God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater_ Or, Pearls Before Swine - Kurt Vonnegut [10]
A week after that, he turned up in New Vienna, Iowa. He wrote another letter to Sylvia on the stationery of the fire department there. He called Sylvia "the most patient woman in the world," and he told her that her long vigil was almost over.
I know now, he wrote, where I must go. I am going there with all possible speed! I will telephone from there! Perhaps I'll stay there forever. It isn't clear to me yet what I must do when I get there. But that will become clear, too, I'm sure. The scales are falling from my eyes!
Incidentally, I told the fire department here that they might try putting detergent in their water, but that they should write the pump manufacturer first. They like the idea. They're going to bring it up at the next meeting. I've gone sixteen hours without a drink! I don't miss the poison at all! Cheers!
When Sylvia got that letter, she immediately had a recording device attached to her telephone, another nice break for Norman Mushari. Sylvia did this because she thought that Eliot had at last gone irrevocably bananas. When he called, she wanted to record every clue as to his whereabouts and condition, so that she could have him picked up.
The call came:
"Ophelia?"
"Oh, Eliot, Eliot—where are you, darling?"
"In America—among the rickety sons and grandsons of the pioneers."
"But where? But where?"
"Absolutely anywhere—in an aluminum and glass phone booth in a drab little American anywhere, with American nickels, dimes and quarters scattered on the little gray shelf before me. There is a message written with a ballpoint pen on the little gray shelf."
"And what does it say?"
" 'Sheila Taylor is a cock-teaser.' I'm sure it's true."
There was an arrogant blat from Eliot's end. "Hark!" said Eliot. "A Greyhound bus has blatted its Roman trumpets flatulently outside the bus depot, which is also a candy store. Lo! One old American responds, comes tottering out. There is no one to bid him farewell, nor does he look up and down the street for someone to wish him well. He carries a brown paper parcel tied with twine. He is going somewhere, no doubt to die.
"He is taking leave of the only town he's ever known, the only life he's ever known. But he isn't thinking about saying goodbye to his universe. His whole being is intent on not offending the mighty bus driver, who looks down fumingly from his blue leather throne. Wupps! Too bad! The old American crawled aboard in fair shape, but now he can't find his ticket. He finds it at last, too late, too late. The driver is filled with rage. He slams the door, starts off with a savage clashing of gears, blows his horn at an old American woman crossing the street, rattles the window-panes. Hate, hate, hate."
"Eliot—is there a river there?"
"My telephone booth is in the broad valley of an open sewer called the Ohio. The Ohio is thirty miles to the south. Carp as big as atomic submarines fatten on the sludge of the sons and grandsons of the pioneers. Beyond the river lie the once green hills of Kentucky, the promised land of Dan'l Boone, now gulched and gashed by strip mines, some of which are owned by a charitable and cultural foundation endowed by an interesting old American family named Rosewater.
"On that side of the river, the Rosewater Foundation's holdings are somewhat diffuse. On this side, though, right around my phone booth, for a distance of about fifteen miles in any direction you care to go, the Foundation owns almost everything. The Foundation, however, has left the booming night-crawler business wide open. Signs on every home proclaim, 'Night-crawlers for Sale.'
"The key industry here, hogs and night-crawlers aside, is the making of saws. The saw factory is owned by the Foundation, of course. Because saws are so important here, the athletes of Noah Rosewater Memorial High School are known as 'The Fighting Sawmakers.' Actually, there aren't many sawmakers left. The saw factory is almost fully automatic now. If you