Henry & Eric

          When Henry left home at the age of sixteen, his mother was sleeping, and his father was reading a copy of Dante's Inferno at the kitchen table. Henry was an only child. The light in the front hall was out. Henry carried with him the small duffle bag he had bought with his allowance when he'd joined the junior varsity bowling team sophomore year. His father was reading by the light of the range lamp over the stove. In the duffle bag, Henry had packed four changes of clothes and seven pairs of underwear. And a toothbrush.

          The lamp on the range was the only light on in the house when Henry walked downstairs with his duffle bag. The copy of Dante's Inferno was in its original Latin. Also in his duffle bag was a stick of Arid XXX Dry deodorant and a copy of the local bus schedule to and from Manhattan.

          Henry's penis was much bigger than most people's. Part of the reason Henry decided to join the junior varsity bowling team was because it was the only sports team in the district that didn't require a jock strap as part of its team uniform.

          Before coming downstairs, Henry had crept into the master bedroom and opened the top drawer of the large oak dresser under the mirror on the south wall. He stopped for a minute and checked in the mirror for any sign of his mother waking. There was none. His mother had begun taking prescription sleeping aids one year and three months ago. Her habit was to sleep on her right side, facing the window, away from Henry's father. The contents of the dresser were almost entirely divided in half, vertically.

          The light in the front hall had been out since December, when the bulb blew. No one had bothered to change it. The lamp of the range above the stove was not very bright. Henry's father had the book tilted up and away from him to angle it toward the light, and was crouched over the top of it, reading down. Henry paused on the bottom of the stairs and listened for his father in the kitchen. He heard a page from the book turn over.

          Henry had gotten turned onto porno mags by his friend Brendan, who also played for the bowling team and had gone to school with Henry since the two of them were in grade school. In porno mags, there were stories about catalogues as well as the pictures. Brendan had joined the bowling team with Henry, after Henry had convinced him to do it. The other major reason why Henry decided to bowl was because he wasn't actually very good at sports, and bowling didn't seem to require a whole lot of skill or coordination. At least, not on the junior varsity bowling team. It never required communal nudity. Brendan often wore his team shoes outside The Lanes.

          Some of the ads at the back of the porno mags would advertise for movies, and companies that made movies. Porno flicks is what Brendan called them. Brendan and Henry had watched a couple once when the two of them were in junior high. Brendan was saying how no way that guy's dick was so big, because no way anyone's dick was so big, whenever one came on the screen. At the age of twelve, Henry's penis was already that big. Henry had grown substantially since then, and was often afraid that there was something wrong.

          Henry had had one girlfriend before, but they had never had sex, and Henry was afraid to even go very far with her, since he wasn't sure if he could control how big his penis was going to get if he actually got to touch her. Eventually, his girlfriend, Sherri, broke up with him, and said she was sure that he was gay, and told all her girlfriends that he was gay, but was really more sort of upset with Henry and felt like maybe he just didn't like her. She had to tell all of her friend something she said, because they had all gone to at least second base by the time they were freshmen or something. Like, it was bad for her ego.

          Henry had watched a whole lot of porn by the night he decided to leave home. And in every one of them, there were big penises. Henry had also packed $560 in cash that he took from under his father's underwear in the top drawer of the oak dresser. Henry crept quietly along the carpet at the foot of the stairs, sliding the soles of his shoes across the it toward the front door. The copy of Dante's Inferno was visible moving back and forth in the doorway to the kitchen everytime Henry's father adjusted his position to read something that was not quite in the light.

          Henry watched the bottom corners of the book bob in and out of the doorframe every seventy seconds or so, and timed his footsteps with their movements back into the kitchen.

***

          Henry slowly wakes up and opens his eyes. The bus is dark and empty. Flourescent light from outside spills in through the open door up front. We've stopped, Henry thinks, and looks around.

