Happy Birthday, Wanda June Read online

  HAPPY BIRTHDAY, WANDA JUNE HAPPY BIRTHDAY, WANDA JUNE

  by Kurt Vonnegut

  ACT ONESCENE ONE

  SILENCE. Pitch blackness. Animal eyes begin to glow in the darkness. Sounds of the jungle climax in animals fighting. A SINGER is heard singing the first bars of "All God's Chillun Got Shoes." HAROLD, LOOSELEAF, PENELOPE, and WOODLY stand in a row in the darkness, facing the audience. They are motionless. A city skyline in the early evening materializes outside the windows.

  The lights come up on the living room of a rich man's apartment, which is densely furnished with trophies of hunts and wars. There is a front door, a door to the master bedroom suite, and a corridor leading to other bedrooms, the kitchen and so on.

  PENELOPE

  How do you do. My name is Penelope Ryan. This is a simple-minded play about men who enjoy killing--and those who don't.

  HAROLD

  I am Harold Ryan, her husband. I have killed perhaps two hundred men in wars of various sorts--as a professional soldier. I have killed thousands of other animals file:///G|/Program%20Files/eMule/Incoming/Ku...egut%20-%20Happy%20Birthday%20Wanda-June.htm (1 of 143) [10/16/2004 4:36:52 PM] HAPPY BIRTHDAY, WANDA JUNE

  as well--for sport.

  WOODLY

  I am Dr. Norbert Woodly--a physician, a healer. I find it disgusting and frightening that a killer should be a respected member of society. Gentleness must replace violence everywhere, or we are doomed. PENELOPE

  (to LOOSELEAF) Would you like to say something about killing, Colonel?

  LOOSELEAF

  (embarrassed) Jesus--I dunno. You know. What the heck. Who knows?

  PENELOPE

  Colonel Harper, retired now, dropped an atom bomb on Nagasaki during the Second World War, killing seventy-four thousand people in a flash. LOOSELEAF

  I dunno, boy. PENELOPE

  You don't know? LOOSELEAF

  It was a bitch. PENELOPE

  Thank you. (to all)

  You can leave now. We'll begin.

  WOODLY

  (to the audience, making a peace sign) file:///G|/Program%20Files/eMule/Incoming/Ku...egut%20-%20Happy%20Birthday%20Wanda-June.htm (2 of 143) [10/16/2004 4:36:52 PM]

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  Peace!

  All but PENELOPE exit.

  PENELOPE

  (to the audience) This is a tragedy. When it's done, my face will be as white as the snows of Kilimanjaro.

  (hyena laughs)

  My husband, who kills so much, has been missing for eight years. He disappeared in a light plane over the Amazon Rain Forest, where he hoped to find diamonds as big as cantaloupes. His pilot was Colonel Looseleaf Harper, who dropped the bomb on Nagasaki.

  (hyena laughs)

  I should explain the doorbells in this apartment. They were built by Abercrombie and Fitch. They are actual recordings of animal cries. The back doorbell is a hyena, which you've just heard. The front doorbell is a lion's roar. (to the wings)

  Would you let them hear it please? (lion roars)

  Thank you.

  PAUL, her twelve-year-old son, enters from corridor, a sensitive, neatly dressed little rich boys.

  PENELOPE

  And this is my son, Paul. He was only four years old when his father disappeared. PAUL

  (radiantly, sappily) He's coming back, Mom! He's the bravest, most wonderful man who ever lived. file:///G|/Program%20Files/eMule/Incoming/Ku...egut%20-%20Happy%20Birthday%20Wanda-June.htm (3 of 143) [10/16/2004 4:36:52 PM]

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  PENELOPE

  (to audience) I told you this was a simple-minded play.

  PAUL

  Maybe he'll come back tonight!

  It's his birthday.

  PENELOPE

  I know. PAUL

  Stay home tonight!

  PENELOPE

  (ruefully, for they have been over this before) Oh, Paul-PAUL You're married! You've already got a husband!

  PENELOPE

  He's a ghost! PAUL

  He's alive! PENELOPE

  Not even Mutual of Omaha thinks so anymore. PAUL

  If you have to go out with some guy--can't he be more like Dad? (sick)

  Herb Shuttle and Norbert Woodly-can't you do better than those two freaks?

  PENELOPE

  (resentfully) file:///G|/Program%20Files/eMule/Incoming/Ku...egut%20-%20Happy%20Birthday%20Wanda-June.htm (4 of 143) [10/16/2004 4:36:52 PM]

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  Thank you, kind sir.

  PAUL

  A vacuum cleaner salesman and a fairy doctor. PENELOPE

  A what kind of doctor? PAUL

  A fairy--a queer. Everybody in the building knows he's a queer. PENELOPE

  (knowing better) That's an interesting piece of news.

  PAUL

  You're the only woman he ever took out. PENELOPE

  Not true.

  PAUL

  Still lives with his mother.

