"Where are all the people?" said that monomaniac.
I realized then that he did not mean people, he meant men men, and he was giving the word the meaning it had not had on Whileaway for six centuries.
"They died," I said. "Thirty generations ago."
I thought we had poleaxed him. He caught his breath. He made as if to get out of the chair he was sitting in; he put his hand to his chest; he looked around at us with the strangest blend of awe and sentimental tenderness. Then he said, solemnly and earnestly: "A great tragedy."
I waited, not quite understanding.
"Yes," he said, catching his breath again with that queer smile, that adult-to-child smile that tells you something is being hidden and will be presently produced with cries of encouragement and joy, "a great tragedy. But it"s over." And again he looked around at all of us with the strangest deference. As if we were invalids.
"You"ve adapted amazingly," he said.
"To what?" I said. He looked embarra.s.sed. He looked inane. Finally he said, "Where I come from, the women don"t dress so plainly."
"Like you?" I said. "Like a bride?" for the men were wearing silver from head to foot. I had never seen anything so gaudy. He made as if to answer and then apparently thought better of it; he laughed at me again. With an odd exhilaration-as if we were something childish and something wonderful, as if he were doing us an enormous favor-he took one shaky breath and said, "Well, we"re here."
I looked at Spet, Spet looked at Lydia, Lydia looked at Amalia, who is the head of the local town meeting, Amalia looked at I don"t know who. My throat was raw. I cannot stand local beer, which the farmers swill as if their stomachs had iridium linings, but I took it anyway, from Amalia (it was her bicycle we had seen outside as we parked), and swallowed it all. This was going to take a long time. I said, "Yes, here you are," and smiled (feeling like a fool), and wondered seriously if male Earth people"s minds worked so very differently from female Earth people"s minds, but that couldn"t be so or the race would have died out long ago. The radio network had got the news around-planet by now and we had another Russian speaker, flown in from Varna; I decided to cut out when the man the man pa.s.sed around pictures of his wife, who looked like the priestess of some arcane cult. He proposed to question Yuki, so I barreled her into a back room in spite of her furious protests, and went out on the front porch. As I left, Lydia was explaining the difference between parthenogenesis (which is so easy that anyone can practice it) and what we do, which is the merging of ova. That is why Katy"s baby looks like me. Lydia went on to the Ansky Process and Katy Ansky, our one full-polymath genius and the great-great-I don"t know how many times great-grandmother of my own Katharina. pa.s.sed around pictures of his wife, who looked like the priestess of some arcane cult. He proposed to question Yuki, so I barreled her into a back room in spite of her furious protests, and went out on the front porch. As I left, Lydia was explaining the difference between parthenogenesis (which is so easy that anyone can practice it) and what we do, which is the merging of ova. That is why Katy"s baby looks like me. Lydia went on to the Ansky Process and Katy Ansky, our one full-polymath genius and the great-great-I don"t know how many times great-grandmother of my own Katharina.
A dot-dash transmitter in one of the outbuildings chattered faintly to itself: operators flirting and pa.s.sing jokes down the line.
There was a man on the porch. The other tall man. I watched him for a few minutes-I can move very quietly when I want to-and when I allowed him to see me, he stopped talking into the little machine hung around his neck. Then he said calmly, in excellent Russian, "Did you know that s.e.xual equality has been re-established on Earth?"
"You"re the real one," I said, "aren"t you? The other one"s for show." It was a great relief to get things cleared up. He nodded affably.
"As a people, we are not very bright," he said. "There"s been too much genetic damage in the last few centuries. Radiation. Drugs. We can use Whileaway"s genes, Janet." Strangers do not call strangers by the first name.
"You can have cells enough to drown in," I said. "Breed your own."
He smiled. "That"s not the way we want to do it." Behind him I saw Katy come into the square of light that was the screened-in door. He went on, low and urbane, not mocking me, I think, but with the self-confidence of someone who has always had money and strength to spare, who doesn"t know what it is to be second-cla.s.s or provincial. Which is very odd, because the day before, I would have said that was an exact description of me.
"I"m talking to you, Janet," he said, "because I suspect you have more popular influence than anyone else here. You know as well as I do that parthenogenetic culture has all sorts of inherent defects, and we do not-if we can help it-mean to use you for anything of the sort. Pardon me; I should not have said "use." But surely you can see that this kind of society is unnatural."
"Humanity is unnatural," said Katy. She had my rifle under her left arm. The top of that silky head does not quite come up to my collar-bone, but she is as tough as steel; he began to move, again with that queer smiling deference (which his fellow had showed to me but he had not) and the gun slid into Katy"s grip as if she had shot with it all her life.
"I agree," said the man. "Humanity is unnatural. I should know. I have metal in my teeth and metal pins here." He touched his shoulder. "Seals are harem animals," he added, "and so are men; apes are promiscuous and so are men; doves are monogamous and so are men; there are even celibate men and h.o.m.os.e.xual men. There are h.o.m.os.e.xual cows, I believe. But Whileaway is still missing something." He gave a dry chuckle. I will give him the credit of believing that it had something to do with nerves.
