Perhaps a fraction
Of sheer abstraction
expressed in action
in loves own faction…
or fate’s disaster
in mucoid plaster;
or fate’s own master,
expressed in blood and alabaster;
Vexed by the sex hex,
The baren decks of ships that sex wrecks
Roll and take a droll toll
Of myriad foal souls
Yes…of myriad gentle foal souls
Gentle foul and foal souls
That sprawl on the beach…
This beach on which we stand––
Sprawl to bleach
To bleach for our lifetime?
Nay, silly child, for our lifetime is
eternity…
bones are far too perishable to persist so long as eternity.
, , , , , , . synonymous
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OH HAPPY HAPPY ST. VALENTINE’S DAY
IN THE FACE OF COMPETITION
I’M AFRAID MY LOT’S PERDITION
FOR I’M MOVING TO THE U. OF TENNESSEE.
IT’S OFF THE BUSY HIGHWAY
SO YOUR CHANCE OF GOING MY WAY
SEEMS PRETTY DAMN REMOTE TO EVEN ME.
BUT BE MY VALENTINE ANYWAY,
JUST FOR THE PLAIN HELL OF IT.
THOUGH THE TRAINING IS TERRIFIC,
I WOULD RATHER BE PROLIFIC
ARMY LIFE IS DAMN NEAR SEXLESS;
DAMMIT, I WANT SEX FOR BREAKFAST.
WHILE THEY’RE TEACHING ME DESTRUCTION,
I FIND MY MIND ON REPRODUCTION.
ARMY LIFE IS DAMN NEAR SEXLESS;
DAMMIT I WANT SEX FOR BREAKFAST.
KURT
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D-2, S.U. 4431, A.S.T.P.
TENN. U., KNOXVILLE, TENN
Dear Woofy:
Perchance you’ve received my Valentine and are dying to know where I may be reached that you may dispatch a flood of gratitude embellished with those little tendernesses that lovers whisper on spring nights. O.K., lovey, I’m at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. If Tennessee were to try to secede from the Union again I don’t think anyone would try to stop them. The Holy Trinity of Methodist, Baptist and Bootlegger are keeping Knoxville dry. Old [Dog] Breath Jersey Bonded Fusil [Oil] may be [bought] from Bellhop #2 at the Farragut Hotel for $700 a pint. I had a bellyful of denatured and therefore legal beer last night. My only sensation of debauch was that my belly was full and that I belched voluminously and that those belches billowed and chewed at the mucous membranes of my sinus with yeasty carbon-dioxide teeth.
So far, the Methodists, Baptists and Whoremongers have not made womankind a premium item. However, the ricky-tick-lick device which I blindly believed to be a mild and reasonably satisfactory jitterbug is strictly laughable here. Terpsichore picked up a case of D.T.’s on corn whiskey and moved from the mountains into Knoxville. Barbara spent a patient Wednesday and Thursday night teaching me the basic hot licks. As you may suspect, it ended in harsh words and gnashing of teeth. She married a sailor yesterday and I went to Bellhop #2 on my knees; not because of Barbara but because I got tired of looking at things just as they are. I quote:
Here’s to a bottle of Whiskey,
So sparkling and so clear:
It ain’t as sweet as a pretty girl’s lips,
But a damned site more sincere
My brother got caught, and quite nicely too, in the national plague of hot-pants. Bow and Bernie were home when I was. Good Lord but she’s lovely.
If all goes according to plan I’ll be busted out of here shortly. Show interest and I’ll keep you posted. Any chance of your being home the first week in May?
