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

back into mine. A chapter has ended. We are old comrades--at a parting of the ways.

LOOSELEAF

(bleakly, shrugging) I'm lonesome already.

He exits.

HAROLD

(roaming the room again) The moon. The new heroism--put a village idiot into a pressure cooker, seal it up tight, and shoot him at the moon.

(to his portrait)

Hello there, young man. In case you're wondering, I could beat the shit out of you. And any woman choosing between us--sorry, kid, file:///G|/Program%20Files/eMule/Incoming/Ku...egut%20-%20Happy%20Birthday%20Wanda-June.htm (38 of 143) [10/16/2004 4:36:52 PM]

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, WANDA JUNE

she'd choose me.

(pleased with the room) I must say, this room is very much as I left it.

(sees the cake)

What's this? A cake? "Happy Birthday, Wanda June"? Who the hell is Wanda June?

Blackout.

SCENE FOUR

MUSIC indicates happiness, innocence, and weightlessness. Spotlight comes up on WANDA JUNE, a lisping eight-year-old in a starched party dress. She is as cute as Shirley Temple.

WANDA JUNE

Hello. I am Wanda June. Today was going to be my birthday, but I was hit by an ice-cream truck before I could have my party. I am dead now. I am in Heaven. That is why my parents did not pick up the cake at the bakery. I am not mad at the ice-cream truck driver, even though he was drunk when he hit me. It didn't hurt much. It wasn't even as bad as the sting of a bumblebee. I am really happy here! It's so much fun. I am glad the driver was drunk. If he hadn't been, I might not have got to Heaven for years and years and years. I would have had to go to high school first, and then beauty college. I would have had to get married and have babies and everything. Now I can just play and play and play. Any time I want any pink cotton candy I can have some. Everybody up here is happy-the animals and the dead soldiers and people who went to the electric chair and everything. They're all file:///G|/Program%20Files/eMule/Incoming/Ku...egut%20-%20Happy%20Birthday%20Wanda-June.htm (39 of 143) [10/16/2004 4:36:52 PM]

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, WANDA JUNE

glad for whatever sent them here. Nobody is mad. We're all too busy playing shuffleboard. So if you think of killing somebody, don't worry about it. Just go ahead and do it. Whoever you do it to should kiss you for doing it. The soldiers up here just love the shrapnel and the tanks and the bayonets and the dum dums that let them play shuffleboard all the time--and drink beer.

Spotlight begins to dim and carnival music on a steam calliope begins to intrude, until, at the end of the speech, WANDA JUNE is drowned out and the stage is black.

WANDA JUNE

We have merry-go-rounds that don't cost anything to ride on. We have Ferris wheels. We have Little League and girls' basketball. There's a drum and bugle corps anybody can join. For people who like golf, there is a par-three golf course and a driving range, with never any waiting. If you just want to sit and loaf, why that's all right, too. Gourmet specialties are cooked to your order and served at any time of night or day...

Sudden silence.

WOODY WOODPECKER VOICE

Ha ha ha ha ha!

(pistol shot)

You got me, pal.

Silence.

Spotlight comes up on LOOSELEAF HARPER, who wears the clothes he will wear in the next scene--new sports clothes, file:///G|/Program%20Files/eMule/Incoming/Ku...egut%20-%20Happy%20Birthday%20Wanda-June.htm (40 of 143) [10/16/2004 4:36:52 PM]

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, WANDA JUNE

a shirt open at the neck. As always, he is friendly and embarrassed.

LOOSELEAF

When Penelope asked me to say something about dropping the bomb on Nagasaki, I didn't give a very good answer, I guess. It's a very complicated question. Jesus--you know? You have to explain what it's like to be in the Air Force and how they give you your orders and all that. What it feels like to be in a plane, what the world looks like down there. After I got home from the war, the minister of my church asked me if I would speak to a scout troop that met in the church basement. So I did. They met on Thursday nights. I used to belong to that troop. I never made Eagle Scout. But you know something? It's a very strange kind of kid that makes Eagle Scout. They always seem so lonesome, like they'd worked real hard to get a job nobody else cares about. They get a whole bunch of merit badges. That's how you get to be an Eagle Scout. I don't think I had over five or six merit badges. The only one I remember is Public Health. That was a bitch. The Boy Scout Manual said I was supposed to find out what my town did about sewage. Jesus, they just dumped it all in Sugar Creek.

(laughs idiotically) Sugar Creek! That was a long time ago, but it's all coming back to me now. There was another merit badge you could get for roller skating. There used to be a roller rink at a file:///G|/Program%20Files/eMule/Incoming/Ku...egut%20-%20Happy%20Birthday%20Wanda-June.htm (41 of 143) [10/16/2004 4:36:52 PM]

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, WANDA JUNE

bend in Sugar Creek, up above where the sewage went in. I got in a fight there one time. I had on roller skates, and the guy I was fighting had on basketball shoes. He had a tremendous advantage over me. He was a little guy, but he beat the shit out of me. I had to laugh like hell. Don't ever fight a guy when you've got on roller skates.

(silence)

Jesus--I remember my mother used to make me chew bananas for a full minute before I swallowed--so I wouldn't get sick. Makes you wonder what else your parents told you that wasn't true.

Blackout.

SCENE FIVE

SPOTLIGHT comes up on HAROLD.