"I miss nothing," said Katy, "except that life isn"t endless."
"You are-?" said the man, nodding from me to her.
"Wives," said Katy. "We"re married." Again the dry chuckle.
"A good economic arrangement," he said, "for working and taking care of the children. And as good an arrangement as any for randomizing heredity, if your reproduction is made to follow the same pattern. But think, Katharina Michaelason, if there isn"t something better that you might secure for your daughters. I believe in instincts, even in Man, and I can"t think that the two of you-a machinist, are you? and I gather you are some sort of chief of police-don"t feel somehow what even you must miss. You know it intellectually, of course. There is only half a species here. Men must come back to Whileaway."
Katy said nothing.
"I should think, Katharina Michaelason," said the man gently, "that you, of all people, would benefit most from such a change," and he walked past Katy"s rifle into the square of light coming from the door. I think it was then that he noticed my scar, which really does not show unless the light is from the side: a fine line that runs from temple to chin. Most people don"t even know about it.
"Where did you get that?" he said, and I answered with an involuntary grin, "In my last duel." We stood there bristling at each other for several seconds (this is absurd but true) until he went inside and shut the screen door behind him. Katy said in a brittle voice, "You d.a.m.ned fool, don"t you know when we"ve been insulted?" and swung up the rifle to shoot him through the screen, but I got to her before she could fire and knocked the rifle out of aim; it burned a hole through the porch floor. Katy was shaking. She kept whispering over and over, "That"s why I never touched it, because I knew I"d kill someone, I knew I"d kill someone." The first man-the one I"d spoken with first-was still talking inside the house, something about the grand movement to re-colonize and re-discover all that Earth had lost. He stressed the advantages to Whileaway: trade, exchange of ideas, education. He too said that s.e.xual equality had been re-established on Earth.
Katy was right, of course; we should have burned them down where they stood. Men are coming to Whileaway. When one culture has the big guns and the other has none, there is a certain predictability about the outcome. Maybe men would have come eventually in any case. I like to think that a hundred years from now my great-grandchildren could have stood them off or fought them to a standstill, but even that"s no odds; I will remember all my life those four people I first met who were muscled like bulls and who made me-if only for a moment-feel small. A neurotic reaction, Katy says. I remember everything that happened that night; I remember Yuki"s excitement in the car, I remember Katy"s sobbing when we got home as if her heart would break, I remember her lovemaking, a little peremptory as always, but wonderfully soothing and comforting. I remember prowling restlessly around the house after Katy fell asleep with one bare arm flung into a patch of light from the hall. The muscles of her forearms are like metal bars from all that driving and testing of her machines. Sometimes I dream about Katy"s arms. I remember wandering into the nursery and picking up my wife"s baby, dozing for a while with the poignant, amazing warmth of an infant in my lap, and finally returning to the kitchen to find Yuriko fixing herself a late snack. My daughter eats like a Great Dane.
"Yuki," I said, "do you think you could fall in love with a man?" and she whooped derisively. "With a ten-foot toad!" said my tactful child.
But men are coming to Whileaway. Lately I sit up nights and worry about the men who will come to this planet, about my two daughters and Betta Katharinason, about what will happen to Katy, to me, to my life. Our ancestors" journals are one long cry of pain and I suppose I ought to be glad now but one can"t throw away six centuries, or even (as I have lately discovered) thirty-four years. Sometimes I laugh at the question those four men hedged about all evening and never quite dared to ask, looking at the lot of us, hicks in overalls, farmers in canvas pants and plain shirts: Which of you plays the role of the man? Which of you plays the role of the man? As if we had to produce a carbon copy of their mistakes! I doubt very much that s.e.xual equality has been re-established on Earth. I do not like to think of myself mocked, of Katy deferred to as if she were weak, of Yuki made to feel unimportant or silly, of my other children cheated of their full humanity or turned into strangers. And I"m afraid that my own achievements will dwindle from what they were-or what I thought they were-to the not-very-interesting curiosa of the human race, the oddities you read about in the back of the book, things to laugh at sometimes because they are so exotic, quaint but not impressive, charming but not useful. I find this more painful than I can say. You will agree that for a woman who has fought three duels, all of them kills, indulging in such fears is ludicrous. But what"s around the corner now is a duel so big that I don"t think I have the guts for it; in Faust"s words: As if we had to produce a carbon copy of their mistakes! I doubt very much that s.e.xual equality has been re-established on Earth. I do not like to think of myself mocked, of Katy deferred to as if she were weak, of Yuki made to feel unimportant or silly, of my other children cheated of their full humanity or turned into strangers. And I"m afraid that my own achievements will dwindle from what they were-or what I thought they were-to the not-very-interesting curiosa of the human race, the oddities you read about in the back of the book, things to laugh at sometimes because they are so exotic, quaint but not impressive, charming but not useful. I find this more painful than I can say. You will agree that for a woman who has fought three duels, all of them kills, indulging in such fears is ludicrous. But what"s around the corner now is a duel so big that I don"t think I have the guts for it; in Faust"s words: Verweile doch, du bist so schoen! Verweile doch, du bist so schoen! Keep it as it is. Don"t change. Keep it as it is. Don"t change.
