot, then he pounds me on the back with one of the teeth-bared fists and walks away.

The Rot calls her Ball, distinguishes me from the group of us grinning retards for coming up with the name and to my horror, seeks me out every day to tell me about all the new ways he’s learned to call her Ball. Calls her Ball whenever he calls her, like he says, “Hello my dear Ball, how are you?” Calls her ball like to show her affection, like, “You are my Ball” or “You are my one and only Ball.” Taken later to reveal brashly how he uses the name behind closed doors, as in “Ball!”, he claims to sometimes yell, “It’s time to Ball!!” Evidently, right after that, they’d ball. Him just tellin’ me gets the Rotweiler fists to quivering with excitement, they’re yelping and howling and hooting and hollering. I only nod, because what does an imbecile like me know about ballin’, and then I take a step back because with the twin fists all worked up like that, you never know.

But Ball breaks up with The Rot. She’s a good girl after all, and he’s your garden-variety goin’-nowhere thug. The Rot deflates fast after that, he’s flattened by the time he comes over to tell me the thing I already know. Pulls me out of the group of giggling morons and though they’re giving me dirty looks, for once the Rotweilers have gone silent at his side. They look wounded, beaten even, their tails tucked between their legs. “Where’s my Ball?” The Rot wants to know. “Oh, how I miss my Ball.” He’s pleading with me, begging and desperate, like because I was the one that made the name, I can bring her back somehow.

But I only shake my head, hand him the remains of my lunch, two cookies, a treat for each of the fists. I expect them to clamp down on my fingers as I’m feeding them, but I needn’t worry, they just whimper and whine, sniff at the cookies and turn their heads away.

No one in the circle of fools called her Ball anymore, not after that, and as for The Rot… well he turned back into Reynolds, became Reynolds for the first time I guess, most of us barely noticing the transformation.