Bagombo Snuff Box

by Kurt Vonnegut

  Daggett called the bank. “George, this is Bill Daggett.” He interjected a supercilious laugh. “Look, George, Kiah Higgins wants to write me a check for fifty-six hundred dollars…. That’s what I said. I swear he does…. Okay, I’ll wait.” He drummed on the desktop and avoided looking at Kiah.

  “Fine, George. Thanks.” He hung up.

  “Well?” Kiah said.

  “I made that call to satisfy my curiosity,” said Daggett. “Congratulations. I’m very impressed. Back to work.”

  “It’s my money. I earned it,” Kiah said. “I worked and saved for four years—four lousy, long years. Now I want that car.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding.”

  “That car is all I can think about, and now it’s going to be mine, the damnedest car anybody around here ever saw.”

  Daggett was exasperated. “The Marittima-Frascati is a plaything for maharajas and Texas oil barons. Fifty-six hundred dollars, boy! What would that leave of your savings?”

  “Enough for insurance and a few tanks of gas.” Kiah stood. “If you don’t want my business …”

  “You must be sick,” said Daggett.

  “You’d understand if you’d been brought up here, Mr. Daggett, and your parents had been dead broke.”

  “Baloney! Don’t tell me what it is to be broke till you’ve been broke in the city. Anyway, what’s the car going to do for you?”

  “It’s going to give me one hell of a good time—and about time. I’m going to do some living, Mr. Daggett. The first of next week, Mr. Daggett?”

  The midafternoon stillness of the village was broken by the whir of a starter and the well-bred grumble of a splendid engine.

  Kiah sat deep in the lemon-yellow leather cushions of the powder-blue Marittima-Frascati, listening to the sweet thunder that followed each gentle pressure of his toe. He was scrubbed pink, and his hair was freshly cut.

  “No fast stuff, now, for a thousand miles, you hear?” Daggett said. He was in a holiday mood, resigned to the bizarre wonder Kiah had wrought. “That’s a piece of fine jewelry under the hood, and you’d better treat it right. Keep it under sixty for the first thousand miles, under eighty until three thousand.” He laughed. “And don’t try to find out what she can really do until you’ve put five thousand on her.” He clapped Kiah on the shoulder. “Don’t get impatient, boy. Don’t worry—she’ll do it!”

  Kiah switched on the engine again, seeming indifferent to the crowd gathered around him.

  “How many of these you suppose are in the country?” Kiah asked Daggett.

  “Ten, twelve.” Daggett winked. “Don’t worry. All the others are in Dallas and Hollywood.”

  Kiah nodded judiciously. He hoped to look like a man who had made a sensible purchase and, satisfied with his money’s worth, was going to take it home now. The moment for him was beautiful and funny, but he did not smile.

  He put the car in gear for the first time. It was so easy. “Pardon me,” he said to those in his way. He raced his engine rather than blow his brass choir of horns. “Thank you.”

  When Kiah got the car onto the six-lane turnpike, he ceased feeling like an intruder in the universe. He was as much a part of it as the clouds and the sea. With the mock modesty of a god traveling incognito, he permitted a Cadillac convertible to pass him. A pretty girl at its wheel smiled down on him.

  Kiah touched the throttle lightly and streaked around her. He laughed at the speck she became in his rearview mirror. The temperature gauge climbed, and Kiah slowed the Marittima-Frascati, forgiving himself this one indulgence. Just this once—it had been worth it. This was the life!

  The girl and the Cadillac passed him again. She smiled, and gestured disparagingly at the expanse of hood before her. She loved his car. She hated hers.

  At the mouth of a hotel’s circular driveway, she signaled with a flourish and turned in. As though coming home, the Marittima-Frascati followed, purred beneath the porte cochere and into the parking lot. A uniformed man waved, smiled, admired, and directed Kiah into the space next to the Cadillac. Kiah watched the girl disappear into the cocktail lounge, each step an invitation to follow.

  As he crossed the deep white gravel, a cloud crossed the sun, and in the momentary chill, Kiah’s stride shortened. The universe was treating him like an intruder again. He paused on the cocktail lounge steps and looked over his shoulder at the car. There it waited for its master, low, lean, greedy for miles—Kiah Higgins’s car.