  PENELOPE

  You know she has no feet! You want him to abandon his mother, who has no husband, who has no money of her own, who has no feet? PAUL

  How did she lose her feet? PENELOPE

  In a railroad accident many years ago. PAUL

  I was afraid to ask. PENELOPE

  Norbert was just beginning practice. A real man would have sold her to a file:///G|/Program%20Files/eMule/Incoming/Ku...egut%20-%20Happy%20Birthday%20Wanda-June.htm (5 of 143) [10/16/2004 4:36:52 PM] HAPPY BIRTHDAY, WANDA JUNE

  catfood company, I suppose. As far as that goes, J. Edgar Hoover still lives with his mother.

  PAUL

  I didn't know that. PENELOPE

  A lot of people don't. PAUL

  J. Edgar Hoover plays sports. PENELOPE

  I don't really know. PAUL

  To only exercise Dr. Woodly ever gets is playing the violin and making that stupid peace sign. (makes the peace sign and says the word effeminately) Peace. Peace. Peace, everybody. Lion doorbell roars. PENELOPE

  (cringing) I hate that thing.

  PAUL

  It's beautiful. He goes to door, admits WOODLY, whom he loathes openly.

  WOODLY

  (wearing street clothes, carrying a rolled-up poster

  under his arm)

  Peace, everybody--Paul, Penelope.

  PAUL

  You're taking Mom out tonight? file:///G|/Program%20Files/eMule/Incoming/Ku...egut%20-%20Happy%20Birthday%20Wanda-June.htm (6 of 143) [10/16/2004 4:36:52 PM] HAPPY BIRTHDAY, WANDA JUNE

  WOODLY

  (to PENELOPE) You're going out?

  PENELOPE

  Herb Shuttle is taking me to a fight. WOODLY

  Take plenty of cigars. PENELOPE

  (an apology, secret from PAUL) We made the date three months ago.

  WOODLY

  I must take you to an emergency ward sometime--on a Saturday night. That's also fun. I came to see Selma, as a matter of fact. PENELOPE

  She quit this afternoon. PAUL

  We don't have a maid any more. WOODLY

  Oh? PENELOPE

  The animals made her sneeze and cry too much.

  WOODLY

  I'm glad somebody finally cried. Every time I come in here and see all this unnecessary death, I want to cry. (winking at PAUL,

  acknowledging PAUL's low opinion of him) I don't cry, of course. Not manly, you know. Did she try antihistamines? file:///G|/Program%20Files/eMule/Incoming/Ku...egut%20-%20Happy%20Birthday%20Wanda-June.htm (7 of 143) [10/16/2004 4:36:52 PM]

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  PENELOPE

  They made her so sleepy she couldn't work. WOODLY

  Throw out all this junk. Burn it! This room crawls with tropical disease.

  P
AUL

  Everything stays as it is!

  WOODLY

  A monument to a man who thought that what the world needed most was more rhinoceros meat. PAUL

  (hotly) My father!

  WOODLY

  I apologize. But you didn't know him, and neither did I. How's your asthma? PAUL

  Don't worry about it.

  WOODLY

  How's the fungus around your thumbnail? PAUL

  (concealing the thumb) It's fine! WOODLY

  It's jungle rot! This room is making everybody sick! This is your family doctor speaking now. (unrolling the poster) Here--I brought you something else to hang on your wall, for the sake of variety. file:///G|/Program%20Files/eMule/Incoming/Ku...egut%20-%20Happy%20Birthday%20Wanda-June.htm (8 of 143) [10/16/2004 4:36:52 PM]

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  PENELOPE

  (reading) "War is not healthy for children and other living things." How lovely.

  WOODLY

  No doubt Paul thinks it stinks. Lion doorbell roars. WOODLY

  I hate that thing.

  PAUL

  (going to the door) Keeps fairies away! He admits HERB SHUTTLE, who carries an Electrolux vacuum cleaner.

  SHUTTLE

  (to PAUL

  affectionately,

  touching him)

  Hi kid.

  (seeing WOODLY)

  Would you look what the car dragged in.

  WOODLY

  I'm glad you brought your vacuum cleaner.

  SHUTTLE

  Is that a fact? WOODLY

  That maid just quit. The place is a mess. You can start in the master bedroom. PENELOPE

  Please-file:///G|/Program%20Files/eMule/Incoming/Ku...egut%20-%20Happy%20Birthday%20Wanda-June.htm (9 of 143) [10/16/2004 4:36:52 PM] HAPPY BIRTHDAY, WANDA JUNE

  SHUTTLE

  He's not anybody to tell somebody else what to do in a master bedroom. PENELOPE

  I'll get ready, Herb. I didn't expect you this soon. (to all)

  Please--won't everybody be nice to everybody else while I'm gone? All freeze, except for PENELOPE, who comes forward to address the audience. Lights on set fade as spotlight comes on.

  PENELOPE

  Most men shunned me--even when I nearly swooned for want of love. I might as well have been girdled in a chastity belt. My chastity belt was not made of iron and chains and chickenwire, but of Harold's lethal reputation.

