ke anything?"
"Well, think about it. If we time travelers started to move things around in
time, pretty soon the world would be a big mess. Let's say I brought some money
with me into the past. I could look up all the winning lottery numbers and
football teams and make a ton of money. That doesn't seem very fair, does it? Or
if I was really dishonest, I could steal things and bring them to the future where
nobody could find me."
"You could be a pirate!" Clare seems so pleased with the idea of me as a
pirate that she forgets that I am Stranger Danger. "You could bury the money and
make a treasure map and dig it up in the future." This is in fact more or less how
Clare and I fund our rock-and-roll lifestyle. As an adult Clare finds this mildly
immoral, although it does give us an edge in the stock market.
"That's a great idea. But what I really need isn't money, it's clothing."
Clare looks at me doubtfully.
"Does your dad have any clothes he doesn't need? Even a pair of pants would
be great. I mean, I like this towel, don't get me wrong, it's just that where I come
from, I usually like to wear pants." Philip Abshire is a tad shorter than me and
about thirty pounds heavier. His pants are comical but comfortable on me.
"I don't know...."
"That's okay, you don't need to get them right now. But if you bring some next
time I come, it would be very nice."
"Next time?"
I find an unused piece of stationery and a pencil. I print in block letters:
Thursday, September 29,1977 After supper. I hand Clare the paper, and she
receives it cautiously. My vision is blurring. I can hear Etta calling Clare. "It's a
secret, Clare, okay?"
"Why?"
"Can't tell. I have to go, now. It was nice to meet you. Don't take any wooden
nickels." I hold out my hand and Clare takes it, bravely. As we shake hands, I
disappear.
Wednesday, February 9, 2000 (Clare is 28, Henry is 36)
Clare: It's early, about six in the morning and I'm sleeping the thin dreamy sleep
of six in the morning when Henry slams me awake and I realize he's been
elsewhen. He materializes practically on top of me and I yell, and we scare the
shit out of each other and then he starts laughing and rolls over and I roll over
and look at him and realize that his mouth is bleeding profusely. I jump up to
get a washcloth and Henry is still smiling when I get back and start daubing at
his lip.
"How'd that happen?"
"You threw a shoe at me." I don't remember ever throwing anything at Henry.
"Did not."
"Did too. We just met for the very first time, and as soon as you laid eyes on
me you said, 'That's the man I'm going to marry,' and you pasted me one. I
always said you were an excellent judge of character."
Thursday, September 29, 1977 (Clare is 6, Henry is 35)
Clare: The calendar on Daddy's desk this morning said the same as the paper the
man wrote. Nell was making a soft egg for Alicia and Etta was yelling at Mark
cause he didn't do his homework and played Frisbee with Steve. I said Etta can I
have some clothes from the trunks? meaning the trunks in the attic where we play
dress up, and Etta said What for? and I said I want to play dress up with Megan and
Etta got mad and said It was time to go to school and I could worry about playing when I
got home. So I went to school and we did adding and mealworms and language
arts and after lunch French and music and religion. I worried all day about pants
for the man cause he seemed like he really wanted pants. So when I got home I
went to ask Etta again but she was in town but Nell let me lick both the beaters of
cake batter which Etta won't let us because you get salmon. And Mama was
writing and I was gonna go away without asking but she said What is it, Baby? so I
asked and she said I could go look in the Goodwill bags and have anything I
wanted. So I went to the laundry room and looked in the Goodwill bags and
found three pairs of Daddy's pants but one had a big cigarette hole. So I took two
and I found a white shirt like Daddy wears to work and a tie with fishes on it and
a red sweater. And the yellow bathrobe that Daddy had when I was little and it
smelled like Daddy. I put the clothes in a bag and put the bag in the mud-room
closet. When I was coming out of the mud room Mark saw me and he said What
are you doing, asshole? And I said Nothing, asshole and he pulled my hair and I
stepped on his foot really hard and then he started to cry and went to tell. So I
went up to my room and played Television with Mr. Bear and Jane where Jane is
the movie star and Mr. Bear asks her about how it is being a movie star and she
says she really wants to be a veterinarian but she is so incredibly pretty she has
to be a movie star and Mr. Bear says maybe she could be a veterinarian when
she's old. And Etta knocked and said Why are you stepping on Mark? and I said
Because Mark pulled my hair for no reason and Etta said You two are getting on my
nerves and went away so that was okay. We ate dinner with just Etta because
Daddy and Mama went to a party. It was fried chicken with little peas and
chocolate cake and Mark got the biggest piece but I didn't say anything because I
licked the beaters. So after dinner I asked Etta if I could go outside and she said
did I have homework and I said Spelling and bring leaves for art class, and she said
Okay as long as you come in by dark. So I went and got my blue sweater with the
zebras and I got the bag and I went out and went to the clearing. But the man
wasn't there and I sat on the rock for a while and then I thought I better get some
leaves. So I went back to the garden and found some leaves from Mama's little
tree that she told me later was Ginkgo, and some leaves from the Maple and the
Oak. So then I went back to the clearing he still wasn't there and I thought Well, I
guess he just made up that he was coming and he didn't want pants so bad after all. And I
thought maybe Ruth was right cause I told her about the man and she said I was
making it up because people don't disappear in real life only on TV. Or maybe it
was a dream like when Buster died and I dreamed he was okay and he was in his
cage but I woke up and no Buster and Mama said Dreams are different than real life
but important too. And it was getting cold and I thought maybe I should just leave
the bag and if the man came he could have his pants. So I was walking back up
the path and there was this noise and somebody said Ouch. Dang, that hurt. And
then I was scared.
