EAT OR BE EATEN Saturday, November 30, 1991 (Henry is 28, Clare is 20)

EAT OR BE EATEN


Saturday, November 30, 1991 (Henry is 28, Clare is 20)

HENRY: Clare has invited me to dinner at her apartment. Charisse, Clare’s roommate,
and Gomez, Charisse’s boyfriend, will also be dining. At 6:59 p.m. Central Standard
Time, I stand in my Sunday best in Clare’s vestibule with my finger on her buzzer,
fragrant yellow freesia and an Australian Cabernet in my other arm, and my heart in
my mouth. I have not been to Clare’s before, nor have I met any of her friends. I have
no idea what to expect.

The buzzer makes a horrible sound and I open the door. “All the way up!” hollers
a deep male voice. I plod up four flights of stairs. The person attached to the voice is
tall and blond, sports the world’s most immaculate pompadour and a cigarette and is
wearing a Solidarnosc T-shirt. He seems familiar, but I can’t place him. For a person
named Gomez he looks very...Polish. I find out later that his real name is Jan
Gomolinski.

“Welcome, Library Boy!” Gomez booms.

“Comrade!” I reply, and hand him the flowers and the wine. We eyeball each other,
achieve detente, and with a flourish Gomez ushers me into the apartment.

It’s one of those wonderful endless railroad apartments from the twenties—a long
hallway with rooms attached almost as afterthoughts. There are two aesthetics at
work here, funky and Victorian. This plays out in the spectacle of antique petit point


chairs with heavy carved legs next to velvet Elvis paintings. I can hear Duke
Ellington’s I Got It Bad and That Ain’t Good playing at the end of the hall, and
Gomez leads me in that direction.

Clare and Charisse are in the kitchen. “My kittens, I have brought you a new toy,”
Gomez intones. “It answers to the name of Henry, but you can call it Library Boy” I
meet Clare’s eyes. She shrugs her shoulders and holds her face out to be kissed; I
oblige with a chaste peck and turn to shake hands with Charisse, who is short and
round in a very pleasing way, all curves and long black hair. She has such a kind face
that I have an urge to confide something, anything, to her, just to see her reaction.
She’s a small Filipino Madonna. In a sweet, Don’t Fuck With Me voice she says, “Oh,
Gomez, do shut up. Hello, Henry. I’m Charisse Bonavant. Please ignore Gomez, I
just keep him around to lift heavy objects.”

“And sex. Don’t forget the sex,” Gomez reminds her. He looks at me. “Beer?”

“Sure.” He delves into the fridge and hands me a Blatz. I pry off the cap and take a
long pull. The kitchen looks as though a Pillsbury dough factory has exploded in it.
Clare sees the direction of my gaze. I suddenly recollect that she doesn’t know how to

cook.

“It’s a work in progress,” says Clare.

“It’s an installation piece,” says Charisse.

“Are we going to eat it?” asks Gomez.

I look from one to the other, and we all burst out laughing. “Do any of you know

how to cook?”

“No.”

“Gomez can make rice.”

“Only Rice-A-Roni.”

“Clare knows how to order pizza.”

“And Thai—I can order Thai, too.”

“Charisse knows how to eat.”

“ Shut up, Gomez,” say Charisse and Clare in unison.

“Well, uh.. .what was that going to be?” I inquire, nodding at the disaster on the
counter. Clare hands me a magazine clipping. It’s a recipe for Chicken and Shiitake
Risotto with Winter Squash and Pine Nut Dressing. It’s from Gourmand, and there
are about twenty ingredients. “Do you have all this stuff?”

Clare nods. “The shopping part I can do. It’s the assembly that perplexes.”

I examine the chaos more closely. “I could make something out of this.”

“You can cook?” I nod.


“It cooks! Dinner is saved! Have another beer!” Gomez exclaims. Charisse looks
relieved, and smiles warmly at me. Clare, who has been hanging back almost
fearfully, sidles over to me and whispers, “You’re not mad?” I kiss her, just a tad
longer than is really polite in front of other people. I straighten up, take off my jacket,
and roll up my sleeves. “Give me an apron,” I demand. “You, Gomez—open that
wine. Clare, clean up all that spilled stuff, it’s turning to cement. Charisse, would you
set the table?”

One hour and forty-three minutes later we are sitting around the dining room table
eating Chicken Risotto Stew with Pureed Squash. Everything has lots of butter in it.
We are all drunk as skunks.

CLARE: The whole time Henry is making dinner Gomez is standing around the
kitchen making jokes and smoking and drinking beer and whenever no one is looking
he makes awful faces at me. Finally Charisse catches him and draws her finger across
her throat and he stops. We are talking about the most banal stuff: our jobs, and
school, and where we grew up, and all the usual things that people talk about when
they meet each other for the first time. Gomez tells Henry about his job being a
lawyer, representing abused and neglected children who are wards of the state.
Charisse regales us with tales of her exploits at Lusus Naturae, a tiny software
company that is trying to make computers understand when people talk to them, and
her art, which is making pictures that you look at on a computer. Henry tells stories
about the Newberry Library and the odd people who come to study the books.

“Does the Newberry really have a book made out of human skin?” Charisse asks
Henry.

“Yep. The Chronicles of Nawat Wuzeer Hydembed. It was found in the palace of
the King of Delhi in 1857. Come by some time and I’ll pull it out for you.”

Charisse shudders and grins. Henry is stirring the stew. When he says “Chow
time,” we all flock to the table. All this time Gomez and Henry have been drinking
beer and Charisse and I have been sipping wine and Gomez has been topping up our
glasses and we have not been eating much but I do not realize how drunk we all are
until I almost miss sitting down on the chair Henry holds for me and Gomez almost
sets his own hair on fire while lighting the candles.

Gomez holds up his glass. “The Revolution!”

Charisse and I raise our glasses, and Henry does, too. “The Revolution!” We begin
eating, with enthusiasm. The risotto is slippery and mild, the squash is sweet, the

chicken is swimming in butter. It makes me want to cry, it’s so good.

Henry takes a bite, then points his fork at Gomez. “Which revolution?”

“Pardon?”


“Which revolution are we toasting?” Charisse and I look at each other in alarm,
but it is too late.

Gomez smiles and my heart sinks. “The next one.”

“The one where the proletariat rises up and the rich get eaten and capitalism is
vanquished in favor of a classless society?”

“That very one.”

Henry winks at me. “That seems rather hard on Clare. And what are you planning
to do with the intelligentsia?”

“Oh,” Gomez says, “we will probably eat them, too. But we’ll keep you around, as
a cook. This is outstanding grub.”