Sometimes at night I remember the original name of this planet, changed by the first generation of our ancestors, those curious women for whom, I suppose, the real name was too painful a reminder after the men died. I find it amusing, in a grim way, to see it all so completely turned around. This too shall pa.s.s. All good things must come to an end.
Take my life but don"t take away the meaning of my life.
For-A-While.
Afterword.
I find it hard to say anything about this story. The first few paragraphs were dictated to me in a thoughtful, reasonable, whispering tone I had never heard before; and once the Daemon had vanished-they always do-I had to finish the thing by myself and in a voice not my own.
The premise of the story needs either a book or silence. I"ll try to compromise. It seems to me (in the words of the narrator) that s.e.xual equality has not yet been established on Earth and that (in the words of GBS) the only argument that can be made against it is that it has never been tried. I have read SF stories about manless worlds before; they are either full of busty girls in wisps of chiffon who slink about writhing with l.u.s.t (Keith Laumer wrote a charming, funny one called "The War with the Yukks"), or the women have set up a static, beelike society in imitation of some presumed primitive matriarchy. These stories are written by men. Why women who have been alone for generations should "instinctively" turn their s.e.xual desires toward persons of whom they have only intellectual knowledge, or why female people are presumed to have an innate preference for Byzantine rigidity I don"t know. "Progress" is one of the sacred cows of SF so perhaps the latter just goes to show that although women can run a society by themselves, it isn"t a good one it isn"t a good one. This is flattering to men, I suppose. Of SF attempts to depict real matriarchies ("He will be my concubine for tonight," said the Empress of Zar coldly) it is better not to speak. I remember one very good post-bomb story by an English writer (another static society, with the Magna Mater literally and supernaturally in existence) but on the whole we had better just tiptoe past the subject.
In my story I have used a.s.sumptions that seem to me obviously true. One of them is the idea that almost all the characterological s.e.x differences we take for granted are in fact learned and not innate. I do not see how anyone can walk around with both eyes open and both halves of his/her brain functioning and not realize this. Still, the mythology persists in SF, as elsewhere, that women are naturally gentler than men, that they are naturally less creative than men, or less intelligent, or shrewder, or more cowardly, or more dependent, or more self-centered, or more self-sacrificing, or more materialistic, or shyer, or G.o.d knows what, whatever is most convenient at the moment. True, you can make people into anything. There are matrons of fifty so domesticated that any venture away from home is a continual flutter: where"s the No Smoking sign, is it on, how do I fasten my seat belt, oh dear can you see the stewardess, she"s serving the men first, they always do, isn"t it awful. And what"s so fascinating about all this was that the strong, competent "male" to whom such a lady in distress turned for help recently was Carol Emshwiller. Wowie, zowie, Mr. Wizard! This flutteriness is not "femininity" (something men are always so anxious women will lose) but pathology.
It"s men who get rapturous and yeasty about the wonderful mystery of Woman, lovely Woman (this is getting difficult to write as I keep imagining my reader to be the George-Georgina of the old circuses: half-bearded, half-permanentwaved). There are few women who go around actually feeling: Oh, what a fascinating feminine mystery am I. This makes it clear enough, I think, which s.e.x (in general) has the higher prestige, the more freedom, the more education, the more money, in Sartre"s sense which is subject and which is object. Every role in life has its advantages and disadvantages, of course; a fiery feminist student here at Cornell recently told an audience that a man who acquires a wife acquires a "life-long slave" (fierce look) while the audience justifiably giggled and I wondered how I"d ever been inveigled into speaking on a program with such a lackwit. I also believe, like the villain of my story, that human beings are born with instincts (though fuzzy ones) and that being physically weaker than men and having babies makes a difference. But it makes less and less of a difference now.
Also, the patriarchal society must have considerable survival value. I suspect that it is actually more stable (and more rigid) than the primeval matriarchal societies hypothesized by some anthropologists. I wish somebody knew. To take only one topic: it seems clear that if there is to be a s.e.xual double standard, it must be the one we know and not the opposite; male potency is too biologically precious to repress. A society that made its well-bred men impotent, as Victorian ladies were made frigid, would rapidly become an unpeopled society. Such things ought to be speculated about.