Henry: I kind of slam into the rock when I appear and scrape my knees. I am in
the clearing and the sun is setting beautifully in a spectacular J. M. W. Turner
blowout orange and red over the trees. The clearing is empty except for a
shopping bag full of clothes and I rapidly deduce that Clare has left these and
this is probably a day shortly after our first meeting. Clare is nowhere in sight
and I call her name softly. No response. I dig through the bag of clothes. There's
the pair of chinos and the beautiful pair of brown wool trousers, a hideous tie
with trout all over it, the Harvard sweater, the oxford-cloth white shirt with ring
around the collar and sweat stains under the arms, and the exquisite silk
bathrobe with Philip's monogram and a big tear over the pocket. All these clothes
are old friends, except for the tie, and I'm happy to see them. I don the chinos and
the sweater and bless Clare's apparently hereditary good taste and sense. I feel
great; except for the lack of shoes I'm well equipped for my current location in
spacetime. "Thanks, Clare, you did a great job " I call softly.
I am surprised when she appears at the entrance to the clearing. It's getting
dark quickly and Clare looks tiny and scared in the half light.
"Hi."
"Hi, Clare. Thanks for the clothes. They're perfect, and they'll keep me nice
and warm tonight."
"I have to go in soon."
"That's okay, it's almost dark. Is it a school night?"
"Uh-huh."
"What's the date?"
"Thursday, September 29,1977."
"That's very helpful. Thanks."
"How come you don't know that?"
"Well, I just got here. A few minutes ago it was Monday, March 27, 2000. It
was a rainy morning and I was making toast."
"But you wrote it down for me." She takes out a piece of Philip's law office
letterhead and holds it out for me. I walk to her and take it, and am interested to
see the date written on it in my careful block lettering. I pause and grope for the
best way to explain the vagaries of time travel to the small child who is Clare at
the moment.
"It's like this. You know how to use a tape recorder?"
"Mmhmm."
"Okay. So you put in a tape and you play it from the beginning to the end,
right?"
"Yeah...."
"That's how your life is. You get up in the morning and you eat breakfast and
you brush your teeth and you go to school, right? You don't get up and suddenly
find yourself at school eating lunch with Helen and Ruth and then all of a sudden
you're at home getting dressed, right?"
Clare giggles. "Right."
"Now for me, it's different. Because I am a time traveler, I jump around a lot
from one time to another. So it's like if you started the tape and played it for a
while but then you said Oh I want to hear that song again, so you played that
song and then you went back to where you left off but you wound the tape too
far ahead so you rewound it again but you still got it too far ahead. You see?"
"Sort of."
"Well, it's not the greatest analogy in the world. Basically, sometimes I get lost
in time and I don't know when I am."
" What's analogy?"
"It's when you try to explain something by saying it's like another thing. For
example, at the moment I am as snug as a bug in a rug in this nice sweater, and
you are as pretty as a picture, and Etta is going to be as mad as a hatter if you
don't go in pretty soon."
"Are you going to sleep here? You could come to our house, we have a guest
room."
"Gosh, that's very nice of you. U