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den and turned on the light and sat down next to the cats. They didn't look scared at all.
    I leaned forward and slid open one of the lower panels on the small bar.
    The Jack Daniel's Black Label I took from there filled half a glass just right. I knocked the stuff back and had another one. I wasn't much of a drinker—in fact on a bad night two drinks can make me sleepy—but tonight I needed a little help.
    I thought about calling the police, but I didn't want them to look into my background as an investigator. Local police tend to get unfriendly about such folks.
    Two hours later, I fell asleep in bed, the cats sprawled out all over the foot, my Robert Louis Stevenson novel now being occupied by Tess.
    I had troubled dreams, none of which I could remember when morning came and sang her siren song.

5

    "You asleep?"
    "Huh-uh," he says.
    "I talk to you a little bit?"
    "Gee, Henry, is it about—" Then he stops himself. Henry's gonna talk anyway. Henry always talks anyway. And it's always the same old thing. That operation he's gonna have someday.
    "You think I'm pretty?" Henry says from the bottom bunk.
    While he's on the top bunk sweating his ass off. One-hundred-and-four-degree July day today. Can't be much cooler tonight, even nearing midnight. Now he has to talk to Henry.
    "Yeah, Henry. I think you're a great lookin' guy."
    "I don't mean handsome. I mean, I know I'm handsome. People have always told me I'm handsome. Even when I was little. The nuns even told me I was handsome. There was this one nun, when I was about fourteen, you know? I think she wanted me. I mean she was this big old fat nun with onion breath and warts and all kinds of stuff like that and a Bride of Christ and all but I think she wanted to bop me anyway. I really do."
    "Was she any good?"
    "Very funny. I wouldn't've touched her with your dick. But you didn't answer my question."
    "I must've forgotten what it was. I'm kinda sleepy, I guess."
    "You can't sleep in weather like this. You know I heard from my friend in Kentucky that they've got air-conditioned slammers down there."
    "In Kentucky, huh?"
    "So you gonna answer my question?"
    "About you bein' pretty?"
    "Yeah."
    "You're gorgeous, Henry. Is that what you want me to say?"
    "How come you don't want to screw me? Everybody else here does."
    "I'm not gay."
    "You sorta look gay sometimes."
    "You sorta look gay all the time, Henry."
    "I take that as a compliment."
    "Good."
    Henry, miraculously, shuts his mouth for three or four minutes.
    He just lies there basking in the Henry-silence. Sure, guys are farting /coughing/sneezing/ shouting/laughing/belching/talking—but not Henry.
    Henry-silence, these weeks of co-habiting with Henry, has come to be devoutly desired.
    Then (oh no):
    "You know what they do?"
    "What who do, Henry?"
    "The doctors."
    "Are we gonna talk about your sex-change operation again, Henry?"
    "Yeah. Unless you wanna be macho and talk about sports or something."
    "I hate sports."
    "You sure you're not gay?"
    "Yeah, I'm sure. But it would come in handy in a place like this."
    "They don't whack it off."
    "They don't?"
    "No. Everybody thinks they do but they don't."
    "Well, that's good news for somebody."
    "They invert it."
    "They what?"
    "Turn it inside out and stuff it back up there so it's like a woman's."
    "Well, that's better than whacking it off."
    "I'm going to get my eyes done."
    "Good."
    "I mean, I'm gonna get all the plumbing done first but then I'm gonna concentrate on my face. You remember a movie star named Gayle Hunicutt?"
    "Sorta."
    "Late sixties, around there, she was kinda big for a while. Anyway, her."
    "Her?"
    "Her eyes. That's how I'm gonna have mine done. If I can find a picture of her, anyway. That'll probably be a bitch, won't it? Findin' a picture for the doctors to go by."
    "It's one thing after another, isn't it, Henry?"
    "Then I'm gonna get a huge set of knockers."
    "Great. Henry, I really am gettin' kind of sleepy."
    "You're gettin' uptight is what you're