While Mortals Sleep_ Unpublished Short Fiction - Kurt Vonnegut [14]
Q: He’s married?
A: To a nice, pretty, affectionate girl. He’s got a swell-looking wife at home. It isn’t as though he’s bottled up in the Y.M.C.A.
Q: There is never anything else in the magazines besides pictures of girls?
A: Oh sure—there’s other stuff. Haven’t you ever looked inside one?
Q: I’m asking you.
A: They’re all pretty much alike. They all have at least one big picture of a naked girl, usually right in the middle. That’s what sells the magazine, is that big picture. Then there’ll be some articles about foreign cars or decorating a bachelor penthouse or white slavery in Hong Kong or how to choose a loudspeaker. But what Verne wants is the pictures of the girls. To him, looking at those pictures is just like taking the girls out on dates. Cummerbunds.
Q: Pardon me? What was that last? Cummerbunds?
A: That’s another thing they generally have articles on—cummerbunds.
Q: You seem to have read these magazines rather extensively yourself.
A: I had the desk right next to Verne’s. The magazines were all over the place. And every time he brought a new one back to the office, he’d rub my nose in it.
Q: Actually rub your nose in it?
A: Practically. And he always said the same thing.
Q: What was the thing he always said?
A: I don’t want to say it in front of a lady stenographer.
Q: Can’t you approximate it?
A: Verne would open the magazine to the picture of the girl, and he’d say, approximately, “Boy, I’d pay a hundred dollars to kiss a doll baby like that. Wouldn’t you?”
Q: This bothered you?
A: After a couple of years, it was getting under my skin.
Q: Why?
A: Because it showed a darn poor sense of values.
Q: Do you think you are God Almighty, empowered to go around correcting people’s sense of values?
A: I do not think I am God Almighty. I do not even think I am a very good Unitarian.
Q: Suppose you tell us what happened when you came back from lunch this afternoon?
A: I found Verne Petrie sitting at his desk with a new copy of Male Valor magazine open in front of him. It was open to a two-page picture of a woman named Patty Lee Minot. She was wearing a cellophane bathrobe. Verne was listening to his telephone and looking at the picture at the same time. He had his hand over the mouthpiece. He winked at me, as though he was hearing something wonderful on the telephone. He signalled to me that I should listen in on my own telephone. He held up three fingers, meaning I should switch my phone to line three.
Q: Line three?
A: There are three lines coming into the office. And I looked around the office, and I realized that there was somebody listening in on line three on every telephone. Everybody in the office was listening in. So I listened in, and I could hear a telephone ringing on the other end.
Q: It was the telephone of Patty Lee Minot ringing in New York?
A: Yes. I didn’t know it at the time, but that’s what it was. Verne tried to tell me what was going on. He pointed to Patty Lee Minot’s picture in the magazine, then he pointed to Miss Hackleman’s desk.
Q: What was going on at Miss Hackleman’s desk?
A: Miss Hackleman was out with a cold, and one of the building janitors was sitting in her chair, using her telephone. He was the one who was making the long-distance call that everybody else was listening in on.
Q: You knew him?
A: I’d seen him around the building. I knew his first name. It was stitched on the back of his coveralls. His first name was Harry. I found out later his whole name was Harry Barker.
Q: Describe him.
A: Harry? Well, he looks a lot older than he is. He looks about forty-five. Actually, I guess, he’s younger than I am. He’s pretty good-looking, and I think he must have been a pretty good athlete at one time. But he’s losing his hair fast, and he’s got a lot of wrinkles from worrying or something.
Q: So you were listening to the telephone ringing in New York?
A: Yes. And I accidentally sneezed.
Q: Sneezed?
A: Sneezed. I did it right into the telephone, and everybody jumped a mile, and then somebody said, “Gesundheit.” This made Verne Petrie very sore.
Q: