Happy Birthday, Wanda June by Kurt Vonnegut (a court of thorns and roses ebook free .txt) 📗

taking her to the airport a few minutes from now. She's going to East St. Louis--to visit an aunt.

PENELOPE

Tell her to have a nice trip.

WOODLY

(moving towards the file:///G|/Program%20Files/eMule/Incoming/Ku...egut%20-%20Happy%20Birthday%20Wanda-June.htm (78 of 143) [10/16/2004 4:36:53 PM]

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, WANDA JUNE

front door)

Thanks.

HAROLD laughs. This stings WOODLY to a cold, peace-loving anger.

WOODLY

I'm going to have to report you to the Department of Health.

HAROLD

What for?

WOODLY

Quarantine, possibly. You may be suffering from a loathsome disease which the American people could do without. Goodbye.

He exits instantly.

HAROLD

Now that's what I call fun.

PENELOPE

Ghastly, cruel, unnecessary.

HAROLD

You'll get so you enjoy twitting weaklings again. You used to eat it up.

PENELOPE

I did?

HAROLD

We were one hell of a pair--and we'll be one again. What we need is a honeymoon. Let's start right now.

PENELOPE

A trip, you mean?

HAROLD

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HAPPY BIRTHDAY, WANDA JUNE

I had a trip. We'll honeymoon here. (to PAUL)

Go out and play.

PAUL

Play?

HAROLD

Your mother and I do not wish to be disturbed for three full hours.

PENELOPE

He hasn't had breakfast yet.

HAROLD

Buy yourself breakfast.

(takes his billfold from his hip pocket, hands PAUL a $100 bill) There we go.

PAUL

A hundred dollars!

HAROLD

The smallest thing I've got.

PAUL

Can I get dressed first?

HAROLD

Make it fast.

PAUL exits to his bedroom. HAROLD turns to PENELOPE.

HAROLD

Honeymoon! Honeymoon! Say it: Honeymoon!

PENELOPE

It's so--so stark.

HAROLD

You used to like it stark!

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HAPPY BIRTHDAY, WANDA JUNE

PENELOPE

Just--bang--we have a honeymoon.

HAROLD

(beginning to stalk her cunningly)

I'm not going to strike you. I am going to be as gentle as pie--as lemon meringue pie. You mustn't run away now. This is your loving husband approaching. I'm your husband. Society approves!

PENELOPE wants to run, but doesn't.

HAROLD

Good! You held your ground. HAROLD is very close now, but not touching her.

HAROLD

Now--turn around, if you would.

PENELOPE

Turn around?

HAROLD

(laughing)

I'm not about to introduce to you a jungle novelty. What I have in mind is massage--a perfectly decent massage. Turn around, turn around. PENELOPE obeys.

HAROLD

I'm going to touch your shoulders very gently now. You mustn't scream.

(touches her

shoulders gently, expertly) So tense, so tense.

PENELOPE

You shouldn't have talked to file:///G|/Program%20Files/eMule/Incoming/Ku...egut%20-%20Happy%20Birthday%20Wanda-June.htm (81 of 143) [10/16/2004 4:36:53 PM]

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, WANDA JUNE

Norbert that way.

HAROLD

You're thinking with your brain instead of your body. That's why you're so tense! Forget Norbert. Relax. It's body time.

PENELOPE

I have a brain.

HAROLD

We all do. But now it's body time. Relax. Ideally, the body of a woman should feel like a hot water bottle filled with Devonshire cream. You feel like a paper bag crammed with curtain rods. Think of your muscles one by one. Let them go slack. Relax. Let the brain go blank. Relax. That's the idea-that's my girl. Now the small of the back. Let those knots over those kidneys unsnarl.

PAUL

(entering, dressed to go out and play)

Dad-HAROLD

(hanging on to

PENELOPE, but knowing the mood has been broken) Couldn't you have vanished quietly out the back door?

PAUL

A hundred dollars for breakfast?

