Welcome to the Monkey House - Kurt Vonnegut [66]
"Yes, sir," said John.
"I’m still for him, John," said the Commodore. "Don’t anybody misunderstand me. I just think we ought to give him a rest tonight."
"Yes, sir," said John, and he left.
It was dark on the veranda, so I couldn’t see the Commodore’s face very well. The darkness, and the brandy, and the slow guitar let him start telling the truth about himself without feeling much pain.
"Let’s give the Senator from Arizona a rest," he said. "Everybody knows who he is. The question is: Who am I?"
"A lovable man," said Clarice in the dark.
"With Goldwater’s floodlights turned off, and with my son engaged to marry a Kennedy, what am I but what the man on the sight-seeing boat said I was: A man who sits on this porch, drinking martinis, and letting the old mazooma roll in."
"You’re an intelligent, charming, well-educated man, and you’re still quite young," said Clarice.
"I’ve got to find some kind of work," he said.
"We’ll both be so much happier," she said. "I would love you, no matter what. But I can tell you now, darling—it’s awfully hard for a woman to admire a man who actually doesn’t do anything. "
We were dazzled by the headlights of two cars coming out of the Kennedys’ driveway. The cars stopped right in front of the Rumfoord Cottage. Whoever was in them seemed to be giving the place a good looking-over.
The Commodore went to that side of the veranda, to find out what was going on. And I heard the voice of the President of the United States coming from the car in front.
"Commodore Rumfoord," said the President, "may I ask what is wrong with your Goldwater sign?"
"Nothing, Mr. President," said the Commodore respectfully.
"Then why isn’t it on?" asked the President.
"I just didn’t feel like turning it on tonight, sir," said the Commodore.
"I have Mr. Khrushchev’s son-in-law with me," said the President. "He would very much enjoy seeing it."
"Yes, sir," said the Commodore. He was right by the switch. He turned it on. The whole neighborhood was bathed in flashing light.
"Thank you," said the President. "And leave it on, would you, please?".
"Sir?" said the Commodore.
The cars started to pull away slowly. "That way," said the President, "I can find my way home."
(1963)
D.P.
EIGHTY-ONE small sparks of human life were kept in an orphanage set up by Catholic nuns in what had been the game-keeper’s house on a large estate overlooking the Rhine. This was in the German village of Karlswald, in the American Zone of Occupation. Had the children not been kept there, not been given the warmth and food and clothes that could be begged for them, they might have wandered off the edges of the earth, searching for parents who had long ago stopped searching for them.
Every mild afternoon the nuns marched the children, two by two, through the woods, into the village and back, for their ration of fresh air. The village carpenter, an old man who was given to thoughtful rests between strokes of his tools, always came out of his shop to watch the bobbing, chattering, cheerful, ragged parade, and to speculate, with idlers his shop attracted, as to the nationalities of the passing children’s parents.
"See the little French girl," he said one afternoon. "Look at the flash of those eyes!"
"And look at that little Pole swing his arms. They love to march, the Poles," said a young mechanic.
"Pole? Where do you see any Pole?" said the carpenter.
"There—the thin, sober-looking one in front," the other replied.
"Aaaaah. He’s too tall for a Pole," said the carpenter. "And what Pole has flaxen hair like that? He’s a German."
The mechanic shrugged. "They’re all German now, so what difference does it make?" he said. "Who can prove what their parents were? If you had fought in Poland, you would know he was a very common type."
"Look—look who’s coming now," said the carpenter, grinning. "Full of arguments as you are, you won’t argue with me about him. There we have an American!" He called out to the child. "Joe—when you going to win the championship back?"
"Joe!" called the mechanic. "How is the Brown Bomber