Happy Birthday, Wanda June by Kurt Vonnegut (read out loud books .txt) 📕

here of any file:///G|/Program%20Files/eMule/Incoming/Ku...egut%20-%20Happy%20Birthday%20Wanda-June.htm (70 of 143) [10/16/2004 4:36:53 PM]

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, WANDA JUNE

earthly use to anyone tonight. Tomorrow is another day.

She closes the door and locks it.

HAROLD

(to audience)

End of Act One.

Blackout.

ACT TWO

SCENE ONE

DARKNESS. PAUL, alone in the living room, hammers on his mother's door. He wears pajamas.

PAUL

Mom! Mother! Mom!

Toilet flushes. Lights come up on the living room. It is morning.

PAUL

Dad's got jungle fever, Mom. What'll I do? Mom!

HAROLD

(a moment of exhaustion) Damn.

PAUL

Mom?

Door to the master bedroom suite opens. PENELOPE appears in the doorway. She has decided during an almost sleepless night that she owes it to PAUL and to her own self-respect to explore the possibility of beginning her life with HAROLD anew. She is terrified of him. She hopes that if she can keep calm and open, her fears will diminish. Perhaps she can love him again.

PENELOPE

(attempting to behave file:///G|/Program%20Files/eMule/Incoming/Ku...egut%20-%20Happy%20Birthday%20Wanda-June.htm (71 of 143) [10/16/2004 4:36:53 PM]

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, WANDA JUNE

mechanically as a

good wife should)

What are his symptoms?

PAUL

Shivers and sweats and groans. His teeth chatter. What'll we do?

PENELOPE

What does he say to do?

PAUL

He can hardly talk.

HAROLD

(responding to a last twinge of nausea)

Bluh.

PENELOPE

You'd better get Dr. Woodly.

PAUL

Really?

PENELOPE

It is an emergency, isn't it?

PAUL

(uncertainly)

Yeah.

PENELOPE

Then get him.

PAUL

(thinking she has

made a mistake)

Okay.

He exits through front door, leaves door open. We hear him knocking on a door in the hallway.

PAUL

Dr. Woodly?

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HAROLD enters, drained but recovering. He chews on a root. He has slept in the shirt and trousers he wore the night before. He is barefoot. PAUL knocks again.

PAUL

Dr. Woodly?

There is the sound of WOODLY's door opening. WOODLY and PAUL speak unintelligibly, WOODLY evidently inviting PAUL in for a moment. WOODLY's door closes.

HAROLD

What's that all about?

PENELOPE

We thought a doctor might help.

HAROLD

Your old beau?

PENELOPE

We thought it was an emergency.

HAROLD

I don't want that chancre mechanic in here.

PENELOPE

He's a very decent man, Harold.

HAROLD

We all are.

PENELOPE

Shouldn't you lie down?

HAROLD

When I'm dead-(throwing it away) or fucking.

PENELOPE

Paul said you were awfully sick. file:///G|/Program%20Files/eMule/Incoming/Ku...egut%20-%20Happy%20Birthday%20Wanda-June.htm (73 of 143) [10/16/2004 4:36:53 PM]

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, WANDA JUNE

HAROLD

I was, I was. It never lasts long. He hears WOODLY's door open, is alert to WOODLY's approach, continues to speak to PENELOPE absently.

HAROLD

The Indians call it "Zambakeetya"--the little cloudburst. WOODLY and PAUL enter. WOODLY is correctly professional and carries a little black bag.

WOODLY

Ah! You're ambulatory!

HAROLD

What a brilliant diagnosis!

PENELOPE

You know what I want?

(all look at her)

I want you both to be friends. I know you both, respect you both. You should be friends.

HAROLD

Nothing would please me more.

PENELOPE

(believing him)

Thank God!

WOODLY

(pleased but careful) Well now--what seems to be the trouble with the patient today? A touch of malaria, perhaps?

HAROLD

I know malaria. Malaria isn't caused by the bites of bats.