HAROLD

Leave a tip.

PENELOPE

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HAPPY BIRTHDAY, WANDA JUNE

(suddenly twisting away, having been

nearly hypnotized) I have some change!

HAROLD

Ram it up your ass!

He realizes at once that his violent side has severely damaged the side of him which is the great seducer. PENELOPE and PAUL are straight as ramrods.

HAROLD

I do beg your pardon.

(sincerely)

Those words were illy chosen. There is tension in all of us here. Something you must both understand, however, is that the head of this household is home, and he is Harold Ryan, and people do what he says when he says it. That's the way this particular clock is constructed. Lion doorbell roars.

HAROLD

Sometimes even I hate that thing. PAUL goes reeling to the door in terror, admits LOOSELEAF, who has also been sleeping in his clothes.

LOOSELEAF

(walking right in) I've been looking at motorcycles.

HAROLD

Go home!

LOOSELEAF

You ever own a motorcycle?

HAROLD

(to PENELOPE)

You're right! We'll take a trip. file:///G|/Program%20Files/eMule/Incoming/Ku...egut%20-%20Happy%20Birthday%20Wanda-June.htm (83 of 143) [10/16/2004 4:36:53 PM]

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, WANDA JUNE

A trip is what we'll take. (to LOOSELEAF)

I don't want to talk about motorcycles. I don't want to talk about tits. Go home!

LOOSELEAF

Haven't got one.

PENELOPE

(to LOOSELEAF)

And you went home unannounced, too?

LOOSELEAF

I dunno. Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! I did.

HAROLD

And how were things?

LOOSELEAF

Let's talk about something else.

PENELOPE

(to HAROLD)

Alice got married again.

LOOSELEAF

She did?

PENELOPE

You didn't even find that out?

LOOSELEAF

There was so much going on.

PENELOPE

She married an accountant named Stanley Kestenbaum.

LOOSELEAF

So that's it! "Kestenbaum, Kestenbaum." Everybody was yelling

"Kestenbaum, Kestenbaum." I thought it was some foreign language. file:///G|/Program%20Files/eMule/Incoming/Ku...egut%20-%20Happy%20Birthday%20Wanda-June.htm (84 of 143) [10/16/2004 4:36:53 PM]

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, WANDA JUNE

HAROLD

Otherwise, how are things?

LOOSELEAF

I sure didn't expect her to drop dead.

PENELOPE

Dead!

LOOSELEAF

Jesus.

PENELOPE

(sick)

Alice is dead?

LOOSELEAF

No, no--shit no.

(stops short)

Excuse me, Penelope.

PENELOPE

For what?

LOOSELEAF

For saying "shit." Or is that okay now?

PENELOPE

(shrilly)

Who's dead?

LOOSELEAF

My mother-in-law. Fire engines, pulmotors, doctors, cops, coroners-PENELOPE What happened?

LOOSELEAF

Well--I walked up to the front door. I was still alive. Big surprise. I rang the doorbell, and old Mrs. Wheeler answered. She had her Goddamn knitting. I said, "Guess file:///G|/Program%20Files/eMule/Incoming/Ku...egut%20-%20Happy%20Birthday%20Wanda-June.htm (85 of 143) [10/16/2004 4:36:53 PM]

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, WANDA JUNE

who?" She conked right out.

PENELOPE

How horrible.

LOOSELEAF

Yeah--cripes. I never did get any sense out of Alice. She found me holding up the old lady, dead as a mackerel. It was a bitch. You know--maybe Mrs. Wheeler was going to die then and there anyway, even if I'd been the paper boy. Maybe not. I dunno, boy. That's civilian life for you. Who knows what kills anybody?

HAROLD

Could have happened to anybody.

LOOSELEAF

First Nagasaki--now this.

HAROLD

How about breakfast, wife?

PENELOPE

Breakfast?

HAROLD

(as though to a waitress) Scrambled eggs, kippered herring, fried potatoes--and a whole onion. I want