  Refreshed, Kiah walked into the cool lounge. The girl sat alone in a corner booth, her eyes down. She amused herself by picking a wooden swizzle stick to bits. The only other person in the room was the bartender, who read a newspaper.

  “Looking for somebody, sonny?”

  Sonny? Kiah felt like driving the Marittima-Frascati into the bar. He hoped the girl hadn’t heard. “Give me a gin and tonic,” he said coldly, “and don’t forget the lime.”

  She looked up. Kiah smiled with the camaraderie of privilege, horsepower, and the open road.

  She nodded back, puzzled, and returned her attention to the swizzle stick.

  “Here you are, sonny,” said the bartender, setting the drink before him. He rattled his newspaper and resumed his reading.

  Kiah drank, cleared his throat, and spoke to the girl. “Nice weather,” he said.

  She gave no sign that he’d said anything. Kiah turned to the bartender, as though it were to him he’d been speaking. “You like to drive?”

  “Sometimes,” the bartender said.

  “Weather like this makes a man feel like really letting his car go full-bore.” The bartender turned a page without comment. “But I’m just breaking her in, and I’ve got to keep her under fifty.”

  “I guess.”

  “Big temptation, knowing she’s guaranteed to do a hundred and thirty.”

  The bartender put down his paper irritably. “What’s guaranteed?”

  “My new car, my Marittima-Frascati.”

  The girl looked up, interested.

  “Your what?” the bartender said.

  “My Marittima-Frascati. It’s an Italian car.”

  “It sure don’t sound like an American one. Who you driving it for?”

  “Who’m I driving it for?”

  “Yeah. Who owns it?”

  “Who you think owns it? I own it.”

  The bartender picked up his paper again. “He owns it. He owns it, and it goes a hundred and thirty. Lucky boy.”

  Kiah replied by turning his back. “Hello,” he said to the girl, with more assurance than he thought possible. “How’s the Cad treating you?”

  She laughed. “My car, my fiancé, or my father?”

  “Your car,” Kiah said, feeling stupid for not having a snappier retort.

  “Cads always treat me nicely. I remember you now. You were in that darling little blue thing with yellow seats. I somehow didn’t connect you with the car. You look different. What did you call it?”

  “A Marittima-Frascati.”

  “Mmmmmm. I could never learn to say that.”

  “It’s a very famous car in Europe,” Kiah said. Everything was going swimmingly. “Won the Avignon road race two years running, you know.”

  She smiled a bewitching smile. “No! I didn’t know that.”

  “Guaranteed to go a hundred and thirty.”

  “Goodness. I didn’t think a car could go that fast.”

  “Only about twelve in the country, if that.”

  “Certainly isn’t many, is it? Do you mind my asking how much one of those wonderful cars costs?”

  Kiah leaned back against the bar. “No, I don’t mind. Seems to me it was somewhere between five and six.”

  “Oh, between those, is it? Quite something to be between.”

  “Oh, I think it’s well worth it. I certainly don’t feel I’ve thrown any money down a sewer.”

  “That’s the important thing.”

  Kiah nodded happily, and stared into the wonderful eyes, whose admirati
on seemed bottomless. He opened his mouth to say more, to keep the delightful game going forever and ever, when he realized he had nothing more to say. “Nice weather.”

  A glaze of boredom formed on her eyes. “Have you got the time?” she asked the bartender.

  “Yes, ma’am. Seven after four.”

  “What did you say?” asked Kiah.

  “Four, sonny.”

  A ride, Kiah thought, maybe she’d like to go for a ride.

  The door swung open. A handsome young man in tennis shorts blinked and grinned around the room, poised, vain, and buoyant. “Marion!” he cried. “Thank heaven you’re still here. What an angel you are for waiting for me!”

  Her face was stunning with adoration. “You’re not very late, Paul, and I forgive you.”

  “Like a fool, I let myself get into a game of doubles, and it just went on and on. I finally threw the game. I was afraid I’d lose you forever. What’ve you been up to while you’ve been waiting?”

  “Let me see. Well, I tore up a swizzle stick, and I, uh—Ohhhhhh! I met an extremely interesting gentleman who has a car that will go a hundred and thirty miles an hour.”