Charisse touches Henry’s arm, confidentially. “We aren’t really going to eat
anybody,” she says. “We are just going to redistribute their assets.”

“That’s a relief,” Henry replies. “I wasn’t looking forward to cooking Clare.”

Gomez says, “It’s a shame, though. I’m sure Clare would be very tasty.”

“I wonder what cannibal cuisine is like?” I say. “Is there a cannibal cookbook?”

“ The Cooked and The Raw,” says Charisse.

Henry objects. “That’s not really a how-to. I don’t think Levi-Strauss gives any
recipes.”

“We could just adapt a recipe,” says Gomez, taking another helping of the chicken.
“You know, Clare with Porcini Mushrooms and Marinara Sauce over Linguini. Or
Breast of Clare a la Orange. Or—”

“Hey,” I say. “What if I don’t want to be eaten?”

“Sorry, Clare,” Gomez says gravely. “I’m afraid you have to be eaten for the
greater good.”

Henry catches my eye, and smiles. “Don’t worry, Clare; come the Revolution ‘I’ll
hide you at the Newberry. You can live in the stacks and I’ll feed you Snickers and

Doritos from the Staff Lunchroom. They’ll never find you.”

I shake my head. “What about ‘First, we kill all the lawyers’?”

“No,” Gomez says. “You can’t do anything without lawyers. The Revolution

would get all balled up in ten minutes if lawyers weren’t there to keep it in line.”

“But my dad’s a lawyer,” I tell him, “so you can’t eat us after all.”

“He’s the wrong kind of lawyer” Gomez says. “He does estates for rich people. I,

on the other hand, represent the poor oppressed children—”

“Oh, shut up, Gomez,” says Charisse. “You’re hurting Clare’s feelings.”

“I’m not! Clare wants to be eaten for the Revolution, don’t you, Clare?”

“No.”

“Oh.”


“What about the Categorical Imperative?” asks Henry.

“Say what?”

“You know, the Golden Rule. Don’t eat other people unless you are willing to be
eaten.”

Gomez is cleaning his nails with the tines of his fork. “Don’t you think it’s really

Eat or Be Eaten that makes the world go round?”

“Yeah, mostly. But aren’t you yourself a case in point for altruism?” Henry asks.

“Sure, but I am widely considered to be a dangerous nutcase.” Gomez says this
with feigned indifference, but I can see that he is puzzled by Henry. “Clare,” he says,
“what about dessert?”

“Ohmigod, I almost forgot,” I say, standing up too fast and grabbing the table for
support. “I’ll get it.”

“I’ll help you” says Gomez, following me into the kitchen. I’m wearing heels and
as I walk into the kitchen I catch the door sill and stagger forward and Gomez grabs
me. For a moment we stand pressed together and I feel his hands on my waist, but he
lets me go. “You’re drunk, Clare,” Gomez tells me.

“I know. So are you.” I press the button on the coffee maker and coffee begins to
drip into the pot. I lean against the counter and carefully take the cellophane off the
plate of brownies. Gomez is standing close behind me, and he says very quietly,
leaning so that his breath tickles my ear, “He’s the same guy.”

“What do you mean?”

“That guy I warned you about. Henry, he’s the guy—”

Charisse walks into the kitchen and Gomez jumps away from me and opens the
fridge. “Hey,” she says. “Can I help?”

“Here, take the coffee cups...” We all juggle cups and saucers and plates and
brownies and make it safely back to the table. Henry is waiting as though he’s at the
dentist, with a look of patient dread. I laugh, it’s so exactly the look he used to have
when I brought him food in the Meadow...but he doesn’t remember, he hasn’t been
there yet. “Relax,” I say. “It’s only brownies. Even I can do brownies.” Everyone
laughs and sits down. The brownies turn out to be kind of undercooked. “Brownies
tartare,” says Charisse. “Salmonella fudge,” says Gomez. Henry says, “I’ve always
liked dough,” and licks his fingers. Gomez rolls a cigarette, lights it, and takes a deep
drag.

HENRY: Gomez lights a cigarette and leans back in his chair. There’s something about
this guy that bugs me. Maybe it’s the casual possessiveness toward Clare, or the
garden variety Marxism? I’m sure I’ve seen him before. Past or future? Let’s find out.
“You look very familiar,” I say to him.


“Mmm? Yeah, I think we’ve seen each other around.”
I’ve got it. “Iggy Pop at the Riviera Theater?”
He looks startled. “Yeah. You were with that blond girl, Ingrid Carmichel, I


always used to see you with.” Gomez and I both look at Clare. She is staring intently
at Gomez, and he smiles at her. She looks away, but not at me.

Charisse comes to the rescue. “You saw Iggy without me?”

Gomez says, “You were out of town.”

Charisse pouts. “I miss everything,” she says to me. “I missed Patti Smith and now
she’s retired. I missed Talking Heads the last time they toured.”

“Patti Smith will tour again” I say.

“She will? How do you know?” asks Charisse. Clare and I exchange glances.

“I’m just guessing” I tell her. We begin exploring each other’s musical tastes and
discover that we are all devoted to punk. Gomez tells us about seeing the New York
Dolls in Florida just before Johnny Thunders left the band. I describe a Lene Lovich
concert I managed to catch on one of my time travels. Charisse and Clare are excited
because the Violent Femmes are playing the Aragon Ballroom in a few weeks and
Charisse has scored free tickets. The evening winds down without further ado. Clare
walks me downstairs. We stand in the foyer between the outer door and the inner
door.

“I’m sorry,” she says.

“Oh, not at all. It was fun, I didn’t mind cooking.”

“No,” Clare says, looking at her shoes, “about Gomez.”

It’s cold in the foyer. I wrap my arms around Clare and she leans against me.
“What about Gomez?” I ask her. Something’s on her mind. But then she shrugs. “It’ll
be okay,” she says, and I take her word for it. We kiss. I open the outer door, and
Clare opens the inner door; I walk down the sidewalk and look back. Clare is still
standing there in the half-open doorway watching me. I stand, wanting to go back and
hold her, wanting to go back upstairs with her. She turns and begins to walk upstairs,
and I watch until she is out of sight.

Saturday, December 14, 1991 Tuesday, May 9, 2000 (Henry is 36)

HENRY: I’m stomping the living shit out of a large drunk suburban guy who had the
effrontery to call me a faggot and then tried to beat me up to prove his point. We are
in the alley next to the Vic Theater. I can hear the Smoking Popes’ bass leaking out of
the theater’s side exits as I systematically smash this idiot’s nose and go to work on
his ribs. I’m having a rotten evening, and this fool is taking the brunt of my
frustration.


“Hey, Library Boy.” I turn from my groaning homophobic yuppie to find Gomez
leaning against a dumpster, looking grim.

