CHRISTMAS EVE, ONE ALWAYS CRASHING IN 3 page

“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,

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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?”

The Time Traveler’s Wife Audrey Niffenegger

“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 broughtyou 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

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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

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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?”

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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

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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 roomin 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?”

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“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.”

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“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 hothot 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 thewater 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 withthe 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)

The Time Traveler’s Wife Audrey Niffenegger

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

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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.

Date: 2016-04-22; view: 470