The Eden Express: A Memoir of Insanity

by Kurt Vonnegut

  MY GLASS SLIPPER. There were times I was scared, shaking, convulsing in excruciating pain and bottomless despair. But I was never clumsy.

  Most people assume it must be very painful for me to remember being crazy. It’s not true. The fact is, my memories of being crazy give me an almost sensual glee. The crazier I was, the more fun remembering it is.

  I don’t want to go nuts again, I’d do anything to avoid it. Part of the pleasure I derive from my memories comes from how much I appreciate being sane now, but most of what’s so much fun with my memories is that when I was crazy I found my glass slipper. Everything I did, felt, and said had an awesome grace, symmetry, and perfection to it. My appreciation of that grace, symmetry, and perfection hasn’t vanished with the insanity itself.

  It’s regrets that make painful memories. When I was crazy I did everything just right.

  There were “problems” but somehow they didn’t seem like problems at the time. Tasks that required only minimal concentration—cutting wood, building fires, pruning trees, fetching water—became progressively more difficult and then impossible, but that seemed too silly to worry about. Even if I managed by herculean effort to think something was worth doing, I couldn’t keep my mind on it. There was so much else going on.

  I felt no lack of energy, in fact I had a supersurplus; but my hands, arms, and legs were getting all confused. I’d get all hung up in how perfectly beautiful one muscle was, exactly what it did, and get it to do it just right. But then all the others would go off on their own little trip. I nicked my ankle with the chain saw. I was losing my coordination as well as my concentration.

  Ambivalence and disability. It was like something in me knew I would become unable to function, and got me ready by telling me ahead of time that it didn’t matter.

  I worried about not being able to go anywhere. Any unpleasantness, any threat, and I would collapse. The idea of cops horrified me. The idea of anyone but people who loved me utterly was terrifying. I was stuck at the farm forever. And soon that wouldn’t be good enough.

  I worried about not being able to communicate with people. They wouldn’t understand. Yet so much of what I was going through seemed so right, so valuable, so much fun.

  “Simon, I keep getting these awful rushes of fear, waves of total terror that leave me shaking and weak. I keep trying to figure out what the hell it is I’m afraid of. Last night I thought my heart was going to stop again. Now I’m keeping you up because I’m afraid to go to bed. It makes no sense. There was a big thing about fear in Dune. There was sort of a chant that went, ‘Fear is the mind killer. Let the fear run through you…’ I’ve been trying to do that but I don’t think it’s working. I don’t know if I’m going to be able to beat this bitch.

  “What am I afraid of? What bad can happen? Fear never helps. Maybe in some cases, like if I was being chased by a bear, being scared would give me a rush of adrenaline that would help me run super fast, but how many times have I been chased by a bear?

  “It really helps to have identifiable things to be afraid of. Out here fear seems so out of place. If I was living in New York I’d have no end of things to focus fear and worry on. I’d just pick one according to what sort of mood I was in. But out here it’s a whole other story.”

  THE LETTER FROM VIRGE. Whenever I think about that letter I find myself thinking, the worst part of the letter was such-and-such, but it keeps being a different such-and-such. There are so many good candidates for the worst part of that letter it’s impossible to choose.

  On the back of the envelope in a barely legible scrawl was “This is a terrifyingly incomplete letter.” Maybe that was the worst thing. It set me up for a doozy. It also made it impossible to answer or deal with it. I should have sent it back unopened and told her to send me a complete one.

  “Dearest Darling Mark.” Since when did she call me dearest darling?

  “Some of this letter is just for you and some is for everyone. You decide what’s what.” Fat chance of that. I hadn’t been able to tell the difference between myself and the trees for the past few days, let alone the people. Besides, I was sick of things being just between us.

  Open up and let the sun shine in, the truth will set you free and all. I published everything. It seemed to be the only way to deal with it. I had the feeling I was reading someone else’s mail anyway.

  There was some end-of-the-world stuff. “This is the last time I’ll see California. The sunsets are all eerie colors from all the pollution.” She sounded very scared. Maybe that was what the incompleteness was. She had found out something about the end of the world that she couldn’t put in a letter.

  She and Vincent hadn’t said a word to each other the whole way down. It had been very tense and unpleasant. At least I hadn’t been there for Vincent to blame.

  There was some description of the land and the farm there. And then some stuff about going off pills and getting a coil and feeling much better.

  Then there was the part about having slept with Vincent. I guess that was the part that was just for me. And being sorry about hurting me and crying and shaking in Vincent’s arms. It came right after the part about the new IUD coil. “Well, I guess you get a new machine you want to try it out right away.

  Was I hurt? I really had to think about it. I found the idea of giving a shit about who puts whose thing in whose thing absurd and degrading. Was this some role she was making me play? If I wasn’t hurt would she feel insulted, unloved?

  Did she have the clap? Did she want to live with both of us? Was she pregnant? Had she reached some new insight about sex? Was that the incomplete part? She said she wanted to come shake and cry in my arms. Was this maybe some new position or something Vincent had taught her?