I LOVE YOU
Kurt
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March 3, 1943
Dear Woofy–:
I’m due back at Fort Hayes in about ten days, at which time––I can’t help feeling––you, as well as the Army, will form an oppinion of me. Prepared for the worst, it may be that I shall have to hide my face when, in ten years or so, little Terpsichore asks, “Daddy, what did you do in the last war?” An alternative might be to raise my family outside of Indianapolis, and lie like hell. However, I may be accepted this time. At first, I thought they’d discovered I was a sex maniac, but decided you wouldn’t have been so mean as to broadcast our sordid little secret. It turns out that once when I was an itty-bitty feller, and thought the only difference between men, and women was that men smelled of tobacco––especially grandfather––, I contracted a slight case of TB, which healed immediately but left a few scars. When I got my Army physical, the spots showed up along with traces of pneumonia. ((Am I boring you?)) They doped it out that I had a raging case of TB. Dr. Steele says they’re crazy, so instead of getting kicked clear out I’m to report back for a recheck. Hitz got rejected because his spots (everybody’s got ’em) were too big. Mayhap this will disqualify me. All the Doctors around here think it’s a damned silly ruling as the spots––so long as they’re healed––represent no sort of menace, or flaw in a person’s physical condition. The rule is about to be dissolved, I hear. Through the cooperation of Mr. Kellum, City Editor of the Star, I have offers of three reporting jobs on small papers––the place to start––if I get a final veto. In any event, ten days or so should see me leaving home never to return a dependent…it says here.
There’s no one left in town with whom I can cry into beer. Thus, I’ve resolved into a closet drinker and weeper. Both elements are flowing in quantity at this moment. Tommy Dorsey isn’t helping any with his memory tunes. At this point, “Sweety” becomes indispensible…
Sweety, you’re by far the best of all my memory tunes. Despite what either of us says to the contrary––and we seem to damned frequently––we’ve had some pretty wonderful times. ((This is tripe. I’ve got something to say, but damned if I know what it is.)) This is about the idea: let’s love each other. Until you reply, I refuse to start. I want you for my mate. ((The temperature hits 45º and I’m in a mating mood.)) There are plenty of other fish in the ocean but I’ll be damned ((redundant, ain’t it?)) if I’ll sleep with a flounder. ((You’ll be damned if I’ll sleep with you––eh?)) I like you very, very much. I’m fond of you. You are nice. What’s more, I’m nice. Please confirm this last oppinion.
Love,
Kurt
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Thank you, Woofy, for a wonderful, wonderful long letter. This is a poor and foolish reply.
Dear Woofy:
Our letters have become stereotyped in that for the past two years they have begun with Dear and ended with love––no more, no less. Taken literally they carry the most affectionate and warm sentiment that can pass between two people. Dear Woofy––reflect a moment on that. How wonderfully fortunate you are to be held dear; not liked, admired or adored but held to be a life-giving element in another person’s life––you are dear to me. What a triumph of truth in a world of secrets the word dear is. To found a science, with the word dear as a basis: startling fields have been discovered and put to practical uses with foundations almost as obscure. Dear––yes, yes: there’s a hint of something big and bright and flood-like. What? I am only the father of the study––primative, naiive. I know the sun is warm and beautiful and that it appears and disappears in the distance. That much I am permitted to know about the Sun. I love it, fear it and think about it but learn no more. You are dear to me.
And Love: well, that is more animal, and as one chipmunk loves another chipmunk I love you. Life must get better if it is to go on. Were we to marry life would go on and our children would make it better. That is good and in the hilarious sport
of making wild love in the process of manufacturing super-babies I can think of no more agreeable team-mate. Orm Hessler used to say that when he and Connie Bond were married they would play football every night and Connie would lose every game. Yes, I love you.
Please, Woofy, don’t mean “My God how he leans on me,” because that isn’t exactly so. If you love Suicide Sam as much as you say, don’t worry about how I’ll feel or about how the course of my life is likely to run as a result of it. Bernard is 29 and Bow is 22. Chances are my bride is a roué of 14. This, along with the conviction that oblivion is the ultimate, tempers my emotions very nicely. I will be in Philadelphia April 29th, en route to Boston. I’ve damn near got to see you then, Woofy, so please be there if you can.
