Slapstick, Or, Lonesome No More! - Kurt Vonnegut [38]
• • •
“Sophie—” I said, “that is not the general American population out there. And you are not mistaken when you say that they have crawled out from under damp rocks—like centipedes and earwigs and worms. They have never had a friend or a relative. They have had to believe all their lives that they were perhaps sent to the wrong Universe, since no one has ever bid them welcome or given them anything to do.”
“I hate them,” she said.
“Go ahead,” I said. “There’s very little harm in that, as far as I know.”
“I did not think you would go this far, Wilbur,” she said. “I thought you would be satisfied with being President. I did not think you would go this far.”
“Well,” I said, “I’m glad I did. And I am glad we have those people outside the fence to think about, Sophie. They are frightened hermits who have been tempted out from under their damp rocks by humane new laws. They are dazedly seeking brothers and sisters and cousins which their President has suddenly given to them from their nation’s social treasure, which was until now untapped.”
“You are insane,” she said.
“Very likely,” I replied. “But it will not be an hallucination when I see those people outside the fence find each other, if no one else.”
“They deserve each other,” she said.
“Exactly,” I said. “And they deserve something else which is going to happen to them, now that they have the courage to speak to strangers. You watch, Sophie. The simple experience of companionship is going to allow them to climb the evolutionary ladder in a matter of hours or days, or weeks at most.
“It will not be an hallucination, Sophie,” I said, “when I see them become human beings, after having been for so many years, as you say, Sophie—centipedes and slugs and earwigs and worms.”
Hi ho.
37
SOPHIE DIVORCED ME, of course, and skeedaddled with her jewelry and furs and paintings and gold bricks, and so on, to a condominium in Machu Picchu, Peru.
Almost the last thing I said to her, I think, was this: “Can’t you at least wait until we compile the family directories? You’re sure to find out that you’re related to many distinguished women and men.”
“I already am related to many distinguished women and men,” she replied. “Goodbye.”
• • •
In order to compile and publish the family directories, we had to haul more papers from the National Archives to the powerhouse. I selected files from the Presidencies of Ulysses Simpson Grant and Warren Gamaliel Harding this time.
We could not provide every citizen with directories of his or her own. It was all we could do to ship a complete set to every State House, town and City Hall, police department, and public library in the land.
• • •
One greedy thing I did: Before Sophie left me, I asked that we be sent Daffodil and Peanut directories all our own. And I have a Daffodil Directory right here in the Empire State Building right now. Vera Chipmunk-5 Zappa gave it to me for my birthday last year. It is a first edition—the only edition ever published.
And I learn from it again that among my new relatives at that time were Clarence Daffodil-11 Johnson, the Chief of Police of Batavia, New York, and Muhammad Daffodil-11 X, the former Light-Heavyweight Boxing Champion of the World, and Maria Daffodil-11 Tcherkassky, the Prima Ballerina of the Chicago Opera Ballet.
• • •
I am glad, in a way, incidentally, that Sophie never saw her family directory. The Peanuts really did seem to be a ground-hugging bunch.
The most famous Peanut I can now recall was a minor Roller Derby star.
Hi ho.
• • •
Yes, and after the Government provided the directories, Free Enterprise produced family newspapers. Mine was The Daffy-nition. Sophie’s, which continued to arrive at the White House long after she had left me, was The Goober Gossip. Vera told me the other day that the Chipmunk paper used to be The Woodpile.
Relatives asked