The Time Traveler's Wife, Page 20

  I find Henry in the kitchen, listening patiently as one of Laura's inexplicable jock friends babbles on about football. I catch the eye of his blond, button-nosed girlfriend, and she hauls him off to get another drink.

  Henry says, "Look, Clare--Baby Punks!" I look and he's pointing at Jodie, Laura's fourteen-year-old sister, and her boyfriend, Bobby Hardgrove. Bobby has a green Mohawk and the full ripped T-shirt/safety pin getup, and Jodie is trying to look like Lydia Lunch but instead just looks like a raccoon having a bad hair day. Somehow they seem like they're at a Halloween party instead of a Christmas party. They look stranded and defensive. But Henry is enthusiastic. "Wow. How old are they, about twelve?"

  "Fourteen."

  "Let's see, fourteen, from ninety-one, that makes them...oh my god, they were born in 1977. I feel old. I need another drink." Laura passes through the kitchen holding a tray of Jell-O shots. Henry takes two and downs them both in rapid succession, then makes a face. "Ugh. How revolting." I laugh. "What do you think they listen to?" Henry says.

  "Dunno. Why don't you go over and ask them?"

  Henry looks alarmed. "Oh, I couldn't. I'd scare them."

  "I think you're scared of them."

  "Well, you may be right. They look so tender and young and green, like baby peas or something."

  "Did you ever dress like that?"

  Henry snorts derisively. "What do you think? Of course not. Those children are emulating British punk. I am an American punk. No, I used to be into more of a Richard Hell kind of look."

  "Why don't you go talk to them? They seem lonely"

  "You have to come and introduce us and hold my hand." We venture across the kitchen with caution, like Levi-Strauss approaching a pair of cannibals. Jodie and Bobby have that fight or flight look you see on deer on the Nature Channel.

  "Um, hi, Jodie, Bobby."

  "Hi, Clare," says Jodie. I've known Jodie her whole life, but she seems shy all of a sudden, and I decide that the neo-punk apparel must be Bobby's idea.

  "You guys looked kind of, um, bored, so I brought Henry over to meet you. He likes your, um, outfits."

  "Hi," says Henry, acutely embarrassed. "I was just curious--that is, I was wondering, what do you listen to?"

  "Listen to?" Bobby repeats.

  "You know--music. What music are you into?"

  Bobby lights up. "Well, the Sex Pistols," he says, and pauses.

  "Of course," says Henry, nodding. "And the Clash?"

  "Yeah. And, um, Nirvana..."

  "Nirvana's good," says Henry.

  "Blondie?" says Jodie, as though her answer might be wrong.

  "I like Blondie," I say. "And Henry likes Deborah Harry."

  "Ramones?" says Henry. They nod in unison. "How about Patti Smith?"

  Jodie and Bobby look blank.

  "Iggy Pop?"

  Bobby shakes his head. "Pearl Jam," he offers.

  I intercede. "We don't have much of a radio station up here," I tell Henry. "There's no way for them to find out about this stuff."

  "Oh," Henry says. He pauses. "Look, do you want me to write some things down for you? To listen to?" Jodie shrugs. Bobby nods, looking serious, and excited. I forage for paper and pen in my purse. Henry sits down at the kitchen table, and Bobby sits across from him. "Okay," says Henry. "You have to go back to the sixties, right? You start with the Velvet Underground, in New York. And then, right over here in Detroit, you've got the MC5, and Iggy Pop and the Stooges. And then back in New York, there were The New York Dolls, and The Heartbreakers--"

  "Tom Petty?" says Jodie. "We've heard of him."

  "Um, no, this was a totally different band," says Henry. "Most of them died in the eighties."

  "Plane crash?" asks Bobby.

  "Heroin," Henry corrects. "Anyway, there was Television, and Richard Hell and the Voidoids, and Patti Smith."

  "Talking Heads," I add.

  "Huh. I dunno. Would you really consider them punk?"

  "They were there."

  "Okay," Henry adds them to his list, "Talking Heads. So then, things move over to England--"

  "I thought punk started in London," says Bobby.

  "No. Of course," says Henry, pushing back his chair, "some people, me included, believe that punk is just the most recent manifestation of this, this spirit, this feeling, you know, that things aren't right and that in fact things are so wrong that the only thing we can do is to say Fuck It, over and over again, really loud, until someone stops us."