  There was no way I could write back to her. She was maybe going to Colorado to see her brother, who was going to jail for political Weatherman stuff. She might be heading back up to the farm immediately. She might even fly. She might be going to visit some people in Berkeley. All I could do was sit and wait for her return. Wait for her to complete the letter. Maybe a day or two, maybe a month. Wait… Suspend time and wait.

  Every year about this time for as long as I had known Virginia, there had been a “new horizons breakthrough time.” Politics, drugs, sex, religion, food; a pinch of this, a dash of that. Usually nothing changed much.

  OK. One more time, Virge, I’ll play. You can call your shots but I’ve got a few myself. I’m in a big hurry to get the fuck out of the oppressor business. Let’s see the new Virge. I hope you’re ready for the new Mark. Let it all hang out. This train is bound for glory. The brakeman has resigned.

  Fear and pain would be everything and then nothing. The highs weren’t that different from the lows. Neither was grounded. Both had at best a marginal relationship to anyone’s reality. My happiness and sadness was all out of proportion to anything that was happening. There were things to be happy about, but not that happy. There were things to be sad about, but not that sad.

  Having their feelings make sense is how people get their kicks. There was no way I could make my being that happy make sense just because of the farm working out, or spring coming, or my being that miserable and upset because of Virginia’s balling Vincent, my parents’ breaking up. There had to be more going on. I needed things to be that happy and that sad about. The dawning of an age of universal peace and brotherhood, nuclear holocaust, and the like fit the bill.

  Time had gotten very strange. Things whizzed and whirled all about me with great speed and confusion. Then everything would stop. There was no more movement, everything was being frozen solid, life was being drained out of everything. I’d feel a scream building up deep down inside me when suddenly everything would spring to life and begin rushing around again, violently and pointlessly. The scream would come but there’d be no sound. It was all drowned out in the frantic rush of wings beating all around my head. I’d come to myself from time to time and realize that I was walking, half stumbling through the woods. I’
d wonder where the hell was I going, what was I doing? I’d take handfuls of snow and press them to my face, trying desperately to get some sort of a hold on myself.

  It kept running through my head that Virginia mustn’t see me like this. Tears of desperation were streaming down my face. “I mustn’t be like this when Virge gets back.” And a voice within me wondered, “Be like what?” “Like this,” I screamed. “Something’s all fucked up. I’m all shaky and falling apart. Virginia mustn’t see me like this. She won’t be able to make any sense out of it. She’ll think her letter did it. She’s got to be prepared. Somebody’s got to tell her what’s happened to me. Simon or Jack or Kathy, someone’s got to go tell her.”

  Several times the dogs started barking wildly. Someone must be coming up the path. And every time, “It’s Virge, it’s Virge!” and my heart would start racing furiously. “Oh, shit, I won’t be able to take it. My heart will stop. She can’t see me like this. I don’t have any idea of what to say to her.” I’d hear her coming up the path. Sometimes I’d even catch a glimpse of her through the trees. False alarm after false alarm. No one coming up the path. What the hell’s wrong with those damn dogs? If I get this way just hearing the dogs bark, what’s going to happen to me when she really comes?

  I needed help, but still in the back of my mind was the feeling that I was crying wolf, that there was really nothing wrong. It would be terribly difficult for anyone to understand what was wrong because what was wrong was such a strange, elusive thing, the sort of thing it would be easy, almost logical to discount.

  Communicating was just about impossible. My tongue and mouth weren’t responding very well. It was only with the greatest difficulty that I could tell who was saying what and that I could make any sense out of words. I relied heavily on grunts and gestures.

  I’d all of a sudden be sitting next to the stove, wearing the half-finished sweater Virginia had been knitting for me. There were knitting needles sticking out all over it and I was crying. Kathy was saying something to me. I had no idea what I was crying about. Then something would strike me as hysterically funny and I couldn’t stop giggling. Then I’d find myself somewhere else wearing completely different clothes or no clothes at all. Time stopped being continuous; it jumped around with lots of blanks. The only way I have any notion of time then is from Simon, Kathy, and Jack.

  They became seriously worried about me a couple of days after we all tripped but just kept hoping I’d straighten out. They made sure I was never alone, and talked with me a lot. There wasn’t much else they could do. But time passed and things got worse instead of better. By the time Simon took me to town, ten days after our trip, I hadn’t eaten or slept for at least four days. Something had to be done.

  I got it into my head that everything would be OK if I could just see Virginia, that the problem was this indefinite waiting and not knowing. They seemed to agree, maybe it was their suggestion in the first place. I also thought that maybe all the strange things that were happening to me were her cries for help. She needed me desperately and we didn’t have a phone. Simon and I would head out in search of Virginia.

  Everything was trembling and glowing with an eerie light. One foot in front of the other, step two follows step one. Somehow I got dressed. “See, I can still function,” I said to myself as I made it down the trembling ladder and into the trembling kitchen. “Everything’s going to be just fine,” I managed to say to Jack and Kathy. As we left I tried a reassuring smile.

  One foot in front of the other down to the lake in my Day-Glo boots that seemed to be walking without me—gush gush. Just put my body on automatic, everything will be fine.

