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

be a little star or something by the names of the guys who did it the hard way.

(pause)

I'm up in Heaven now, like that little Wanda June kid. I wasn't hit by no ice-cream truck. Harold file:///G|/Program%20Files/eMule/Incoming/Ku...egut%20-%20Happy%20Birthday%20Wanda-June.htm (55 of 143) [10/16/2004 4:36:53 PM]

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, WANDA JUNE

Ryan killed me with his bare hands. He was good. My eyes popped out. My tongue stuck out like a red banana. I shit in my pants. It was a mess.

(pause)

When I got up on the day I died, I said, "What a beautiful day this is. What a beautiful part of the world." The whole planet was beautiful. Up here I meet guys from other planets.

(laughs)

We got some really crazy-looking guys up here. Their planets weren't anywhere near as nice as Earth. They had clouds all the time. They never saw a clear blue sky. They never saw snow. They never saw an ocean. They had some little lakes, but you couldn't go swimming in them. The lakes were acid. You go swimming, you dissolve. We got some guys up here who got shoved in them lakes. They dissolved.

(pause)

Harold Ryan stopped talking German to me there in Yugoslavia. He switched to English, so I finally got some kind of idea what he was so burned up about. He wanted revenge for the guy we killed with orange juice. I don't know how he ever found out about it. There was just three of us there when we did it--me and two regular military doctors. Somebody who cleaned up afterwards must have squealed. If I'd lived through the war, and they tried me for war crimes and all that, I'd have to tell the court, I guess, "I was only following file:///G|/Program%20Files/eMule/Incoming/Ku...egut%20-%20Happy%20Birthday%20Wanda-June.htm (56 of 143) [10/16/2004 4:36:53 PM]

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, WANDA JUNE

orders, as a good soldier should. Hitler told me to kill this guy with orange juice."

Blackout.

SCENE EIGHT

DARKNESS. Lights come up on living room. HAROLD has just finished telling his true war story to PAUL.

HAROLD

Mhravitch. Remember that name.

PAUL

Mhravitch.

HAROLD

The name will live forever. It was there that Harold Ryan slew the Beast of Yugoslavia. Mhravitch.

PAUL

When I grow up, I'm going to go to Mhravitch.

HAROLD

It's rather a disappointment these days. It isn't there any more.

PAUL

Sir?

HAROLD

The Germans shot everybody who lived there, then leveled it, plowed it, planted turnips and cabbages in the fertile ground. They wished revenge for the slaying of the Beast of Yugoslavia. To their twisted way of thinking, your father had butchered an Eagle Scout. (abruptly)

Play lots of contact sports? file:///G|/Program%20Files/eMule/Incoming/Ku...egut%20-%20Happy%20Birthday%20Wanda-June.htm (57 of 143) [10/16/2004 4:36:53 PM]

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, WANDA JUNE

PAUL

I wanted to go out for football, but Mom was afraid I'd get hurt.

HAROLD

You're supposed to get hurt!

PAUL

Dr. Woodly says he's seen hundreds of children permanently injured by football. He says that when there's a war, everybody goes but football players.

HAROLD

Does it bother you to have your mother engaged to a man like that?

PAUL

They're not engaged.

HAROLD

He seems to think they are. He told me that were.

PAUL

Oh no, no, no, no, no. It can't be. How embarrassing.

HAROLD

(unexpectedly moved) You're a very good boy to respond that way.

PAUL

No, no, no, no, no.

HAROLD

I'd like to use the sanitary facilities, if I may.

PAUL

Go ahead.

(as HAROLD exits)

No, no, no, no.

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HAPPY BIRTHDAY, WANDA JUNE

PENELOPE and SHUTTLE enter through front door. They are tremendously relieved to see PAUL.

PAUL

Thank God!

SHUTTLE

What a relief!

PENELOPE

(going to PAUL)

My baby's safe!

PAUL angrily avoids her touch.

PENELOPE

What's the matter now?

SHUTTLE

We got a birthday cake, kid. Did you see the cake?

PAUL

Are you and Dr. Woodly engaged?

PENELOPE

(stunned)

Who have you been talking to?

PAUL

What difference does that make? Is Dr. Woodly going to be my father now? Pause.

PENELOPE

Yes, he is.

PAUL

(a stifled, gargling cry) Aaaaaaaaaaaaaah!

SHUTTLE

(sick)

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HAPPY BIRTHDAY, WANDA JUNE

That goes double for me.

PAUL

I don't want to live any more.

SHUTTLE

I feel like I want to yell my head off--just yell anything.

(yelling)

Bulllllllllllllll-dickey!

PAUL

I'll kill myself.

SHUTTLE

The wife of Harold Ryan is going to marry a pansy next? This is the end of Western Civilization as far as I'm concerned. You must be crazy as a fruitcake.

PENELOPE

Possibly.

SHUTTLE

How long has this been going on?

PENELOPE

A week. We were waiting for the right time to-SHUTTLE

I feel as though I had been made a perfect chump of.

PENELOPE

I'm sorry.

SHUTTLE

Marry me instead.

PENELOPE

Thank you, Herb. You're a wonderful man. You really are. Everybody respects you for what file:///G|/Program%20Files/eMule/Incoming/Ku...egut%20-%20Happy%20Birthday%20Wanda-June.htm (60 of 143) [10/16/2004 4:36:53 PM]

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, WANDA JUNE

you've done for scouting and the Little League.

SHUTTLE

You're saying no.

PENELOPE

I'm saying no--and thank you.

SHUTTLE

I didn't make my move fast enough. That's it, isn't it? I was too respectful.

PENELOPE

You were wonderful.

SHUTTLE

What's so wonderful if I lost the sale?

(turning to PAUL)

You poor kid.

PAUL

Don't touch me.

SHUTTLE

Wouldn't you rather have your mother marry me than him?

PAUL

No.

SHUTTLE

(moving dazedly

toward the front door) All my dreams have suddenly collapsed.

(pause)

We did have a lot of laughs together, Penelope.

PENELOPE

It's true.

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HAPPY BIRTHDAY, WANDA JUNE

SHUTTLE

Well--it was nice while it lasted. Thanks for the memories.

He exits.

Silence. A toilet flushes loudly and complicatedly.

PENELOPE

Is Norbert still here?

PAUL

No.

PENELOPE

Then who flushed the toilet?

PAUL

Father's friend.

PENELOPE

What's his name?

PAUL

Don't know.

PENELOPE

For Heaven's sakes!

HAROLD enters, still adjusting his trousers.

PENELOPE

How do you do?

HAROLD

How do you do, Mrs. Ryan? I'd heard you were beautiful, and so you are. Am I intruding here?

PENELOPE

Not at all.

HAROLD

I couldn't help overhearing that you were about to get married again. file:///G|/Program%20Files/eMule/Incoming/Ku...egut%20-%20Happy%20Birthday%20Wanda-June.htm (62 of