The Drone

The first time Biff Kraken saw the drone was on the afternoon of Christmas Day. It had been unseasonably warm—50 degrees, sunny, and calm.

His dad pulled out of the driveway. Mom rode shotgun, and he was in the back with his kid brother, Greg. They were off to the movies.

"Somebody got a drone," Dad noted, pointing.

All looked.

Across the street, the Jamali girls were in their driveway. Fatima, a high school senior like Biff, had the controller. Her younger sister, Shefali, watched beside her. The mother, Nira, watched from under the awning of the front porch, leaning again the corner post and drinking from a mug in a comfy, oversized sweatshirt on top of gray yoga pants.

The drone was big—no $75 hunk of junk. This was one of those $1000-plus jobs.

"Oh, man, that's awesome!" Greg exclaimed.

Mrs. Jamali waved. Biff's parents waved back.

They were Pakistani, according to Mom. The Jamali women had moved into the house the previous summer amid the mother's divorce.

The Krakens saw the Jamali father every so often when his big red truck pulled into the driveway. He would emerge—a hulking, fat giant—ring the doorbell, and then wait by the garage. When it opened, he went in and came out with the lawnmower. He cut the grass and left.

They had seen Mr. Jamali once that winter, too. He came after an early December snowfall that canceled school. He shoveled and left. That was it.

The girls seemed to take after their father—both on the taller side and chubby. Mrs. Jamali was tiny by comparison.

Biff's dad had a kind of signal he used when he wanted to point out for his oldest son a woman he thought attractive. First, he would jerk his chin up to get Biff's attention. Then, his father would side-eye the young man and tilt his head in the direction of the woman. Finally, looking straight ahead, Biff's dad would nod twice with a faint smile.

The first time he saw Nira Jamali, Dad sent Biff the signal. Biff squinted back at his father, shaking his head.

What? Biff thought. Some old Mom? No way, Dad.

***

The second time Biff saw the drone was in mid-April on the night of his eighteenth birthday. It was near midnight, and he was getting ready for bed. Biff was sitting on the mattress, shirtless, and taking off his socks when he heard a sudden thump against the house near his window.

"The hell?" he snapped, jumping up. The hair on his arms stood straight and his heart raced. Had some bird slammed into the house?

He darted to the window and looked out. The light in his room was on, and it was a moonless night. Scanning left and right, he couldn't see a thing.

About to give up, something snatched his attention—it had been a tiny light on the lower roof that extended out from beneath his window. Turning back to look again, the light rose from the Kraken roof like some miniature UFO.

He heard the faint whir of its propellers through the glass.

A drone?

The sight of it baffled him; Biff had forgotten all about the Jamali's drone.

Was someone in my own house messing with me? Had Dad purchased a drone? he wondered.

Hope swelled inside him. He whispered, "Another birthday gift, maybe?"

No, he decided, Mom and Dad wouldn't spend that much money.

The drone flew up, out of his field of vision.

Biff ran to the door of his bedroom and shut off his light. In the darkness, he returned to the window sill and watched the sky, thinking.

Had a neighbor been flying the drone and crashed into our house? he asked himself. It was then Biff remembered the drone he had seen Fatima Jamali flying on Christmas Day.

He found the floating white light. Fifty feet in the air and slowly gliding across the street toward the Jamali's house. It flew over the top of their roof toward the back yard.

Then, Biff saw something else—movement.

It had been the sudden closing of drapes—or, more accurately, the rapid departure of a person who had been between drapes and the window.

Biff's eyes returned to the drone. It dropped from view behind the Jamali's roof in a controlled plummet.

As if the moment needed to be reflected upon in secrecy, Biff snatched his blinds shut and sat on the bed.

Was this a kind of "hello" from Fatima? he wondered.

They weren't really friends at school. They didn't run with the same crowds. Biff was an athlete. Not dumb. Not brilliant. Just fast and strong.

Fatima was in all of the honors classes and a bit aloof. When they passed one another in the halls, Biff usually waved or nodded—it's what neighbors did, right? About half the time, Fatima didn't see it. The other half, she saw it and walked on.

Still, Biff admitted, despite her size and weight, she had a lovely face—mysterious dark eyes, swooping eyebrows—like her mother that way. Her tits, Biff thought, would be considered big on a smaller girl.