            Henry grabs for his duffle under the seat and yanks it up between his knees. He unzips the front pocket and fishes out the bus schedule. He leans it into the light coming through the window and reads it. He is in Kingston, NY, and his next bus to Manhattan doesn't leave until 4:30AM. Henry presses the light button on his watch. It is 2:53AM. He stuffs the schedule back into his bag, unzips the main pocket, and digs for the cash he packed under his jeans. He's hungry.

            Henry zips the bag back up, stands, stuffs the twenty he pulled into the front pocket of his jeans, and shuffles his way up the aisle to the front door. The bus is parked in a circular driveway outside the busstop. It is night time, and no one is around outside except a man smoking a cigarette.   The man glances at Henry, then looks away.

            Henry has had to pee for two hours, and fell asleep to make his body forget about it. Awake, his body remembers, and Henry heads inside.

            The bus station is empty, except for a girl at the fast food counter who is talking to her boyfriend. Henry guesses it is her boyfriend because she keeps saying "baby." He can't hear much else of what she is saying then because the vending machines nearby suddenly click on and hum like refridgerators. Henry turns to look at them and sees a Snickers bar through the plexiglass. He checks his pocket for change, but only finds the twenty, a nickel, and some pennies.

            Henry sees the RESTROOM sign hanging next to the snack machine. He crosses the floor and pushes the men's room door open with the sleeve of his shirt wrapped around his hand.

            There are two men inside, standing at the urinals. Henry puts his head down and steps into one of the stalls, pulling the door shut behind him and latching the lock. He stands and waits.

            Henry hears one urinal flush, then the other. He hears the door swing open and close once, then hears a faucet flush on. He begins to rock slowly back and forth from one foot to the other, and focuses his eyes on the beige door in front of him. The door is painted a light tan, but there are streaks of gray metal showing through from underneath where the paint has been worn away at the edges.   There are words written on the back of the door: "James eats his mother's pussy."

            Henry hears the door open and swing shut again. He counts to ten, then steps carefully out of the stall.   He stands in the middle of the bathroom and waits, listening. He hears no one coming, steps up to a urinal, and drops his duffle between his feet.  Henry waits and listens for a few more seconds before unzipping his jeans and pulling out his abnormally large penis. He closes his eyes briefly and waits. Public bathrooms have always been difficult for Henry, and even though he's had to pee for over two hours, it takes a few seconds to happen. The pee starts to come and he opens up his eyes. He pees for a long time, scanning the wall above the urinal and keeping his ears open in case anyone walks in. There are words written on the wall here, too. "Wanted: guys with big dicks. Call Eric (947) 928-2270." Henry stares at them while he pees.

            Henry finishes and quickly zips up his jeans. He leans on the flusher with his elbow, walks to the sinks, nudging his duffle along with his sneakers. He washes his hands.

            The girl at the fast food counter is still on the phone when Henry comes out of the restroom.   He walks over to the counter and waits patiently for her to ask him what he wants, but she doesn't.   He waits for what seems like a long time. He thinks he hears his stomach grumble, but wonders if he just feels it, and feels it hard to enough for it to seem like sound.

            The girl behind the counter has glanced at him twice, but hasn't said anything to him. She is still talking to her boyfriend. Henry begins to feel awkward, like he's eavesdropping. He leans forward a little.   "Excuse me?" The girl holds up her hand. She asks her boyfriend to hold on a second, baby.

            "What?"

            "Could I have some change?"

            The girl rolls her eyes and says no, he cannot have change unless he buys something. She goes back to talking to her boyfriend. Henry turns away and glances up and down the food counter.   He sees signs for hamburgers, cheeseburgers, and hotdogs under the glass in front of him, but sees no food there. He suspects that ordering food would mean making the girl make the food. He guesses they don't have any made right now because it's late at night. Henry looks up at the menu on the wall, then leans over the counter again.

            "Excuse me?" The girl walks back over to him and stares.  "Could I have a Dr. Pepper?"

            "What size?"

            "Um." Henry looks back up at the menu and tries to do some quick mental math. The girl sighs impatiently and shifts her weight onto one foot.  "Is there tax?"