Meanwhile, my story. It did not come from this lecture, of course, but vice versa. I had read a very fine SF novel, Ursula Le Guin"s The Left Hand of Darkness The Left Hand of Darkness, in which all the characters are humanoid hermaphrodites, and was wondering at the obduracy of the English language, in which everybody is "he" or "she" and "it" is reserved for typewriters. But how can one call a hermaphrodite "he," as Miss Le Guin does? I tried (in my head) changing all the masculine p.r.o.nouns to feminine ones, and marveled at the difference. And then I wondered why Miss Le Guin"s native "hero" is male in every every important s.e.xual encounter of his life except that with the human man in the book. Weeks later the Daemon suddenly whispered, "Katy drives like a maniac," and I found myself on Whileaway, on a country road at night. I might add (for the benefit of both the bearded and unbearded sides of the reader"s cerebrum) that I never write to shock. I consider that as immoral as writing to please. Katharina and Janet are respectable, decent, even conventional people, and if they shock important s.e.xual encounter of his life except that with the human man in the book. Weeks later the Daemon suddenly whispered, "Katy drives like a maniac," and I found myself on Whileaway, on a country road at night. I might add (for the benefit of both the bearded and unbearded sides of the reader"s cerebrum) that I never write to shock. I consider that as immoral as writing to please. Katharina and Janet are respectable, decent, even conventional people, and if they shock you you, just think what a copy of Playboy Playboy or or Cosmopolitan Cosmopolitan would do to would do to them them. Resentment of the opposite s.e.x (Cosmo is worse) is something they have yet to learn, thank G.o.d. is worse) is something they have yet to learn, thank G.o.d.
Which is why I visit Whileaway-although I do not live there because there are no men there. And if you wonder about my sincerity in saying that that, George-Georgina, I must just give you up as hopeless.
Introduction to THE BIG s.p.a.cE f.u.c.k.
If The New York Times Magazine The New York Times Magazine of 24 January 1971 is to be believed, this will be the last new piece of fiction you will ever read by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. of 24 January 1971 is to be believed, this will be the last new piece of fiction you will ever read by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
The article said, in part, "Vonnegut says repeatedly that he is through writing novels; I took it at first as a protective remark, but then began to believe it...."
"After Slaughterhouse-Five Slaughterhouse-Five, Vonnegut began work on a novel called Breakfast of Champions Breakfast of Champions, about a world in which everyone but a single man, the narrator, is a robot. He gave it up, however, and it remains unfinished. I asked him why, and he said, "Because it was a piece of-." "
I think the word for which the Times Times writer was groping, was s.h.i.t. That"s s-h-i-t, entered in writer was groping, was s.h.i.t. That"s s-h-i-t, entered in The Random House Dictionary of the English Language The Random House Dictionary of the English Language (Random House, New York, 1966), as follows: (Random House, New York, 1966), as follows: n., v n., v., s.h.i.t, s.h.i.t-ting s.h.i.t, s.h.i.t-ting, interj. Slang (vulgar).-n interj. Slang (vulgar).-n. 1. feces. 2. an act of defecation. 3. pretense, exaggeration, lies, or nonsense.
Always glad to help the Times Times through these ticklish matters. through these ticklish matters.
Which language discussion points up Mr. Vonnegut"s selection of t.i.tle for this story. It is his own, of course, and retained faithfully from the original ms., on view at the Editor"s Literary Museum daily between the hours of 12 noon and five p.m., admission thrupence. As this is the first time (to my knowledge) (I"m sure Andy Offutt or d.i.c.k Geis or Brian Kirby will correct me if I"m wrong) the word f.u.c.k has been used in a t.i.tle, it becomes something of a minor literary landmark; and since the number of critics and librarians who are impressed by Names and will be drawn to this anthology because Kurt is herein will be balanced by the numbers of provincial mommies and gunshy librarians who will ban the book from their kiddies" eyes, it should be commented upon. Syntax. Blues.
Sum of comment: nice t.i.tle.
Onward.
Kurt Vonnegut was born on November 11th, 1922, in Indianapolis. His first novel, Player Piano Player Piano, was published in 1952, and I never cared for it very much, not even in its original paperback incarnation from Bantam, in 1954, as Utopia 14 Utopia 14. But Kurt forgives me that.
You notice I call him Kurt, not "Mr. Vonnegut" or even the semi-distant "Kurt Vonnegut." Apart from my need of sick ego to name-drop, I am ent.i.tled ent.i.tled to call him by his first name. You see, Kurt and I belong to the same to call him by his first name. You see, Kurt and I belong to the same kara.s.s kara.s.s. Now, before I prove prove that statement, for those of you just rescued from Mohole shafts and unaware of who Vonnegut is, what he"s written, and what it is a that statement, for those of you just rescued from Mohole shafts and unaware of who Vonnegut is, what he"s written, and what it is a kara.s.s kara.s.s, these quotes-in explanation of the term-from Cat"s Cradle: Cat"s Cradle: (Vonnegut sets forth the religion known as Bokononism, codified by the calypso singer and philosopher Bokonon, from the Republic of San Lorenzo.) "We Bokononists believe that humanity is organized into teams, teams that do G.o.d"s Will without ever discovering what they are doing. Such a team is called a kara.s.s kara.s.s by Bokonon, and the instrument, the by Bokonon, and the instrument, the kan-kan kan-kan, that brought me into my own particular kara.s.s kara.s.s was the book I never finished, the book to be called was the book I never finished, the book to be called The Day the World Ended The Day the World Ended." (Chapter 1) " "If you find your life tangled up with somebody else"s life for no very logical reasons," writes Bokonon, "that person may be a member of your kara.s.s kara.s.s."