Thinking of Fatima's body reminded Biff that he had been readying himself for bed before the drone appeared.

He resumed.

With his boxers around his ankles, Biff stopped. He stared at his body—or through it, really. His hands hovered in the air like a writer's over a keyboard, letting a thought crystallize.

That drone, he recalled, had a camera mounted on the underside.

Had Fatima been peeping?

Biff sat on his bed, kicking the boxers toward the wicker hamper beside his closet door. His eyes bored into the carpet between the foot of his bed and the window.

Biff didn't notice his heart respond to the new idea. The difference was minimal, but there. If his heart rate were a man on a walk, he had been strolling, not quite sure where he was going. Now, Biff's heart went like he'd found his path—still walking, but with purpose.

This girl, he thought, who doesn't even acknowledge me in the halls, is spying on me? Peeping? What a fucking weirdo.

I should rip her ass at school tomorrow, he decided. I should tell everyone. "Hey, you know that big neighbor girl across the street from us? Fatima Jamali? Last night, she was peeping on me with a drone while I was changing for bed! Fucking believe that shit?"

Blood welled in his heart, and he grew warm despite sitting naked on his bed on an April evening colder than it had been on Christmas.

Biff shook his head. He needed to be disgusted.

He drew large, silent draughts of air.

He shook his head again.

Then, he stopped and looked between his legs.

It was growing. Rapidly.

Not because it was fueled by anger, he knew. Biff reminded himself that the rough stuff one of his friends talked about watching on the porno sites did not interest him.

It was because she had watched him.

Against his will, he liked the idea of it.

Biff swallowed a lump in his throat. He whispered, "Am I the fucking weirdo?"

He thought about Fatima in her bedroom, looking out of her window. He imagined how it started and what she'd done—a light across the street must have caught her attention, and she looked. She saw that boy in her class, her neighbor, Buford—Biff—the one who always waved to her at school. What was he doing? Was he getting undressed? Fatima shut off her own light and stood at the window, seeing what she could see.

Maybe, Biff realized with excitement, this wasn't the first time. Maybe she waited for his light to come on. Maybe she planned for it.

She readied the drone in advance. When light flooded Biff's bedroom window, Fatima raced to turn on the device and get it airborne. Back in her darkened room, she guided the craft across the street toward the window, heart pounding away.

Biff grew excited at the prospect.

Did Fatima like what she saw?

Another thought slipped into his mind: did she and her friends watch her drone videos of me, laughing about the stupid, ugly neighbor boy?

His rigid cock began to flag.

That was a key question, Biff thought, wasn't it?

***

The next day at school when Biff saw Fatima, he called her name and said, "Hi."

She glanced at him and continued.

"She your neighbor?" his friend asked after the girl passed.

"Yeah."

In the lunchroom, Biff watched Fatima go through the line, loading up her tray. He scrutinized her body, trying to understand what it might be like to see her naked. He pictured kissing her and cupping one of her breasts. He envisioned his body between her legs, fucking.

Do I want to fuck her? he wondered.

Her body didn't excite him the way other girls' did.

Yet, he decided, if she wanted me—if she truly was peeping, and if she dreamed about my body...if she got wet thinking about me.

Then, yes.

He wanted to fuck her if she longed for him that way.

But, what if she was laughing at him?

The thought troubled Biff. The next three class periods slipped away from him as he wondered how he could find out.

Even track practice passed him in a daze. Practicing starts, Biff kept blasting through hurdles or missing his pace count such that he was forced to lead with the wrong leg.

His coach threw up her arms, "What the crap's gotten into you, Biff?"

He shrugged.

Annoyed, Biff's coach pointed to the four hurdle-free inside lanes and said, "Run. Just run. Clear your head."

He ran, but his head never cleared.

At home that night, he watched Greg play games on their console in the basement. His brother offered him a controller, but Biff shook his head.

Greg shrugged, and then the doorbell rang.

Biff jogged upstairs to the front door.

It was Mrs. Jamali. Her dark eyes locked onto Biff's as he pushed opened the storm door.

"Hi, Mrs. Jamali."

Her voice was clear and soft, and her accent made him smile. "Please, call me Nira." Pleese cole me Nee-rah.

"Okay."

"Do you have a moment to hear a proposal?" she asked.

