"But whenever I am, that's my present. Shouldn't I be able to decide—"
"No. Apparently not."
"What did he say about the future?"
"Well, think. You go to the future, you do something, you come back to the present. Then the thing that you did is part of your past. So that's probably inevitable, too."
I feel a weird combination of freedom and despair. I'm sweating; he opens the window and cold air floods into the room. "But then I'm not responsible for anything I do while I'm not in the present."
He smiles. "Thank God."
"And everything has already happened."
"Sure looks that way." He runs his hand over his face, and I see that he could use a shave. "But he said that you have to behave as though you have free will, as though you are responsible for what you do."
"Why? What does it matter?"
"Apparently, if you don't, things are bad. Depressing."
"Did he know that personally?"
"Yes."
"So what happens next?"
"Dad ignores you for three weeks. And this"—he waves his hand at the bed—"we've got to stop meeting like this." I sigh. "Right, no problem. Anything else?" "Vivian Teska."
Vivian is this girl in Geometry whom I lust after. I've never said a word to her. "After class tomorrow, go up to her and ask her out." "I don't even know her."
"Trust me." He's smirking at me in a way that makes me wonder why on earth I would ever trust him but I want to believe. "Okay."
"I should get going. Money, please." I dole out twenty dollars. "More." I hand him another twenty. "That's all I've got."
"Okay." He's dressing, pulling clothes from the stash of things I don't mind never seeing again. "How about a coat?" I hand him a Peruvian skiing sweater that I've always hated. He makes a face and puts it on. We walk to the back door of the apartment. The church bells are tolling noon. "Bye," says my self.
"Good luck," I say, oddly moved by the sight of me embarking into the unknown, into a cold Chicago Sunday morning he doesn't belong in. He thumps down the wooden stairs, and I turn to the silent apartment.
Wednesday, November 17/Tuesday, September 28, 1982 (Henry is 19)
Henry: I'm in the back of a police car in Zion, Illinois. I am wearing handcuffs and not much else. The interior of this particular police car smells like cigarettes, leather, sweat, and another odor I can't identify that seems endemic to police cars. The odor of freak-outedness, perhaps. My left eye is swelling shut and the front of my body is covered with bruises and cuts and dirt from being tackled by the larger of the two policemen in an empty lot full of broken glass. The policemen are standing outside the car talking to the neighbors, at least one of whom evidently saw me trying to break into the yellow and white Victorian house we are parked in front of. I don't know where I am in time. I've been here for about an hour, and I have fucked up completely. I'm very hungry. I'm very tired. I'm supposed to be in Dr. Quarrie's Shakespeare seminar, but I'm sure I've managed to miss it. Too bad. We're doing Midsummer Night's Dream. The upside of this police car is: it's warm and I'm not in Chicago. Chicago's Finest hate me because I keep disappearing while I'm in custody, and they can't figure it out. Also I refuse to talk to them, so they still don't know who I am, or where I live. The day they find out, I'm toast because there are several outstanding warrants for my arrest: breaking and entering, shoplifting, resisting arrest, breaking arrest, trespassing, indecent exposure, robbery, und so weiter. From this one might deduce that I am a very inept criminal, but really the main problem is that it's so hard to be inconspicuous when you're naked. Stealth and speed are my main assets and so, when I try to burgle houses in broad daylight stark naked, sometimes it doesn't work out. I've been arrested seven times, and so far I've always vanished before they can fingerprint me or take a photo. The neighbors keep peering in the windows of the police car at me. I don't care. I don't care. This is taking a long time. Fuck, I hate this. I lean back and close my eyes. A car door opens. Cold air—my eyes fly open—for an instant I see the metal grid that separates the front of the car from the back, the cracked vinyl seats, my hands in the cuffs, my gooseflesh legs, the flat sky through the windshield, the black visored hat on the dashboard, the clipboard in the officer's hand, his red face, tufted graying eyebrows and jowls like drapes—everything shimmers, iridescent, butter fly-wing colors and the policeman says, "Hey, he's having some kinda fit—" and my teeth are chattering hard and before my eyes the police car vanishes and I am lying on my back in my own backyard. Yes. Yes! I fill my lungs with the sweet September night air. I sit up and rub my wrists, still marked where the handcuffs were. I laugh and laugh. I have escaped again! Houdini, Prospero, behold me! for I am a magician, too. Nausea overcomes me, and I heave bile onto Kimy's mums.