We Are What We Pretend to Be

by Kurt Vonnegut

“Now take the case of the 240 howitzer,” said the General. “Far more effective against concrete bunkers than aerial bombardment. I remember just before the Bulge, the glamour boys dropped everything they had on a Jerry pillbox, and they didn’t even chip it. So I called back to First Army Headquarters. ‘Send up some 240s,’ I said. Well, sir, . . .”

  Haley nodded and turned his face toward the sunroom windows to hide his yawn from the General. Nothing moved in his line of sight save Mr. Banghart, who bobbed in the distance on the springing seat of a moving machine, circling again and again a shrinking island of standing alfalfa. It was Saturday afternoon—an afternoon, as the bulletin board decreed, for “recreation and cleanup.” Haley had tuned in a concert broadcast on the sunroom’s small radio, but when the General had started to shout war stories above the music, Annie had turned it off. From overhead came a muffled scuffing as Kitty and Hope moved about their rooms, tidying them up. Annie sat in a rocker near Haley, attentive to the General’s words and seemingly very entertained.

  Haley wondered if he should tell the General about Mr. Banghart’s knife. Hope had made him promise not to say anything about it. She had laughed the matter off and repeated what he had heard from others on the farm, that Mr. Banghart was no more dangerous than the mice in the corncrib. Still and all, he reflected, the combination of jangled brains and an eight-inch bowie knife would be reassuring to very few persons. But the last thing he wanted to do was to go against Hope’s judgment. . . .

  “I told Banghart to quit at noon, and he got surly with me,” said the General as an aside, apparently seeing that Haley’s attention had wandered from the turning point of World War II to the distant Mr. Banghart.

  “He didn’t even stop for lunch,” said Annie.

  “Too bad it’s just the nuts that work that hard,” said the General. “Seems like he does something like this every time the temperature gets above ninety. Remember the time he had the manure-spreader out until midnight? That was a hot day.” The General snickered. “Boy, the farm help you get these days. The darnedest thing happened this morning. I went over to the hog barn to watch Banghart feed the pigs. For no reason at all, he got sore as the devil when he saw me. He threw down the bucket, and can you imagine what he said?”

  “I can’t imagine. What did he say?” said Annie. Haley noted with distaste that her conversations consisted mainly of questions of this sort, and of echoes.

  “He told me that I was going to cross him up once too often and get mine along with the rest of them. Can you imagine?” The General was laughing.

  “Maybe you’d better get rid of him,” Haley blurted.

  The General looked at him with surprise. “I’d sooner get rid of the tractor. He’s nothing to worry about. I’ve got him right under this.” The General held up a broad, flat thumb and winked. “Well, where was I? Oh, yes. ‘Send me up some 240s,’ I said, and . . .”

  Haley’s thoughts strayed again, taking him back to the events of lunchtime, when Roy Flemming, Kitty’s current love, had appeared in the kitchen, having walked into the house without knocking. Haley had never seen anything quite like Roy before. His red hair, his freckled moon-face and childish blue eyes were familiar enough, but his bearing and thin mustache seemed as out of keeping with these as an olive in the bottom of a milkshake. Haley wondered just what Roy imagined himself to represent. His swagger and attire—gleaming riding boots, enormously wide belt spangled with bits of colored glass, crushed and twisted Army officer’s hat, and polo shirt decorated with palm trees—might be proper, Haley decided, for the leader of a bandit band in a musical comedy.

  The General had spoken to Roy without looking up from his food. “Get out,” he had said. Kitty had told Roy to sit down, that her father was joking. The General had thereupon offered to fill his “smart young behind with bird-shot” if he showed up again.

  Roy had started to back out of the room, embarrassed, and bereft of all save the glittering trappings of his devil-may-care role. Kitty had dragged him back into the kitchen. “Tell him what you came for,” Kitty had said. Roy had managed to clear his throat several times, and that was all.

  “Well?” the General had said.

  “Sir, your daughter and I want to get married, sir,” Roy had said at last.

  “I’d see her first in Hell,” the General had said. He had stamped his foot suddenly, and Haley had jumped. “Scat!” Roy Flemming had fled.