I’ve a young married cousin in Knoxville, Susan Mengel–:
1 Mueller 2 Vonnegut 3 Mengel 4 Rauch 5 Glossbrenner 6 Fauvre 7 Lindener 8 Schnull––not one of ’em left
She has made life in this God-forsaken spot a great deal more bearable. This isn’t much of a letter, I admit. Maybe I’ll write another soon.
You have outgrown Wally, I think. Tell me more about Salty Sid that I may be relieved of the suspicion that there might have been some prophesy in my booze-born oratory of two-hundred Sunday mornings ago. Methinks you would make a career of being a student as a line of, in your case, least resistance. That crack about Salty Sid was a low blow. Please forgive it––I don’t mean it.
There is damn little that can be done for humanity. You can give them potato peelers, sulpha drugs and bridges but spiritually, and morally they are very low on the scale of evolution and evolutional advances take millions of years. We must be patient.
Love, Kurt
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Dear Woofy––darling, dammit:
I saw the Northern lights for the first time in my life tonight. It was pretty much like kissing you, and just as rare.
“To be perfectly honest with you, I don’t expect my love for you to last any great length of time.”…Bravely said by Kurt Vonnegut during the assault on Jane Cox of August 15th, 1941. Spoken with conceit, back-from-college stuff: trying to be honest with you, I lied like hell to myself. The halves of my split personality got together over beer this evening. We have the answer now. We love you, really love you, wont be happy until you love us, and will feel that way for several years to come.
I keep wanting to shoot people: Paul, Deck, you, me, in that order. It’s my turn. Maybe I’ll kill a bottle instead.
Kurt
Excessive suppression
Brings pangs of depression
Passion’s
The fashion!
The animal in me deserves to be in the dog-house for what he’s been thinking about all day.
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June 23rd…’43
Dearest Woof:
Thank you, Sweety, for writing. I thought that you were probably having a pretty rough time of it. I’m mightily sorry, Woof, and wish to heaven I could be there to take your mind off matters––if such be my powers.
Methinks I’ll be home for one hectic week soon after July 15th…at which time I’ll pay you court. In training with me is a colorful character, one MacCarthy, who was discharged from the Marines for having gone over the hill four times. His testimony is that our basic training is easily as rough as that which he underwent as a leatherneck. Perhaps our most spectacular adventure to date is that of crawling on our bellies for 150 yards under machine-gun fire, skimming a sickening two feet above the ground. “Keep your goddam ass down, Vonnegut!” ––and down it damned well stayed. Movie cameras hummed busily as my life hung by a thread, for “See Here, Private Hargrove” is being filmed in this, the setting for Marion’s epic. In order that theatre-goers not be bored by the sequence in which my posterior figures, dynamite was sprinkled generously over me. Only my laundryman knows how frightened I really was.
In a few days I’ll be leaving for the grand finale, ten days in the field under combat privations––: i.e., home is where you dig it and dinner is what you can dig out of a can with a bayonette.
Though I’ve fought the transition with determination and cunning, I’m in wonderful physical condition. Still to be confirmed is the conviction that I’ve become a tough sonofabitch.
Anti-climax is that I’m to return to college for 44 weeks of specialized training. Where and what I’m to study will be decided after basic. Pardon this boyish impulse, but I shall campaign for a college near to wherever you may be. If possible, please advise me on this point. One happy day I shall be a Sergeant Technician; fairly fancy in lieu of a gold bar, and, incidentally, an entre thereto.
Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., in uniform, as you might guess, is not a sight to stimulate War Bond sales. My plan is to retreat into flannels once in Broad Ripple and points north. Another selfish plot is to take you and a case of beer on our third annual cruise to the Wharf House. Such an exploit seems a lovely dream; subject matter for seventy fitful nights.
As to your writing some work of note: my conviction has ever been that the depth, breadth and color of your emotions and imagination are the elements of a powerful novel. For these things I hold you an awesome thing and love you dearly.