  "Yes," Bobby says quietly, his face glowing with an almost religious fervor under his spiked hair. "Yes."

  "You're corrupting a minor," I tell Henry.

  "Oh, he would get there anyway, without me. Wouldn't you?"

  "I've been trying, but it ain't easy, here."

  "I can appreciate that" says Henry. He's adding to the list. I look over his shoulder. Sex Pistols, The Clash, Gang of Four, Buzzcocks, Dead Kennedys, X, The Mekons, The Raincoats, The Dead Boys, New Order, The Smiths, Lora Logic, The Au Pairs, Big Black, PiL, The Pixies, The Breeders, Sonic Youth...

  "Henry, they're not going to be able to get any of that up here." He nods, and jots the phone number and address for Vintage Vinyl at the bottom of the sheet. "You do have a record player, right?"

  "My parents have one," Bobby says. Henry winces.

  "What do you really like?" I ask Jodie. I feel as though she's fallen out of the conversation during the male bonding ritual Henry and Bobby are conducting.

  "Prince," she admits. Henry and I let out a big Whoo! and I start singing 1999 as loud as I can, and Henry jumps up and we're doing a bump and grind across the kitchen. Laura hears us and runs off to put the actual record on and just like that, it's a dance party.

  HENRY: We're driving back to Clare's parents' house from Laura's party. Clare says, "You're awfully quiet."

  "I was thinking about those kids. The Baby Punks."

  "Oh, yeah. What about them?"

  "I was trying to figure out what would cause that kid--"

  "Bobby."

  "--Bobby, to revert, to latch on to music that was made the year he was born..."

  "Well, I was really into the Beatles," Clare points out. "They broke up the year before I was born."

  "Yeah, well, what is that about? I mean, you should have been swooning over Depeche Mode, or Sting or somebody. Bobby and his girlfriend ought to be listening to The Cure if they want to dress up. But instead they've stumbled into this thing, punk, that they don't know anything about--"

  "I'm sure it's mostly to annoy their parents. Laura was telling me that her dad won't let Jodie leave the house dressed like that. She puts everything in her backpack and changes in the ladies' room at school," says Clare.

  "But that's what everybody did, back when. I mean, it's about asserting your individualism, I understand that, but why are they asserting the individualism of 1977? They ought to be wearing plaid flannel."

  "Why do you care?" Clare says.

  "It depresses me. It's a reminder that the moment I belonged to is dead, and not just dead, but forgotten. None of this stuff ever gets played on the radio, I can't figure out why. It's like it never happened. That's why I get excited when I see little kids pretending to be punks, because I don't want it all to just disappear."

  "Well," says Clare, "you can always go back. Most people are glued to the present; you get to be there again and again."

  I think about this. "It's just sad, Clare. Even when I get to do something cool, like, say, go to see a concert I missed the first time around, maybe a band that's broken up or somebody that died, it's sad watching them because I know what's going to happen."

  "But how is that different from the rest of your life?"

  "It isn't." We have reached the private road that leads to Clare's house. She turns in.

  "Henry?"

  "Yeah?"

  "If you could stop, now...if you could not time travel any more, and there would be no consequences, would you?"

  "If I could stop now a
nd still meet you?"

  "You've already met me."

  "Yes. I would stop." I glance at Clare, dim in the dark car.

  "It would be funny" she says, "I would have all these memories that you would never get to have. It would be like--well, it is like being with somebody who has amnesia. I've been feeling that way ever since we got here."

  I laugh. "So in the future you can watch me lurch along into each memory, until I've got the complete set. Collect 'em all."

  She smiles. "I guess so." Clare pulls into the circular driveway in front of the house. "Home sweet home."

  Later, after we have crept upstairs into our separate rooms and I have put on pajamas and brushed my teeth and sneaked into Clare's room and remembered to lock the door this time and we are warm in her narrow bed, she whispers, "I wouldn't want you to miss it."

  "Miss what?"

  "All the things that happened. When I was a kid. I mean, so far they have only halfway happened, because you aren't there yet. So when they happen to you, then it's real."

  "I'm on my way." I run my hand over her belly, and down between her legs. Clare squeals.

  "Shhh."

  "Your hand is icy."

