"You eat like a dog."
"I do not!" I am deeply offended. "I have opposable thumbs, thank you very much." "What are posable thumbs?"
"Do this." I make the "okay" sign. Clare makes the "okay" sign. "Opposable thumbs means you can do that. It means you can open jars and tie your shoes and other things animals can't do."
Clare is not happy with this. "Sister Carmelita says animals don't have souls."
"Of course animals have souls. Where did she get that idea?"
"She said the Pope says."
"The Pope's an old meanie. Animals have much nicer souls than we do. They never tell lies or blow anybody up." "They eat each other."
"Well, they have to eat each other; they can't go to Dairy Queen and get a large vanilla cone with sprinkles, can they?" This is Clare's favorite thing to eat in the whole wide world (as a child. As an adult Clare's favorite food is sushi, particularly sushi from Katsu on Peterson Avenue).
"They could eat grass."
"So could we, but we don't. We eat hamburgers."
Clare sits down at the edge of the clearing. "Etta says I shouldn't talk to strangers."
"That's good advice."
Silence.
"When are you going to disappear?"
"When I'm good and ready to. Are you bored with me?" Clare rolls her eyes. "What are you working on?"
"Penmanship."
"May I see?"
Clare gets up carefully and collects a few pieces of stationery while fixing me with her baleful stare. I lean forward slowly and extend my hand as though she is a Rottweiler, and she quickly shoves the papers at me and retreats. I look at them intently, as though she has just handed me a bunch of Bruce Rogers' original drawings for Centaur or the Book of Kells or something. She has printed, over and over, large and larger, "Clare Anne Abshire." All the ascenders and descenders have swirling curlicues and all the counters have smiley faces in them. It's quite beautiful.
"This is lovely."
Clare is pleased, as always when she receives homage for her work. "I could make one for you."
"I would like that. But I'm not allowed to take anything with me when I time travel, so maybe you could keep it for me and I could just enjoy it while I'm here."
"Why can't you take 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?"