"At another point in The Books of Bokonon The Books of Bokonon he tells us, "Man created the checkerboard; G.o.d created the he tells us, "Man created the checkerboard; G.o.d created the kara.s.s kara.s.s." By that he means that a kara.s.s kara.s.s ignores national, inst.i.tutional, occupational, familial, and cla.s.s boundaries. ignores national, inst.i.tutional, occupational, familial, and cla.s.s boundaries.
"It is as free-form as an amoeba." (Chapter 2) "Nowhere does Bokonon warn against a person"s trying to discover the limits of his kara.s.s kara.s.s and the nature of the work G.o.d Almighty has had it do. Bokonon simply observes that such investigations are bound to be incomplete." (Chapter 3) and the nature of the work G.o.d Almighty has had it do. Bokonon simply observes that such investigations are bound to be incomplete." (Chapter 3) "Which brings me to the Bokononist concept of a wampeter wampeter.
"A wampeter is the pivot of a is the pivot of a kara.s.s kara.s.s. No kara.s.s kara.s.s is without a is without a wampeter wampeter, Bokonon tells us, just as no wheel is without a hub.
"Anything can be a wampeter: wampeter: a tree, a rock, an animal, an idea, a book, a melody, the Holy Grail. Whatever it is, the members of its a tree, a rock, an animal, an idea, a book, a melody, the Holy Grail. Whatever it is, the members of its kara.s.s kara.s.s revolve about it in the majestic chaos of a spiral nebula. The orbits of a revolve about it in the majestic chaos of a spiral nebula. The orbits of a kara.s.s kara.s.s about their common about their common wampeter wampeter are spiritual orbits, naturally.... At any given time a are spiritual orbits, naturally.... At any given time a kara.s.s kara.s.s actually has two actually has two wampeters- wampeters-one waxing in importance, one waning." (Chapter 24) "-my seatmates were Horlick Minton, the new American Amba.s.sador to the Republic of San Lorenzo, and his wife, Claire. They were white-haired, gentle, and frail....
"They were lovebirds. They entertained each other endlessly with little gifts: sights worth seeing out the plane window, amusing or instructive bits from things they read, random recollections of times gone by. They were, I think, a flawless example of what Bokonon calls a dupra.s.s dupra.s.s, which is a kara.s.s kara.s.s composed of only two persons. composed of only two persons.
" "A true dupra.s.s dupra.s.s," Bokonon tells us, "can"t be invaded, not even by children born of such a union."" (Chapter 41) "Crosby asked me what my name was and what my business was. I told him, and his wife Hazel recognized my name as an Indiana name. She was from Indiana, too.
" "My G.o.d," she said, "are you a Hoosier? Hoosier?"...
"Hazel"s obsession with Hoosiers around the world was a textbook example of a false kara.s.s kara.s.s, of a seeming team that was meaningless in terms of the ways G.o.d gets things done, a textbook example of what Bokonon calls a granfalloon granfalloon. Other examples of granfalloons granfalloons are the Communist party, the Daughters of the American Revolution, the General Electric Company, the International Order of Odd Fellows-and any nation, anytime, anywhere." (Chapter 42) are the Communist party, the Daughters of the American Revolution, the General Electric Company, the International Order of Odd Fellows-and any nation, anytime, anywhere." (Chapter 42) Essentially, that"s all you need to know about what a kara.s.s kara.s.s is; and for those millions of delighted readers on college campuses, in rural ivory towers, in sunny sitting rooms, on streetcars, who"ve read is; and for those millions of delighted readers on college campuses, in rural ivory towers, in sunny sitting rooms, on streetcars, who"ve read Cat"s Cradle Cat"s Cradle and know it for the contemporary cla.s.sic it has become, who may wonder why I have gone on at such length to explicate the obvious, well, let"s say I did it for the three or four poor souls who have not yet found the joys of Vonnegut for themselves. And as a lead-in to a letter I have before me, dated 16 March 1963, sent from Scudder"s Lane in West Barnstable, Ma.s.sachusetts, from Kurt, to me, explaining why it is I presume to call him Kurt. It reads, in part, as follows: and know it for the contemporary cla.s.sic it has become, who may wonder why I have gone on at such length to explicate the obvious, well, let"s say I did it for the three or four poor souls who have not yet found the joys of Vonnegut for themselves. And as a lead-in to a letter I have before me, dated 16 March 1963, sent from Scudder"s Lane in West Barnstable, Ma.s.sachusetts, from Kurt, to me, explaining why it is I presume to call him Kurt. It reads, in part, as follows: "Dear Harlan: "Yes, I realized before you did that you were a member of my kara.s.s- kara.s.s-not the one I own, the one I belong to. I don"t own or manage one."