“Comrade.” I step back from the guy I’ve been bashing, who slides gratefully to
the pavement, doubled up. “How goes it?” I’m very relieved to see Gomez: delighted,
actually. But he doesn’t seem to share my pleasure.

“Gee, ah, I don’t want to disturb you or anything, but that’s a friend of mine
you’re dismembering, there.”

Oh, surely not. “Well, he requested it. Just walked right up to me and said, ‘Sir, I
urgently need to be firmly macerated.’”

“Oh. Well, hey, well done. Fucking artistic, actually.”

“Thank you.”

“Do you mind if I just scoop up ol‘ Nick here and take him to the hospital?”

“Be my guest.” Damn. I was planning to appropriate Nick’s clothing, especially
his shoes, brand new Doc Martens, deep red, barely worn. “Gomez.”

“Yeah?” He stoops to lift his friend, who spits a tooth into his own lap.

“What’s the date?”

“December 14.”

“What year?”

He looks up at me like a man who has better things to do than humor lunatics and
lifts Nick in a fireman’s carry that must be excruciating. Nick begins to whimper.
“1991. You must be drunker than you look.” He walks up the alley and disappears in
the direction of the theater entrance. I calculate rapidly. Today is not that long after
Clare and I started dating, therefore Gomez and I hardly know each other. No wonder
he was giving me the hairy eyeball.

He reappears unencumbered. “I made Trent deal with it. Nick’s his brother. He
wasn’t best pleased.” We start walking east, down the alley. “Forgive me for asking,
dear Library Boy, but why on earth are you dressed like that?”

I’m wearing blue jeans, a baby blue sweater with little yellow ducks all over it,
and a neon red down vest with pink tennis shoes. Really, it’s not surprising that
someone would feel they needed to hit me.

“It was the best I could do at the time.” I hope the guy I took these off of was close
to home. It’s about twenty degrees out here. “Why are you consorting with frat
boys?”

“Oh, we went to law school together.” We are walking by the back door of the
Army-Navy surplus store and I experience a deep desire to be wearing normal
clothing. I decide to risk appalling Gomez; I know he’ll get over it. I stop. “Comrade.
This will only take a moment; I just need to take care of something. Could you wait at
the end of the alley?”


“What are you doing?”

“Nothing. Breaking and entering. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.”

“Mind if I come along?”

“Yes.” He looks crestfallen. “All right. If you must.” I step into the niche which
shelters the back door. This is the third time I’ve broken into this place, although the
other two occasions are both in the future at the moment. I’ve got it down to a science.
First I open the insignificant combination lock that secures the security grate, slide
the grate back, pick the Yale lock with the inside of an old pen and a safety pin found
earlier on Belmont Avenue, and use a piece of aluminum between the double doors to
lift the inside bolt. Voila! Altogether, it takes about three minutes. Gomez regards me
with almost religious awe.

“ Where did you learn to do that?”

“It’s a knack,” I reply modestly. We step inside. There is a panel of blinking red
lights trying to look like a burglar alarm system, but I know better. It’s very dark in
here. I mentally review the layout and the merchandise. “Don’t touch anything,
Gomez.” I want to be warm, and inconspicuous. I step carefully through the aisles,
and my eyes adjust to the dark. I start with pants: black Levi’s. I select a dark blue
flannel shirt, a heavy black wool overcoat with an industrial-strength lining, wool
socks, boxers, heavy mountain-climb ing gloves, and a hat with ear flaps. In the shoe
department I find, to my great satisfaction, Docs exactly like the ones my buddy Nick
was wearing. I am ready for action.

Gomez, meanwhile, is poking around behind the counter. “Don’t bother,” I tell
him. “This place doesn’t leave cash in the register at night. Let’s go.” We leave the
way we came. I close the door gently and pull the grate across. I have my previous set
of clothing in a shopping bag. Later I will try to find a Salvation Army collection bin.
Gomez looks at me expectantly, like a large dog who’s waiting to see if I have any

more lunch meat.

Which reminds me. “I’m ravenous. Let’s go to Ann Sather’s.”

“Ann Sather’s? I was expecting you to propose bank robbery, or manslaughter, at
the very least. You’re on a roll, man, don’t stop now!”

“I must pause in my labors to refuel. Come on.” We cross from the alley to Ann
Sather’s Swedish Restaurant’s parking lot. The attendant mutely regards us as we
traverse his kingdom. We cut over to Belmont. It’s only nine o’clock, and the street is
teeming with its usual mix of runaways, homeless mental cases, clubbers, and
suburban thrill seekers. Ann Sather’s stands out as an island of normalcy amid the
tattoo parlors and condom boutiques. We enter, and wait by the bakery to be seated.
My stomach gurgles. The Swedish decor is comforting, all wood paneling and
swirling red marbling. We are seated in the smoking section, right in front of the
fireplace. Things are looking up. We remove our coats, settle in, read the menus, even


though, as lifelong Chicagoans, we could probably sing them from memory in two-
part harmony. Gomez lays all his smoking paraphernalia next to his silverware.

“Do you mind?”

“Yes. But go ahead.” The price of Gomez’s company is marinating in the constant
stream of cigarette smoke that flows from his nostrils. His fingers are a deep ochre
color; they flutter delicately over the thin papers as he rolls Drum tobacco into a thick
cylinder, licks the paper, twists it, sticks it between his lips, and lights it. “Ahh.” For
Gomez, a half hour without a smoke is an anomaly. I always enjoy watching people
satisfy their appetites, even if I don’t happen to share them.

“You don’t smoke? Anything?”

“I run.”

“Oh. Yeah, shit, you’re in great shape. I thought you had about killed Nick, and
you weren’t even winded.”

“He was too drunk to fight. Just a big sodden punching bag.”

“Why’d you lay into him like that?”

“It was just stupidity.” The waiter arrives, tells us his name is Lance and the
specials are salmon and creamed peas. He takes our drink orders and speeds away. I
toy with the cream dispenser. “He saw how I was dressed, concluded that I was easy
meat, got obnoxious, wanted to beat me up, wouldn’t take no for an answer, and got a
surprise. I was minding my own business, really I was.”

Gomez looks thoughtful. “Which is what, exactly?”

“Pardon?”