WOODLY

You've been bitten by bats? file:///G|/Program%20Files/eMule/Incoming/Ku...egut%20-%20Happy%20Birthday%20Wanda-June.htm (74 of 143) [10/16/2004 4:36:53 PM]

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HAROLD

Colonel Harper and I once shared a treetop with a family of bats. There was a flash flood. There were piranha fish in the water. That's how Colonel Harper lost his little toe.

WOODLY

You have chills?

HAROLD

Chills, fevers, sweats. You can describe it and name it after yourself: "the Woodly galloping crud."

WOODLY enjoys the joke and the blooming friendship.

HAROLD

You can also describe its cure. I'm eating its cure.

WOODLY

I was going to ask.

HAROLD

Pacqualinincheewa root.

WOODLY

Would you say that again?

HAROLD

Pacqualinincheewa root. Means

"cougar fang." Cures anything but a yellow streak down the back.

WOODLY

I've never heard of it.

HAROLD

Congratulations. By crossing twenty-eight feet of cockroachinfested carpet, you've become the file:///G|/Program%20Files/eMule/Incoming/Ku...egut%20-%20Happy%20Birthday%20Wanda-June.htm (75 of 143) [10/16/2004 4:36:53 PM]

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third white man ever to hear of it.

WOODLY

(fascinated)

Are you've seen it work cures?

HAROLD

Hundreds.

PENELOPE

I'm so glad you like each other. I was so scared, so scared.

HAROLD

(breaking off a

piece, offering it) Have some.

WOODLY

Thank you. Thank you very much.

PENELOPE

I believe in miracles now.

HAROLD

Wasn't that sweet of me?

WOODLY

More and more we find ourselves laying aside false pride and looking into the pharmacopoeias of primitive people. Curare, ephedrine--we've found some amazing things.

HAROLD

We have, have we?

WOODLY

That's an editorial we, of course. I haven't turned up anything personally.

HAROLD

Everything about you is the file:///G|/Program%20Files/eMule/Incoming/Ku...egut%20-%20Happy%20Birthday%20Wanda-June.htm (76 of 143) [10/16/2004 4:36:53 PM]

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editorial we. Take that away from you, and you'd disappear.

PENELOPE

Harold!

HAROLD

I could carve a better man out of a banana!

PENELOPE

Please-HAROLD

You and your damned bedside manner and your damned little black bag full of miracles. You know who filled that bag for you? Not Alice-sit-by-the-fires like yourself. Men with guts filled it, by God--men with guts enough to pay the price for miracles--suffering, ingratitude, loneliness, death-WOODLY

(off balance)

Good Lord.

HAROLD

I can just hear the editorial weewee-weeing when Looseleaf and I start flying in pacqualinincheewa root. I can hear the Alice-sit-bythe-fires now: "We discovered it in the Amazon Rain Forest. Now we cure you with it. Now we lower our eyes with becoming modesty as we receive heartfelt thanks." HAROLD suddenly goes to WOODLY, takes his hand and pretends abject gratitude.

HAROLD

Oh, bless you, Doctor, bless you-file:///G|/Program%20Files/eMule/Incoming/Ku...egut%20-%20Happy%20Birthday%20Wanda-June.htm (77 of 143) [10/16/2004 4:36:53 PM]

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oh healer, oh protector, oh giver of life.

WOODLY withdraws his hand, examines it as though it were diseased.

PENELOPE

He doesn't deserve this! You don't know him. It isn't fair!

HAROLD

He thought he could take my place. It is now my privilege to give an unambiguous account of why I don't think he's man enough to do that.

WOODLY

I thought she was a widow.

HAROLD

You were wrong, you quack!

PENELOPE

Awful.

(approaching WOODLY, but not getting too close) I can't tell you how sorry I am.

HAROLD

Say hello to your mother.

PENELOPE

(fervently)

Do say hello to your mother.

WOODLY

I'm