or creativity, and Henry gets to go backward three spaces for valuing
the needs of the individual over the collective good."
"That puts me back on Go. Give me $200.00, Banker." Charisse gives Henry
his money.
"Oops," says Gomez. I smile at him. It's my turn. I roll a four.
"Park Place. I'll buy it." In order to buy anything I must correctly answer a
question. Henry draws from the Chance pile.
"Whom would you prefer to have dinner with and why: Adam Smith, Karl
Marx, Rosa Luxembourg, Alan Greenspan?"
"Rosa."
"Why?"
"Most interesting death." Henry, Charisse, and Gomez confer and agree that I
can buy Park Place. I give Charisse my money and she hands me the deed. Henry
shakes and lands on Income Tax. Income Tax has its own special cards. We all
tense, in apprehension. He reads the card.
"Great Leap Forward."
"Damn " We all hand Charisse all our real estate, and she puts it back in the
Bank's holdings, along with her own.
"Well, so much for Park Place."
"Sorry." Henry moves halfway across the board, which puts him on St. James.
"I'll buy it."
"My poor little St. James," laments Charisse. I draw a card from the Free
Parking pile.
"What is the exchange rate of the Japanese yen against the dollar today?"
"I have no idea. Where did that question come from?"
"Me." Charisse smiles.
"What's the answer?"
"99.8 yen to the dollar."
"Okay. No St. James. Your turn." Henry hands Charisse the dice. She rolls a
four and ends up going to Jail. She picks a card that tells her what her crime is:
Insider Trading. We laugh.
"That sounds more like you guys," says Gomez. Henry and I smile modestly.
We are making a killing in the stock market these days. To get out of Jail Charisse
has to answer three questions.
Gomez picks from the Chance pile. "Question the First: name two famous
artists Trotsky knew in Mexico."
"Diego Rivera and Frieda Kahlo."
"Good. Question the Second: How much does Nike pay its Vietnamese
workers per diem to make those ridiculously expensive sneakers?"
"Oh, God. I don't know...$3.00? Ten cents?"
"What's your answer?" There is an immense crash in the kitchen. We all jump
up, and Henry says, "Sit down!" so emphatically that we do. He runs into the
kitchen. Charisse and Gomez look at me, startled. I shake my head. "I don't
know." But I do. There is a low murmur of voices and a moan. Charisse and
Gomez are frozen, listening. I stand up and softly follow Henry.
He is kneeling on the floor, holding a dish cloth against the head of the naked
man lying on the linoleum, who is of course Henry. The wooden cabinet that
holds our dishes is on its side; the glass is broken and all the dishes have spilled
out and shattered. Henry is lying in the midst of the mess, bleeding and covered
with glass. Both Henrys look at me, one piteously, the other urgently. I kneel
opposite Henry, over Henry. "Where's all this blood coming from?" I whisper. "I
think it's all from the scalp," Henry whispers back. "Let's call an ambulance," I
say. I start to pick the glass out of Henry's chest. He closes his eyes and says,
"Don't." I stop.
"Holy cats." Gomez stands in the doorway. I see Charisse standing behind
him on tiptoe, trying to see over his shoulder. "Wow," she says, pushing past
Gomez. Henry throws a dish cloth over his prone duplicate's genitalia.
"Oh, Henry, don't worry about it, I've drawn a gazillion models-"
"I try to retain a modicum of privacy," Henry snaps. Charisse recoils as
though he's slapped her.
"Listen, Henry--" Gomez rumbles.
I can't think with all this going on. "Everyone please shut up," I demand,
exasperated. To my surprise they do. "What happens?" I ask Henry, who has
been lying on the floor grimacing and trying not to move. He opens his eyes and
stares up at me for a moment before answering.
"I'll be gone in a few minutes," he finally says, softly. He looks at Henry. "I
want a drink." Henry bounds up and comes back with a juice glass full of lack
Daniels. I support Henry's head and he manages to down about a third of it.
"Is that wise?" Gomez asks.
"Don't know. Don't care," Henry assures him from the floor. "This hurts like
hell." He gasps. "Stand back! Close your eyes-"
"Why?-" Gomez begins.
Henry is convulsing on the floor as though he is being electrified. His head is
nodding violently and he yells "Clare!" and I close my eyes. There is a noise like
a bed sheet being snapped but much louder and then there is a cascade of glass
and china everywhere and Henry has vanished.
"Oh my God," says Charisse. Henry and I stare at each other. That was different,
Henry. That was violent and ugly. What is happening to you? His white face tells me
that he doesn't know either. He inspects the whiskey for glass fragments and then
drinks it down.
"What's with all the glass?" Gomez demands, gingerly brushing himself off.