“Henry. I may look like a chump, but in fact your old Uncle Gomez is not
completely sans clues. I have been paying attention to you for some time: before our
little Clare brought you home, as a matter of fact. I mean, I don’t know if you are
aware of it, but you are moderately notorious in certain circles. I know a lot of people
who know you. People; well, women. Women who know you ” He squints at me
through the haze of his smoke. “They say some pretty strange things.” Lance arrives
with my coffee and Gomez’s milk. We order: a cheeseburger and fries for Gomez,
split pea soup, the salmon, sweet potatoes, and mixed fruit for me. I feel like I’m
going to keel over right this minute if I don’t get a lot of calories fast. Lance departs
swiftly. I’m having trouble caring very much about the misdeeds of my earlier self,
much less justifying them to Gomez. None of his business, anyway. But he’s waiting
for my answer. I stir cream into my coffee, watching the slight white scum on the top
dissipate in swirls. I throw caution to the winds. It doesn’t matter, after all.

“What would you like to know, comrade?”

“Everything. I want to know why a seemingly mild-mannered librarian beats a guy
into a coma over nothing while wearing kindergarten-teacher clothing. I want to
know why Ingrid Carmichel tried to kill herself eight days ago. I want to know why


you look ten years older right now than you did the last time I saw you. Your hair’s
going gray. I want to know why you can pick a Yale lock. I want to know why Clare
had a photograph of you before she actually met you.”

Clare had a photo of me before 1991 ? I didn’t know that. Oops. “What did the
photo look like?”

Gomez regards me. “More like you look at the moment, not like you looked a
couple weeks ago when you came over for dinner.” That was two weeks ago? Lord,
this is only the second time Gomez and I have met. “It was taken outdoors. You’re
smiling. The date on the back is June, 1988.” The food arrives, and we pause to
arrange it on our little table. I start eating as though there’s no tomorrow.

Gomez sits, watching me eating, his food untouched. I’ve seen Gomez do his thing
in court with hostile witnesses, just like this. He simply wills them to spill the beans. I
don’t mind telling all, I just want to eat first. In fact, I need Gomez to know the truth,
because he’s going to save my ass repeatedly in the years to come.

I’m halfway through the salmon and he’s still sitting. “Eat, eat,” I say in my best
imitation of Mrs. Kim. He dips a fry in ketchup and munches it. “Don’t worry, I’ll
confess. Just let me have my last meal in peace.” He capitulates, and starts to eat his
burger. Neither of us says a word until I’ve finished consuming my fruit. Lance
brings me more coffee. I doctor it, stir it. Gomez is looking at me as though he wants
to shake me. I resolve to amuse myself at his expense.

“Okay. Here it is: time travel.”

Gomez rolls his eyes and grimaces, but says nothing.

“I am a time traveler. At the moment I am thirty-six years old. This afternoon was
May 9, 2000. It was a Tuesday. I was at work, I had just finished a Show and Tell for
a bunch of Caxton Club members and I had gone back to the stacks to reshelve the
books when I suddenly found myself on School Street, in 1991.1 had the usual
problem of getting something to wear. I hid under somebody’s porch for a while. I
was cold, and nobody was coming along, and finally this young guy, dressed—well,
you saw how I was dressed. I mugged him, took his cash and everything he was
wearing except his underwear. Scared him silly; I think he thought I was going to
rape him or something. Anyway, I had clothes. Okay. But in this neighborhood you
can’t dress like that without having certain misunderstandings arise. So I’ve been
taking shit all evening from various people, and your friend just happened to be the
last straw. I’m sorry if he’s very damaged. I very much wanted his clothes, especially
his shoes.” Gomez glances under the table at my feet. “I find myself in situations like
that all the time. No pun intended. There’s something wrong with me. I get dislocated
in time, for no reason. I can’t control it, I never know when it’s going to happen, or
where and when I’ll end up. So in order to cope, I pick locks, shoplift, pick pockets,
mug people, panhandle, break and enter, steal cars, lie, fold, spindle, and mutilate.
You name it, I’ve done it.”


“Murder.”
“Well, not that I know of. I’ve never raped anybody, either.” I look at him as I


speak. He’s poker-faced. “Ingrid. Do you actually know Ingrid?”

“I know Celia Attley.”

“Dear me. You do keep strange company. How did Ingrid try to kill herself?”

“An overdose of Valium.”

“1991? Yeah, okay. That would be Ingrid’s fourth suicide attempt.”

“What?”

“Ah, you didn’t know that? Celia is only selectively informative. Ingrid actually

succeeded in doing herself in on January 2, 1994. She shot herself in the chest.”

“Henry—”

“You know, it happened six years ago, and I’m still angry at her. What a waste.

But she was severely depressed, for a long time, and she just sunk down into it. I
couldn’t do anything for her. It was one of the things we used to fight about.”

“This is a pretty sick joke, Library Boy.”

“You want proof.”

He just smiles.

“How about that photo? The one you said Clare has?”

The smile vanishes. “Okay. I admit that I am a wee bit befuddled by that.”

“I met Clare for the first time in October, 1991. She met me for the first time in
September, 1977; she was six, I will be thirty-eight. She’s known me all her life. In
1991 I’m just getting to know her. By the way, you should ask Clare all this stuff.
She’ll tell you ”

“I already did. She told me.”

“Well, hell, Gomez. You’re taking up valuable time, here, making me tell you all
over again. You didn’t believe her?”

“No. Would you?”

“Sure. Clare is very truthful. It’s that Catholic upbringing that does it.” Lance

comes by with more coffee. I’m already highly caffeinated, but more can’t hurt. “So?
What kind of proof are you looking for?”

“Clare said you disappear.”

“Yeah, it’s one of my more dramatic parlor tricks. Stick to me like glue, and
sooner or later, I vanish. It may take minutes, hours, or days, but I’m very reliable
that way.”

“Do we know each other in 2000?”

“Yeah.” I grin at him. “We’re good friends.”


“Tell me my future.”

Oh, no. Bad idea. “Nope.”

“Why not?”

“Gomez. Things happen. Knowing about them in advance makes
everything.. .weird. You can’t change anything, anyway.”

“Why?”

“Causation only runs forward. Things happen once, only once. If you know
things...1 feel trapped, most of the time. If you are in time, not knowing...you’re free.
Trust me.” He looks frustrated. “You’ll be the best man at our wedding. I’ll be yours.
You have a great life, Gomez. But I’m not going to tell you the particulars.”

“Stock tips?”

Yeah, why not. In 2000 the stock market is insane, but there are amazing fortunes
to be made, and Gomez will be one of the lucky ones. “Ever heard of the Internet?”
No.

“It’s a computer thing. A vast, worldwide network with regular people all plugged
in, communicating by phone lines with computers. You want to buy technology
stocks. Netscape, America Online, Sun Microsystems, Yahoo!, Microsoft,

Amazon.com.” He’s taking notes.

“Dotcom?”

“Don’t worry about it. lust buy it at the IPO.” I smile. “Clap your hands if you
believe in fairies.”

