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come now , no matter what, and the poor actors could strain to get off their gags in time, but always they were just this much early, that much late.
    â€œIt’s late,” the television said, and Charlie started awake, vaguely surprised to see that the program had changed: Now it was a demonstration of a convenient electric breast pump to store up natural mother’s milk for those times when you just can’t be with baby. “It’s late.”
    â€œHello, Jock,” Charlie said.
    â€œDon’t sleep in front of the television again, Charlie.”
    â€œLeave me alone, swine,” Charlie said. And then: “Okay, turn it off.”
    He hadn’t finished giving the order when the television flickered and went white, then settled down into its perpetual springtime scene that meant off . But in the flicker Charlie thought he saw—who? Name? From the distant past. A girl. Before the name came to him, there came another memory: a small hand resting lightly on his knee as they sat together, as light as a long-legged fly upon a stream. In his memory he did not turn to look at her; he was talking to others. But he knew just where she would be if he turned to look. Small, with mousy hair, and yet a face that was always the child Juliet. But that was not her name. Not Juliet, though she was Juliet’s age in that memory. I am Charlie , he thought. She is—Rachel .
    Rachel Carpenter. In the flicker on the screen hers was the face the random light had brought him, and so he remembered Rachel as he pulled his ancient body from the chair; thought of Rachel as he peeled the clothing from his frail skeleton, delicately, lest some rough motion strip away the wrinkled skin like cellophane.
    And Jock, who of course did not switch himself off with the television, recited:
    â€œAn aged man is a paltry thing, a tattered coat upon a stick.”
    â€œShut up,” Charlie ordered.
    â€œUnless Soul clap its hands.”
    â€œI said shut up!”
    â€œAnd sing, and louder sing, for every tatter in its mortal dress.”
    â€œAre you finished?” Charlie asked. He knew Jock was finished. After all, Charlie had programmed him to recite— it to recite—just that fragment every night when his shorts hit the floor.
    He stood naked in the middle of the room and thought of Rachel, whom he had not thought of in years. It was a trick of being old, that the room he was in now so easily vanished, and in its place a memory could take hold. I’ve made my fortune from time machines , he thought, and now I discover that every aged person is his own time machine . For now he stood naked. No, that was a trick of memory; memory had these damnable tricks. He was not naked. He only felt naked, as Rachel sat in the car beside him. Her voice—he had almost forgotten her voice—was soft. Even when she shouted, it got more whispery, so that if she shouted, it would have all the wind of the world in it and he wouldn’t hear it at all, would only feel it cold on his naked skin. That was the voice she was using now, saying yes. I loved you when I was twelve, and when I was thirteen, and when I was fourteen, but when you got back from playing God in São Paulo, you didn’t call me. All those letters, and then for three months you didn’t call me and I knew that you thought I was just a child and I fell in love with—Name? Name gone. Fell in love with a boy , and ever since then you’ve been treating me like. Like. No, she’d never say shit , not in that voice. And take some of the anger out, that’s right. Here are the words…here they come: You could have had me, Charlie, but now all you can do is try to make me miserable. It’s too late, the time’s gone by, the time’s over, so stop criticizing me. Leave me alone .
    First to last, all in a capsule. The words are nothing, Charlie realized. A dozen women, not least his dear departed wife, had said