  “Well, you’ve been slickered, dear, because the man was lying about his car.”

  “Those are pretty strong words,” Marion said.

  Paul looked pleased. “They are?”

  “Considering that the man you called a liar is right here in this room.”

  “Oh, my.” Paul looked around the room with a playful expression of fear. His eyes passed over Kiah and the bartender. “There are only four of us here.”

  She pointed to Kiah. “That boy there. Would you mind telling Paul about your Vanilla Frappé?”

  “Marittima-Frascati,” Kiah said, his voice barely audible. He repeated it, louder. “Marittima-Frascati.”

  “Well,” Paul said, “I must say it sounds like it’d go two hundred a second. Have you got it here?”

  “Outside,” Kiah said.

  “That’s what I meant,” Paul said. “I must learn to express myself with more precision.” He looked out over the parking lot. “Oho, I see. The little blue jobbie. Ver-ry nice, scary but gorgeous. And that’s yours?”

  “I said it was.”

  “Might be the second-fastest car in these parts. Probably is.”

  “Is that a fact?” Kiah said sarcastically. “I’d like to see the first.”

  “Would you? It’s right outside, too. There, the green one.”

  The car was a British Hampton. Kiah knew the car well. It was the one he’d begun saving for before Daggett showed him pictures of the Marittima-Frascati.

  “It’ll do,” Kiah said.

  “Do, will it?” Paul laughed. “It’ll do yours in, and I’ll bet anything you like.”

  “Listen,” said Kiah, “I’d bet the world on my car against yours, if mine was broken in.”

  “Pity,” said Paul. “Another time, then.” He explained to Marion, “Not broken in, Marion. Shall we go?”

  “I’m ready, Paul,” she said. “I’d better tell the attendant I’ll be back for the Cadillac, or he’ll think I’ve been kidnapped.”

  “Which is exactly what is about to happen,” said Paul. “Be seeing you, Ralph,” he said to the bartender. They knew each other.

  “Always glad to see you, Paul,” said Ralph.

  So Kiah now knew the names of all three, but they didn’t know what his name was. Nobody had asked. Nobody cared. What could matter less than what his name was?

  Kiah watched through a window as Marion spoke to the parking attendant, and then eased herself down into the passenger seat of the low-slung Hampton.

  Ralph asked the nameless one this: “You a mechanic? Somebody left that car with you, and you took it out for a road test? Better put the top up, because it’s gonna rain.”

  The rear wheels of the powder-blue dragon with the lemon-yellow leather bucket seats sprayed gravel at the parking attendant’s legs. A doorman beneath the porte cochere signaled for it to slow down, then jumped for his life.

  Kiah was encouraging it softly, saying, “That’s good, let’s go, let’s go. I love yah,” and so on. He steered, and shifted the synchromesh gears so the car could go ever faster smoothly, but he felt doing all that was really unnecessary, that the car itself knew better than he did where to go and how to do what it had been born to do.

  The only Marittima-Frascati for thousands of miles swept past cars and trucks as though they were standing still. The needle of the temperature gauge on the padded dashboard was soon trembling against the pin at the extreme end of the red zone.

  “Good girl,” said Kiah. He talked to the car sometimes as though it were a girl, sometimes as though it were a boy.

  It overtook the Hampton, which was going only a hair over the speed limit. The Marittima-Frascati had to slow a lot, so it could run alongside the Hampton and Kiah could give Marion and Paul the finger.

  Paul shook his head and waved Kiah on, then applied his brakes to drop far behind. There would be no race.

  “He’s got no guts, baby,” said Kiah. “Let’s show the world what guts are.” He pressed the accelerator to the floor. As blurs loomed before him and vanished, he kept it there.

  The engine was shrieking in agony now, and Kiah said in a matter-of-fact tone, “Explode, explode.”

  But the engine didn’t explode or catch fire. Its precious jewels simply merged with one another, and the engine ceased to be an engine. Nor was the clutch a clutch anymore. That allowed the car to roll into the breakdown lane of the highway, powered by nothing but the last bit of momentum it would ever have on its own.

  The Hampton, with Paul and Marion aboard, never passed. They must have gotten off at some exit far behind, Kiah thought.