Biff glanced at her breasts. Their size and shape reminded him of Fatima's except they were attached to a much shorter, slighter, and more fit body.

"Huh?"

She nodded. "I have a proposal for you." Fatima and her mother did have the same eyes, but where Fatima's seemed at times haughty and other times wary, Mrs. Jamali's expression seemed severe.

"Okay," Biff responded. It was her eyebrows, he thought. Their slope forced her expression into a disappointed scowl.

"May I come inside?"

"Yeah. I'm sorry." He pushed the door wide and stepped in front of it for Fatima's mom to pass through.

"Thank you, Biff."

Biff liked the way she said his name. It sounded somewhere between "beef" and "beff."

As she passed him, he realized the height difference between mother and daughter. Mrs. Jamali seemed tall, like Fatima, but as she walked so near to Biff, he saw that he was a full head taller than the mother.

Standing in the front hall, she said, "As you may know, my husband and I are now divorced. Today, he told me that he would not be mowing our lawn again. I need a helper to do this, and I will pay for it."

She smelled like exotic fruits or flowers. The skin of her face did not show a single blemish—perfectly smooth and clear.

Nira Jamali was, indeed, beautiful, but Biff could not see this clearly. To him, moms were women—older ladies—a different breed. Women are for men. Girls are for boys. It was simple to Biff. He never understood an attraction to any girl outside of an age range of three or four years from his own.

His mind would not even entertain the concept of a "milf," though he had friends who regularly spoke about certain classmates' mothers. When this happened, Biff shook his head and told them they were crazy, redirecting the conversation toward the girls in school.

So, when Biff saw Mrs. Jamali up close for the first time, he saw a mom, a woman, and an older lady. Somewhere inside he recognized that she had a pleasing face and an abundantly feminine body, yet he could not see her as sexually attractive.

It was a blindness. Biff was like a person who had never seen anything but saguaro cacti suddenly seeing for the first time a maple tree, blazing red in late October.

What in the hell is that thing?

Mrs. Jamali looked at Biff, waiting for a response.

Awaking from his thoughts, Biff asked, "You want someone to mow for you?"

"Yes. I will pay forty dollars per week."

"Me?"

She nodded. "That is why I am here." Before he could answer, she said, "Come. I will show you."

The strictness of her expression intimidated Biff. He nodded and followed her across the street to her house.

She showed him the code for her garage, saying, "Fatima tells me that you are a nice boy, otherwise I might not let you see this code."

The garage door opened, and she led Biff to the lawnmower.

She said, "Here it is. I would like you to use our mower so that your family's machine does not wear out sooner." When Biff didn't respond, she said, "Do you need me to show you how to start it?"

"Easy to figure out."

Mrs. Jamali nodded approvingly. For a moment, her eyebrows relaxed, and it was like full sunshine blasting through a narrow crease in an overcast sky.

Biff was planning to find an excuse not to mow her lawn. He was going to avoid all of this, maybe see if his Mom would tell Mrs. Jamali that he couldn't do it.

This all changed when those scowling eyebrows relaxed. Biff wanted her approval.

She showed him where they stored the gas can and then led him around their yard, pointing out where she would like it mowed and places to be careful.

There were several large flower and herb plots in the back. Young shoots sprang up. Biff, Mrs. Jamali made clear, would have to be very careful around these.

They continued the tour. Biff looked where she pointed and tried to listen, but it was difficult to take his attention away from her.

And her voice, Biff thought. That accent and the way she perfectly enunciated every syllable of every word with her small, liquid voice—he could listen to her talk all day.

Back at the garage, Biff asked, "Now? Should I do it now?"

Mrs. Jamali's face grew tranquil again, and she said, "Hmm? Oh, no. You can wait until the weekend."

Biff scanned the yard. "It looks long now. I'm going to cut it."

Then, a wonder of wonders happened: she smiled.

Biff's heart swelled. He felt proud. He felt happy. He felt new.

It didn't last long. The smile vanished as she said, "Well alright, Biff, go ahead."

The disappearance of Mrs. Jamali's sudden and spectacular joy had a strange impact on Biff. He felt empty. How, he wondered, could he make her smile again?

He started the mower and got to work. It took just over an hour, and the entire time Biff was thinking about two things—how cool it was when Mrs. Jamali smiled and how Fatima might have been the agent who got her mother to choose Biff as lawn boy.