  Haley’s recollection faded as the General’s voice lifted from a monotone to a loud staccato. He was imitating the crash of 240 howitzer shells on a doomed German pillbox. “Ker-wham! Kerwham! Kerwham! After an hour of that—kerwham!—we sent the Second Battalion in—rattattattatat—and there wasn’t a Jerry left to fire a shot.” The General chuckled. Annie snickered appreciatively, and Haley forced a smile.

  “And then there was the time at Aachen, when the Jerries were using a church steeple for an observation post,” the General began afresh. His back was to the doorway, and he twisted around in his chair to see what it was behind him that was distracting his audience. Kitty stood in the doorway. “Hello, dear,” he said to her, in a kindly tone. “I hope you’ve gotten over any ill feelings you may have had against your old father.”

  “I’m going to marry him, and that’s that.”

  The General shrugged. He took her hand and gave it an affectionate squeeze. “What do you want to do—mother a race of super-idiots? He can’t concentrate on anything but his motorcycle for more than twenty seconds at a time. If you two were married and down to your last five dollars, he’d blow it on two foxtails and a chromium-plated exhaust-pipe extension. If it came to a choice between you or the motorcycle, sister, you’d lose.”

  “He’s brilliant,” declared Kitty. “He knows more about motors than anybody. And, while we’re getting mean about it, what about you? You’re as much in love with that German limousine of yours as Roy is with his motorcycle.”

  Haley saw that this rankled the General a little. “That car,” he said crisply, “is the only one of its kind in the world. It couldn’t be replaced for thirty thousand dollars. Moreover, young lady, I do have other interests. Take away Roy’s motorcycle, and he’d vanish. I could build a better man with an Erector set.”

  Kitty turned white with fury. “He’s brilliant, and he’s good looking, and he’s a gentleman, and he’s considerate, and he’s from a good family, and he’s—”

  The roar of a motorcycle in the driveway cut her short. The front door slammed, and Roy Flemming marched into the sunroom. Haley saw that his movements were ponderous, imprecise, and that he brought with him a withering effluvium of whisky. “I know when I’ve been insulted,” Roy said hoarsely, “and I don’t have to stand for it, either. I don’t care if you’re King of the Universe, I still don’t have to. Nope.”

  The General held his nose.

  “So I’ve been drinking,” said Roy, with a flourish of his hand. “S’matter of small importance in the face of that with which I have been faced with. I offer my heart to your daughter, and all I get from you is shame and abuse, that’s all.” He snapped his fingers. “I’m here to wake you all up, to get you out of your ruts.”

  The General gave an experimental sniff, winced, and held his nose again.

  “Oh, I’m on to you,” said Roy. “You’re trying to use psychology on me by making me think my breath smells bad, so I’ll get confused and forget what I wanted to say. I’m one jump ahead of you, mister.”

  “Can’t be the septic tank,” murmured the General.

  “Could be your soul,” said Roy hotly. “You don’t bother to think; you just say no to everything.” He squinted to bring the General into focus. “Well, I’m here to tell you that it won’t work on the sun and the stars and the moon, and it won’t work with love like Kitty’s and mine, either.”

  The General arose, grasped Roy by the collar and a handful of trouser-seat, and propelled him to the front door. His expression was placid, patient. “You say you want to marry my daug
hter, and I say no,” he explained, releasing Roy on the front porch. “I couldn’t stop the sun and the moon and the stars, if I wanted to—but I expect to be quite effective in your particular case.”

  Haley heard Roy shout from his motorcycle as he sped away with an angry clashing of gears: “I’ll be back!”

  “That’s not original with him, you know,” commented the General, returning to the sunroom.

  After dinner, seated on the kitchen steps, Haley outlined the conversation to Hope, who nodded thoughtfully and made him repeat portions of it. “Roy’s right about the way he tries to solve everything by saying no,” she sighed. “That’s how he got to be a general, I guess, but he sure isn’t much fun as a father.”

  “I’m sure he’s got a very good heart and is just trying to do what he thinks best,” said Haley.

  “Who isn’t?” Hope shrugged. “Don’t get me wrong, Haley. We love him dearly, and I think he loves us, too, probably lots more than most fathers love their children. But golly, his idea of doing us a favor is to discipline us every time we turn around.” A patch of light on the grass to their left, cast from Kitty’s window above, disappeared. Hope and Haley looked up at the darkened window. “Going to bed early,” said Hope. “Guess she’ll cry herself to sleep tonight.” Suddenly she motioned for silence. “Listen!”