It went on with a great deal of personal stuff we had between us, and at that point we"d never met.
How it was I came to know I was in Kurt"s kara.s.s kara.s.s was in 1959, when Knox Burger, then-editor of Gold Medal Books, asked me my opinion of the stories of a certain Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., who had had a few pieces here and there in sf magazines. I had read was in 1959, when Knox Burger, then-editor of Gold Medal Books, asked me my opinion of the stories of a certain Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., who had had a few pieces here and there in sf magazines. I had read The Sirens of t.i.tan The Sirens of t.i.tan, which Dell had brought out as an original in 1959, and I remembered from 1954 a story in Galaxy Galaxy called "Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow" which I thought was the very best Malthusian pastiche I"d ever read. I told Knox Vonnegut was sensational, and wanted to know why he"d asked. He said he was considering putting together a collection of Kurt"s short stories, even though called "Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow" which I thought was the very best Malthusian pastiche I"d ever read. I told Knox Vonnegut was sensational, and wanted to know why he"d asked. He said he was considering putting together a collection of Kurt"s short stories, even though Player Piano Player Piano and and The Sirens of t.i.tan The Sirens of t.i.tan hadn"t been such hot sellers. It was a brave thing to do: short story collections are traditionally poison, particularly for paperback houses, and Gold Medal had only done one or two, each time with disastrous results. But Knox was a dynamite editor, and a good friend, and he"d known Kurt since college, where Kurt was a big wheel on the campus newspaper and Knox was a wheel on the humor magazine. hadn"t been such hot sellers. It was a brave thing to do: short story collections are traditionally poison, particularly for paperback houses, and Gold Medal had only done one or two, each time with disastrous results. But Knox was a dynamite editor, and a good friend, and he"d known Kurt since college, where Kurt was a big wheel on the campus newspaper and Knox was a wheel on the humor magazine.
So Knox asked me if I"d help package the book, and I said it would be a joy to do so, and I contacted Leo & Diane Dillon (whose artwork you"ll remember from Dangerous Visions Dangerous Visions and the Ace Specials paperback line, not to mention the cover of almost every book I"ve ever written) and asked them to do the cover, and I wrote the blurbs, and Knox published it as and the Ace Specials paperback line, not to mention the cover of almost every book I"ve ever written) and asked them to do the cover, and I wrote the blurbs, and Knox published it as Canary in a Cat House Canary in a Cat House in 1961, following it in 1962 with in 1961, following it in 1962 with Mother Night Mother Night (which many hardcover houses had rejected). Why had Knox called me, rather than any one of a thousand other writers and anthologists closer to hand? Had nothing to do with my qualifications and certainly is not stated here to make me out a big (which many hardcover houses had rejected). Why had Knox called me, rather than any one of a thousand other writers and anthologists closer to hand? Had nothing to do with my qualifications and certainly is not stated here to make me out a big macher macher. It was that I was a member of Kurt"s kara.s.s kara.s.s and at that point Knox may well have been our and at that point Knox may well have been our wampeter wampeter.
I don"t remember now where or when it was that Kurt and I finally met, but by September of 1964 we were friendly enough for me to be outraged and dismayed that the voting membership of that year"s World SF Convention had awarded the Hugo for best novel to something other than Cat"s Cradle Cat"s Cradle. I sent him a telegram the essence of which, if I recall correctly, was, "The a.s.sholes suffered total brain damage and ignored the finest novel of the past twenty-five years by pa.s.sing-over Cat"s Cradle Cat"s Cradle. They do themselves, sf and literature a greater disservice than they will ever know. I am ashamed for them."
His response, via Western Union, was: "Prouder of your telegram than I would be of Hugo. Much love, Kurt."
By 1967, Kurt was supposed to do the introduction to my first hardcover collection of mainstream stories, Love Ain"t Nothing But s.e.x Misspelled Love Ain"t Nothing But s.e.x Misspelled, but something went wrong, he wasn"t sent the galleys till too late, and the intro never was written. As a result-and here"s kara.s.s kara.s.s again, eerily, spookily-Robert Scholes, the academician who came up with the generic t.i.tle "fabulators" for a group of writers including Barthelme, Vonnegut, Barth and others, reviewed the book and gave it the most killing review I"ve ever had. Since Scholes is absolutely leech-like ga-ga over Vonnegut, chances are good that had Kurt been in that volume, I"d have gotten a better review. G.o.d, Bokonon and Vonnegut must have had a reason. I question not. again, eerily, spookily-Robert Scholes, the academician who came up with the generic t.i.tle "fabulators" for a group of writers including Barthelme, Vonnegut, Barth and others, reviewed the book and gave it the most killing review I"ve ever had. Since Scholes is absolutely leech-like ga-ga over Vonnegut, chances are good that had Kurt been in that volume, I"d have gotten a better review. G.o.d, Bokonon and Vonnegut must have had a reason. I question not.