“I thought you were pole-axing anyone who insinuated anything about fairies this
evening?”

“It’s from Peter Pan, you illiterate.” I suddenly feel nauseous. I don’t want to
cause a scene here, now. I jump up. “Follow me ” I say, running for the men’s room,
Gomez close behind me. I burst into the miraculously empty John. Sweat is streaming
down my face. I throw up into the sink. “Jesus H. Christ,” says Gomez. “Damn it,
Library—” but I lose the rest of whatever he’s about to say, because I’m lying on my
side, naked, on a cold linoleum floor, in pitch blackness. I’m dizzy, so I lie there for a
while. I reach out my hand and touch the spines of books. I’m in the stacks, at the
Newberry. I get up and stagger to the end of the aisle and flip the switch; light floods
the row I’m standing in, blinding me. My clothes, and the cart of books I was
shelving, are in the next aisle over. I get dressed, shelve the books, and gingerly open
the security door to the stacks. I don’t know what time it is; the alarms could be on.
But no, everything is as it was. Isabelle is instructing a new patron in the ways of the
Reading Room; Matt walks by and waves. The sun pours in the windows, and the
hands of the Reading Room clock point to 4:15. I’ve been gone less than fifteen
minutes. Amelia sees me and points to the door. “I’m going out to Starbucks. You
want Java?”


“Um, no, I don’t think so. But thanks.” I have a horrible headache. I stick my face
into Roberto’s office and tell him I don’t feel well. He nods sympathetically, gestures
at the phone, which is spewing lightspeed Italian into his ear. I grab my stuff and
leave.

Just another routine day at the office for Library Boy.

Sunday, December 15, 1991 (Clare is 20)

CLARE: It’s a beautiful sunny Sunday morning, and I’m on my way home from
Henry’s apartment. The streets are icy and there’s a couple inches of fresh snow.
Everything is blindingly white and clean. I am singing along with Aretha Franklin,
“R-E-S-P-E-C-T!” as I turn off Addison onto Hoyne, and lo and behold, there’s a
parking space right in front. It’s my lucky day. I park and negotiate the slick sidewalk,
let myself into the vestibule, still humming. I have that dreamy rubber spine feeling
that I’m beginning to associate with sex, with waking up in Henry’s bed, with getting
home at all hours of the morning. I float up the stairs. Charisse will be at church. I’m
looking forward to a long bath and the New York Times. As soon as I open our door, I
know I’m not alone. Gomez is sitting in the living room in a cloud of smoke with the
blinds closed. What with the red flocked wallpaper and the red velvet furniture and all
the smoke, he looks like a blond Polish Elvis Satan. He just sits there, so I start
walking back to my room without speaking. I’m still mad at him.

“Clare.”

I turn. “What?”

“I’m sorry. I was wrong.” I’ve never heard Gomez admit to anything less than

papal infallibility. His voice is a deep croak.

I walk into the living room and open the blinds. The sunlight is having trouble
getting through the smoke, so I crack a window. “I don’t see how you can smoke this

much without setting off the smoke detector.”

Gomez holds up a nine-volt battery. “I’ll put it back before I leave.”

I sit down on the Chesterfield. I wait for Gomez to tell me why he’s changed his

mind. He’s rolling another cigarette. Finally he lights it, and looks at me.

“I spent last night with your friend Henry.”

“So did I.”

“Yeah. What did you do?”

“Went to Facets, saw a Peter Greenaway film, ate Moroccan, went to his place.”

“And you just left.”

“That’s right.”


“Well. My evening was less cultural, but more eventful. I came upon your
beamish boy in the alley by the Vic, smashing Nick to a pulp. Trent told me this
morning that Nick has a broken nose, three broken ribs, five broken bones in his hand,
soft-tissue damage, and forty-six stitches. And he’s gonna need a new front tooth.” I
am unmoved. Nick is a big bully. “You should have seen it, Clare. Your boyfriend
dealt with Nick like he was an inanimate object. Like Nick was a sculpture he was
carving. Real scientific-like. Just considered where to land it for maximum effect,
wham. I would have totally admired it, if it hadn’t been Nick.”

“Why was Henry beating up Nick?”

Gomez looks uncomfortable. “It sounded like it might have been Nick’s fault. He
likes to pick on.. .gays, and Henry was dressed like Little Miss Muffet.” I can

imagine. Poor Henry.

“And then?”

“Then we burglarized the Army-Navy surplus store.” So far so good.

“And?”

“And then we went to Ann Sather’s for dinner.”

I burst out laughing. Gomez smiles. “And he told me the same whacko story that

you told me.”

“So why did you believe him?”

“Well, he’s so fucking nonchalant. I could tell that he absolutely knew me,
through and through. He had my number, and he didn’t care. And then he—vanished,
and I was standing there, and I just.. .had to. Believe.”

I nod, sympathetically. “The disappearing is pretty impressive. I remember that
from the very first time I saw him, when I was little. He was shaking my hand, and
poof! he was gone. Hey, when was he coming from?”

“2000. He looked a lot older.”

“He goes through a lot.” It’s kind of nice to sit here and talk about Henry with
someone who knows. I feel a surge of gratitude toward Gomez which evaporates as

he leans forward and says, quite gravely, “Don’t marry him, Clare.”

“He hasn’t asked me, yet.”

“You know what I mean.”

I sit very still, looking at my hands quietly clasped in my lap. I’m cold and furious.
I look up. Gomez regards me anxiously.

“I love him. He’s my life. I’ve been waiting for him, my whole life, and now, he’s
here.” I don’t know how to explain. “With Henry, I can see everything laid out, like a
map, past and future, everything at once, like an angel....”I shake my head. I can’t put
it into words. “I can reach into him and touch time.. .he loves me. We’re married


because.. .we’re part of each other....”I falter. “It’s happened already. All at once.” I
peer at Gomez to see if I’ve made any sense.

“Clare. I like him, very much. He’s fascinating. But he’s dangerous. All the
women he’s been with fall apart. I just don’t want you blithely waltzing into the arms
of this charming sociopath..”

“Don’t you see that you’re too late? You’re talking about somebody I’ve known
since I was six. I know him. You’ve met him twice and you’re trying to tell me to
jump off the train. Well, I can’t. I’ve seen my future; I can’t change it, and I wouldn’t
if I could.”

Gomez looks thoughtful. “He wouldn’t tell me anything about my future.”

“Henry cares about you; he wouldn’t do that to you.”

“He did it to you.”

“It couldn’t be helped; our lives are all tangled together. My whole childhood was

different because of him, and there was nothing he could do. He did the best he
could.” I hear Charisse’s key turning in the lock.

“Clare, don’t be mad—I’m just trying to help you.”

