CHRISTMAS EVE, ONE ALWAYS CRASHING IN 4 page

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

The Time Traveler’s Wife Audrey Niffenegger

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.”

The Time Traveler’s Wife Audrey Niffenegger

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 twenty-somethings, 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

The Time Traveler’s Wife Audrey Niffenegger

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 seeHenry 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 sensationof 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.

The Time Traveler’s Wife Audrey Niffenegger

“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 herbad, 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?”

The Time Traveler’s Wife Audrey Niffenegger

“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

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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.

The Time Traveler’s Wife Audrey Niffenegger

Date: 2016-04-22; view: 483