And most recently Kurt and I have had reason to know we"re in the same kara.s.s kara.s.s because: one of my dearest lady friends, for many years, in New York, is Holly Bower. Holly grew to know Kurt from me. But never met him. Kurt moved to New York. He moved into Holly"s neighborhood. Holly"s friend is Jill Krementz. Holly met Kurt on the street and said hi, I"m a friend of Harlan"s. They got talking. Holly introduced Jill to Kurt. Now Jill is Kurt"s official photographer ( because: one of my dearest lady friends, for many years, in New York, is Holly Bower. Holly grew to know Kurt from me. But never met him. Kurt moved to New York. He moved into Holly"s neighborhood. Holly"s friend is Jill Krementz. Holly met Kurt on the street and said hi, I"m a friend of Harlan"s. They got talking. Holly introduced Jill to Kurt. Now Jill is Kurt"s official photographer (Sat.u.r.day Review, Time, etc.) and constant companion. And so it goes.
Now Kurt is ultrasuperfamous. But he"s still Kurt, though s.h.a.ggier. And so it goes, with our kara.s.s kara.s.s: it falls to me to publish the final short story of Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.-who wrote Slaughterhouse-Five Slaughterhouse-Five and and Welcome to the Monkey House Welcome to the Monkey House and and G.o.d Bless You, Mr. Rosewater G.o.d Bless You, Mr. Rosewater and the very successful play and the very successful play Happy Birthday, Wanda June Happy Birthday, Wanda June. It cannot all be merest chance. And perhaps chance will play less of a part in getting Kurt to write more stories than the kara.s.s kara.s.s of which he and I are parts. Because a talent as pure and original as Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. doesn"t happen too often; to think that even a story as hilarious and incisive and deadly as this one is to be his last, is a sad-making thing. of which he and I are parts. Because a talent as pure and original as Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. doesn"t happen too often; to think that even a story as hilarious and incisive and deadly as this one is to be his last, is a sad-making thing.
But, as Bokonon invites us to sing: "Around and around and around we spin, "With feet of lead and wings of tin..."
THE BIG s.p.a.cE f.u.c.k.
Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
In 1977 it became possible in the United States of America for a young person to sue his parents for the way he had been raised. He could take them to court and make them pay money and even serve jail terms for serious mistakes they made when he was just a helpless little kid. This was not only an effort to achieve justice but to discourage reproduction, since there wasn"t anything much to eat any more. Abortions were free. In fact, any woman who volunteered for one got her choice of a bathroom scale or a table lamp.
In 1979, America staged the Big s.p.a.ce f.u.c.k, which was a serious effort to make sure that human life would continue to exist somewhere in the Universe, since it certainly couldn"t continue much longer on Earth. Everything had turned to s.h.i.t and beer cans and old automobiles and Clorox bottles. An interesting thing happened in the Hawaiian Islands, where they had been throwing trash down extinct volcanoes for years: a couple of the volcanoes all of a sudden spit it all back up. And so on.
This was a period of great permissiveness in matters of language, so even the President was saying s.h.i.t and f.u.c.k and so on, without anybody"s feeling threatened or taking offense. It was perfectly OK. He called the s.p.a.ce f.u.c.k a s.p.a.ce f.u.c.k and so did everybody else. It was a rocket ship with eight-hundred pounds of freeze-dried j.i.z.zum in its nose. It was going to be fired at the Andromeda Galaxy, two-million light years away. The ship was named the Arthur C. Clarke Arthur C. Clarke, in honor of a famous s.p.a.ce pioneer.
It was to be fired at midnight on the Fourth of July. At ten o"clock that night, Dwayne Hoobler and his wife Grace were watching the countdown on television in the living room of their modest home in Elk Harbor, Ohio, on the sh.o.r.e of what used to be Lake Erie. Lake Erie was almost solid sewage now. There were man-eating lampreys in there thirty-eight feet long. Dwayne was a guard in the Ohio Adult Correctional Inst.i.tution, which was two miles away. His hobby was making birdhouses out of Clorox bottles. He went on making them and hanging them around his yard, even though there weren"t any birds any more.
Dwayne and Grace marveled at a film demonstration of how j.i.z.zum had been freeze-dried for the trip. A small beaker of the stuff, which had been contributed by the head of the Mathematics Department at the University of Chicago, was flash-frozen. Then it was placed under a bell jar, and the air was exhausted from the jar. The air evanesced, leaving a fine white powder. The powder certainly didn"t look like much, and Dwayne Hoobler said so-but there were several hundred million sperm cells in there, in suspended animation. The original contribution, an average contribution, had been two cubic centimeters. There was enough powder, Dwayne estimated out loud, to clog the eye of a needle. And eight-hundred pounds of the stuff would soon be on its way to Andromeda.