I smile at him. “You can help us. You’ll see.”

Charisse comes in coughing. “Oh, sweetie. You’ve been waiting a long time.”

“I’ve been chatting with Clare. About Henry.”

“I’m sure you’ve been telling her how much you adore him,” Charisse says with a
note of warning in her voice.

“I’ve been telling her to run as fast as possible in the opposite direction.”

“Oh, Gomez. Clare, don’t listen to him. He has terrible taste in men.” Charisse sits
down primly a foot away from Gomez and he reaches over and pulls her onto his lap.
She gives him a look.

“She’s always like this after church.”

“I want breakfast.”

“Of course you do, my dove.” They get up and scamper down the hall to the
kitchen. Soon Charisse is emitting high-pitched giggles and Gomez is trying to spank
her with the Times Magazine. I sigh and go to my room. The sun is still shining. In
the bathroom I run hot hot water into the huge old tub and strip off last night’s clothes.
As I climb in I catch sight of myself in the mirror. I look almost plump. This cheers
me no end, and I sink down into the water feeling like an Ingres odalisque. Henry
loves me. Henry is here, finally, now, finally. And I love him. I run my hands over my
breasts and a thin film of saliva is reaquified by the water and disperses. Why does
everything have to be complicated? Isn’t the complicated part behind us now? I
submerge my hair, watch it float around me, dark and net-like. I never chose Henry,
and he never chose me. So how could it be a mistake? Again I am faced with the fact


that we can’t know. I lie in the tub, staring at the tile above my feet, until the water is
almost cool. Charisse knocks on the door, asking if I’ve died in here and can she
please brush her teeth? As I wrap my hair in a towel I see myself blurred in the mirror
by steam and time seems to fold over onto itself and I see myself as a layering of all
my previous days and years and all the time that is coming and suddenly I feel as
though I’ve become invisible. But then the feeling is gone as fast as it came and I
stand still for a minute and then I pull on my bathrobe and open the door and go on.

Saturday, December 22, 1991 (Henry is 28, and 33)

HENRY: At 5:25 a.m. the doorbell rings, always an evil omen. I stagger to the
intercom and push the button.

“Yeah?”

“Hey. Let me in.” I press the button again and the horrible buzzing noise that
signifies Welcome to My Hearth and Home is transmitted over the line. Forty-five
seconds later the elevator clunks and starts to ratchet its way up. I pull on my robe, I
go out and stand in the hall and watch the elevator cables moving through the little
safety-glass window. The cage hovers into sight and stops, and sure enough, it’s me.

He slides open the cage door and steps into the corridor, naked, unshaven, and
sporting really short hair. We quickly cross the empty hall and duck into the
apartment. I close the door and we stand for a moment looking ourselves over.

“Well,” I say, just for something to say. “How goes it?”

“So-so. What’s the date?”

“December 22, 1991. Saturday”

“Oh—Violent Femmes at the Aragon tonight?”

“Yep.”

He laughs. “Shit. What an abysmal evening that was.” He walks over to the bed—
my bed—and climbs in, pulls the covers over his head. I plop down beside him.

“Hey.” No response. “When are you from?”

“November 13, 1996. I was on my way to bed. So let me get some sleep, or you
will be sincerely sorry in five years.”

This seems reasonable enough. I take off my robe and get back into bed. Now I’m
on the wrong side of the bed, Clare’s side, as I think of it these days, because my
doppelganger has commandeered my side.

Everything is subtly different on this side of the bed. It’s like when you close one
eye and look at something close up for a while, and then look at it from the other eye.
I lie there doing this, looking at the armchair with my clothes scattered over it, a


peach pit at the bottom of a wine glass on the windowsill, the back of my right hand.
My nails need cutting and the apartment could probably qualify for Federal Disaster
Relief funds. Maybe my extra self will be willing to pitch in, help out around the
house a little, earn his keep. I run my mind over the contents of the refrigerator and
pantry and conclude that we are well provisioned. I am planning to bring Clare home
with me tonight and I’m not sure what to do with my superfluous body. It occurs to
me that Clare might prefer to be with this later edition of me, since after all they do
know each other better. For some reason this plunges me into a funk. I try to
remember that anything subtracted now will be added later, but I still feel fretful and
wish that one of us would just go away.

I ponder my double. He’s curled up, hedgehog style, facing away from me,
evidently asleep. I envy him. He is me, but I’m not him, yet. He has been through five
years of a life that’s still mysterious to me, still coiled tightly waiting to spring out
and bite. Of course, whatever pleasures are to be had, he’s had them; for me they wait
like a box of unpoked chocolates.

I try to consider him with Clare’s eyes. Why the short hair? I’ve always been fond
of my black, wavy, shoulder-length hair; I’ve been wearing it this way since high
school. But sooner or later, I’m going to chop it off. It occurs to me that the hair is
one of many things that must remind Clare I’m not exactly the man she’s known from
earliest childhood. I’m a close approximation she is guiding surreptitiously toward a
me that exists in her mind’s eye. What would I be without her?

Not the man who breathes, slowly, deeply, across the bed from me. His neck and
back undulate with vertebrae, ribs. His skin is smooth, hardly haired, tightly tacked
onto muscles and bones. He is exhausted, and yet sleeps as though at any moment he
may jump up and run. Do I radiate this much tension? I guess so. Clare complains
that I don’t relax until I’m dead tired, but actually I am often relaxed when I’m with
her. This older self seems leaner and more weary, more solid and secure. But with me
he can afford to show off: he’s got my number so completely that I can only
acquiesce to him, in my own best interests.

It’s 7:14 and it’s obvious that I’m not going back to sleep. I get out of bed and turn
on the coffee. I pull on underwear and sweatpants and stretch out. Lately my knees
have been sore, so I wrap supports onto them. I pull on socks and lace up my beater
running shoes, probably the cause of the funky knees, and vow to go buy new shoes
tomorrow. I should have asked my guest what the weather was like out there. Oh,
well, December in Chicago: dreadful weather is de rigueur. I don my ancient Chicago
Film Festival T-shirt, a black sweatshirt, and a heavy orange sweatshirt with a hood
that has big Xs on the front and back made of reflective tape. I grab my gloves and
keys and out I go, into the day.

It’s not a bad day, as early winter days go. There’s very little snow on the ground,
and the wind is toying with it, pushing it here and there. Traffic is backed up on


Dearborn, making a concert of engine noises, and the sky is gray, slowly lightening
into gray.