            " Yeah . Of course there's tax."

            Henry gives up on the math and hopes for the best.  "Large."

            The girl reaches for a cup and makes the Dr. Pepper with the phone tucked under her ear and resting on her shoulder. Henry digs into his front pocket for the twenty and pulls it out. "I just need some quarters, that's why I asked." The girl ignores him. Henry waits patiently.

            She turns and slams the drink down on the counter, then turns to the cash register and sighs before hitting some buttons. The machine screeches loudly, and she says "shit" under her breath. She jabs a few buttons really hard until it stops, then rings the soda up again.  "Two-twenty-three."

            "Oh great, okay." Henry hands her the twenty. The girl takes it and sighs. She holds the twenty out, looks around, and stands staring at the cash register, like she's thinking hard. She presses some buttons and the door pops open. She stuffs change into Henry's hand, slams the drawer shut, and mumbles "thankyouhaveagoodnight" before picking the phone off her shoulder and turning back around.

            Henry examines the change in his hand and is relieved. He stuffs the bills back into his front pocket, picks up the Dr. Pepper, and closes his fist of change around the strap of his duffle as he walks back over to the vending machines.

            He sorts through the coins in his hand and is about to slide them into the machine, then stops and decides to pull a single out of his front pocket instead. Keeping the coins wrapped in his fist, he drops the duffle between his feet and sets the Dr. Pepper down next to it. He flattens the bill against the side of the machine. The bills slides in on the first try, and he carefully presses the buttons for the Snickers bar. The plastic coil around it starts to move, and Henry holds his breath until it drops safely into the well at the bottom of the machine. He fishes the change out with his first two fingers, and palms them in his right fist with the other coins. Then, he pulls his left sleeve down, pushes open the flap with the back of his covered hand, and fishes out the Snickers.

            One of the men from the bathroom is sitting on a chair on the other side of the station. It is the only bank of chairs in the room. The man is watching Henry. The other man from the bathroom is gone. Henry tears open the Snickers and eats it standing.

            Henry checks his watch again. It is 3:23AM. The man who was smoking outside comes through the door, and Henry notices that he is wearing a bus driver's uniform. Henry wonders if he is the driver for the Manhattan bus.

            Henry counts the quarters left in his hand, then picks up his duffle and Dr. Pepper and walks over to the payphone outside the bathroom. He sees that the man in the chair is still watching him.   Henry drops his duffle back between his feet, sets the Dr. Pepper down on the ledge of the payphone, and makes the call.

            When he hangs up and turns around again, the man in the chair is still staring. The man on the phone said he would be about 45 minutes, that Henry should "hang tight." Henry walks outside, thinks about waiting there, then walks out a little further past the busses to the main road and sits down on the curb. Henry looks back over his shoulder, and sees the bus driver come outside. The driver climbs onto the bus Henry had been on and comes back out again. Henry bets that bus is the one going to Manhattan, which is probably why no one woke him up and told him to get off.   He checks his watch again. 3:45AM. If the bus loads up and gets ready to leave before the man gets here, he thinks, I will still have a chance to change my mind .

            Henry drinks his Dr. Pepper and waits.

*****

            Eric hesitated for a few miles before turning on the radio. It was the middle of the night, and he was afraid he would hit a deer, whether the radio was on or not. Those motherfuckers were everywhere, and would total your car without so much as a boo and howdya-do. But after the first few miles, once he got out past the supermarket, and had been on back road awhile, the dead-of-night silence in the car began to freak him out more than the unseen deer. Truth be told, he began to think about alien abduction, and that's what finally shamed him into deciding he could do with some tunes.

            For the first few seconds, he didn't think he'd get anything -- his radio back at the cabin worked for shit out here. He didn't know what reception would be like as he got closer to Kingston.   Except for runs to the A&P and the bus stop in the middle of town, he hadn't been out much in the 8 months since he got here. Anyway, he was still too paranoid about watching the road to fiddle too much with the buttons.

