While Mortals Sleep: Unpublished Short Fiction

by Kurt Vonnegut

  “Shh!” said Carmody, and Miss Daily walked in.

  She looked terribly upset. “You’re making fun of me again,” she said.

  “Why would we do that?” said Carmody.

  “You two made it all up—about Bomar.”

  “Made it up?” said Sterling incredulously. “My dear Miss Daily, Bomar is going to be in this very office before twenty-four hours have passed. I just received a telegram. He’s stopping off here on his way from Monte Carlo to Catalina.”

  “Please, please,” said Miss Daily, “you’ve done too much already. You don’t know what you’ve done.”

  “Miss Daily, it most certainly isn’t a joke,” said Sterling. “He’ll be here tomorrow, and you can see him for yourself. Pinch him, even. He’s real, all right.” He watched her closely, puzzled by the importance she seemed to attach to Bomar. “If Bomar were a joke—what difference would that make?”

  “He is real? You promise?” she said.

  “You’ll see him tomorrow,” said Carmody.

  “You swear he’s done everything you say he’s done?” said Miss Daily.

  “I made that up about the Queen Elizabeth,” said Sterling.

  “The rest is true?”

  “Oh, Bomar’s a wild one, Miss Daily,” said Carmody.

  Unaccountably, Miss Daily seemed vastly relieved. She sank down in her chair, and managed to smile. “It is true,” she said faintly. “Thank the Lord. If it had all been made up, oh, I—” She shook her head, and left the sentence unfinished.

  “If it had all been made up, you what?” said Carmody.

  “Never mind, never mind,” said Miss Daily absently. “If it’s all true, I have no regrets.”

  “What sort of regrets might you have had?” said Carmody.

  “Never you mind, never you mind,” she crooned. “So, tomorrow I come face-to-face at last with Master Fessenden. Good!”

  * * *

  At the Acme Grille, shortly after eight the next morning, Sterling and Carmody rehearsed Stanley Broom for the drama he was about to enact before Miss Daily in the Stockholders’ Records Section.

  Broom was dressed flamboyantly, and wore an insolent sneer that seemed to invite all the world to slap his fat face. “This can’t take long,” he said, “or I’ll get canned.”

  “Fifteen minutes at the outside,” said Sterling. “We walk in together, see—and I introduce you to Carmody and Miss Daily casually. You’re stopping off to see me, your old college buddy, on your way from Monte Carlo to Catalina. Got it?”

  “Check,” said Broom. “Listen, she isn’t going to take a swat at me or anything, is she?”

  “Couldn’t hurt a flea,” said Sterling. “She isn’t even five feet tall, and she weighs under a hundred.”

  “She could still be wiry,” said Broom.

  “Naaaah. Now listen, what’s the name of your yacht?”

  “The Golden Eagle, and it’s anchored at Miami Beach,” said Broom. “I may have the crew bring it around through the canal to the West Coast.”

  “Who you in love with now?” said Sterling.

  “Fifi. I met her at Monte Carlo, and she’s going to follow me to Catalina in a few days, at my expense. She’s got to shake off a count she was engaged to.”

  “What have you given her so far?” said Sterling.

  “Uh—emerald and a blue mink.”

  “Silver—blue mink,” said Carmody. “OK, I’d say we’re in pretty good shape. I’ll go on back to the office, and make sure Miss Daily is there for Bomar’s grand entrance.”

  * * *

  Miss Daily was pink with excitement as she sat in the office, waiting for Bomar, and her breathing was shallow. She shuffled papers nervously, accomplishing nothing. Her lips moved, but made no sounds.

  “Eh?” said Carmody. “What was that, Miss Daily?”

  “I wasn’t speaking to you,” said Miss Daily politely. “I was getting things straight in my mind.”

  “That’s the stuff. Really going to give him a piece of your mind, eh?”

  “Bomar, you old dog!” said Sterling in the hall, just outside the office door. “You’re a sight for sore eyes!”

  Miss Daily snapped the point on her pencil in a nervous spasm, and Sterling and Broom walked in.

  Broom puffed on a preposterously big and foul cigar, and took in the office in a withering glance. “Steerage,” he said. “How can you bear it? I’ve been in here ten seconds, and it’s driving me mad.”

  Miss Daily was white and trembling, but as yet speechless, fascinated.

  “Do you mean to say that people really live like this?” said Broom.

  “They do,” said Miss Daily in a small voice, “if they’re not too lazy or spoiled to help do the world’s work.”

  “I suppose that’s an insult,” said Broom, “but not a very good one, since most of the world’s work isn’t worth doing. Besides, someone has to give his full attention to the finer things in life, or there’d be no civilization.”

  “Fifi?” said Miss Daily. “Carmella? Juanita? Amber? Collette?”

  “You do keep track of the stockholders down here, don’t you?” said Broom.

  “I’ve told her a little about you, Bomar,” said Sterling.

  “I just found out I owned stock in this thing the other day,” said Broom, “but apparently Miss Pry here has known about me all along.”