I lace my keys onto my shoe and decide to run along the lake. I run slowly east on
Delaware to Michigan Avenue, cross the overpass, and begin jogging beside the bike
path, heading north along Oak Street Beach. Only hard-core runners and cyclists are
out today. Lake Michigan is a deep slate color and the tide is out, revealing a dark
brown strip of sand. Seagulls wheel above my head and far out over the water. I am
moving stiffly; cold is unkind to joints, and I’m slowly realizing that it is pretty cold
out here by the lake, probably in the low twenties. So I run a little slower than usual,
warming up, reminding my poor knees and ankles that their life’s work is to carry me
far and fast on demand. I can feel the cold dry air in my lungs, feel my heart serenely
pounding, and as I reach North Avenue I am feeling good and I start to speed up.
Running is many things to me: survival, calmness, euphoria, solitude. It is proof of
my corporeal existence, my ability to control my movement through space if not time,
and the obedience, however temporary, of my body to my will. As I run I displace air,
and things come and go around me, and the path moves like a filmstrip beneath my
feet. I remember, as a child, long before video games and the Web, threading
filmstrips into the dinky projector in the school library and peering into them, turning
the knob that advanced the frame at the sound of a beep. I don’t remember anymore
what they looked like, what they were about, but I remember the smell of the library,
and the way the beep made me jump every time. I’m flying now, that golden feeling,
as if I could run right into the air, and I’m invincible, nothing can stop me, nothing
can stop me, nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing—.

Evening, the same day: (Henry is 28 and 33, Clare is 20)

CLARE: We’re on our way to the Violent Femmes concert at the Aragon Ballroom.
After some reluctance on Henry’s part, which I don’t understand because he loves les
Femmes, we are cruising Uptown in search of parking. I loop around and around, past
the Green Mill, the bars, the dimly lit apartment buildings and the laundromats that
look like stage sets. I finally park on Argyle and we walk shivering down the glassy
broken sidewalks. Henry walks fast and I am always a little out of breath when we
walk together. I’ve noticed that he makes an effort to match my pace, now. I pull off
my glove and put my hand in his coat pocket, and he puts his arm around my
shoulder. I’m excited because Henry and I have never gone dancing before, and I
love the Aragon, in all its decaying faux Spanish splendor. My Grandma Meagram
used to tell me about dancing to the big bands here in the thirties, when everything
was new and lovely and there weren’t people shooting up in the balconies and lakes
of piss in the men’s room. But c’est la vie, times change, and we are here.


We stand in line for a few minutes. Henry seems tense, on guard. He holds my
hand, but stares out over the crowd. I take the opportunity to look at him. Henry is
beautiful. His hair is shoulder-length, combed back, black and sleek. He’s cat-like,
thin, exuding restlessness and physicality. He looks like he might bite. Henry is
wearing a black overcoat and a white cotton shirt with French cuffs which dangle
undone below his coat sleeves, a lovely acid-green silk tie which he has loosened just
enough so that I can see the muscles in his neck, black jeans and black high-top
sneakers. Henry gathers my hair together and wraps it around his wrist. For a moment
I am his prisoner, and then the line moves forward and he lets me go.

We are ticketed and flow with masses of people into the building. The Aragon has
numerous long hallways and alcoves and balconies that wrap around the main hall
and are ideal for getting lost and for hiding, Henry and I go up to a balcony close to
the stage and sit at a tiny table. We take off our coats. Henry is staring at me.

“You look lovely. That’s a great dress; I can’t believe you can dance in it.”

My dress is skin-tight lilac blue silk, but it stretches enough to move in. I tried it
out this afternoon in front of a mirror and it was fine. The thing that worries me is my
hair; because of the dry winter air there seems to be twice as much of it as usual. I

start to braid it and Henry stops me.

“Don’t, please—I want to look at you with it down.”

The opening act begins its set. We listen patiently. Everyone is milling around,

talking, smoking. There are no seats on the main floor. The noise is phenomenal.

Henry leans over and yells in my ear. “Do you want something to drink?”

“Just a Coke.”

He goes off to the bar. I rest my arms on the railing of the balcony and watch the
crowd. Girls in vintage dresses, girls in combat gear, boys with Mohawks, boys in
flannel shirts. People of both sexes in T-shirts and jeans. College kids and twentysomethings,
with a few old folks scattered in.

Henry is gone for a long time. The warm-up band finishes, to scattered applause,
and roadies begin removing the band’s equipment and bringing on a more or less
identical bunch of instruments. Eventually I get tired of waiting, and, abandoning our
table and coats, I force my way through the dense pack of people on the balcony
down the stairs and into the long dim hallway where the bar is. Henry’s not there. I
move slowly through the halls and alcoves, looking but trying not to look like I’m
looking.

I spot him at the end of a hallway. He is standing so close to the woman that at
first I think they are embracing; she has her back to the wall and Henry leans over her
with his hand braced against the wall above her shoulder. The intimacy of their pose
takes my breath. She is blond, and beautiful in a very German way, tall and dramatic.


As I get closer, I realize that they aren’t kissing; they are fighting. Henry is using
his free hand to emphasize whatever it is he is yelling at this woman. Suddenly her
impassive face breaks into anger, almost tears. She screams something back at him.
Henry steps back and throws up his hands. I hear the last of it as he walks away:

“I can’t, Ingrid, I just can’t! I’m sorry—”

“Henry!” She is running after him when they both see me, standing quite still in
the middle of the corridor. Henry is grim as he takes my arm and we walk quickly to
the stairs. Three steps up I turn and see her standing, watching us, her arms at her
sides, helpless and intense. Henry glances back, and we turn and continue up the
stairs.

We find our table, which miraculously is still free and still boasts our coats. The
lights arc going down and Henry raises his voice over the noise of the crowd. “I’m
sorry. I never made it as far as the bar, and I ran into Ingrid—”

Who is Ingrid? I think of myself standing in Henry’s bathroom with a lipstick in
my hand and I need to know but blackness descends and the Violent Femmes take the
stage.

Gordon Gano stands at the microphone glaring at us all and menacing chords ring
out and he leans forward and intones the opening lines of Blister in the Sun and we’re
off and running. Henry and I sit and listen and then he leans over to me and shouts,

“Do you want to leave?” The dance floor is a roiling mass of slamming humanity.

“I want to dance!”

Henry looks relieved. “Great! Yes! Come on!” He strips off his tie and shoves it in
his overcoat pocket. We wend our way back downstairs and enter the main hall. I see
Charisse and Gomez dancing more or less together. Charisse is oblivious and frenzied,
Gomez is barely moving, a cigarette absolutely level between his lips. He sees me
and gives me a little wave. Moving into the crowd is like wading in Lake Michigan;
we are taken in and buoyed along, floating toward the stage. The crowd is roaring
Add it up! Add it up! and the Femmes respond by attacking their instruments with
insane vigor, Henry is moving, vibrating with the bass line. We are just outside the
mosh pit, dancers slamming against each other at high velocity on one side and on the
other side dancers shaking their hips, flailing their arms, stepping to the music.

