Bagombo Snuff Box: Uncollected Short Fiction

by Kurt Vonnegut

  “That must be kind of confusing for people who are with you,” he said.

  “It’s a mess,” she said.

  “It might come in handy in case you ever have to attend the funeral of someone you hate,” he said.

  “It isn’t going to be very handy in the pipe industry,” she said.

  “Are you in the pipe industry?” he said.

  “Isn’t everybody in Creon in the pipe industry?” she said.

  “I’m not,” he said.

  “How do you keep from starving to death?” she said.

  “I wave a stick in front of a band … give music lessons … things like that,” he said.

  “Oh, God—a musician,” she said, and she turned her back.

  “That’s against me?” he said.

  “I never want to see another musician as long as I live,” she said.

  “In that case,” he said, “close your eyes and I’ll tiptoe away.” But he didn’t leave.

  “That’s your band—playing tonight?” she said. They could hear the music quite clearly.

  “That’s right,” he said.

  “You can stay,” she said.

  “Pardon me?” he said.

  “You’re no musician,” she said, “or that band would have made you curl up and die.”

  “You’re the first person who ever listened to it,” he said.

  “I bet that’s really the truth,” she said. “Those people don’t hear anything that isn’t about pipe. When they dance, do they keep any kind of time to the music?”

  “When they what?” he said.

  “I said,” she repeated, “when they dance.”

  “How can they dance,” he said, “if the men spend the whole evening in the locker room, drinking, shooting crap, and talking sewer pipe, and all the women sit out on the terrace, talking about things they’ve overheard about pipe, about things they’ve bought with money from pipe, about things they’d like to buy with money from pipe?”

  She started weeping again.

  “Just being silly again?” he said. “Everything still fine?”

  “Everything’s fine,” she said. The demoralized, ramshackle little band in the empty ballroom ended a number with razz-berries and squeals. “Oh God, but that band hates music!” she said.

  “They didn’t always,” he said.

  “What happened?” she said.

  “They found out they weren’t ever going anywhere but Creon—and they found out nobody in Creon would listen. If I went and told them a beautiful woman was listening and weeping out here, they might get back a little of what they had once—and make a present of it to you.”

  “What’s your instrument?” she said.

  “Clarinet,” he said. “Any special requests—any melodies you’d like to have us waft from the clubhouse while you weep alone?”

  “No,” she said. “That’s sweet, but no music for me.”

  “Tranquilizers? Aspirin?” he said. “Cigarettes, chewing gum, candy?”

  “A drink,” she said.

  Shouldering his way to the crowded bar, a bar called The Jolly Piper, Andy learned a lot of things about the sewer pipe business. Cleveland, he learned, had bought a lot of cheap pipe from another company, and Cleveland was going to be sorry about it in about twenty years. The Navy had specified Creon pipe for all buildings under construction, he learned, and nobody was going to be sorry. It was a little-known fact, he learned, that the whole world stood in awe of American pipe-making capabilities.

  He also found out who the woman on the first tee was. She had been brought to the dance by Arvin Borders, bachelor manager of the Creon Works. Borders had met her in New York. She was a small-time actress, the widow of a jazz musician, the mother of two very young daughters.

  Andy found out all this from the bartender. Arvin Borders, “Mr. Pipe” himself, came into the bar and craned his neck, looking for somebody. He was carrying two highballs. The ice in both glasses had melted.

  “Still haven’t seen her, Mr. Borders,” the bartender called to him, and Borders nodded unhappily and left.

  “Who haven’t you seen?” Andy asked the bartender.

  And the bartender told him all he knew about the widow. He also gave Andy the opinion, out of the corner of his mouth, that General Forge and Foundry Company headquarters in Ilium, New York, knew about the romance and took a very dim view of it. “You tell me where, in all of Creon,” the bartender said to Andy, “a pretty, young New York actress could fit in.”

  The woman went by her stage name, which was Hildy Matthews, Andy learned. The bartender didn’t have any idea who her husband had been.

  Andy went into the ballroom to tell his Pipe-Dreamers to play a little better for a weeping lady on the golf course, and he found Arvin Borders talking to them. Borders, an earnest, thickset man, was asking the band to play “Indian Love Call” very loud.

  “Loud?” said Andy.

  “So she’ll hear it, wherever she is, and come,” said Borders. “I can’t imagine where she got to,” he said. “I left her on the terrace, with the ladies, for a while—and she just plain evaporated.”

  “Maybe she got fed up with all the talk about pipe,” said Andy.

  “She’s very interested in pipe,” said Borders. “You wouldn’t think a woman who looked like that would be, but she can listen to me talk shop for hours and never get tired of it.”

  “‘Indian Love Call’ will bring her back?” said Andy.

  Borders mumbled something unintelligible.

  “Pardon me, sir?” said Andy.

  Borders turned red and pulled in his chin. “I said,” he said gruffly, “‘it’s our tune,’”

  “I see,” said Andy.

  “You boys might as well know now—I’m going to marry that girl,” said Borders. “We’re going to announce our engagement tonight.”

