Armageddon In Retrospect - Kurt Vonnegut [44]
“I’ll stay that way, George. Thanks, but it’d probably kill me, the shape I’m in.”
He sat down in the chair facing me, with a big, loose grin on his face. “Finish your sandwich, and you’ll be ready for one. The war’s over, boy! Is that something to drink to, or is it?”
“Later maybe.”
He didn’t take another drink himself. He sat quietly for a while, thinking hard about something, and I munched my food in silence.
“What’s the matter with your appetite?” I asked at last.
“Nothing. Good as ever. I ate this morning.”
“Thanks for offering me some. What was it, a farewell gift from the guards?”
He smiled, as though I’d just paid tribute to him for the slick deals he’d pulled. “What’s the matter, Sammy—hate my guts or something?”
“Did I say anything?”
“You don’t have to, kid. You’re like all the rest.” He leaned back in his chair and stretched his arms. “I hear some of the boys are going to turn me in as a collaborator when we get back to the States. You going to do that, Sammy?” He was perfectly calm, yawning. He went right on, without giving me a chance to answer. “Poor old Georgie hasn’t got a friend in the world, has he? He’s really on his own now, ain’t he? I guess the rest of you boys’ll be flown right home, but I imagine the Army will want to have a little talk with Georgie Fisher, won’t they, huh?”
“You’re boiled, George. Forget it. Nobody’s going to—”
He stood up, steadying himself with a hand on the table. “Nope, Sammy, I got it doped out just right. Being a collaborator—that’s treason, ain’t it? They can hang you for that, can’t they?”
“Take it easy, George. Nobody’s going to try and hang you.” I stood up slowly.
“I said I got it doped out just right, Sammy. Georgie Fisher’s no man to be, so what do you think I’m gonna do?” He fumbled with his shirt collar, pulled out his dogtags, and threw them on the floor. “I’m gonna be somebody else, Sammy. I’d say that was real bright, wouldn’t you?”
The noise of the tanks was beginning to make the dishes in the cupboard hum. I started for the door. “I don’t give a damn what you do, George. I won’t turn you in. All I want is to get home in one piece, and I’m heading back for camp right now.”
George stepped between me and the door, and rested his hand on my shoulder. He winked and grinned. “Wait a minute, kid. You ain’t heard it all, yet. Don’t you want to hear what your buddy Georgie’s going to do next? You’ll be real interested.”
“So long, George.”
He didn’t get out of my way. “Better sit down and have a drink, Sammy. Calm your nerves. You and me, kid, neither one of us is going back to camp. The boys back there know what Georgie Fisher looks like, and that’d spoil everything, wouldn’t it? Think I’d be smart to wait a couple of days, then turn myself in down at Prague, where nobody knows me.”
“I said I wouldn’t say anything, George, and I won’t.”
“I said sit down, Sammy. Have a drink.”
I was woozy and weary, and the tough black bread in my stomach was making me feel sick. I sat.
“That’s my buddy,” he said. “This won’t take long, if you see things my way, Sammy. I said I was going to quit being Georgie Fisher and be somebody else.”
“Good, fine, George.”
“The thing is, I’ll need a new name and dogtags to go with it. I like yours—what’ll you take for ’em?” He stopped smiling. He wasn’t fooling—he was making me a deal. He leaned over the table, and, with his fat, pink, sweaty face a few inches from mine, he whispered, “Whaddya say, Sammy? Two hundred bucks cash and this watch for the tags. That’d damn near pay