Concerning Breakfast

   Sunlight vacillated through dirty windows, staining the blemished veneer of a thousand meals on the countertop.
  “Sorry for the imposition,” the nondescript black pen had abraded the sheet of ruled paper. “Circumstances never what seems, and all.” And, as expected, the snatch of poetry on a separate sliver. Eric apparently had something against completing thoughts. The directions that followed would always be the same: direct, unflattering, what you want is in such-and-such a place, where it goes is here. Eric never elaborated. There had been too many times that Taylor had to make it up as it happened.
  He wished, as he often did, folding and pocketing the envelope in exchange for bitter coffee, that Eric would find a better career. Or perhaps “better” was too confining a word, too sanctimonious when Taylor himself wasn’t much of an improvement. More acceptable. Perhaps just something a little less urbanized corsair. Taylor wouldn’t like to consider himself a glorified errand-boy to a pirate fence. There was just a spiritual bond or connection between he and Eric that few others, including himself, understood. And with that came certain concessions.
  But then, there were the parts in the existence Taylor regarded life that were missing, so to speak. Frustrating emptiness in his mind where scenes and memories should be, and the Problems. And maybe, even if he sometimes saw it all too recalcitrant and apathetically, Focus led Purpose.
  Regardless, he never wondered where he would be without -- that sort of thinking was futile, and too often abused into idolatry. Like someone, he had forgotten who, has said, What you habituate you soon can’t survive without. And in any case Taylor was seldom one for questioning things, especially where something Eric did or said was involved. They were like brothers, Eric had once told him, but had a bond closer than brothers because the lacked the competition experienced in family blood.
  Taylor was never sure how to take certain things, Eric’s quotes or methods of expression. Eric often referred to him as his own Holden Caulfield, and her wasn’t sure what that meant. He was rarely sure when Eric was serious or not -- Eric was just that type of personality. You could only go along, trusting.
  Though, there was one thing he knew:
  If there was a sure thing Eric was serious about, it was Eric.