  Andy bowed slightly. “Congratulations,” he said. He put his two highballs down on a chair, picked up his clarinet. “‘Indian Love Call,’ boys—real loud?” he said.

  The band was slow to respond. Nobody seemed to want to play much, and everybody was trying to tell Andy something.

  “What’s the trouble?” said Andy.

  “Before we play, Andy,” said the pianist, “you ought to know just who we’re playing for, whose widow we’re playing for.”

  “Whose widow?” said Andy.

  “I had no idea he was so famous,” said Borders. “I mentioned him to your band here, and they almost fell off their chairs.”

  “Who?” said Andy.

  “A dope fiend, an alcoholic, a wife-beater, and a woman-chaser who was shot dead last year by a jealous husband,” said Borders indignantly. “Why anybody would think there was anything wonderful about a man like that I’ll never know,” he said. And then he gave the name of the man, a man who was probably the greatest jazz musician who had ever lived.

  “I thought you weren’t ever coming back,” she said, out of the shadows on the first tee.

  “I had to play a special request,” said Andy. “Somebody wanted me to play ‘Indian Love Call’ as loud as I could.”

  “Oh,” she said.

  “You heard it and you didn’t come running?” he said.

  “Is that what he expected me to do?” she said.

  “He said it was your tune,” he said.

  “That was his idea,” she said. “He thinks it’s the most beautiful song ever written.”

  “How did you two happen to meet?” he said.

  “I was dead broke, looking for any kind of work at all,” she said. “There was a General Forge and Foundry Company sales meeting in New York. They were going to put on a skit. They needed an actress. I got the part.”

  “What part did they give you?” he said.

  “They dressed me in gold lamé, gave me a crown of pipe fittings, and introduced me as ‘Miss Pipe Opportunities in the Golden Sixties,’” she said. “Arvin Borders was there,” she said. She emptied her glass. “Kismet,” she said.
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  “Kismet,” he said.

  She took his highball from him. “I’m sorry,” she said, “I’m going to need this one, too.”

  “And ten more besides?” he said.

  “If it takes ten more to get me back to all those people, all those lights, all that pipe,” she said, “I’ll drink ten more.”

  “The trip’s that tough?” he said.

  “If only I hadn’t wandered out here,” she said. “If only I’d stayed up there!”

  “One of the worst mistakes a person can make, sometimes, I guess,” he said, “is to try to get away from people and think. It’s a great way to lose your forward motion.”

  “The band is playing so softly I can hardly hear the music,” she said.

  “They know whose widow’s listening,” he said, “and they’d just as soon you didn’t hear them.”

  “Oh,” she said. “They know. You know.”

  “He—he didn’t leave you anything?” he said.

  “Debts,” she said. “Two daughters … for which I’m really very grateful.”

  “The horn?” he said.

  “It’s with him,” she said. “Please—could I have one more drink?”

  “One more drink,” he said, “and you’ll have to go back to your fiancé on your hands and knees.”

  “I’m perfectly capable of taking care of myself, thank you,” she said. “It isn’t up to you to watch out for me.”

  “Beg your pardon,” he said.

  She gave a small, melodious hiccup. “What a terrible time for that to happen,” she said. “It doesn’t have anything to do with drinking.”

  “I believe you,” he said.

  “You don’t believe me,” she said. “Give me some kind of a test. Make me walk a straight line or say something complicated.”

  “Forget it,” he said.

  “You don’t believe I love Arvin Borders, either, do you?” she said. “Well, let me tell you that one of the things I do best is love. I don’t mean pretending to love. I mean really loving. When I love somebody, I don’t hold anything back. I go all the way, and right now I happen to love Arvin Borders.”

  “Lucky man,” he said.

  “Would you like to hear exactly how much I have already learned about pipe?” she said.

  “Go ahead,” he said.

  “I read a whole book about pipe,” she said. “I went to the public library and got down a book about pipe and nothing else but pipe.”

  “What did the book say?” he said.

  From the tennis courts to the west came faint, crooning calls. Borders was now prowling the club grounds, looking for his Hildy. “Hildeee,” he was calling. “Hildy?”

  “You want me to yell yoo-hoo?” said Andy.

  “Shhh!” she said. And she gave the small, melodious hiccup.

  Arvin Borders wandered off into the parking lot, his cries fading away in the darkness that enveloped him.

  “You were going to tell me about pipe,” said Andy.

  “Let’s talk about you,” she said.

  “What would you like to know about me?” he said.

  “People have to ask you questions or you can’t talk?” she said.

  He shrugged. “Small-time musician. Never married. Big dreams once. Big dreams all gone.”

  “Big dreams of what?” she said.

  “Being half the musician your husband was,” he said. “You want to hear more?”

  “I love to hear other people’s dreams,” she said.

  “All right—love,” he said.

  “You’ve never had that?” she said.

  “Not that I’ve noticed,” he said.

  “May I ask you a very personal question?” she said.

  “About my ability as a great lover?” he said.

  “No,” she said. “I think that would be a very silly kind of question. I think everybody young is basically a great lover. All anybody needs is the chance.”

  ‘Ask the personal question,” he said.

  “Do you make any money?” she said.

  Andy didn’t answer right away.

