MY FIRST SUMMER BACK

Jeffrey Hartinger

“Why aren’t you out there with the other guys?”

I snapped out of my daydream and turned my head towards the voice.

Mr. McAllister stood in the doorway bare chested, his sweaty gym shirt tossed over his left shoulder. His 6’4” frame looked even bulkier in the narrow door that connected his family room to the garage, which his four kids used as a hangout during the warm and healthy summer months.

At forty-five years old he maintained his boyish charm, which was coupled with a burly manliness. He’d been my crush growing up, and while away at college, he’d become one of my main jerk-off fantasies.

“Ah, I don’t know,” I replied. “I’m just thinking about stuff. Thinking about high school. And, well—going back to Brown.”

He tossed his shirt into the hamper across the room then made his way to the other side of the garage, where he opened the running dryer and pulled out a fresh one. He pulled it over his head and let out a sigh. Then he came and sat next to me.

“You know,” he said, “Bradley told me about your announcement last semester. I’m proud of you.”

“Bradley told you? Or you heard it at some cocktail party?”

“You’re right—a cocktail party,” he said with a laugh.

At eighteen, I was pretty familiar with how things worked in my hometown of Warwick, even though I’d been out of Pennsylvania for