  “My name is Miss Daily,” said Miss Daily, “Miss Nancy Daily.”

  “Well, get off your high horse, Miss Daily,” said Broom. “I haven’t done anything to hurt the lower classes.”

  “You’re what’s wrong with the world,” said Miss Daily bravely, her back straight, her lips trembling. “And now that I’ve met you, and seen that you’re worse than I ever imagined you to be, I’m not sorry at all I did what I did. I’m glad.”

  “Huh?” said Broom, his stride broken. He looked questioningly at Carmody and Sterling, who in turn looked uneasily at Miss Daily.

  “Your last dividend check, Mr. Fessenden,” said Miss Daily. “I signed your name on the back, and sent it to the Red Cross.”

  Carmody and Sterling exchanged glances full of horror.

  “I did it single-handed,” said Miss Daily. “Mr. Carmody and Mr. Sterling know nothing about it. It was only two hundred and fifty dollars, so you won’t miss it—and it’s in better hands than if you’d given it to that shameless Fifi.”

  “Um,” said Broom, completely at sea.

  “Well, aren’t you going to call the police?” said Miss Daily. “I’m quite ready to go, if it would satisfy you to prefer charges.”

  “Well, I—uh—” mumbled Broom. He got no help with his lines from Carmody and Sterling, who were thunderstruck. “Easy come, easy go,” he said at last. “Isn’t that right, Sterling?”

  Sterling roused himself. “Root of all evil,” he said desolately.

  Broom tried to think of something more to say, but failed.

  “Well, off to Monte Carlo,” he said. “Ta ta.”

  “Catalina,” said Miss Daily. “You just came from Monte Carlo.”

  “Catalina,” said Broom.

  “Don’t you feel much better, Mr. Fessenden?” said Miss Daily. “Doesn’t it make you happy to have done something unselfish for a change?”

  “Yup,” said Broom, nodding gravely, and he left.

  “He took it like a little gentleman,” said Miss Daily to Carmody and Sterling.

  “Oh, it’s easy enough for Bomar,” said Carmody bleakly, looking with loathing at Sterling, the Frankenstein who’d invented the monster. A new check would have to be made out to the real Bomar, and Carmody could think of no graceful way of explaining to the powers upstairs what had happened to the old one. Carmody, Sterling, and Miss Daily were through at American Forge and Foundry. The monster had turned on them savagely, and destroyed all three.

  “I think Mr. Fessenden learned something today,” said Miss Daily.

  Carmody laid his hand on Miss Daily’s shoulder. “Miss Dai
ly, there’s something you’d better know,” he said grimly. “We’re in quite a mess, Miss Daily. That was not Bomar Fessenden III who was just in here, and nothing we’ve said about Bomar is true.”

  “A joke,” said Sterling bitterly.

  “Well, I must say it wasn’t a very funny joke,” said Miss Daily. “It was quite unkind, treating me like an idiot.”

  “No—it wasn’t funny at all, the way it turned out,” said Carmody.

  “Not as funny as my joke about forging the check,” said Miss Daily.

  “That was a joke?” said Carmody.

  “Certainly,” said Miss Daily sweetly. “Aren’t you going to smile, Mr. Carmody? Not even a little snicker, Mr. Sterling? Heavens—it really is time to retire. No one seems to be able to laugh at himself anymore.”

  THE MAN WITHOUT NO KIDDLEYS

  “I done ate twelve barium meals in my time,” said Noel Sweeny. Sweeny had never felt really well, and now, on top of everything else, he was ninety-four years old. “Twelve times Sweeny’s stomach’s been x-rayed. Reckon that’s some kind of a world’s record.”

  Sweeny was on a bench by a shuffleboard court in Tampa, Florida. He was talking to another old man, a stranger who shared the bench with him.

  The stranger had plainly just begun a new way of life in Florida. He wore black shoes, black silk socks, and the trousers of a blue serge business suit. His sports shirt and fighter-pilot cap were crackling, glossy new. A price tag was still stapled to the hem of his shirt.

  “Um,” said the stranger to Sweeny, without looking at him. The stranger was reading the Sonnets of William Shakespeare.

  “From fairest creatures we desire increase,/That thereby beauty’s rose might never die,” Shakespeare said to the stranger.

  “How many times you had your stomach x-rayed?” Sweeny said to the stranger.

  “Um,” said the stranger.

  “Music to hear, why hear’st thou music sadly?” said Shakespeare. “Sweets with sweets war not, joy delights in joy.”

  “I ain’t got no spleen,” said Sweeny. “You believe it?”

  The stranger did not respond.

  Considerately, Sweeny moved closer to the stranger and yelled in his ear. “Sweeny ain’t had no spleen since nineteen hundred and forty-three,” he yelled.

  The stranger dropped his book and almost fell off the bench. He cowered and covered his ringing ears. “I’m not deaf,” he said, full of pain.

  Firmly, Sweeny pulled one of the stranger’s hands away from his ear. “I didn’t think you heard me,” he said.

