Ferry Boats and Scrub Caps

Can't Keep My Eyes off of Youuu

C You're just too good to be true.

C/B Can't take my eyes off you.

C/A# You'd be like Heaven to touch.

F/A I wanna hold you so much

The pads on Derek's fingers were sore as he pressed against the hard steel strings of the guitar. 'C' he thought. His fingers stretched across the the frets as he unnaturally curled his fingers to the appropriate notes to create the 'C' Chord. He pressed with his left, strummed with his right. "Just too good to be truuue" he crooned. He was perched precariously on the rail of the ferryboat, his ankles hooked on the bar beneath him. The warm May sun shone brightly over the water, reflecting sparks off the surface. His almost afro of curls hung over his eyes and he knit his brows in concentration. 'B' he thought, and he tried to remember the position, again his fingers stretched to another awkward position as he strummed. "Can't take my eyes off of yooouuu,"

He was sixteen. He wanted to be cool and ask Heather to the Prom. Heather was nice and sweet. She was a twirler in the band. Somewhere in the dark recesses of his mind, he knew that she didn't really love him... but he optimistically chose to ignore that, thinking he could woo her with his... something. He didn't know what yet, he was still trying to figure it out.

"You sound like a yodeler," Mark said from the bench.

"Shut up." Derek replied.

"Can't pick up chicks singing like that..." Mark tossed a sideways glance at his friend over a bottle of coke.

Derek curled his fingers around the neck of his acoustic Gibson J-45. He fingerpicked a a few notes in a somewhat recognizable tune. Then he shook his head and snorted. "At least I can keep a chick..."

"C'mon, that was how long? A month?"

Derek didn't reply, instead he flicked his head into the wind, allowing it to blow his hair away from his eyes. "I read somewhere that guys who play guitar are more attractive." Metal met wood as he scrambled for the C chord again. "You're like heaven to..." A#. How did that go? He closed his eyes and remembered, "-touch"

"You know makes you more attractive? Nice hair. Muscles. Shep, seriously... you need to work out or something. You're a frigging pencil."

"Ha ha, Mark. You know what else gets girls? Intelligence. Sensitivity."

Silence. Mark sipped his coke again. Derek ran his fingers through his sweaty curls. He ran his hand along the neck of the guitar. F "I wanna hold you so-" A "Much..." he crooned off key. He continued the song as best he remembered, slowly and haltingly. "At long last love has arrived, and I thank God I'm alive," He tried to picture how he would ask her, what he would say. He'd need a good shirt. Mom always taught him to dress nice. Maybe that red one? Red was good, it was his lucky color.

"You're just too good to be true," Derek sang, much to Mark's Dismay. "Can't take my eyes off you. Pardon the way that I stare. There's nothing else to compare," he looked up, noticing a couple of freshmen girls watching him. He quirked his lip slightly, maintaining eye contact. "The sight of you leaves me weak. There are no words left to speak," His smile grew broader revealing white teeth. he looked at those girls as if they were the only ones that mattered. They responded with shy smiles of their own. Something was working. "But if you feel like I feel, Please let me know that it's real," he strummed with a little more passion and surety. "You're just too good to be true. Can't take my eyes off you."

He knew he was just a shy awkward teenager, but here, practicing on the Ferryboat with no other distractions... he learned... it was all about the chase wasn't it?