"f.u.c.k you, Andromeda," said Dwayne, and he wasn"t being coa.r.s.e. He was echoing billboards and stickers all over town. Other signs said, "Andromeda, We Love You," and "Earth has the Hots for Andromeda," and so on.
There was a knock on the door, and an old friend of the family, the County Sheriff, simultaneously let himself in. "How are you, you old motherf.u.c.ker?" said Dwayne.
"Can"t complain, s.h.i.tface," said the sheriff, and they joshed back and forth like that for a while. Grace chuckled, enjoying their wit. She wouldn"t have chuckled so richly, however, if she had been a little more observant. She might have noticed that the sheriff"s jocularity was very much on the surface. Underneath, he had something troubling on his mind. She might have noticed, too, that he had legal papers in his hand.
"Sit down, you silly old fart," said Dwayne, "and watch Andromeda get the surprise of her life."
"The way I understand it," the sheriff replied, "I"d have to sit there for more than two-million years. My old lady might wonder what"s become of me." He was a lot smarter than Dwayne. He had j.i.z.zum on the Arthur C. Clarke Arthur C. Clarke, and Dwayne didn"t. You had to have an I.Q. of over 115 to have your j.i.z.zum accepted. There were certain exceptions to this: if you were a good athlete or could play a musical instrument or paint pictures, but Dwayne didn"t qualify in any of those ways, either. He had hoped that birdhouse-makers might be ent.i.tled to special consideration, but this turned out not to be the case. The Director of the New York Philharmonic, on the other hand, was ent.i.tled to contribute a whole quart, if he wanted to. He was sixty-eight years old. Dwayne was forty-two.
There was an old astronaut on the television now. He was saying that he sure wished he could go where his j.i.z.zum was going. But he would sit at home instead, with his memories and a gla.s.s of Tang. Tang Tang. Tang used to be the official drink of the astronauts. It was a freeze-dried orangeade. used to be the official drink of the astronauts. It was a freeze-dried orangeade.
"Maybe you haven"t got two million years," said Dwayne, "but you"ve got at least five minutes. Sit thee doon."
"What I"m here for-" said the sheriff, and he let his unhappiness show, "is something I customarily do standing up."
Dwayne and Grace were sincerely puzzled. They didn"t have the least idea what was coming next. Here is what it was: the sheriff handed each one of them a subpoena, and he said, "It"s my sad duty to inform you that your daughter, Wanda June, has accused you of ruining her when she was a child."
Dwayne and Grace were thunderstruck. They knew that Wanda June was twenty-one now, and ent.i.tled to sue, but they certainly hadn"t expected her to do so. She was in New York City, and when they congratulated her about her birthday on the telephone, in fact, one of the things Grace said was, "Well, you can sue us now, honeybunch, if you want to." Grace was so sure she and Dwayne had been good parents that she could laugh when she went on, "If you want to, you can send your rotten old parents off to jail."
Wanda June was an only child, incidentally. She had come close to having some siblings, but Grace had had them aborted. Grace had taken three table lamps and a bathroom scale instead.
"What does she say we did wrong?" Grace asked the sheriff.
"There"s a separate list of charges inside each of your subpoenas," he said. And he couldn"t look his wretched old friends in the eye, so he looked at the television instead. A scientist there was explaining why Andromeda had been selected as a target. There were at least eighty-seven chronosynclastic infundibulae, time warps, between Earth and the Andromeda Galaxy. If the Arthur C. Clarke Arthur C. Clarke pa.s.sed through any one of them, the ship and its load would be multiplied a trillion times, and would appear everywhere throughout s.p.a.ce and time. pa.s.sed through any one of them, the ship and its load would be multiplied a trillion times, and would appear everywhere throughout s.p.a.ce and time.
"If there"s any fecundity anywhere in the Universe," the scientist promised, "our seed will find it and bloom."
One of the most depressing things about the s.p.a.ce program so far, of course, was that it had demonstrated that fecundity was one h.e.l.l of a long way off, if anywhere. Dumb people like Dwayne and Grace, and even fairly smart people like the sheriff, had been encouraged to believe that there was hospitality out there, and that Earth was just a piece of s.h.i.t to use as a launching platform.
Now Earth really was a piece of s.h.i.t, and it was beginning to dawn on even dumb people that it might be the only inhabitable planet human beings would ever find.
Grace was in tears over being sued by her daughter, and the list of charges she was reading was broken into multiple images by the tears. "Oh G.o.d, oh G.o.d, oh G.o.d-" she said, "she"s talking about things I forgot all about, but she never forgot a thing. She"s talking about something that happened when she was only four years old."