            Thankfully, the static cleared just as he was about to give up, and he hit some kind of late night, moody alternative stuff, what sounded like a college radio station. He didn't recognize the music, but the feel of it reminded him of high school.  It had been a long time since he'd been on a 3am road trip, and it was eerie how quickly the feeling of it seeped back in: guitar and bass and aching voices on the radio; dead night everywhere except in your headlights; feeling jumpy, excited to be on the road when you should be in bed; scared to be out, doing nothing wrong, because deep down, you want to do something wrong.

            Eric chilled out a little, and decided he'd risk one hand off the wheel for a cigarette. He'd had his limit of 3 for the day, but thought he'd go ahead and count this one for tomorrow.

            He'd also started smoking in high school, part of his declaration of independence. The feeling that this cigarette was somehow stolen, that he was gonna break down and steal himself a smoke, nudged him further into that nostalgic zone.

            His mind wandered back to Allison Malkovy reading him poetry from her journal in a deserted culdisac in the middle of the night, everyone else around them, passing cooking sherry from someone's mom's cabinet. He remembered wondering if Allie was a virgin.  She'd honed a reputation in school, but he thought it was probably the same reputation she'd cultivated with her clothes and her hair and the psychadelic marker-art on the covers of her journals.  Part of him suspected that she'd talked a bigger game than she'd played. In any case, she was getting ripped, and said a lot of deep shit with light from the bonfire dancing on her face, and it had made Eric a little sad.

            There'd been days when he'd wanted to be Allison Malkovy, to be as tortured and sad and passionate and snapping-smart as she always was, but most days he was grateful not to be. It was funny how even in the midst of wanting to run away from your own pathetic and frustrated teenage life, you could recognize real sadness when you saw it, and feel lucky for the things that drove you nuts.

            Eric flicked the ash chunk on the end of his cigarette out the thin gap in his window, winced as it flew back in his face, then grinned at himself a little and turned up the radio.  He wondered what had happened to Allison Malkovy. Then he thought better of it and decided he didn't really want to know. His first guess would be that she was drugged out and sad somewhere, or maybe dead, suicide. His next thought was that maybe she grew up and got a real job or got married with no job at all, and thinking that was worse. Sadder. Not because she'd have sold out, but because it made him feel old.   It had taken several years for Eric to realize they weren't the same thing.

            The teenage road trip aura slipped, suddenly became thin, and Eric felt less spooked. He began to feel tired, already doubting his choice to be out on the road in the middle of the night, and dreading the drive back from Kingston, despite the sound of the boy's voice in his head. Eric didn't know if going to pick him up was the right thing to do -- the guys he usually picked up sounded like the gun end of trouble when they called, and Eric had picked them all up anyway. Eric found it both amazing and depressing how much luckier he'd gotten from that bathroom wall in Kingston than any other method he'd used. He was no less desparate tonight than he'd been on nights before, and this kid didn't sound like the gun end of trouble, more like the bulls-eye.  Eric wondered if that made him the gun end, and felt a flickering of guilt. He wondered again if he shouldn't have just left this one alone.  When Eric had asked, the kid had said he was 18, but it was clear from the pause he took and the sound of his voice that he was lying.  Eric thought briefly about turning back, but guessed there wouldn't be another bus out of Kingston until the morning, and figured that if he didn't go pick this kid up, someone else would. Someone else surely would. Better it be him. Eric switched his cigarette from his right hand to his left, and flexed his fingers. His hands ached.

            The song on the radio changed over to some hard, heavy drum, anger rock shit, and Eric was just reaching down to change the radio when the deer dressed in pajamas stumbled out into the middle of the road.

            Except that it wasn't a deer.  And he didn't stumble, really. Even back at the cabin that night, with the boy he'd picked up sleeping in his bed, Eric told himself the guy had stumbled out into the road, but in his mind's eye, he knew it wasn't true. He saw it again and again all night, eyes open and staring.  The guy hadn't stumbled. He'd just ... walked.  Walked out, like he had gotten up in the night for a glass of water, and his kitchen was on the other side of the road. And what he kept seeing, what Eric couldn't quite get out of his head, is that even while Eric pulled the car to a screeching halt inches from the guy's thighs, blaring the horn, the guy had just ... kept walking ... straight across the road .. off into the trees.