  “Is that too personal?” she said.

  “I don’t guess it would kill me to answer,” he said. He did some figuring in his head, gave her an honest report of his earnings.

  “Why, that’s very good,” she said.

  “More than a schoolteacher, less than a school janitor,” he said.

  “Do you live in an apartment or what?” she said.

  “A big old house I inherited from my family,” he said.

  “You’re really quite well off when you stop to think about it,” she said. “Do you like little children—little girls?”

  “Don’t you think you’d better be getting back to your fiancé?” he said.

  “My questions keep getting more and more personal,” she said. “I can’t help it, my own life has been so personal. Crazy, personal things happen to me all the time.”

  “I think we’d better break this up,” he said.

  She ignored him. “For instance,” she said, “I pray for certain kinds of people to come to me, and they come to me. One time when I was very young, I prayed for a great musician to come and fall in love with me—and he did. And I loved him, too, even though he was the worst husband a woman could have. That’s how good I am at loving.”

  “Hooray,” he said quietly.

  “And then,” she said, “when my husband died and there was nothing to eat and I was sick of wild and crazy nights and days, I prayed for a solid, sensible, rich businessman to come along.”

  “And he did,” said Andy.

  “And then,” she said, “when I came out here and ran away from all the people who liked pipe so much—do you know what I prayed for?”

  “Nope,” he said.

  “A man to bring me a drink,” she said. “That was all. I give you my word of honor, that was all.”

  “And I brought you two drinks,” he said.

  “And that isn’t all, either,” she said.

  “Oh?” he said.

  “I think that I could love you very much,” she said.

  “A pretty tough thing to do,” he said.

  “Not for me,” she said. “I think you could be a very good musician if somebody encouraged you. And I could give you the big and beautiful love you want. You’d definitely have that.”

  “This is a proposal of marriage?” he said.

  “Yes,” she said. “And if you say no, I don’t know what I’ll do. I’ll crawl under the shrubbery here and just die. I can’t go back to all those pipe people, and there’s no place else to go.”

  “I’m supposed to say yes?” he said.

  “If you feel like saying yes, then say yes,” she said.

  “All right—” he said at last, “yes.”

  “We’re both going to be so glad this happened,” she said.

  “What about Arvin Borders?” he said.

  “We’re doing him a favor,” she said.

  “We are?” he said.

  “Oh, yes,” she said. “On the terrace there, a woman came right out and said it would ruin Arvin’s career if he married a woman like me—and you know, it probably would, too.”

  “That was the crack that sent you out here into the shadows?” he said.

  “Yes,” she said. “It was very upsetting. I didn’t want to hurt anybody’s career.”

  “That’s considerate of you,” he said.

  “But you,” she said, taking his arm, “I don’t see how I could do anything for you but a world of good. You wait,” she said. “You wait and see.”

  Runaways

  They left a note saying teenagers were as capable of true love as anybody else—maybe more capable. And then they took off for parts unknown.

  They took off in the boy’s old blue Ford, with baby shoes dangling from the rearview mirror, with a pile of comic books on the burst backseat.

  A police alarm went out for them right away, and their pictures were in the papers a
nd on television. But they weren’t caught for twenty-four hours. They got all the way to Chicago. A patrolman spotted them shopping together in a supermarket there, caught them buying what looked like a lifetime supply of candy, cosmetics, soft drinks, and frozen pizzas.

  The girl’s father gave the patrolman a two-hundred-dollar reward. The girl’s father was Jesse K. Southard, governor of the state of Indiana.

  That was why they got so much publicity. It was exciting when an ex-reform school kid, a kid who ran a lawn mower at the governor’s country club, ran off with the governor’s daughter.

  When the Indiana State Police brought the girl back to the Governor’s Mansion in Indianapolis, Governor Southard announced that he would take immediate steps to get an annulment. An irreverent reporter pointed out to him that there could hardly be an annulment, since there hadn’t been a marriage.

  The governor blew up. “That boy never laid a finger on her,” he roared, “because she wouldn’t let him! And I’ll knock the block off any man who says otherwise.”

  The reporters wanted to talk to the girl, naturally, and the governor said she would have a statement for them in about an hour. It wouldn’t be her first statement about the escapade. In Chicago she and the boy had lectured reporters and police on love, hypocrisy, persecution of teenagers, the insensitivity of parents, and even rockets, Russia, and the hydrogen bomb.

  When the girl came downstairs with her new statement, however, she contradicted everything she’d said in Chicago. Reading from a three-page typewritten script, she said the adventure had been a nightmare, said she didn’t love the boy and never had, said she must have been crazy, and said she never wanted to see the boy again.

  She said the only people she loved were her parents, said she didn’t see how she could make it up to them for all the heartaches she had caused, said she was going to concentrate on schoolwork and getting into college, and said she didn’t want to pose for pictures because she looked so awful after the ordeal.

  She didn’t look especially awful, except that she’d dyed her hair red, and the boy had given her a terrible haircut in an effort to disguise her. And she’d been crying some. She didn’t look tired. She looked young and wild and captured—that was all.

  Her name was Annie—Annie Southard.