Happy Birthday, Wanda June, Kurt Vonnegut [ereader for android .txt] 📗

little head that he could come here and demolish Harold Ryan with words. The truth! Correct?

WOODLY

Correct.

HAROLD

What an hallucination!

(laughs)

Oh, dear, dear, dear, dear. Oh dearie me.

WOODLY

You haven't heard me yet.

HAROLD

You intend to crack my eardrums with your voice? Will I bleed from my every orifice? Who will clean up this awful mess?

WOODLY

We'll find out now, won't we?

PENELOPE

No, we won't. No matter how it begins, it will end in death. Because it always does. Isn't that always how it ends, Harold--in death?

HAROLD

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HAPPY BIRTHDAY, WANDA JUNE

glamour of some sort, sport of some sort. These elements are lacking.

WOODLY

You're a filthy, rotten bastard.

HAROLD

(pretending to be wounded) Oooooo. That hurt.

WOODLY

You're old--so old.

HAROLD

Now who's being cruel?

WOODLY

A living fossil! Like the cockroaches and the horseshoe crabs.

HAROLD

We do survive, don't we? You're going to have to apologize, of course, for calling me a bastard. That's a matter of form--not allowing you or anybody to call me a bastard. No rush about that. Just remember to apologize sometime soon.

PENELOPE takes the rifle from PAUL.

WOODLY

You're a son of a bitch.

HAROLD

Yes--well--uh--that's another one of those statements which more or less automatically requires an apology. Whenever you feel like it. It's sort of like turning off an alarm clock that's ringing loudly. Your apology turns off the alarm.

PENELOPE

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(leveling the gun) I'm turning off the alarm. I'm turning off everything.

HAROLD

Ah! The lady is armed.

PENELOPE

I want you to get out of here, Norbert. Harold--I want you to sit down in the chair, and not lift a finger until Norbert is gone.

HAROLD

(to WOODLY)

Whoever has the gun, you see, gets to tell everybody else exactly what to do. It's the American way.

PENELOPE

I mean it!

HAROLD

Then you'd better fix your bayonet, because there aren't any bullets in the gun.

PENELOPE

(to PAUL)

Where's the bullet?

PAUL makes no move to help.

HAROLD

Help your mother find the bullet.

PENELOPE

(to PAUL, pointing to the floor)

There it is. Give it to me. PAUL obeys.

PENELOPE

How do I load?

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HAROLD

(to PAUL)

Load it for her.

PAUL shakily obeys.

HAROLD

Cock it, too.

PAUL obeys.

HAROLD

Give it to her.

PAUL obeys.

PENELOPE

All right! Am I exceedingly dangerous now?

HAROLD

The National Safety Council would be appalled.

PENELOPE

Then listen to me.

(angrily)

You're both disgusting--with your pride, your pride.

(to WOODLY)

I hate you for coming here--like a federal marshal in a western film. I loved you when you stayed away. But here you are now--high noon in the Superbowl! You fool, you fool.

WOODLY

Everything's going to be beautiful.

PENELOPE

You fake! You're no better than the dumbest general in the Pentagon. (pause)

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You're not going to beat anybody. You're not going to stay here, either--yammering and taunting until you're most gloriously killed. Go home!

HAROLD

She's right, Norbert--go home.

WOODLY

I haven't said all I have to say.

PENELOPE

Out!

WOODLY

I haven't told you, Harold, how comical I think you are.

HAROLD

(hit squarely,

absolutely unable to forgive) Comical?

PENELOPE

(to HAROLD)

Sit down or I'll shoot!

HAROLD goes over to her, easily takes the gun away)

HAROLD

Give me that Goddamn thing! Now get out of here, or I might kill you. Who knows?

PENELOPE

(terrified)

You've killed women?

HAROLD

Seventeen of them--eleven by accident. March! Move!

(to PAUL)

You, too!

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PENELOPE

Norbert--you come, too.

(to HAROLD)

Let him go, Harold. Let him go.

HAROLD

Of course he can go--if he'll just go down on his hands and knees for a moment--and promise me that he does not find me comical in the least degree.

PENELOPE

Do it, Norbert.

WOODLY

Hands and knees, you say?

HAROLD

And terror, if you don't mind.

PENELOPE

Do it!

WOODLY

(to PENELOPE, simply, decisively, unafraid) Goodbye.

HAROLD

(before she can

protest any more)

Goodbye! Goodbye!

He bellies and bullies PENELOPE and PAUL out the front door.

HAROLD

Get the police! No time to lose!

He slams the door, turns to WOODLY.

HAROLD

You're in one hell of a jam. You realize that?

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WOODLY

I'm high as a kite.

HAROLD

Glands. You're supposed to be happy when you die. Call me comical again.

WOODLY

You're a clown. You're a clown who kills--but you're a clown.

HAROLD

I love you! Have a cigar!

WOODLY

(ignoring the cigar) Evolution has made you a clown-with a cigar. Simple butchers like you are obsolete!

HAROLD

I'm to be left behind--in primordial ooze?

WOODLY

If you're at home in the ooze, and nowhere else.

HAROLD

This is going to become very physical. Are you prepared for that?

WOODLY

You're not such a creature of the ooze that you'd hurt an unarmed man.

HAROLD

I'm an honorable clown?

WOODLY

King Arthur.

HAROLD

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You hope.

WOODLY

In any event, I will not beg for mercy.

HAROLD

No quarter asked.

(taking a sword)

No quarter given.

WOODLY

Don't you laugh even inwardly at the heroic balderdash you spew?

HAROLD

(offering sword)

Cut me open. Find out.

WOODLY

I've struck my blow.

HAROLD

With spittle?

WOODLY

I've poisoned you.

HAROLD

(pointing at WOODLY

in horror)

Lucretia Borgia?

(looking around frantically) Something I drank or touched? (understanding)

You refused a cigar. That's it!

Potassium cyanide in the humidor!

Treacherous lover of peace!

WOODLY

I put a poisoned thought in your head. Even now that poison is seeping into every lobe of your mind. It's saying, "Obsolete, obsolete, obsolete," and, "Clown, file:///G|/Program%20Files/eMule/Incoming/K...gut%20-%20Happy%20Birthday%20Wanda-June.htm (137 of 143) [10/16/2004 4:36:53 PM]

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clown, clown."

HAROLD

Poison.

WOODLY

You have a very good mind, or I wouldn't have come back. That mind is now asking itself, cleverly and fairly, "Is Harold Ryan really a clown?" And the answer is, "Yes."

HAROLD

(touching his

forehead experimentally) I--I really must congratulate you. Something is