  Kiah left the car where it died. He thumbed a ride back to the village, without having to give his lift a story of any kind. He returned to Daggett’s showroom and acted as though he was there to work. The MG was still on the floor. The man who said he would buy it for his son had changed his mind.

  “I gave you the whole day off,” said Daggett.

  “I know,” said Kiah.

  “So where’s the car?”

  “I killed it.”

  “You what?”

  “I got it up to one forty-four, when they said it could only do one thirty-five.”

  “You’re joking.”

  “Wait’ll you see,” said Kiah. “That’s one dead sports vehicle. You’ll have to send the tow truck.”

  “My God, boy, why would you do such a thing?”

  “Call me Kiah.”

  “Kiah,” echoed Daggett, convinced he was dealing with a lunatic.

  “Who knows why anybody does anything?” said Kiah. “I don’t know why I killed it. All I know is I’m glad it’s dead.”

  A Present for

  Big Saint Nick

  Big Nick was said to be the most recent heir to the power of Al Capone. He refused to affirm or deny it, on the grounds that he might tend to incriminate himself.

  He bought whatever caught his fancy, a twenty-three-room house outside Chicago, a seventeen-room house in Miami, racehorses, a ninety-foot yacht, one hundred fifteen suits, and among other things, controlling interest in a middleweight boxer named Bernie O’Hare, the Shenandoah Blaster.

  When O’Hare lost sight in one eye on his way to the top of his profession, Big Nick added him to his squad of bodyguards.

  Big Nick gave a party every year, a little before Christmas, for the children of his staff, and on the morning of the day of the party, Bernie O’Hare, the Shenandoah Blaster, went shopping in downtown Chicago with his wife, Wanda, and their four-year-old son, Willy.

  The three were in a jewelry store when young Willy began to complain and cling to his father’s trousers like a drunken bell-ringer.

  Bernie, a tough, scarred, obedient young thug, set down a velvet-lined tray of watches and grabbed the waist of his trousers. “Let go my pants, Willy! Let go!” He turned to Wanda. “How’m
I supposed to pick a Christmas present for Big Nick with Willy pulling my pants down? Take him off me, Wan. What ails the kid?”

  “There must be a Santa Claus around,” said Wanda.

  “There ain’t no Santy Clauses in jewelry stores,” said Bernie. “You ain’t got no Santy Claus in here, have you?” he asked the clerk.

  “No, sir,” said the clerk. His face bloomed, and he leaned over the counter to speak to Willy. “But if the little boy would like to talk to old Saint Nick, I think he’ll find the jolly old elf right next—”

  “Can it,” said Bernie.

  The clerk paled. “I was just going to say, sir, that the department store next door has a Santa Claus, and the little—”

  “Can’tcha see you’re making the kid worse?” said Bernie. He knelt by Willy. “Willy boy, there ain’t no Santy Clauses around for miles. The guy is full of baloney. There ain’t no Santy next door.”

  “There, Daddy, there,” said Willy. He pointed a finger at a tiny red figure standing by a clock behind the counter.

  “Cripes!” said Bernie haggardly, slapping his knee. “The kid’s got a eye like a eagle for Santy Clauses.” He gave a fraudulent laugh. “Why, say, Willy boy, I’m surprised at you. That’s just a little plastic Santy. He can’t hurt you.”

  “I hate him,” said Willy.

  “How much you want for the thing?” said Ernie.

  “The plastic Santa Claus, sir?” said the bewildered clerk. “Why, it’s just a little decoration. I think you can get one at any five-and-ten-cent store.”

  “I want that one,” said Bernie. “Right now.”

  The clerk gave it to him. “No charge,” he said. “Be our guest.”

  Bernie dropped the Santa Claus on the terrazzo floor. “Watch what Daddy’s going to do to Old Whiskers, Willy,” he said. He brought his heel down. “Keeeeee-runch!”

  Willy smiled faintly, then began to laugh as his father’s heel came down again and again.

  “Now you do it, Willy,” said Bernie. “Who’s afraid of him, eh?”

  “I’ll bust his ol’ head off,” said Willy gleefully. “Crunch him up!” He himself trampled Father Christmas.

  “That was real smart,” said Wanda. “You make me spend all year trying to get him to like Santa Claus, and then you pull a stunt like that.”