+++++++++++++++
Youth is such a wonderful thing, it seems a shame to waste it on the young––GBS
Love,
Kurt
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VONNEGUT CHARM SCHOOLS, INC.
Indianapolis - Ithaca - Fort Sill - Tokyo - Valhalla
Dear Miss Cox:
I’ve read your reply (undated) several times, and I must confess that for the first time in a decade of straightening tangled lives and reviving crushed blossoms I feel inadequate. Yours is indeed a problem: one I should hesitate to approach, so deeply is it rooted, were I not convinced that my job here on this strife-torn world is to spread what little sun-shine I can.
From the typography of your note I glean that you are a moderately artistic woman with a desire to be different, but a terribly nervous creature, wound up tighter than an idiot’s watch. I find your letter facetious though you are in desperate need of help. You make my task the more difficult by putting up smoke screens, as it were. You cannot hide that bitter ache in your heart, my dear, until we erase it forever!
There is no such word as can’t. You can and will win me back if you persevere. There is no place in this world for defeatism. Men, and in some isolated cases even women, are governed by pride. Indeed, without it, nobody would ever get angry at anybody which seems to be the whole point of living. Your attempt to win me back was damned feeble, if you’ll pardon my skipping over professional barriers. It is an unforgivable breach of taste to figuretively kick a dear acquaintance in the trousers. If need be, I shall be more explicit in my next message, for which I hope you write.
I am on 24 hours’ call, which has yet to come. I’ve practically lost my mind doing nothing. There are no girls left in this town who have an I.Q. over 120 coupled with intellectual curiosity as to what the inside of a bar looks like and what pleasure people get from drinking.
Love…Kurt
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August 30th, 1943
Dear Woof:
I had another fine date with Nance last night. One more, and I’d be head-over-heels in love with her, so last night was the last of a pleasant, mildly tight series. You have a standing invitation to stay with her, here in Pittsburgh, and long before my assignment is completed at Tech I hope you take her up on it at least once. One time, when you were very low, Woof, I remember your worrying about your feminine friends: that is, your lack of really good and loyal ones. I’m pretty sure that worry was baseless, but I’d like to point out that Nance likes you one helluva lot, and is, whether you’ve ever looked at it that way or
not, one of your best friends. You two are the most wonderful pair of girls I’ve come across. And I’ve been from Memphis to Mobile; from Natchez to St. Joe…
Here’s that idea again, and if ever I’m commissioned I promise I’ll propose (Lt. and Mrs. J. C. Adams have now been in dreamland for eight months)––I’d love to be that happy!). Nance and I have, without consulting you or Buck (something like the Atlantic Charter without Stalin or Chiang), planned Heaven (“Everybody talkin’ ’bout Heaven ain’t goin’ there”––) for the four of us. Would you like to live in Charleston, one block from Calhoun’s grave and within sight of Ft. Sumpter?
That’s just about where we figured Heaven was. To be exact, it’s in a cottage (with a studio) in a hidden patio in the finest, and oldest part of town. Not a church in the neighborhood is under 200 years old. I just happened upon it. The entrance is an inconspicuous little arch, guarded by an antique wrought iron gate, between a fine wine shop and a musty book store. Both are tiny and neither bothers to advertize beyond a small, neat shingle. Both sell the fine, the very old, and the deliciously delicate. Their clientel is a fraternity to which only the connaisseour may belong.
Within the gate is a long path between the buildings, and from this path you can peek between shutters into the back room of the wine shop where those rare bottles, which weren’t smashed by the roar of the Union naval guns firing on blockade runners, still collect dust. ((Speaking of blockade runners––and hence Rhett Butler––: Scarlet O’hara went to finishing school in Fayetteville, one mile from Fort Bragg.)) The path opens into a patio, in which stands a giant old oak and a lush green-grass carpet. A not-so-historical cottage (it’s always summer in sleepy Charleston) snoozes in the shade of the oak: room for four merry young people with tremendous appitites for happiness.
Love, Kurt Page 5