  "Sorry." We fuck carefully, silently. When I finally come it's so intense that I get a horrible headache, and for a minute I'm afraid I'm going to disappear, but I don't. Instead I lie in Clare's arms, cross-eyed with pain. Clare snores, quiet animal snores that feel like bulldozers running through my head. I want my own bed, in my own apartment. Home sweet home. No place like home. Take me home, country roads. Home is where the heart is. But my heart is here. So I must be home. Clare sighs, turns her head, and is quiet. Hi, honey, I'm home. I'm home.

  CLARE: It's a clear, cold morning. Breakfast has been eaten. The car is packed. Mark and Sharon have already left with Daddy for the airport in Kalamazoo. Henry is in the hall saying goodbye to Alicia; I run upstairs to Mama's room.

  "Oh, is it so late?" she asks when she sees me wearing my coat and boots. "I thought you were staying to lunch." Mama is sitting at her desk, which as always is covered with pieces of paper which are covered with her extravagant handwriting.

  "What are you working on?" Whatever it is, it's full of scratched-out words and doodles.

  Mama turns the page face down. She's very secretive about her writing. "Nothing. It's a poem about the garden under the snow. It isn't coming out well at all." Mama stands up, walks to the window. "Funny how poems are never as nice as the real garden. My poems, anyway."

  I can't really comment on this because Mama has never let me read one of her poems, so I say, "Well, the garden is beautiful," and she waves the compliment away. Praise means nothing to Mama, she doesn't believe it. Only criticism can flush her cheeks and catch her attention. If I were to say something disparaging she would remember it always. There is an awkward pause. I realize that she is waiting for me to leave so she can go back to her writing.

  "Bye, Mama," I say. I kiss her cool face, and escape.

  HENRY: We've been on the road for about an hour. For miles the highway was bordered by pine trees; now we are in flat land full of barbed-wire fences. Neither of us has spoken in a while. As soon as I notice it the silence is strange, and so I say something.

  "That wasn't so bad." My voice is too cheerful, too loud in the small car. Clare doesn't answer, and I look over at her. She's crying; tears are running down her cheeks as she drives, pretending that she's not crying. I've never seen Clare cry before, and something about her silent stoic tears unnerves me. "Clare. Clare, maybe--could you maybe pull over for a minute?" Without looking at me, she slows down and drives onto the shoulder, stops. We are somewhere in Indiana. The sky is blue and there are many crows in the field at the side of the road. Clare leans her forehead against the steering wheel and takes a long ragged breath.

  "Clare." I'm talking to the back of her head. "Clare, I'm sorry. Was it--did I fuck up somehow? What happened? I--"

  "It's not you," she says under her veil of hair. We sit like this for minutes.

  "What's wrong, then?" Clare shakes her head, and I sit and stare at her. Finally I gather enough courage to touch her. I stroke her hair, feeling the bones of her neck and spine through the thick shimmering waves. She turns and I'm holding her awkwardly across the divided seats and now Clare is crying hard, shuddering.

  Then she's quiet. Then she says, "God damn Mama."

  Later we are sitting in a traffic jam on the Dan Ryan Expressway, listening to Irma Thomas. "Henry? Was it--did you mind very much?"

  "Mind what?" I ask, thinking about Clare crying.

  But she says, "My family? Are they--did they seem--?"

  "They were fine, Clare. I really liked them. Especially Alicia."

  "Sometimes I just want to push them all into Lake Michigan and watch them sink."

  "Um, I know the feeling. Hey, I think your dad and your brother have seen me before. And Alicia said something really strange just as we were leaving."

  "I saw you with Dad and Mark once. And Alicia definitely saw you in the basement one day when she was twelve."

  "Is that going to be a problem?"

  "No, because the explanation is too weird to be believed." We both laugh, and the tension that has ridden with us all the way to Chicago dissipates. Traffic begins to accelerate. Soon Clare stops in front of my apartment building. I take my bag from the trunk, and I watch as Clare pulls away and glides down Dearborn, and my throat closes up. Hours later I identify what I am feeling as loneliness, and Christmas is officially over for another year.