              As he stepped down into the ditch at the far side of the road, Eric saw him reach up absent-mindedly and scratch his ass.

            Eric sat for only a few seconds, staring after him, then straight ahead at the road.  It didn't take long before the creepies rolled back up on him, and with little more than a cursory glance to the spot in the trees where the guy'd disappeared, he flicked the radio back on and was off down the road before he'd even finished twisting up the volume knob.

*****

            When Henry wakes up the next morning, the first thing he sees is a room full of penises.   They are white penises, of all different sizes, and literally fill up the room.  Some are about the size of Henry's, some a little smaller, many of them bigger -- much bigger.  Some are big enough to stand erect from the floor almost all the way up to the ceiling. As his eyes start to adjust to the room, Henry sees other body parts scattered around -- arms, legs, fingers, ears.

            But mostly there are penises.

            Henry doesn't remember exactly where he is, and wonders if he's having a dream. Then the night before comes back to him, and he remembers the bus station in Kingston, the girl at the food counter, the phone call, and the restroom wall.  The man had come and had picked him up. Henry remembers that the bus was loading and pulling out just as the man drove up in his car. Henry had gotten in and watched the bus pull out behind them.  The man had asked Henry what was wrong.   Henry had said, "That's my bus," and had watched the taillights disappear down the road.

            The man had studied his face, like he was deciding whether or not to tell Henry to get out, and Henry had decided he better keep his mouth shut and look like he was sure he wanted to be in the car. The man had finally faced forward again, started the car, and driven off.

            Henry can smell coffee, and something else he doesn't recognize. Like a chemical, but earthier than that at the same time. Wet.  He rubs his eyes and shifts around in the bed a little, trying to get a better look at the room. He had seen the penises the night before, when they got in, but didn't realize what they were until now in the better light.

            The man appears around a stack of penises on the far side of the room. He is dressed in a pair of faded jeans and a thin, white T-shirt. Both the jeans and the shirt are streaked with something Henry can't identify. The man sees that Henry is awake, starts to walk over to him, then stops a few feet from the bed. He is smiling a little, and looks shy. Almost like he's worried about Henry and guilty about something at the same time. Smiles a little more.

            "Hey, you're awake."

            Henry stares at him and doesn't move.   The man stands there awkwardly.   Eric.   His name is Eric.   Call Eric, 947-928-2270.

            "There's coffee. You drink coffee?"

            Henry doesn't drink coffee, but nods anyway.

            "Milk?   Sugar?"

            Henry pauses, unsure, then nods again.

            "'Kay." Eric stands there for a few seconds, then turns and walks back out of the room.

            Henry lifts himself up to sitting and looks around. He is in some kind of wood cabin in the forest. The walls and floor are all wood, and he can see trees out the window.  The windows don't have glass in them, just screens. There's no furniture except for the bed, a couple of small tables, a chair, and the penises.  There is music playing from a radio in the corner. It sounds like the kind of stuff kids at school listen to, stuff Brendan usually makes fun of. He wonders where Brendan is right now, and if anyone at home knows he's gone yet. Henry had thought about telling Brendan he was going, but then was sure Brendan would want to come along, so decided against it. Brendan might be pissed, but that's just the way it would have to be. Henry thinks for the first time that Brendan doesn't really have any other friends, and that makes him feel a little guilty, but he pushes the feeling aside and tries not to think about it.

            The man -- Eric -- comes back into the room with a mug of coffee, walks up to the bed, and stops again a few feet away. He leans over and stretches awkwardly to hand Henry the mug. Henry sits forward and takes it. The man stands there watching him, and Henry sniffs at the coffee a little. He glances up and sees the man watching him. He blows on the coffee a little and sips it. It's hot and sweet and thick. Henry kind of likes it. He looks up. "Thank you."