  Haley heard a rustling in the untended barberry hedge bounding the driveway. A figure separated from the shadows, and Haley recognized Roy, who looked as though he had been eluding bloodhounds for a week. He spoke hoarsely, and he was visible for only a minute—long enough to give them a note for Kitty, rumpled and moist from his perspiring hands. He retreated again into the hedge, and Hope ran upstairs with the message, leaving Haley alone on the kitchen steps. The light in Kitty’s room flashed on again, and Haley turned his head to see her standing in the window, waving her hands and nodding. A moment later, he saw Roy head across the barnyard toward the highway, running between patches of shadows in a low crouch.

  Hope returned, vibrant with excitement. “They’re going to get married anyway, Haley—tonight!”

  Haley laughed nervously and found himself without adequate comment.

  “And the wonderful thing about it is that we get to see them elope!”

  “I’d rather keep out of it,” said Haley, his voice tinged with anxiety.

  “Oh, but you can’t,” said Hope, enthusiastically. “You’re absolutely crucial. They’re going to use your window, because it’s the farthest from the General’s room.”

  “Good grief! What if she gets caught by Annie or the General on her way out through my room? That’d look dandy for me.”

  “Oh, the General will never find out how she got out. He won’t find out she’s gone until morning. She’s making a dummy for her bed right now.”

  “All the same, I’d be happier if—”

  “You are a mouse, aren’t you?” said Hope.

  Haley suddenly hated himself for his querulousness. “I didn’t mean it that way,” he objected lamely. “It’s just that I want to make sure everything’s planned just right, that’s all.”

  They returned together, with Hope apparently mollified, into the brightly lit sunroom, where the General and Annie perused, respectively, the first and second sections of the evening paper, with an occasional and complacent “huh” or “ha.”

  At 3 a.m., Caesar, the chastened horse, kicked the side of his stall twice, perhaps in token retribution for the sawtoothed bits. The solid thumps carried to the ears of Haley, who threw back his covers and ran to the window. In the silent patch of blues and blacks below him, he saw Roy moving toward the house, staggering beneath the weight of a tall ladder. Roy stood the ladder upright and leaned it in toward Haley’s windowsill. The ladder gathered speed as it fell toward the house, and Roy was without leverage to stop it as it threatened to hit the clapboard siding with a thundering whack. Haley leaned out and caught the ladder just before it hit, and his hand served as a cushion between it and the house. In spite of himself he cried out and jerked his hand, which stung smartly and bled.

  Roy soon popped his colorful head into the window, and Hope and Kitty slipped through the bedroom door, looking furtively over their shoulders and struggling with several large pieces of luggage.

  “Who yelled?” whispered Hope angrily.

  Haley appealed with his eyes to Roy for vindication, but Roy, florid and perspiring, was staring amazed at the baggage Kitty expected to carry away on the nuptial motorcycle. Haley guessed, from what little he knew of Roy, that the idea of spiriting his love away had delighted him, but that the mechanical difficulties inherent in the desperate venture now depressed him terribly. Haley counted seven separate pieces of luggage.

  “Darling,” whispered Kitty, throwing her arms about Roy’s neck.

  Roy received the embrace woodenly. “Gee whiz, Kitty, half that stuff won’t even fit through the window, let alone fit in the saddle bags,” he said forlornly.

  “You said we might be on the road for ten days; right in black and white you said that.”

  “Sure, honey, but we aren’t going in a moving van.”

  “Better get going while the going’s good,” warned Hope.

  Kitty began to look rattled. “What’re you taking?” she asked.

  “Change of socks, change of underwear,” said Roy.

  “Here, take this one and beat it,” urged Hope, handing Kitty a small bag.

  “It’s all packed according to a system,” said Kitty helplessly. “And I thought it was so good, too. There’s underwear in one, skirts in another, blouses and sweaters in that big one.” She looked at the bag in her hand. “I forget what’s in this one.”

  “Is that the one with your toothbrush?” asked Roy.

  “It could be,” said Kitty, apparently not at all sure.

  “That’s the one we want,” said Roy, taking it from her. “Let’s go!”