Henry stands up, offers me his hand. He's covered with a fine mist of blood
and bits of crockery and crystal. I stand up and look at Charisse. She has a big cut
on her face; blood is running down her cheek like a tear.
"Anything that's not part of my body gets left behind," Henry explains. He
shows them the gap where he had a tooth pulled because he kept losing the
filling. "So whenever I went back to, at least all the glass is gone, they won't have
to sit there and pick it out with tweezers,"
"No, but we will," Gomez says, gently removing glass from Charisse's hair.
He has a point.
LIBRARY SCIENCE FICTION
Wednesday, March 8, 1995 (Henry is 31)
Henry: Matt and I are playing Hide and Seek in the stacks in Special Collections.
He's looking for me because we are supposed to be giving a calligraphy Show
and Tell to a Newberry Trustee and her Ladies' Lettering Club. I'm hiding from
him because I'm trying to get all of my clothes on my body before he finds me.
"Come on, Henry, they're waiting," Matt calls from somewhere in Early
American Broadsides. I'm pulling on my pants in Twentieth-Century French livres
d'artistes. "lust a second, I just want to find this one thing," I call. I make a mental
note to learn ventriloquism for moments like this. Matt's voice is coming closer as
he says, "You know Mrs. Connelly is going to have kittens, just forget it, let's get
out there-" He sticks his head into my row as I'm buttoning my shirt. "What are
you doing?"
"Sorry?"
"You've been running around naked in the stacks again, haven't you?"
"Um, maybe." I try to sound nonchalant.
"Jesus, Henry. Give me the cart." Matt grabs the book-laden cart and starts to
wheel it off toward the Reading Room. The heavy metal door opens and closes. I
put on my socks and shoes, knot my tie, dust off my jacket and put it on. Then I
walk out into the Reading Room, face Matt over the long classroom table
surrounded by middle-aged rich ladies, and begin to discourse on the various
book hands of lettering genius Rudolf Koch. Matt lays out felts and opens
portfolios and interjects intelligent things about Koch and by the end of the hour
he seems like maybe he's not going to kill me this time. The happy ladies toddle
off to lunch. Matt and I move around the table, putting books back into their
boxes and onto the cart.
"I'm sorry about being late," I say.
"If you weren't brilliant," Matt replies, "we would have tanned you and used
you to rebind Das Manifest der Nacktkultur by now."
"There's no such book."
"Wanna bet?"
"No." We wheel the cart back to the stacks and begin reshelving the portfolios
and books. I buy Matt lunch at the Beau Thai, and all is forgiven, if not forgotten.
Tuesday, April 11, 1995 (Henry is 31)
Henry: There is a stairwell in the Newberry Library that I am afraid of. It is
located toward the east end of the long hallway that runs through each of the four
floors, bisecting the Reading Rooms from the stacks. It is not grand, like the main
staircase with its marble treads and carved balustrades. It has no windows. It has
fluorescent lights, cinderblock walls, concrete stairs with yellow safety strips.
There are metal doors with no windows on each floor. But these are not the
things that frighten me. The thing about this stairwell that I don't like one bit is
the Cage.
The Cage is four stories tall and runs up the center of the stairwell.
At first glance it looks like an elevator cage, but there is no elevator and never
was. No one at the Newberry seems to know what the Cage is for, or why it was
installed. I assume it's there to stop people from throwing themselves from the
stairs and landing in a broken heap. The Cage is painted beige. It is made of
steel.
When I first came to work at the Newberry, Catherine gave me a tour of all the
nooks and crannies. She proudly showed me the stacks, the artifact room, the
unused room in the east link where Matt practices his singing, McAllister's
amazingly untidy cubicle, the Fellows' carrels, the staff lunch room. As Catherine
opened the door to the stairwell, on our way up to Conservation, I had a moment
of panic. I glimpsed the crisscrossed wire of the Cage and balked, like a skittish
horse.
"What's that?" I asked Catherine.
"Oh, that's the Cage," she replied, casually.
"Is it an elevator?"
"No, it's just a cage. I don't think it does anything."
"Oh." I walked up to it, looked in. "Is there a door down there?"
"No. You can't get into it."
"Oh." We walked up the stairs and continued on with our tour.
Since then, I have avoided using that stairway. I try not to think about the
Cage; I don't want to make a big deal out of it. But if I ever end up inside it, I
won't be able to get out.
Friday, June 9, 1995 (Henry is 31)
Henry: I materialize on the floor of the Staff Men's Room on the fourth floor of the
Newberry. I've been gone for days, lost in 1973, rural Indiana, and I'm tired,
hungry, and unshaven; worst of all, I've got a black eye and I can't find my
clothes. I get up and lock myself in a stall, sit down and think. While I'm thinking
someone co