  “Whose popsicle stand is this anyway?” Who said that? Did I say that? I didn’t say that. “Simon, whose popsicle stand is this anyway? Did you say that? Zeke?”

  “Whose popsicle stand is this anyway, Virginia?” Can she hear me? Where is she? Did she say it?

  It was perfect. It was just right for our reunion. That’s what I would say. “Virginia, whose popsicle stand is this anyway? Do you think it could be the sort of place we might be able to talk?”

  CUT OFF. Sometimes when people ask me what happened I just say, “Cabin fever.”

  Twelve miles from nowhere by boat, and such a laughable boat on such a laughable lake over thirty miles long, one of the world’s deepest, over fifteen hundred feet in places, with monster winds funneling down that monster valley stretching back up into those monster mountains, monster logs floating around like icebergs, fogs, rain, sleet, snow, hail, monster electrical displays. It had it all.

  If we disappeared without a trace it wouldn’t be very remarkable. The remarkable thing would be that it hadn’t happened sooner.

  And even before we got to our laughable Blue Marcel there was that mile and a half on our cute little trail tenuously wending its way through the impenetrable undergrowth and monster trees with which the winds casually cluttered our way on a fairly regular basis.

  And even if we managed to make it to the marina, where were we? In a parking lot with an odd-lot assortment of vehicles if ever there was one. We were constantly losing keys, and as if our cars weren’t in lousy enough mechanical shape, the local version of juvenile delinquents used them as a spare parts department.

  And even if we managed to get one of the cars started, the roads weren’t much of a match for coastal storms, let alone the stray earthquake. And then there were the ferries, which didn’t run in bad weather, were hard to get a place on in good weather, and had been known to sink.

  And even after all that, and then more driving unreliable cars on mountain roads and still another ferry and more mountain roads, you ended up in Vancouver. Besides the fact that you could get more places more easily from Vancouver than from Powell River, it’s hard to say exactly what’s been gained.

  One reason the whole thing seemed suddenly so difficult was the “me” factor. A few weeks earlier I could have counted somewhat on myself to work my way around whatever problems might come up. I could tinker a bit with engines, knew my way around a boat. But now all that was shot to hell. There were times when I was having enough trouble walking and remembering to breathe.

  But just what was it I was all of a sudden so worried about being cut off from? At times it was very specific, like that I would never see Virginia or my family again. At other times that was the least of my worries; I wanted only that something somewhere had an inkling of my existence.

  “Some day, Simon, we’ll be able to laugh at all of this. Some day it will be very funny. I know it’s funny now. But who would believe it? But I’m scared. I sure hope whatever it is that’s happening has a happy ending.”

  Simon sounded worried. “Take it easy, Mark, everything will be just fine.”

  A happy ending, something nice. I hoped it would somehow be all over as soon as we got to town. Maybe getting away from the farm would do the trick. At least in town we could see newspapers, make phone calls, and try to put everything all together.

  Maybe Virge would meet us at the dock and everything would be fine.

  She would be there. The closer to town we got the more sure I was. Virge was waiting at the dock. Everything was going to be just fine. Or at any rate whatever was going to happen was going to happen.

  Simon knew what was going on, he had to. I was counting on him not to let anything bad happen. Maybe I missed it and he had gone into town the other day and set everything up. I was crying with joy and gratitude. He had taken care of everything.

  John Eastman’s boat, which was already going very fast, seemed to pick up speed and leave the sound behind.

  I felt myself losing power. I drew into myself to save strength. I lay on the floor of the boat, sinking deeper and deeper into myself. I was losing awareness of anything outside myself and then I heard the engine slow down; we were there. I lay still on the floor of the boat and heard someone come running down the dock. Vincent was talking very excitedly to Simon. I could just barely make out what he was sayin
g. He asked where I was and I heard Simon say that I was on the floor of the boat in some sort of a state. I caught only bits and pieces of their conversation and felt myself slowly losing the battle to maintain consciousness, but I could tell from their conversation that Virge was in about the same state in the back of Vincent’s station wagon. I groaned louder. Apparently shortly after Virginia and Vincent made love in California, Virginia had begun acting stranger and stranger much the same way I had, and then had become unable to do much more than grunt and groan that she had to find Mark.

  The old rock-and-roll song “One Last Kiss” started playing through my mind along with wondering whether this was very good or very poor poetry. I felt myself being picked up and carried and then put down again. I could feel Virginia next to me but I couldn’t move or speak. Slowly I began to feel a warmth where our arms and legs were touching. The warmth began to spread through my body. I felt life coming back to me. I tried to open my eyes but I couldn’t. So I just lay there trying to send Virginia warm thoughts and picking up the love she was sending me. “It’s all going to be all right, it’s all going to be fine,” we said back and forth without words. “Don’t worry now, it’s all going to be all right, love.” “I know. I know.”

  The warmth from where our arms and legs had been touching spread over my whole body and became everything. Time and place meant nothing, there was just being next to her and a deeper feeling of peace and joy than I had ever known. How long had we been lying like this? I had no idea. It could have been minutes or years. It was infinite. It was enough. It was a happy ending.