Welcome to the Monkey House - Kurt Vonnegut [52]
"If it’s going to spoil the picture for you," said his father, "let’s take him with us."
Mrs. Leonard was shocked. "Oh—it isn’t for children."
"I don’t care," said Paul amiably. The why of their not wanting him to see certain movies, certain magazines, certain books, certain television shows was a mystery he respected— even relished a little.
"It wouldn’t kill him to see it," said his father.
"You know what it’s about," she said.
"What is it about?" said Paul innocently.
Mrs. Leonard looked to her husband for help, and got none. "It’s about a girl who chooses her friends unwisely," she said.
"Oh," said Paul. "That doesn’t sound very interesting."
"Are we going, or aren’t we?" said Mr. Leonard impatiently. "The show starts in ten minutes."
Mrs. Leonard bit her lip. "All right!" she said bravely. "You lock the windows and the back door, and I’ll write down the telephone numbers for the police and the fire department and the theater and Dr. Failey." She turned to Paul. "You can dial, can’t you, dear?"
"He’s been dialing for years!" cried Mr. Leonard.
"Ssssssh!" said Mrs. Leonard.
"Sorry," Mr. Leonard bowed to the wall. "My apologies."
"Paul, dear," said Mrs. Leonard, "what are you going to do while we’re gone?"
"Oh—look through my microscope, I guess," said Paul.
"You’re not going to be looking at germs, are you?" she said.
"Nope—just hair, sugar, pepper, stuff like that," said Paul.
His mother frowned judiciously. "I think that would be all right, don’t you?" she said to Mr. Leonard.
"Fine!" said Mr. Leonard. "Just as long as the pepper doesn’t make him sneeze!"
"I’ll be careful," said Paul.
Mr. Leonard winced. "Shhhhh!" he said.
Soon after Paul’s parents left, the radio in the Harger apartment went on. It was on softly at first—so softly that Paul, looking through his microscope on the living room coffee table, couldn’t make out the announcer’s words. The music was frail and dissonant—unidentifiable.
Gamely, Paul tried to listen to the music rather than to the man and woman who were fighting.
Paul squinted through the eyepiece of his microscope at a bit of his hair far below, and he turned a knob to bring the hair into focus. It looked like a glistening brown eel, flecked here and there with tiny spectra where the light struck the hair just so.
There—the voices of the man and woman were getting louder again, drowning out the radio. Paul twisted the microscope knob nervously, and the objective lens ground into the glass slide on which the hair rested.
The woman was shouting now.
Paul unscrewed the lens, and examined it for damage.
Now the man shouted back—shouted something awful, unbelievable.
Paul got a sheet of lens tissue from his bedroom, and dusted at the frosted dot on the lens, where the lens had bitten into the slide. He screwed the lens back in place.
All was quiet again next door—except for the radio.
Paul looked down into the microscope, down into the milky mist of the damaged lens.
Now the fight was beginning again—louder and louder, cruel and crazy.
Trembling, Paul sprinkled grains of salt on a fresh slide, and put it under the microscope.
The woman shouted again, a high, ragged, poisonous shout.
Paul turned the knob too hard, and the fresh slide cracked and fell in triangles to the floor. Paul stood, shaking, wanting to shout, too—to shout in terror and bewilderment. It had to stop. Whatever it was, it had to stop!
"If you’re going to yell, turn up the radio!" the man cried.
Paul heard the clicking of the woman’s heels across the floor. The radio volume swelled until the boom of the bass made Paul feel like he was trapped in a drum.
"And now!" bellowed the radio, "for Katy from Fred! For Nancy from Bob, who thinks she’s swell! For Arthur, from one who’s worshipped him from afar for six weeks! Here’s the old Glenn Miller Band and that all-time favorite, Stardust! Remember! If you have a dedication, call Milton nine-three-thousand! Ask for All-Night Sam, the record man!"
The music picked up the house and shook it.
A door slammed next door. Now someone hammered