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

tell that at the funeral. (to PAUL)

Would you please pass the fucking file:///G|/Program%20Files/eMule/Incoming/K...gut%20-%20Happy%20Birthday%20Wanda-June.htm (107 of 143) [10/16/2004 4:36:53 PM]

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, WANDA JUNE

catsup again? Was it dangerous testing planes?

LOOSELEAF

I dunno. Who knows? You know-you're up there, and you're in some plane nobody ever flew before. You put her into a dive, and everything starts screaming and shaking, and maybe some pipe breaks and squirts oil or gasoline or hydraulic fluid in your face. You wonder how the hell you ever got in such a mess, and then you pull back on the controls, and you black out for a couple of seconds. When you come to, everything's usually fairly okay--except maybe you threw up all over yourself. It's just another job, but you try and tell Alice that.

HAROLD

Insurance!

SHUTTLE

You actually sold insurance!

LOOSELEAF

I tried.

(indicating HAROLD) I sold him some. That was the only insurance I ever sold.

Hyena doorbell laughs.

SHUTTLE

What an awful sound!

HAROLD

Get used to it.

(to PAUL)

Back door, Paul.

PAUL exits to the kitchen.

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HAPPY BIRTHDAY, WANDA JUNE

HAROLD

(to SHUTTLE)

It's possible, of course, that you'll die in Africa.

SHUTTLE

I've considered that.

HAROLD

Selling vacuum cleaners isn't the best preparation you could have.

SHUTTLE

I just want one true adventure before I die.

HAROLD

That can be arranged.

PAUL appears at the mouth of the doorway. He has something amazing to announce.

PAUL

Dad?

HAROLD

Who was it?

PAUL

It's Mom.

He steps aside. PENELOPE appears. HAROLD and SHUTTLE stand, HAROLD angrily.

LOOSELEAF

(openly, cheerfully) Hi, Penelope.

HAROLD

(to LOOSELEAF)

Shut up, you ninny!

(to PENELOPE)

You were never to come here again-for any reason whatsoever!

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HAPPY BIRTHDAY, WANDA JUNE

PENELOPE

I came for my clothes.

HAROLD

Sneaking in the back door.

PENELOPE

I rang. It seemed like the proper door for a servile, worthless organism to use.

HAROLD

Your clothes are at the city dump by now. Perhaps you can get a map from the Department of Sanitation.

PENELOPE

I came for Paul as well.

HAROLD

If he wants to go.

PENELOPE

You took him to the funeral, I hear.

HAROLD

He'd never seen a corpse. He's seen a dozen now.

PENELOPE

A dozen?

HAROLD

It's a big and busy funeral home.

PENELOPE

(to PAUL)

Did you like it, dear?

HAROLD

It isn't a matter of liking. It's a matter of getting used to death-as a perfectly natural thing. Would you mind leaving? No woman file:///G|/Program%20Files/eMule/Incoming/K...gut%20-%20Happy%20Birthday%20Wanda-June.htm (110 of 143) [10/16/2004 4:36:53 PM]

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, WANDA JUNE

ever walks out on Harold Ryan, and then comes back--for anything.

PENELOPE

Unless she has nerve.

HAROLD

More nerve than the doctor, I must admit. He hasn't been home for two days. Has he suddenly lost interest in sleep and color television--and the violin?

PENELOPE

He knows you shattered his violin.

HAROLD

I'm dying to hear of his reaction. The thrill of smashing something isn't in the smashing, but in the owner's reactions.

PENELOPE

He cried.

HAROLD

About a broomstick and a cigar box--and the attenuated intestines of an alley cat.

PENELOPE

Two hundred years old.

HAROLD

He feels awful loss--which was precisely my intention.

PENELOPE

(moving toward the violin, and,

incidentally, placing herself much closer to SHUTTLE)

He had hoped that someone would be playing it still--two hundred years file:///G|/Program%20Files/eMule/Incoming/K...gut%20-%20Happy%20Birthday%20Wanda-June.htm (111 of 143) [10/16/2004 4:36:53 PM]

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, WANDA JUNE

from now.

HAROLD

(echoing, expressing the futility of such long-term expectations) Hope.

He spots the vacuum cleaner, probes it with his toe, asks SHUTTLE with seriousness.

HAROLD

Do you hope with all your heart that someone will be using this vacuum cleaner two hundred years from now?

SHUTTLE starts to answer, but stops, supposing that he is being made sport of.

HAROLD

Fifty years?

SHUTTLE

You're making a joke.

HAROLD

(not joking)

I'm interested in long-term expectations.

SHUTTLE

(flatly, protecting his dignity)

It's engineered to last about fifteen years.

HAROLD

(downstage center, addressing the

civilized world)

Things. Oh--you silly people and your things. Things, things, things.

PENELOPE

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HAPPY BIRTHDAY, WANDA JUNE

(to SHUTTLE, as

HAROLD reflects

majestically on the emptiness of materialism) You and Harold are friends?

SHUTTLE

(revealing how mixed and worried his

feelings are)

He's the most wonderful guy I ever met, Penelope. He's the most complicated guy I ever met. I can't believe it, but he's going to take me to Africa with him.

HAROLD

Things.

PENELOPE

You feel I've done a dreadful thing--leaving him?

SHUTTLE

(almost hypnotized) If I were married to him, I sure wouldn't walk out.

HAROLD

(directly to the audience) Never mind the condition of your body and your spirit! Look after your things, your things!

PENELOPE

(to LOOSELEAF)

And you, Colonel? Let me guess: You don't know.

LOOSELEAF

I dunno.

HAROLD

(to the audience)

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HAPPY BIRTHDAY, WANDA JUNE

Go live in a safe-deposit box--with your things.

LOOSELEAF

Jesus--I wouldn't want to be married to him. You know?

HAROLD

What's this?

LOOSELEAF

I wouldn't want to be married to me. We're too crazy. You know?

HAROLD

In what way, pray tell?

LOOSELEAF

I didn't like that violin thing. That was sad.

HAROLD

Tit for tat--as simple as that.

LOOSELEAF

You never played a violin.

HAROLD

You did?

LOOSELEAF

Yeah. I practically forgot. But after you busted that thing, I got to thinking, "Jesus--maybe I'll start the violin again." That didn't just belong to Woodly. That belonged to everybody. Maybe he would have sold it to me, and I could have some fun. After you busted the violin, boy, and Penelope walked out, I thought to myself, "Jesus--who could blame her?"

HAROLD

Maybe it's time you got out. file:///G|/Program%20Files/eMule/Incoming/K...gut%20-%20Happy%20Birthday%20Wanda-June.htm (114 of 143) [10/16/2004 4:36:53 PM]

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, WANDA JUNE

LOOSELEAF

Me?

HAROLD

You.

LOOSELEAF

Okay.

(pause)

Okay.

HAROLD

You're an imbecile.

LOOSELEAF

I know you think that.

HAROLD

Everybody thinks that.

LOOSELEAF

Anybody who'd drop an atom bomb on a city has to be pretty dumb.

HAROLD

The one direct, decisive, intelligent act of your life!

LOOSELEAF

(shaking his head) I don't think so.

(pause)

It could have been.

HAROLD

If what?

LOOSELEAF

If I hadn't done it. If I'd said to myself, "Screw it. I'm going to let all those people down there live."

HAROLD

They were enemies. We were at war. file:///G|/Program%20Files/eMule/Incoming/K...gut%20-%20Happy%20Birthday%20Wanda-June.htm (115 of 143) [10/16/2004 4:36:53 PM]

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, WANDA JUNE

LOOSELEAF