Just for the record (Joshua)

"'Mornin'--I appreciate you coming out." Henry riffled through his memory in search of a name to match the face of the man approaching the door. Coming up blank, Henry grinned in welcome as if they'd been friends for years anyway. His motives for volunteering were often a little less than altruistic--keeping himself occupied was his first defense against relapse-- and he had a lot of respect for people who helped people with no prospect of gaining anything in return. Plus, jazz was important to Henry, and so was this station, for all of the logistical nightmares and near disasters.

"Oh, they're inside, preparing a virgin sacrifice," Henry responded with a chuckle. Recognizing that the other man would probably appreciate some context, he briefly explained Ronnie's blunder with the records and gestured over his shoulder at the building behind him with his thumb. "They're deciding what to do with him before we start. Then it's first come first serve on which job you choose. "

It occurred to Henry that he was being rude, " I'm Henry, by the way, Henry Ramsey. Sorry to keep you standing out in the cold, but I need this nicotine like nobody's business. You smoke?" That last was asked with slightly raised eyebrows as he offered Josh his pack, which was distinctly girly looking, complete with shiny letters spelling out "Sweet Dreams".

Being that cigarettes and food were the last vices available to him, and the filters of these cigarettes were dusted with chocolate, Sweet Dreams seemed delightfully decadent to him. Henry was far too comfortable with his sexuality to care that they were marketed to women--the things were a delicious way to make the shakes stop. He really hoped that Josh took him up on his offer, because he'd recently read an old Salvador Dali interview in which Dali says he used to carry around fake mustaches in a cigarette case and offer them to people at parties. Henry found that funny enough that he'd gone out and immediately purchased three fancy fake mustaches to tuck into his pack.

Thus far, not one person had been bold enough to grab a 'stache, but Henry could always dream.

"Or we could kill him," Henry said of putting Ronnie on lunch detail, "A bit messier, perhaps, but he's tried to bring about the apocalypse so many times I'm starting to believe the boy is actually the son of Satan." As furious as he was with the useless destruction of vinyl, he couldn't help being both impressed and amused by the sheer depth and breadth of Ronnie's stupidity. Well, perhaps that was a little unkind. He wasn't stupid as much as he was lacking in all common sense.

Henry listed the volunteer jobs they needed today in order from least to most desirable. "Well, there have been people hauling boxes of records up for a couple of hours now, but that's a terrible job. Don't let the guys from Advertising sweet talk you into it. Then there'll be folks cleaning and drying them. Dull as dishwater and just as dirty.

"Or you could check records for defects and convert them to digital. That's the fun job--so long as you don't mind listening to a bunch of old jazz records."

Henry took a long pull on his cigarette and blew a couple of smoke rings. He was determined to be one of the latter volunteers, but then, so was everyone in the station. No manual labor, a bunch of music, and a steady supply of snacks--it was difficult to see the downside. He was fairly confident that he and Joshua, having gotten here so early, would have their pick of jobs.

"Bernstein, like the bears. Don't know how I could have forgotten that one." His daughter, Delia, had loved the Bernstein Bears when she was a little girl. She liked to read them to her parents, making a game of pretending she was teaching them to read. Whenever she got to a word she didn't recognize she would make them sound it out. "Nice to meet you too, Joshua. Again."

To Dr. Ramsey's great joy, Joshua reached into the pack and withdrew a mustache like Excalibur from the stone. Laughing, Henry replied, "I wish--I'd wear one every workday. No, I'm just taking a page from Dali's book. Have you ever noticed that fresh pack of cigarettes smells like raisins? So too do my mustaches." He selected one himself and casually stuck it onto his upper lip to mark the occasion.

"Need a light?" he asked, holding his lighter up between two scarred fingers.

Joshua's response to his quip about Ronnie caused Henry to raise his eyebrows a fraction, because it seemed, suddenly, as if they were talking about a little more philosophic than an intern's bungling of common tasks. The other man was at least half serious, though to judge by his smile, still amicable. In the forefront of his mind Henry wondered if he had unwittingly touched a nerve, while in the back Joshua's phrasing nagged insistently at his memory.

"The government frowns on lots of things," he said with an easy chuckle, the words rolling past his teeth on wings of cigarette smoke. When he continued it was with the same serious-but-not air with which Joshua had spoken. "That's very generous. Me, I'd have to wonder; where do you find the peers of the Antichrist? In Hell, which is exactly where I'd want to send him."

Henry had done some rough living as a young junkie in the heart of Spanish Harlem, once upon a time, and the experience left his worldview forever altered. On a deep and personal level, Henry Ramsey thought innocence existed only in fairy tales or in children and the mentally feeble. This wasn't to say everyone was evil, just that no one was pure. His mistrust in the judicial system prompted cynicism when it came to the subject of fair trial. Some men and women he'd encountered had been both extremely evil and clever enough to manipulate the system. They (and Henry counted himself in their number) were the most dangerous kind of criminal--which is to say, the kind that rarely gets caught and wriggles out of any charges pressed.

"Sounds more intimidating than it is," Henry said of the conversions, having once had the same reaction. "There's a special record player you plug into the computer, and it does most of the work. If a stubborn old man like me can do it, I think you'll pick it up just fine."

When Joshua followed his example in donning a mustache, Henry beamed at him. He had earned the reputation of an eccentric since coming to Pilot Ridge, and not everyone was so willing to indulge him in his quirks. Wherever he'd first met Josh--Habitat for Humanity, perhaps? the soup kitchen? the library?--he was certainly enjoying his company now. It was a pleasant break from the panic and animosity flying around inside to simply sit and enjoy a cigarette in good company.

When Joshua asked his profession, Henry licked his lips, tasting the chocolate dust left there by his filter. He loved his work with a passion he'd once reserved for heroin, and his enthusiasm for the subject shone through in his chocolate brown eyes. "Call me Henry," he said first, never having been a man of much formality, "I work at a private school--the Hammel Institute--as a school therapist. "

Not everyone in this neck of the woods was aware of the school's incredible nature, but many of them were not only aware but alumni or the families of meta humans themselves. Even if Joshua was still in the dark about the true nature of the school, the man simply didn't strike him as the intolerant type. Quite the opposite, as a matter of fact.