            "Sure!" The man smiles quickly and a little eagerly. He sticks his hands into the back pockets of his jeans, and shifts his eyes away and looks around the room. Henry sits and sips some more of the coffee. It's no Dr. Pepper, but it's pretty good. He sips his coffee and waits.

            The man reaches his hand out. "My name's Eric."

            Henry looks at him.  "I know.  Call Eric, 947-928-2270." The man's smile falters a little and he kind of looks away. He laughs a little.

            "Yeah. That's the one." He starts to take his hand away. Henry reaches his out.

            "Henry."

            Eric reaches back out and shakes his hand.  "Hey, Henry, nice to meet you. Thanks for calling."

            "Sure." Henry thinks for a second.  "Thanks for picking me up."

            Eric smiles.  "Sure."

            Henry takes another sip of his coffee and then sets it down on the floor. He sees his duffle against the pillow, where he stuffed it last night. He remembers thinking he should sleep with it.  He clears his throat. "So."  Henry forces himself to look Eric in the eye, and hopes he looks like he has done this before. "What... " He tries to think quickly, tries to look professional.  "What do you need me for?" He sees Eric studying him carefully, and adds, "When do we get to work?"

            Eric smiles suddenly, and for the first time, it looks like a genuine smile, not a nervous one.   He walks away, picks up the chair and another mug on the other side of the room, and starts back toward the bed. Henry's stomach hitches a little and he thinks, here we go.  It's going to happen, here we go. He picks his coffee back up, feeling a little safer with something in his hands, and for the first time thinks he's probably going to have to show this guy his penis. He's going to have to prove his penis is big enough. Big enough for what, he still isn't sure. He looks around and doesn't see any cameras.

            Eric comes back and sits down, and looks at Henry like he sees more than Henry may want him to. "What did you think you were getting into when you called me? What did you call me for?"

            Henry suddenly feels scared. What did he mean?  Wasn't this...wasn't this supposed to be for porno? Why else do you want guys with big dicks?  "What do you mean?"

            Eric smiles again.  Gently. "Why did you think someone wants guys with big dicks?"

            Henry looks down at his hands, then forces himself to look up again and stop acting like a loser.  "For a job."

            "What kind of job?"

            "Porno." Henry spits it out kind of defensively. The longer this goes on the more he feels like he's getting made fun of or something. "A porno job. That's what."  He begins to gain some confidence. "That's what I'm here to do, that's what I'm good at.  That's what I'm made for. Is this a porno job or not?"

            Eric doesn't say anything for a few seconds, but keeps looking at Henry in that way like he feels sorry for him.  "Not."

            "What?"

            "Not. Not a porno job."

            "Oh." Henry looks back down at his coffee, and tries to figure out why he's here.  He thinks of the man in the bus station staring at him from the chairs. "What then?"

            "Art."

            "What?"

            "Art.  Art modeling." Eric sits up and gestures at the room full of penises. "I make these and I need models."

            Henry looks again at the penises filling the room. Sculpture.  They're sculpture . Then he looks back at Eric, confused. "You get models from the bathroom wall in the bus station?"

            Eric looks kind of sheepish. "Sadly, yeah. It's not easy finding guys up here who'll let another guy wrap their penises in plaster for free. I did try porn actors for awhile, but they expect to get paid a lot more than I can afford to pay 'em. I started with ads in the newspaper, and the bathroom walls once I got desperate, and just tried to filter out the crazies as best I could before bringing 'em up here. Mostly I get guys who need a place to stay for the night and a couple of decent meals, and are grateful they don't have to," he hesitates, "do much more for it than sit still." Eric takes a sip of his coffee.   "Been awhile since I got a call, though. Was wracking my brain for ideas and thought about giving up. Then you called." Eric stops, stares at Henry, waiting for a response.

            Henry looks around again at the room, then back at Eric.  "So you're not paying?"

