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

a massive rupture.

SHUTTLE

You think you're so funny. You're not even funny.

(to PAUL)

Right? Right? You don't hurt yourself if you start out slow. file:///G|/Program%20Files/eMule/Incoming/Ku...egut%20-%20Happy%20Birthday%20Wanda-June.htm (15 of 143) [10/16/2004 4:36:52 PM]

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, WANDA JUNE

WOODLY

You're preparing him for a career in the slaughterhouses of Dubuque? (to PAUL)

Take care of your body, yes! But don't become a bender of horseshoes and railroad spikes. Don't become obsessed by your musculature. Any one of these poor, dead animals here was a thousand times the athlete you can ever hope to be. Their magic was in their muscles. Your magic is in your brains!

PENELOPE enters from the bedroom, dressed for the fight. She wears barbaric jewelry HAROLD gave her years ago, a jaguar-skin coat over her shoulders.

PENELOPE

(brightly)

Gentlemen! Is this right for a fight? It's been so long.

SHUTTLE

Beautiful! I've never seen that coat.

PENELOPE

Seven jaguars' skins, I'm told. Harold shot every one. Shall we go?

WOODLY

(sick about the slain jaguars) Oh no! Wear a coat of cotton--wear a coat of wool.

PENELOPE

What?

WOODLY

Wear a coat of domestic mink. For the love of God, though, Penelope, don't lightheartedly advertise that the last of the jaguars died for you. file:///G|/Program%20Files/eMule/Incoming/Ku...egut%20-%20Happy%20Birthday%20Wanda-June.htm (16 of 143) [10/16/2004 4:36:52 PM]

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, WANDA JUNE

SHUTTLE

She's my date tonight. What do you want her to do--bring the poor old jaguars back to life with a bicycle pump? Bugger off! Ask Paul what he thinks.

(to PAUL)

Your mother looks beautiful--right? (PAUL pointedly

declines to answer) Kid?

(PAUL walks away from him) Doesn't your mother look nice? (he goes to PAUL,

wondering what is wrong) Paul?

PAUL

(smolderingly)

I don't care what she wears.

SHUTTLE

Something's made you sore.

PAUL

Don't worry about it.

SHUTTLE

You bet I'll worry about it. I said something wrong?

PAUL

(close to angry tears) It's my father's birthday--that's all.

(facing everybody, raising his voice) That's all. Who cares about that?

SHUTTLE

(horrified, raising his hand to swear an oath) I had not the slightest inkling. (to PENELOPE, feeling betrayed) file:///G|/Program%20Files/eMule/Incoming/Ku...egut%20-%20Happy%20Birthday%20Wanda-June.htm (17 of 143) [10/16/2004 4:36:52 PM]

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, WANDA JUNE

Why didn't you say so?

PAUL

(bitterly)

She doesn't care! She's not married any more! She's going to have fun!

(to PENELOPE)

I hope you have so much fun you can hardly stand it.

(to WOODLY)

Dr. Woodly--I hope you make up even better jokes about my father than the ones you've said so far.

SHUTTLE

(reaching out for PAUL) Kid--kid-PAUL

(to SHUTTLE)

And I wish you'd quit touching me all the time. It drives me nuts!

SHUTTLE

(reaching out again) What's this?

PAUL

(recoiling)

Don't!

SHUTTLE

(aghast)

You sure misunderstood something-and we'd better get it straight.

PAUL

Explain it to them. I'm bugging out of here.

He grabs a jacket from a chair. SHUTTLE is in his way.

PAUL

Don't touch me. Get out of the way. file:///G|/Program%20Files/eMule/Incoming/Ku...egut%20-%20Happy%20Birthday%20Wanda-June.htm (18 of 143) [10/16/2004 4:36:52 PM]

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, WANDA JUNE

SHUTTLE

Men can touch other men, and it doesn't mean a thing. Haven't you ever seen football players after they've won the Superbowl?

PENELOPE

(to PAUL)

Where will you be?

PAUL

Anywhere but here. I'd just sit here and cry about the way my father's been forgotten.

SHUTTLE

I worship your father. That stuffed alligator your mother gave me--the one he shot? It's the proudest thing in my apartment.

PAUL

(at the door)

Everybody talks about how rotten kids act. Grownups can be pretty rotten, too.

He exits through front door, slams it.

SHUTTLE

(heartbroken)

Kid--kid-WOODLY

It's good. Let him go.

SHUTTLE

If he'd just come out for the Little League, the way I asked him, he'd find out we touch all the time--shove each other, slug each other, and just horse around. I'm going to go get him-file:///G|/Program%20Files/eMule/Incoming/Ku...egut%20-%20Happy%20Birthday%20Wanda-June.htm (19 of 143) [10/16/2004 4:36:52 PM]

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, WANDA JUNE

WOODLY

Don't! Let him have all the privacy he wants. Let him grieve, let him rage. There has never been a funeral for his father.

PENELOPE

I never knew when to hold it--or who to ask, or what to say.

WOODLY

Tonight's the night.

SHUTTLE

If he'd just get into scouting, and camp out some, and see how everybody roughhouses around the fire-WOODLY

What a beautiful demonstration this is of the utter necessity of rites of passage.

SHUTTLE

I feel like I've been doublecrossed. (to PENELOPE, peevishly) If you'd just told me it was Harold's birthday-PENELOPE What then?

SHUTTLE

We could have had some kind of birthday party for him. We could have taken Paul to the fight with us.

WOODLY

Minors aren't allowed at fights.

SHUTTLE

Then we'd stay home and eat venison or something, and look through the file:///G|/Program%20Files/eMule/Incoming/Ku...egut%20-%20Happy%20Birthday%20Wanda-June.htm (20 of 143) [10/16/2004 4:36:52 PM]

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, WANDA JUNE

scrapbooks. I've got a friend who has a whole freezer full of striped bass and caribou meat.

(going to the front door) I'm going to bring that boy back. He exits through front door.

WOODLY

(going to PENELOPE) This is very good for us.

PENELOPE

It is?

WOODLY

The wilder Paul is tonight, the calmer he'll be tomorrow.

PENELOPE

As long as he keeps out of the park.

WOODLY

After this explosion, I think, he'll be able to accept the fact that his mother is going to marry again.

PENELOPE

The only thing I ever told him about life was, "Keep out of the park after the sun goes down."

WOODLY

We've got to dump Shuttle. (pointing to the

vacuum cleaner)

He brings his vacuum cleaner on dates?

PENELOPE

That's the XKE.

WOODLY

The what?

file:///G|/Program%20Files/eMule/Incoming/Ku...egut%20-%20Happy%20Birthday%20Wanda-June.htm (21 of 143) [10/16/2004 4:36:52 PM]

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, WANDA JUNE

PENELOPE

It's an experimental model. He doesn't dare leave it in his car, for fear it will fall into the hands of competition.

WOODLY

What kind of a life is that?

PENELOPE

He told me one time what the proudest moment of his life was. He made Eagle Scout when he was twenty-nine years old.

(clinging to him suddenly) Oh, Norbert--promise me that Paul has not gone into the park!

WOODLY

(pause)

If you warned him against it as much as you say, it's almost a certainty.

PENELOPE

(petrified)

No! Oh no! Three people murdered