As the show ends I look over at him and he’s gone, vanished back to my old room in my dad’s apartment, standing sleep-addled beside my old bed, falling into it, gratefully. I turn off the TV and the bedside lamp. 1973 street noises drift in the open window. I want to go home. I lie on the hard hotel bed, desolate, alone. I still don’t understand.

　

　Sunday, December 10, 1978 (Henry is 15, and 15)

 

HENRY: I’m in my bedroom with my self. He’s here from next March. We are doing what we often do when we have a little privacy, when it’s cold out, when both of us are past puberty and haven’t quite gotten around to actual girls yet. I think most people would do this, if they had the sort of opportunities I have. I mean, I’m not gay or anything.

　It’s late Sunday morning. I can hear the bells ringing at St. Joe’s. Dad came home late last night; I think he must have stopped at the Exchequer after the concert; he was so drunk he fell down on the stairs and I had to haul him into the apartment and put him to bed. He coughs and I hear him messing around in the kitchen.

　My other self seems distracted; he keeps looking at the door. “What?” I ask him. “Nothing,” he says. I get up and check the lock. “ No,” he says. He seems to be making a huge effort to speak. “Come on,” I say.

　I hear Dad’s heavy step right outside my door. “Henry?” he says, and the knob of the door slowly turns and I abruptly realize that I have inadvertently unlocked the door and Henry leaps for it but it’s too late: Dad sticks his head in and there we are, in flagrante delicto. “Oh,” he says. His eyes are wide and he looks completely disgusted.