Call Me Home by Megan Kruse Page A

never look at him, not really. He only let Jackson touch him, kiss him, and for a few weeks that had seemed like enough. Until it wasn’t. A humiliating bitter taste in his mouth, the lock of hair. Chris looking past him. Later, the men in Portland, faceless, ghosts, numbers: fifty dollars, a hundred. A bottle, a meal. And then that first meeting with Eric, when he’d pulled out his billfold and reached across and touched Jackson’s arm, and even sitting across from fat, despicable Eric he’d felt a flush of something. It felt like attraction but really it was something else. Flattery. Hope.
    His arm was still warm where Don had touched it. He was nice, Jackson thought, or at least he’d seemed nice. But what did it matter? He was probably imagining that the hand on his arm meant anything. Even if it did, even if Don wanted something from him, Don would want him like Chris and Eric had wanted him. He was doomed.
    â€œJack!” yelled Ed. He had the air hose wrapped around him,halfway up the ladder with the nail gun. “What the hell happened? You been taking a shit?” He grinned at Jackson and Jackson laughed. Ed was cool to him. Forget Don, he thought. He wasn’t going to think about him anymore, if he could help it. He flipped Ed off, picked up his gloves, and went back to work.
    THE BELATED EASTER party was to be held that Saturday night at A-frame A, the most complete of the new houses. Just a few beers, and then the Longhorn, according to the much-circulated plan.
    Who had an Easter party? Jackson didn’t care. He was going to see Don. He hadn’t seen him since Honey brought him to the East side on Tuesday; each day that Don’s truck didn’t appear, Jackson tried to pretend he wasn’t disappointed. Now he shaved in the pocket mirror, the one he’d stolen from Lydia, and put on a clean shirt. He did everything slowly, meticulously. He drank the rest of the bottle of wine. What a girl he was. He thought again about the lock of hair he’d given to Chris. In his imagined, more perfect life, he discarded sentimentalities. Into the trash with the birthday cards, faded photographs. A better Jackson would scorn them all.
    It was a little past seven when he made the walk to A-frame A. Already the light was draining away; he hadn’t remembered a flashlight. The lake was lapping against the shore, a dark, bright line that curved like a knife blade in the dim evening light. The clouds had lifted, and the faintest web of stars was beginning to stretch over the water. There were crushed cans along the path.
    When he got to A-frame A, there was already a crowd. Jackson was a little late, because he hadn’t wanted to be too early, but now it seemed like he shouldn’t have worried. He could hear Jay Donahue and Bill inside, shouting and laughing, already drunk. The floor was still not sanded, but the windowpanes were up, the electrical wiring coursing through like veins. Someone had set up a card table and filled it with bags of chips, open plastic cartons of donuts, and cupcakes. There was a group of men sitting around it, drinking from a small cityscape of open bottles. Don was nowhere in sight. He had the feeling of walking onto a stage.
    â€œJack!” Bill flagged him over. “You gotta hear about this. Tell him, Jay.”
    The whole room smelled of men – a different smell from the high school cross-country locker room, which had appealed to Jackson in another way – wispy, ephemeral slips of running shorts, clean sweat, shampoo. The men in Silver smelled dirtier. Beer sweat, sawdust. No one had touched in the locker room – all of the runners were virginal, clean, and of themselves, communal only in their dedication to noble pursuits: a second shaved from the half mile, a lighter pair of running shoes. The Silver crew touched with beery, cheerful abandon, and Jackson was one of them. Their meaty hands palmed him. Was it possible they