            Eric keeps watching him, takes another sip of his coffee.  "You got some place to go?"  Henry looks back down at his mug, says nothing. Eric nods toward the duffle bag. "Where was that bus heading?"

            Henry swirls the coffee around in the mug a little.  "Manhattan."

            "Mm.  Where was it coming from?"

            Henry hesitated. "Ithaca."

            "Mm. "  Eric drinks his coffee again.  "Embarking on a new glorious career in Manhattan porn?"

            Henry's face flushes, and he says nothing.

            "I can't afford to pay you straight out. Artists aren't really rolling in it, you know, not like in the porn industry." Henry looks up to see if Eric is making fun of him, but his face is straight. Honest.   Like he's doing business.  "But if you're willing to work with me for awhile, I can feed you. House you." He thinks something over.  "You drive?"

            "Kind of. I have a license, but my parents wouldn't really let me use the car." As soon as the words are out of his mouth, Henry realizes that if anything were left of his pretend personality, those words wiped it clear out.

            Eric nods. "And you can use my car, if you want. Woodstock isn't the most exciting town in the world, but there's an ice cream place downtown that makes a killer pistachio." Henry stares as Eric takes a sip of his coffee. Eric smiles. "I fucking love pistachio."

            Henry thinks it over.  "That's it?"

            Eric shrugs. "It's what I got."

            "No, I mean, all I have to do is ... model? What does that mean exactly?"

            "It means sit still and let me make casts off your body. Hang around so you're here when I need you. Promise not to rip me off or blow off with my car." Pauses, glances up at the ceiling, then back down again. "Bring me ice cream when I want some." Smiles.

            Henry thinks of the bus leaving last night. Eric's smile falters, like he can tell what Henry's thinking. When he speaks again, he speaks gently, even though the words bristle up Henry's back.

            "What were you gonna do when you got off that bus in New York, Henry? Stand in Times Square and ask people passing by if they need a porn actor? Sleep on the street? Did you think someone honest would hire you, pay you, and leave you alone, send you on your way?"

            Henry flushes again.  It was what he'd thought, but now that Eric is saying it, it sounds stupid.

            Eric speaks again, even more gently, almost whispering.  "I almost didn't come pick you up, you know. You're not 18, I knew that when you called." Henry flushes even deeper. "But all I could think was, 'This kid's on his way to New York, and he's gonna get himself mugged, raped, killed, maybe all three. Hell, he could bring all three on himself right there in Kingston.' How did you know I wouldn't try to hurt you? You didn't did you?"

            Henry hesitates, then slowly shakes his head. He is staring into his coffee.

            "You ever have coffee before?"

            Henry winces, and slowly shakes his head.

            "Room and board, drive my car, eat ice cream.   I won't make you call your parents, even though I probably should -- they'd probably throw me in jail just for having you here, if they knew.   You get a place to crash and hang until you figure out what you need to do for yourself, I get a model and don't have to sift through crazies."  Eric drains the last of his coffee, sets the mug on the floor, and looks at the top of Henry's head. "Deal?"

            Henry sits and stares into his coffee. "Don't you want to see it first? I mean, it is. It is... big.   Really big." Henry's face turns a bright red, but when Eric doesn't answer, he forces himself to look up finally and ask again. "My... you know. Don't you want to ... you know, see it, before you decide?"

            Eric stares at him. He shakes his head. "Trust ya."

            Henry swishes his coffee around with both hands. He drops his eyes and nods.  Eric says nothing, and when Henry looks back up, Eric is still staring at him, waiting.  Henry looks him in the eye. "Deal."

            Eric nods. "Good."

            Eric and Henry sit silently and awkwardly for a few moments. Finally, Eric picks his mug up and reaches for Henry's. "Warm that up for you?" Henry nods and hands over the mug.

            As Eric walks into the next room, he glances back over his shoulder and adds,   "The shower's for shit, but it works if you want it.  Then you might want to go take a walk around. The plumbing may suck but the grounds are pretty kickin'." He disappears into the kitchen.