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

Yeah, Jesus--but wars would be a lot better, I think, if guys would say to themselves sometimes,

"Jesus--I'm not going to do that to the enemy. That's too much." You could have been the manufacturer of that violin there, even though you don't know how to make a violin, just by not busting it up. I could have been the father of all those people in Nagasaki, and the mother, too, just by not dropping the bomb. (pause)

I sent 'em to Heaven instead--and I don't think there is one.

HAROLD

Goodbye, Looseleaf.

LOOSELEAF walks around and gathers his things.

LOOSELEAF

So long, you guys.

PENELOPE

What will you do, Colonel?

LOOSELEAF

I dunno. Marry the first whore who's nice to me, I guess. Get a job in a motorcycle shop. So long, you guys.

PENELOPE kisses LOOSELEAF. Everybody but HAROLD acknowledges his departure is some way. HAROLD turns his back. LOOSELEAF exits, closes door. Silence.

SHUTTLE

Who's going to fly our helicopter now?

HAROLD

(blackly, tautly)

What?

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HAPPY BIRTHDAY, WANDA JUNE

SHUTTLE

We got to get another pilot.

HAROLD

For what?

SHUTTLE

For Africa.

HAROLD

Do you really think that Harold Ryan would go to Africa with a vacuum cleaner salesman?

SHUTTLE

You invited me.

HAROLD

To make an ass of yourself.

SHUTTLE

What went wrong?

HAROLD

We're ahead of schedule, that's all. You're finding out here what you would have found out in Africa-that you are a rabbit, born to be eaten alive.

SHUTTLE

Gee whiz-HAROLD

It would have been fun to see you drop your rifle and run the first time an elephant charged us.

SHUTTLE

I wouldn't drop my gun.

HAROLD

You're hollow, like a woman. file:///G|/Program%20Files/eMule/Incoming/K...gut%20-%20Happy%20Birthday%20Wanda-June.htm (117 of 143) [10/16/2004 4:36:53 PM]

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, WANDA JUNE

SHUTTLE

I'm smarter than Looseleaf.

HAROLD

He can shoot! He can hold his ground! He can attack! You're in your proper profession right now-sucking up dirt for frumpish housewives, closet drunkards every one.

SHUTTLE

(close to tears)

How do you know how I'd act in Africa?

HAROLD

Look how you're acting now! This is a moment of truth, and you're almost crying. Slug me!

SHUTTLE

You're my buddy.

HAROLD

Out! Out!

SHUTTLE

No matter what you say to me, I still think you're the greatest guy I ever knew.

HAROLD

Out!

SHUTTLE

You--you aren't going to have any friends left, if you don't watch out.

HAROLD

Thank God!

He propels SHUTTLE out the door and slams it. He faces PENELOPE and PAUL, speaks with malicious calm.

HAROLD

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HAPPY BIRTHDAY, WANDA JUNE

Well--what have we here? A family.

PENELOPE

Almost a Christmas scene.

HAROLD

Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye.

PENELOPE

Just one favor.

HAROLD

Money? There's plenty of that. Mildred got the brewery. You'll probably get the baseball team.

PENELOPE

I want you to tell me that you loved me once.

HAROLD is about to dismiss this request majestically, but PENELOPE cuts him off with a sharp, dangerous warning.

PENELOPE

I mean it! I must have that, and so must Paul. Tell him that he was conceived in love, even though you hate me now. Tell both of us that somewhere is our lives was love. HAROLD experiments inwardly with responses of various kinds, obviously saying them to himself, directing himself with his hands. Nothing quite satisfies him.

HAROLD

Testimonials of that sort are--are beyond my range. I don't do them well.

(sincerely, not

liking to fail in any way) That's a failing, I know.

PENELOPE

(accepting this ruefully) I see.

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HAPPY BIRTHDAY, WANDA JUNE

PAUL

I don't care. I don't care if there was love or not. That's all right. I'm going to go to my room and close the door. I don't want to hear any more.

PAUL exits wretchedly to his room.

HAROLD

See how you've upset him. He was so merry and hale before you came home.

PENELOPE

How unhappy he's going to be--alone in his room.

HAROLD

He'll play with his rifle, I expect. That will cheer him up.

PENELOPE

Rifle?

HAROLD

I bought him a twenty-two yesterday--on the way home from Hamburger Heaven. And where is the good doctor? Have you two feathered a love nest somewhere?

PENELOPE

He's in East St. Louis with his mother--visiting an aunt.

HAROLD

Last I heard, his mother was going alone.

PENELOPE

He's afraid of you, Harold. He knew you'd want to fight him. He doesn't know anything about file:///G|/Program%20Files/eMule/Incoming/K...gut%20-%20Happy%20Birthday%20Wanda-June.htm (120 of 143) [10/16/2004 4:36:53 PM]

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, WANDA JUNE

fighting. He hates pain.

HAROLD

And you, a supposedly healthy woman, do not detest him for his cowardice?

PENELOPE

It seems highly intelligent to me.

HAROLD

What kind of a country has this become? The men wear beads and refuse to fight--and the woman adore them. America's days of greatness are over. It has drunk the blue soup.

PENELOPE

Blue soup?

HAROLD

An Indian narcotic we were forced to drink. It put us in a haze--a honey-colored haze which was lavender around the edge. We laughed, we sang, we snoozed. When a bird called, we answered back. Every living thing was our brother or our sister, we thought. Looseleaf stepped on a cockroach six inches long, and we cried. We had a funeral that went on for five days--for the cockroach! I sang

"Oh Promise Me." Can you imagine? Where the hell did I ever learn the words to "Oh Promise Me"? Looseleaf delivered a lecture on maintenance procedures for the hydraulic system of a B-36. All the time we were drinking more blue soup, more blue soup! Never stopped drinking blue soup. Blue soup all the time. We'd go out after food in that file:///G|/Program%20Files/eMule/Incoming/K...gut%20-%20Happy%20Birthday%20Wanda-June.htm (121 of 143) [10/16/2004 4:36:53 PM]

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, WANDA JUNE

honey-colored haze, and everything that was edible had a penumbra of lavender.

PENELOPE

Sounds quite beautiful.

HAROLD

(angered)

Beautiful, you say? It wasn't life, it wasn't death--it wasn't anything!

(anger still mounting) Beautiful? Seven years gone-(snapping his fingers) like that, like that! Seven years of silliness and random dreams!

Seven years of nothingness, when there could have been so much!

PENELOPE

Like what?

HAROLD

(becoming