While Mortals Sleep_ Unpublished Short Fiction - Kurt Vonnegut [22]
“Till hell freezes over,” said Earl. He took a can of beer from behind a plaster mountain range, and drank to the world that was all his and still growing.
“Earl—” called his wife, Ella, from the top of the basement stairs, “lunch is getting cold, hon.” Her tone was polite and apologetic, though this was the third time she’d called.
“Coming,” said Earl. “On my way. Be there in two shakes.”
“Please, Earl,” called his mother, “Ella has a wonderful lunch, and it’ll spoil if you don’t come right up.”
“Coming,” said Earl absently, trying to straighten Old Spitfire’s main rod with a screwdriver. “Please, Mom, will you two please keep your shirts on for a couple of seconds?”
The door at the top of the stairs clicked shut, and Earl exhaled with relief. “Honest to God, Harry,” he said, “it’s like living in a sorority house around here lately. Women, women.”
“Yeah—I guess,” said Harry. “Of course, you could have it worse. You could have your mother-in-law visiting you, like I do, instead of just your mother. Your mother seems like a sweet old lady.”
“No question about it,” said Earl. “She is sweet. But she still treats me like I was a little kid, and it drives me nuts. I’m not a kid anymore.”
“I’ll tell the world, Hotbox,” said Harry loyally.
“I’m worth ten times what my old man was worth, and have a hundred times as much responsibility.”
“You can say that again, Hotbox.”
“Earl—” called Ella again. “Hotbox, honey—”
“Earl!” said his mother. “You’re being rude.”
“See what I mean?” said Earl to Harry. “Just like I was a kid.” He turned his head toward the stairway. “Said I’d be right up, didn’t I?” He returned to his work. “Old Spitfire’s smashed up, but what do they care? Women are always talking about how men ought to try to understand their psychology more, but I don’t think they spend ten seconds a year trying to see things from a man’s point of view.”
“I hear you talking, Hotbox.”
“Earl—please, darn it,” called Ella.
“Be up before you can say Jack Robinson,” said Earl.
And twenty minutes later, Hotbox did come up to lunch, and lunch was cold. Harry Zellerbach declined Ella’s halfhearted invitation to share the meal, explaining that he had to deliver some deadeyes and marlinspikes to a man who was building a model of the Constitution in his basement.
Earl removed his red neckerchief and engineer’s cap, and kissed his wife and then his mother.
“Switchman’s strike slow you down?” said Ella.
“He was handling a lot of rush defense shipments,” said his mother. “Couldn’t let our boys in the front lines down, just because lunch was getting cold.” She was slight and birdlike, extremely feminine and seeming in need of protection. But she’d been blessed with six brawling sons, Earl the oldest, and had had to be as quick and clever as a mongoose to get any obedience from them. Yearning for a sweet, frilly daughter, she’d learned judo and how to play shortstop. “Cut off the troops’ rail supplies, and they might have to give up the water heater and retreat to the fuse box,” she said.
“Aaaaaaaaaaah,” said Earl, grinning with a mixture of self-consciousness and irritation. “I guess I’m entitled to a little relaxation now and then. I don’t have to apologize.” It had never occured to him, before the arrival of his mother two days before, that anyone might think an apology was in order. Ella had never twitted him about the pike until now. Suddenly, it was open season on model railroaders.
“Women are entitled to a few things, too,” said his mother.
“They got the vote and free access to the saloons,” said Earl. “What do they want now—to enter the men’s shot put?”
“Common courtesy,” said his mother.
He didn’t answer. Instead, he went to his file of magazines, and brought one back to the table with him. By coincidence, the magazine opened to an ad for model tanks and artillery pieces, authentic