Armageddon In Retrospect - Kurt Vonnegut [20]
I would of, too.
And I tell ’em I’d desert back to the year two thousand and thirty-seven, too, if I got half a chance.
There’s two court-martial offenses right there.
But all these heroes here, they don’t seem to care. “That’s all right, Buddy,” they say, “you just go right on talking. If somebody tries to court-martial you, we’ll all swear we seen you killing Germans with your bare hands, and fire coming out of your ears.”
They likes to hear me talk.
So I lay here, blind as a bat, and I tell ’em how I got here. I tell ’em all the things I see so clear inside my head—the Army of the World, everbody like brothers everwhere, peace everlasting, nobody hungry, nobody ascared.
That’s how come I got my nickname. Don’t hardly nobody in the hospital know my real name. Don’t know who thought of it first, but everbody calls me Great Day.
Guns Before Butter
I.
What you do is take a roasting chicken, cut it up into pieces, and brown it in melted butter and olive oil in a hot skillet,” said Private Donnini. “A good, hot skillet,” he added thoughtfully.
“Wait a minute,” said Private Coleman, writing furiously in a small notebook. “How big a chicken?”
“About four pounds.”
“For how many people?” asked Private Kniptash sharply.
“Enough for four,” said Donnini.
“Don’t forget, a lot of that chicken is bone,” said Kniptash suspiciously.
Donnini was a gourmet; many was the time that the phrase “pearls before swine” had occurred to him while telling Kniptash how to make this dish or that. Kniptash cared nothing for flavor or aroma—cared only for brute nutrition, for caloric blockbusters. In taking down recipes in his notebook, Kniptash was inclined to regard the portions as niggardly, and to double all the quantities involved. “You can eat it all yourself, as far as I’m concerned,” said Donnini evenly.
“O.K., O.K., so what do you do next?” said Coleman, his pencil poised.
“You brown it on each side for about five minutes, add chopped celery, onions, and carrots, and season to taste.” Donnini pursed his lips as though sampling. “Then, while you’re simmering it, add a mixture of sherry and tomato paste. Cover it. Simmer for around thirty minutes, and—” He paused. Coleman and Kniptash had stopped writing, and were leaning against the wall, their eyes closed—listening.
“That’s good,” said Kniptash dreamily, “but you know the first thing I’m gonna get back in the States?”
Donnini groaned inwardly. He knew. He had heard it a hundred times. Kniptash was sure there wasn’t a dish in the world that could satisfy his hunger, so he had invented one, a culinary monster.
“First,” said Kniptash fiercely, “I’m going to order me a dozen pancakes. That’s what I said, Lady,” he said, addressing an imaginary waitress, “twelve! Then I’m going to have ’em stack ’em up with a fried egg between each one. Then you know what I’m going to do?”
“Pour honey over ’em!” said Coleman. He shared Kniptash’s brutish appetite.
“You betcha!” said Kniptash, his eyes glistening.
“Phooey,” said Corporal Kleinhans, their bald German guard, listlessly. Donnini guessed that the old man was about sixty-five years old. Kleinhans tended to be absentminded, lost in thought. He was an oasis of compassion and inefficiency in the desert of Nazi Germany. He said he had learned his passable English during four years as a waiter in Liverpool. He would say no more about his experiences in England, other than to observe that the British ate far more food than was good for the race.
Kleinhans twisted his Kaiser Wilhelm mustache, and stood with the help of his antique, six-foot-long rifle. “You talk too much about food. That is why the Americans will lose the war—you are all too soft.” He looked pointedly at Kniptash, who was still up to his nostrils in imaginary cakes, eggs, and honey. “Come, come,