We dance. The music runs through me, waves of sound that grab me by the spine,
that move my feet my hips my shoulders without consulting my brain. (Beautiful girl,
love your dress, high school smile, oh yes, where she is now, I can only guess.) I open
my eyes and see Henry watching me while he dances. When I raise my arms he
grasps me around the waist and I leap up. I have a panoramic view of the dance floor
for a mighty eternity. Someone waves at me but before I can see who it is Henry sets
me down again. We dance touching, we dance apart. (How can I explain personal
pain?) Sweat is streaming down me. Henry shakes his head and his hair makes a


black blur and his sweat is all over me. The music is goading, mocking (I ain’t had
much to live for I ain’t had much to live for I ain’t had much to live for). We throw
ourselves at it. My body is elastic, my legs are numb, and a sensation of white heat
travels from my crotch to the top of my head. My hair is damp ropes that cling to my
arms and neck and face and back. The music crashes into a wall and stops. My heart
is pounding. I place my hand on Henry’s chest and am surprised that his seems only
slightly quickened.

Slightly later, I walk into the ladies’ room and see Ingrid sitting on a sink, crying.
A small black woman with beautiful long dreads is standing in front of her speaking
softly and stroking her hair. The sound of Ingrid’s sobs echoes off the dank yellow
tile. I start to back out of the room and my movement attracts their attention. They
look at me. Ingrid is a mess. All her Teutonic cool is gone, her face is red and puffy,
her makeup is in streaks. She stares at me, bleak and drained. The black woman
walks over to me. She is fine and delicate and dark and sad. She stands close and
speaks quietly.

“Sister,” she says, “what’s your name?”

I hesitate. “Clare,” I finally say.

She looks back at Ingrid. “Clare. A word to the wise. You are mixing in where

you’re not wanted. Henry, he’s bad news, but he’s Ingrid’s bad news, and you be a
fool to mess with him. You hear what I’m saying?”

I don’t want to know but I can’t help myself. “What are you talking about?”

“They were going to get married. Then Henry, he breaks it off, tells Ingrid he’s
sorry, never mind, just forget it. I say she’s better off without him, but she don’t listen.
He treats her bad, drinks like they ain’t making it no more, disappears for days and
then comes around like nothing happened, sleeps with anything that stands still long
enough. That’s Henry. When he makes you moan and cry, don’t say nobody never
told you.” She turns abruptly and walks back to Ingrid, who is still staring at me, who
is looking at me with unconditional despair.

I must be gaping at them. “I’m sorry,” I say, and I flee.

I wander the halls and finally find an alcove that’s empty except for a young Goth
girl passed out on a vinyl couch with a burning cigarette between her fingers. I take it
from her and stub it out on the filthy tile. I sit on the arm of the couch and the music
vibrates through my tailbone up my spine. I can feel it in my teeth. I still need to pee
and my head hurts. I want to cry. I don’t understand what just happened. That is, I
understand but I don’t know what I should do about it. I don’t know if I should just
forget it, or get upset at Henry and demand an explanation, or what. What did I expect?


I wish I could send a postcard into the past, to this cad Henry who I don’t know: Do
nothing, Wait for me. Wish you were here.

Henry sticks his head around the corner. “There you are. I thought I’d lost you.”

Short hair. Henry has either gotten his hair cut in the last half hour or I’m looking
at my favorite chrono-displaced person. I jump up and fling myself at him.

“Oompf—hey, glad to see you, too...”

“I’ve missed you—” now I am crying.

“You’ve been with me almost nonstop for weeks.”

“I know but—you’re not you, yet—I mean, you’re different. Damn.” I lean against
the wall and Henry presses against me. We kiss, and then Henry starts licking my
face like a mama cat. I try to purr and start laughing. “You asshole. You’re trying to
distract me from your infamous behavior—”

“What behavior? I didn’t know you existed. I was unhappily dating Ingrid. I met
you. I broke up with Ingrid less than twenty-four hours later. I mean, infidelity isn’t
retroactive, you know?”

“She said—”

“Who said?”

“The black woman.” I mime long hair. “Short, big eyes, dreads—”

“Oh Lord. That’s Celia Attley. She despises me. She’s in love with Ingrid.”

“She said you were going to marry Ingrid. That you drink all the time, fuck around,
and are basically a bad person and I should run. That’s what she said.”

Henry is torn between mirth and incredulity. “Well, some of that is actually true. I
did fuck around, a lot, and I certainly have been known to drink rather prodigiously.
But we weren’t engaged. I would never have been insane enough to marry Ingrid. We

were royally miserable together.”

“But then why—”

“Clare, very few people meet their soulmates at age six. So you gotta pass the time
somehow. And Ingrid was very—patient. Overly patient. Willing to put up with odd
behavior, in the hope that someday I would shape up and marry her martyred ass.
And when somebody is that patient, you have to feel grateful, and then you want to
hurt them. Does that make any sense?”

“I guess. I mean, no, not to me, but I don’t think that way.”

Henry sighs. “It’s very charming of you to be ignorant of the twisted logic of most
relationships. Trust me. When we met I was wrecked, blasted, and damned, and I am
slowly pulling myself together because I can see that you are a human being and I
would like to be one, too. And I have been trying to do it without you noticing,
because I still haven’t figured out that all pretense is useless between us. But it’s a


long way from the me you’re dealing with in 1991 to me, talking to you right now
from 1996. You have to work at me; I can’t get there alone.”

“Yes, but it’s hard. I’m not used to being the teacher.”

“Well, whenever you feel discouraged, think of all the hours I spent, am spending,
with your tiny self. New math and botany, spelling and American history. I mean,
you can say nasty things to me in French because I sat there and drilled you on them.”

“Too true. Il a les defauts de ses qualites. But I bet it’s easier to teach all that than
to teach how to be—happy.”

“But you make me happy. It’s living up to being happy that’s the difficult part.”
Henry is playing with my hair, twirling it into little knots. “Listen, Clare, I’m going to
return you to the poor imbecile you came in with. I’m sitting upstairs feeling
depressed and wondering where you are.”

I realize that I have forgotten my present Henry in my joy at seeing my once and
future Henry, and I am ashamed. I feel an almost maternal longing to go solace the
strange boy who is becoming the man before me, the one who kisses me and leaves
me with an admonition to be nice. As I walk up the stairs I see the Henry of my future
fling himself into the midst of the slam dancers, and I move as in a dream to find the
Henry who is my here and now.