Remembering Christmas by Drew Ferguson Page B

face, grinning at the digital camera he held an arm’s length away. The second was his thick, erect penis, and the third was an awkward shot, taken one-handed, of his bare ass.
    I really, really like you, he signed off.
    Â 
    James arose early to break the news to his mother that he had to cut the West Virginia visit short, pleading a preposterous little white lie, saying the Senator had sent him a message saying he would be announcing his presidential ambitions in the first news cycle of the new year and needed an emergency editorial conference. He got a hundred-dollar ticket for speeding near Hancock, Maryland, and stopped only for gas and coffee and to empty his bladder. Aunt Wendy was the first to spot him as he walked through the door of the Kozy Korner. She whispered something to Kay, who tried to suppress a cautious smile as he approached her son’s broad back. Nothing lasts forever, Jimmy. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t appreciate what we have while we have it, he thought as he tapped Jason on the shoulder, remembering an angry, resigned face when he had announced he needed to be around people his own age, too much of a coward to admit what Ernst already suspected, that he was involved with the young Armenian editorial assistant in his office whose ass didn’t sag and who didn’t need forty minutes to get an erection.
    It snowed off and on that entire holiday week, no more blizzards, just enough to keep the white blanket covering the countryside fresh and clean. Wendy was pleased with the peace offering of a classic Lionel, though she did complain that the faulty wiring of one of the Pennsylvania Railroad Passenger Cars caused the Vista Dome light to flicker off and on. Jason insisted on planning daytime adventures, trips across the mountains to visit Fallingwater and to hear the grand organ in a Somerset church; he fretted that James was bored and about to announce his imminent departure for New York, too young and insecure to recognize that his guest was perfectly content simply riding in his truck, drinking lousy coffee in a paper cup. Come evening, James sat at the bar, nowhere else in the world he would rather be, reading Stephen King paperbacks he borrowed from Kay while Jason poured drinks and bantered with the customers. James slept soundly at night, Jason lying naked in his arms, with the thermostat turned low, relying on body heat for warmth, the curtains thrown open and the bright light of the full moon outside the window flooding the motel room.
    He rose early on the morning of the last day of the year to drive back to New York, expecting Jason to be heartbroken at being abandoned on New Year’s Eve with no one to toast but the drunks at the Kozy Korner as the ball dropped in Times Square. But Jason surprised him by not protesting and promising to call when the clock struck twelve. James knew that Kay and Jason were driving Wendy to Erie on New Year’s Day to see her son and grandchildren, but he was still disappointed, and a little miffed, to be allowed to depart so easily, without an argument to try to persuade him to change his mind. Jason looked puzzled and hurt when James wouldn’t linger after they kissed good-bye; he was too trusting to believe he was being punished because James had spent the past few days allowing himself to indulge in a silly fantasy that he and Jason could be falling in love.
    James expected the spell would be broken as he crossed the Hudson. He’d had every intention of canceling his plans with Archie Duncan, but kept finding excuses all week to delay making the call, finally deciding the wise and mature decision was to hedge his bets. This thing with Jason, lovely as it had been, was a folly, and the boy’s capricious whims guaranteed an unhappy ending, with the foolish older lover wondering why he had been spurned. Archie was as good as his word, arriving to pick him up at 7:55 on New Year’s Eve, carrying a ten-dollar bouquet