  SHUTTLE comes into the spotlight.

  SHUTTLE

  I keep having this nightmare--that he catches us. PENELOPE

  Doing what? SHUTTLE

  He'd kill me. He'd be right to kill me, too--the kind of guy he is. PENELOPE

  Or was. We haven't done anything wrong, you know. SHUTTLE

  He'd assume we had. PENELOPE

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  That's something I suppose.

  SHUTTLE

  All through the day I'm so confident. That's why I'm such a good salesman, you know? I have confidence, and I look like I have confidence, and that gives other people confidence. People laugh sometimes when they find out I'm a vacuum cleaner salesman. They stop laughing, though, when they find out I made forty-three thousand dollars last year. I've got six other salesmen working under me, and what they all plug into is my confidence. That's what charges them up. PENELOPE

  I'm glad. SHUTTLE

  I was captain of the wrestling team at Lehigh University. PENELOPE

  I know. SHUTTLE

  If you want to wrestle, you got Lehigh. If you want to play tennis, you go to Vanderbilt.

  PENELOPE

  I don't want to go to Vanderbilt. SHUTTLE

  You don't wrestle if you don't have supreme confidence, and I wrestled. But when I get with you, and I say to myself, "My God--here I am with the wife of Harold Ryan, one of the great heroes of all time--" file:///G|/Program%20Files/eMule/Incoming/Ku...egut%20-%20Happy%20Birthday%20Wanda-June.htm (11 of 143) [10/16/2004 4:36:52 PM] HAPPY BIRTHDAY, WANDA JUNE

  Pause.

  PENELOPE

  Yes?

  SHUTTLE

  Something happens to my confidence.

  PENELOPE

  (to the audience) This conversation took place, incidentally, about three months before Harold was declared legally dead.

  SHUTTLE

  When Harold is definitely out of the picture, Penelope, when I don't have to worry about doing him wrong or you wrong or Paul wrong. I'm going to ask you to be my wife.

  PENELOPE

  I'm touched. SHUTTLE

  That's when I'll get my confidence back. PENELOPE

  I see.

  SHUTTLE

  If you'll pardon the expression, that's when you'll see the fur and feathers fly. Good night.

  PENELOPE

  Good night. Blackout.

  SCENE TWO

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  SHUTTLE and WOODLY argue in pitch darkness, with PAUL

  listening, and lights come up gradually to full on the living room the same evening.

  SHUTTLE

  You've got to fight from time to time. WOODLY

  Not true. SHUTTLE

  Or get eaten alive. WOODLY

  That's not true either--or needn't be, unless we make it true. SHUTTLE

  Phooey. WOODLY

  Which we do. But we can stop doing that.

  The lights are full. SHUTTLE and WOODLY are bored with each other, WOODLY looks out the window, speaks to an imaginary listener who has more brains than SHUTTLE. PAUL hates them both, but prefers SHUTTLE's noisy manliness.

  WOODLY

  We simply stop doing that--dropping things on each other, eating each other alive. SHUTTLE

  (calling) Penelope! We're late!

  PENELOPE

  (off, in master bedroom suite)

  Coming.

  SHUTTLE

  (to PAUL)

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  Women are always late. You'll find out.

  WOODLY

  (thoughtfully)

  The late Mrs. Harold Ryan.

  SHUTTLE

  I'm sick of this argument. I just have one more thing to say: If you elect a President, you support him, no matter what he does. That's the only way you can have a country! WOODLY

  It's the planet that's in ghastly trouble now and all our brothers and sisters thereon. SHUTTLE

  None of my relatives are Chinese Communists. Speak for yourself. WOODLY

  Chinese maniacs and Russian maniacs and American maniacs and French maniacs and British maniacs have turned this lovely, moist, nourishing blue-green ball into a doomsday device. Let a radar set and a computer mistake a hawk or a meteor for a missile, and that's the end of mankind. SHUTTLE

  You can believe that if you want. I talk to guys like you, and I want to commit suicide. (to PAUL)

  You get that weight-lifting set I sent you?

  PAUL

  It came yesterday. I haven't file:///G|/Program%20Files/eMule/Incoming/Ku...egut%20-%20Happy%20Birthday%20Wanda-June.htm (14 of 143) [10/16/2004 4:36:52 PM]

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  opened it yet.

  WOODLY

  (musingly, attempting to find the idea acceptable, even

  funny, in a way)

  Maybe it's supposed to end now. Maybe God wouldn't have it any other way.

  SHUTTLE

  (to PAUL) Start with the smallest weights. Every week add a pound or two.

  WOODLY

  Maybe God has let everybody who ever lived be reborn--so he or she can see how it ends. Even Pithecanthropus erectus and Australopithecus and Sinanthropus pekensi
s and the Neanderthalers are back on Earth--to see how it ends. They're all on Times Square--making change for peepshows. Or recruiting Marines. SHUTTLE