Did Fatima want to look at him more closely?

In the summer, he would probably mow without his shirt on like at home. Did Fatima want to see this, or did she just want the dumb athlete to be her family's servant?

***

Biff saw the drone for the third and fourth time the following weekend. Fatima's younger sister, Shefali, and two friends were flying the contraption in their front yard. Biff was helping his dad with a spring cleaning of the garage.

Biff stopped to watch for a moment, wondering if the drone might actually belong to the youngest of the Jamali girls.

"Cool, huh?" Biff's father offered as he came up beside him to watch the drone zip around.

"Huh? Oh, yeah."

"Come on. Help me pull out the bikes."

A few minutes later, as Biff swept out the back corner where the bikes were stored over the winter, he saw Fatima's little black SUV turn into the driveway.

Shefali brought the drone back to the ground.

Fatima stepped out of her car, striding toward her sister.

Biff stopped sweeping.

Fatima held out her hand. Shefali put the controller in it, and Fatima picked up the drone and went into the house.

Shefali snapped something at her older sister, but Biff couldn't hear—his father was running the leaf blower. Then, the three younger girls followed Fatima back into the house.

No, Biff thought, it wasn't Shefali's drone. It was Fatima's.

That night, the drone reappeared at Biff's window.

The young man had taken to leaving his blinds open as he changed for bed since that first time it showed up outside his window.

He heard the sound of the propellers and spun to the window. The white light rose, centering itself about five feet from the glass. A red light on the camera blinked underneath. He turned away from it.

Biff's first thought was that the drone had been there on his roof the whole time, waiting for him to enter. His second was the troubling notion that Fatima might be laughing at him right now.

Biff realized that, right then, he didn't care. He liked being watched too much. He would assume she wanted to look at him.

Then should I pretend, he asked himself, not to see it?

That would maintain the illusion of secrecy for Fatima. It might help her.

But, if I see it and still change, he countered, it would show her that I didn't mind, that I liked the game.

He turned back to the window and, without looking at the device, tugged his shirt over his head.

Biff had no shame about his body. He played soccer in the fall, basketball in the winter, and ran track in the spring. He was lithe and fit, holding the school record for the 110 meter high hurdles and approaching to within a half-second from the 300 intermediates record. He would take that record down this year, too.

So, what he revealed to his classmate throughout the lens of the drone's camera was not the thick and rugged, stacked musculature of a weightlifter or a football player, but a rangy, lean, and defined body similar to that of a top-level swimmer.

Sitting on his bed, Biff pulled off his socks. Then, he rose and began unbuckling the belt on his jeans.

It was strange, he decided, that he was so nervous talking to girls, but completely comfortable—excited, actually—to undress in front of one.

Years before, in the week leading up to the eighth-grade graduation dance, Biff decided to ask Ann-Marie Bisbano—the girl he'd yearned for throughout junior high—to dance.

He told a mutual friend about his plan.

She said, "Better you shouldn't."

Biff asked why not.

As if the answer were obvious, the girl said, "You're not cute enough."

That night, Biff stared at his face in the mirror. Instinctively, he knew what made women good-looking, hot, beautiful, and sexy, but he hadn't a clue what women looked for in men. There didn't seem to be any discernible system to their preferences.

He searched his own face for an answer, and the only thing he came up with was that he was, somehow, ugly. Nothing was disfigured or out of proportion, but girls must not like his face.

"I'm not good-looking," he whispered to the mirror.

What hurt him further was the simple fact that there was nothing he could do about it.

His face was his face. That was it.

Live with it.

He did. For the next four years, he avoided parties and dances. He'd rather go to a movie. He'd rather hang out in the basement with friends and play video games. Or, if his pals were all going to some peer event, he'd spend the night with his family.

As high school progressed, Biff got the sense that attitudes about his appearance might be changing—the way some of the girls cheered for him at basketball games, how girls who never spoke to him before told him, "Good luck tonight," and when, especially during senior year, emissaries were sent to him from other girls, asking if he liked this particular one or that one.

He would shrug his shoulders.

Why risk another crushing moment? Better to suspect that some girls might like him than to know that they didn't, he concluded. Better to be non-committal than to take another risk.

So, he surprised himself when the stood in front of his window and took off his jeans for the drone. The beginnings of an erection pushed out the front of his red boxers.