  Kitty hesitated, looked longingly at the baggage she was going to have to abandon, then squirmed through the window and onto the ladder.

  Haley, Hope by his side, listened to the lovers’ conversation as they descended.

  “I got you a new kidney belt for the trip,” said Roy affectionately.

  “I think this is the bag with the hankies and the stockings,” said Kitty.

  Kitty and Roy, stumpy, grotesque, long-shadowed figures as seen by Haley and Hope from the bedroom window, were absorbed by the shadows of the barn, reappeared for a moment as they crossed the fence into the elm grove, and were lost from sight for good. Haley and Hope heard the roar and backfire of the motorcycle starting on the highway, then its even rumble, then hum, as it carried Roy and Kitty to joy everlasting.

  “Well, I never,” said Annie, filling the door with her breadth, the more impressive for being sheathed in an orange, daisy-spattered bathrobe. Haley’s heart pumped harder and faster as Annie scratched herself and blinked at them sleepily. “Well, I never,” she repeated at last. “What’s going on at this hour?”

  “Haley’s window wouldn’t open, and he asked me to help him get it unstuck,” said Hope.

  Annie’s gaze, more wakeful now, turned toward the window. Haley closed his eyes. “What’s that ladder and luggage doing there?” she demanded, taking a step forward. The drone of Roy’s motorcycle was still audible, and, when Haley opened his eyes for an instant, he saw Annie’s head cocked to one side, in an attitude of listening and incredulity. “She ran off with him, didn’t she?” she cried.

  “Hush!” hissed Hope, and the General stepped from the darkness of the hallway.

  “Kitty’s run off with Roy, and these two helped her,” said Annie, livid. “What’ll we do?”

  The General breathed heavily, his eyes moving about the small room—from Annie, to the ladder and luggage, to Haley and Hope. “I’ll see you two downstairs in the sunroom in fifteen minutes, on the dot,” he said.

  “You’ll see,” said Annie, and she followed the General down the hall.

  Hale
y could hear the General dialing then shouting into the telephone. “He always yells into the telephone,” said Hope. Haley sensed that some of her defiant poise was gone, that she was worried. “He’s talking to the police,” she said with awe. They lapsed into despondent silence until Hope’s watch indicated that the time for their hearing had come.

  The General was at his desk, his back to them. Annie sat on the edge of the couch, pouring two cups of coffee. She told them to sit down, and so they sat, with only their sins and the coffee’s fragrance to contemplate for perhaps ten minutes. Haley examined the back of his hand, which had begun to ache from the ladder’s blow. A long welt crossed the back of it, and the skin was broken in three places along the knuckles.

  “I have a theory,” the General began suddenly, “that everybody with any sense has a good idea of how he looks to others. Let’s put it to a test, shall we?” His tone was polite, impersonal, like that of a lecturer, Haley thought. “Hope?”

  “Yes?” Her voice was faint.

  “You and I are pretty much strangers. You weren’t much more than a baby when I went away to war, so we never did have much time to get to know each other.” He paused to light a cigarette. “You don’t like me because you think I’m a bully, that it’s fun for me to push other people around.”

  “Noooo,” objected Hope, tearfully. “I love you, Daddy, really I do.”

  “Don’t doubt it. Never did. That’s an entirely different matter.”

  Hope started to plead again, but the General cut her short by addressing Haley. “As for you, young man, I don’t think I’m far from the mark when I say that you think I’m pretty funny, even though you are scared to death of me. I’m a joke, an old fool who can’t forget for a minute that he was a general. Maybe it was your father who taught you that.”

  “Hardly, sir,” said Haley, embarrassed, but at a loss as to how he might argue the point.

  “Good—the cards are on the table,” said the General. “In case you haven’t figured out for yourselves just what I think of you, I’ll clear that up, too. First of all, I’m fond of you both. I think you’re too soft and spoiled for your own good. I want you to be happy, and I get no fun at all out of hurting you. But you’re still children, and I’m supposed to take care of you to the best of my ability. If I can teach you one simple lesson, I’ll have done a good job of it. You’re evidently going to have to learn the hard way that your happiness for the rest of your lives depends on how well you fit yourselves into other people’s plans, not vice versa, and on how willing you are to submit to the judgment of someone who knows more than you do. Am I right or wrong?”