  HOME IS ANYWHERE YOU HANG YOUR HEAD

  Saturday, May 9, 1992 (Henry is 28)

  HENRY: I've decided that the best strategy is to just ask straight out; either he says yes or no. I take the Ravenswood El to Dad's apartment, the home of my youth. I haven't been here much lately; Dad seldom invites me over and I'm not given to showing up unannounced, the way I'm about to do. But if he won't answer his phone, what does he expect? I get off at Western and walk west on Lawrence. The two-flat is on Virginia; the back porch looks over the Chicago River. As I stand in the foyer fumbling for my key Mrs. Kim peeps out of her door and furtively gestures for me to step in. I am alarmed; Kimy is usually very hearty and loud and affectionate, and although she knows everything there is to know about us she never interferes. Well, almost never. Actually, she gets pretty involved in our lives, but we like it. I sense that she is really upset.

  "You like a Coke?" She's already marching toward her kitchen.

  "Sure." I set my backpack by the front door and follow her. In the kitchen she cracks the metal lever of an old-fashioned ice cube tray. I always marvel at Kimy's strength. She must be seventy and to me she seems exactly the same as when I was little. I spent a lot of time down here, helping her make dinner for Mr. Kim (who died five years ago), reading, doing homework, and watching TV. I sit at the kitchen table and she sets a glass of Coke brimming with ice before me. She has a half-consumed cup of instant coffee in one of the bone china cups with hummingbirds painted around the rim. I remember the first time she allowed me to drink coffee out of one of those cups; I was thirteen. I felt like a grown-up.

  "Long time no see, buddy."

  Ouch. "I know. I'm sorry...time has been moving kind of fast, lately."

  She appraises me. Kimy has piercing black eyes, which seem to see the very back of my brain. Her flat Korean face conceals all emotion unless she wants you to see it. She is a fantastic bridge player.

  "You been time traveling?"

  "No. In fact, I haven't been anywhere for months. It's been great."

  "You got a girlfriend?"

  I grin.

  "Ho ho. Okay, I know all about it. What's her name? How come you don't bring her around?"

  "Her name is Clare. I have offered to bring her around several times and he always turns me down."

  "You don't offer to me. You come here, Richard will come, too. We'll have duck almondine."

  As usual I am impressed with my own ob
tusity. Mrs. Kim knows the perfect way to dissolve all social difficulties. My dad feels no compunction about being a jerk to me, but he will always make an effort for Mrs. Kim, as well he should, since she pretty much raised his child and probably isn't charging him market rent.

  "You're a genius."

  "Yes, I am. How come I don't get a MacArthur grant? I ask you?"

  "Dunno. Maybe you're not getting out of the house enough. I don't think the MacArthur people are hanging out at Bingo World."

  "No, they already got enough money. So when you getting married?"

  Coke comes up my nose, I'm laughing so hard. Kimy lurches up and starts thumping me on the back. I subside, and she sits back down, grumpily. "What's so funny? I'm just asking. I get to ask, huh?"

  "No, that's not it--I mean, I'm not laughing because it's ludicrous, I'm laughing because you are reading my mind. I came over to ask Dad to let me have Mom's rings."

  "Ohhhhh. Boy, I don't know. Wow, you're getting married. Hey! That's great! She gonna say yes?"

  "I think so. I'm ninety-nine percent sure."

  "Well, that's pretty good, I don't know about your mom's rings, though. See, what I want to tell you--" her eyes glance at the ceiling "your dad, he's not doing too good. He's yelling a lot, and throwing stuff, and he's not practicing."

  "Oh. Well, that's not totally surprising. But it's not good. You been up there, lately?" Kimy is ordinarily in Dad's apartment a lot. I think she surreptitiously cleans it. I've seen her defiantly ironing Dad's tux shirts, daring me to comment.

  "He won't let me in!" She's on the verge of tears. This is very bad. My dad certainly has his problems, but it is monstrous of him to let them affect Kimy.

  "But when he's not there?" Usually I pretend not to know that Kimy is in and out of Dad's apartment without his knowledge; she pretends that she would never do such a thing. But actually I'm appreciative, now that I no longer live here. Someone has to keep an eye on him.

  She looks guilty, and crafty, and slightly alarmed that I am mentioning this. "Okay. Yeah, I go in once, 'cause I worry about him. He's got trash everywhere; we're gonna get bugs if he keep this up. He's got nothing in that fridge but beer and lemons. He's got so much clothes on the bed I don't think he sleeps in it. I don't know what he's doing. I never seen him this bad since when your mom died."

  "Oh boy. What do you think?" There's a big crash above our heads, which means Dad has dropped something on the kitchen floor. He's probably just getting up. "I guess I'd better go up there."