Armageddon In Retrospect - Kurt Vonnegut [9]
I said I would cure cancer with chemicals, while working for Eli Lilly.
I have the humorist Paul Krasner to thank for pointing out a big difference between George W. Bush and Hitler: Hitler was elected.
I mentioned my only son, Mark Vonnegut, a while back. You know: about Chinese women and Harvard Medical School?
Well, he is not only a pediatrician in the Boston area, but a painter and a saxophonist and a writer. He wrote one heck of a good book called The Eden Express. It is about his mental crack-up, padded-cell-and-straitjacket stuff. He had been on the wrestling team as an undergraduate in college. Some maniac!
In his book he tells about how he recovered sufficiently to graduate from Harvard Medical School. The Eden Express, by Mark Vonnegut.
But don’t borrow it. For God’s sake, buy it!
I consider anybody who borrows a book instead of buying it, or lends one, a twerp. When I was a student at Shortridge High School a million years ago, a twerp was defined as a guy who put a set of false teeth up his rear end and bit the buttons off the back seats of taxicabs.
But I hasten to say, should some impressionable young person here tonight, at loose ends and from a dysfunctional family, resolve to take a shot at being a real twerp tomorrow, that there are no longer buttons on the back seats of taxicabs. Times change!
I asked Mark a while back what life was all about, since I didn’t have a clue. He said, “Dad, we are here to help each other get through this thing, whatever it is.” Whatever it is.
“Whatever it is.” Not bad. That one could be a keeper.
And how should we behave during this Apocalypse? We should be unusually kind to one another, certainly. But we should also stop being so serious. Jokes help a lot. And get a dog, if you don’t already have one.
I myself just got a dog, and it’s a new crossbreed. It’s half French poodle and half Chinese shih tzu.
It’s a shit-poo.
And I thank you for your attention, and I’m out of here.
Wailing Shall Be in All Streets
It was a routine speech we got during our first day of basic training, delivered by a wiry little lieutenant: “Men, up to now you’ve been good, clean, American boys with an American’s love for sportsmanship and fair play. We’re here to change that. Our job is to make you the meanest, dirtiest bunch of scrappers in the history of the World. From now on you can forget the Marquess of Queensberry Rules and every other set of rules. Anything and everything goes. Never hit a man above the belt when you can kick him below it. Make the bastard scream. Kill him any way you can. Kill, kill, kill, do you understand?”
His talk was greeted with nervous laughter and general agreement that he was right. “Didn’t Hitler and Tojo say the Americans were a bunch of softies? Ha! They’ll find out.” And of course, Germany and Japan did find out: a toughened-up democracy poured forth a scalding fury that could not be stopped. It was a war of reason against barbarism, supposedly, with the issues at stake on such a high plane that most of our feverish fighters had no idea why they were fighting—other than that the enemy was a bunch of bastards. A new kind of war, with all destruction, all killing approved. Germans would ask, “Why are you Americans fighting us?” “I don’t know, but we’re sure beating the hell out of you,” was a stock answer.
A lot of people relished the idea of total war: it had a modern ring to it, in keeping with our spectacular technology. To them it was like a football game: “Give ’em the axe, the axe, the axe…” Three small-town merchants’ wives, middle-aged and plump, gave me a ride when I was hitchhiking home from Camp Atterbury. “Did you kill a lot of them Germans?” asked the driver, making cheerful small-talk. I told her I didn’t know. This was taken for modesty. As I was getting out of the car, one of the ladies patted me on the shoulder in motherly fashion: “I’ll bet you’d like to get over and kill some of them dirty Japs now, wouldn’t you?” We exchanged knowing winks. I didn’t tell those simple souls