  “I heard you,” said the stranger, trembling. “I heard it all: barium meals, gallstones, tired blood, and sleepy liver bile. I heard every word of what Dr. Sternweiss said about your gastric sphincter. Has Dr. Sternweiss thought of setting it to music?”

  Sweeny picked up the book of sonnets and put it on the opposite end of the bench, out of the stranger’s reach. “You want to make that little bet now?” he said.

  “What bet?” said the stranger, very pale.

  “See?” said Sweeny, beaming bleakly. “I was right—you wasn’t listening! A while back I asked you did you want to bet how many kiddleys we got between us, and you said, ‘Um.’ ”

  “How many kiddies?” said the stranger. His expression softened—was cautiously interested! He liked children, and thought the bet was a charming one. “Do we count children and grandchildren—or how do we do it?” he said.

  “Not kiddies,” said Sweeny. “Kiddleys.”

  “Kiddleys?” said the stranger, puzzled.

  Sweeny put his hands over the spots where his kidneys were—or had been. “Kiddleys,” he said. His error was one of such long standing that it had the ring of authority.

  The stranger was disappointed and annoyed. “If you don’t mind, I don’t want to think about kidneys,” he said. “Please—could I have my book back?”

  “After we bet,” said Sweeny craftily.

  The stranger sighed. “Would a dime be enough?” he said.

  “Fine,” said Sweeny. “The money’s just to make it a little more interesting.”

  “Oh,” said the stranger emptily.

  Sweeny studied him for a long time. “I guess we got three kiddleys between us,” he said at last. “How many you guess?”

  “I guess none,” said the stranger.

  “None?” said Sweeny, amazed. “If there wasn’t no kiddleys between us, we’d both be dead. A man can’t live without no kiddleys. You got to guess two, three, or four.”

  “I have lived happily since eighteen hundred and eighty-four without a trace of a kiddley,” said the stranger. “I gather that you do have a kiddley, which makes one kiddley between us. Therefore the bet ends in a tie, with no money changing hands. Now, please, sir—would you kindly hand me my book?”

  Sweeny held up his hands, barring all access to the book. “How dumb you think I am?” he said challengingly.

  “I’ve gone as deeply as I care to into that subject,” said the stranger. “Please, sir—the book.”

  “If you ain’t got no kiddleys,” said Sweeny, “just tell me one thing.”

  The stranger rolled his eyes. “Can’t we change the subject?” he said. “I used to have a garden up north. I’d like to start a little vegetable garden down here. Do people have little vegetable gardens down here? Do you have a garden?”

  Sweeny would not be deflected. He stabbed the stranger in the chest with his finger. “How you eliminate waste?” he said.

  The stranger hung his head. He stroked his face in helpless exasperation. He made soft raspberry sounds. He straightened up to smile benignly at a pretty girl jiggling by. “Look at those trim ankles, Mr. Sweeny—those rosy heels,” he said. “Oh to be young—or to pretend to be young, dreaming here in the sunshine.” He closed his eyes, dreamed.

  “I guessed right, didn’t I?” said Sweeny.

  “Um,” said the stranger.

  “We only got three kiddleys between us, and now you’re trying to change the subject and mix me up so’s you can get out of paying off,” said Sweeny. “Well—I don’t mix up so easy.”

  The stranger dug a dime from his pocket without opening his eyes. He held it out to Sweeny.

  Sweeny did not take it. “I ain’t gonna take it till I know for sure I’m entitled to it,” he said. “I gave you my word of honor I don’t got but one kiddley. Now you got to give me your word of honor how many kiddleys you got.”

  The stranger bared his teeth dangerously in the sunshine. “I swear by all that’s holy,” he said tautly. “I have no kiddleys.”

  “What happened to ’em?” said Sweeny. “Bright’s disease?”

  “Sweeny’s disease,” said the stranger.

  “Same name as me?” said Sweeny, surprised.

  “Same name as you,” said the stranger. “And a horrible disease it is.”

  “What’s it like?” said Sweeny.

  “Anybody who suffers from Sweeny’s disease,” snarled the stranger, “mocks beauty, Mr. Sweeny; invades privacy, Mr. Sweeny; disturbs the peace, Mr. Sweeny; shatters dreams, Mr. Sweeny; and drives all thoughts of love, Mr. Sweeny, away!”

  The stranger stood. He put his face inches from Sweeny’s. “Anyone suffering from Sweeny’s disease, sir, makes life of the spirit impossible by reminding all around him that men are nothing but buckets of guts!”

  The stranger made barking sounds of frantic indignation. He snatched up his book of sonnets, strode to another bench twenty feet away, and sat down with his back to Sweeny. He snuffled and snorted and turned the pages roughly.

  “The forward violet thus did I chide:” Shakespeare said to him, “Sweet thief, whence didst thou steal thy sweet that smells,/If not from my love’s breath?” The excitement of battle began to subside in the stranger.

  “The purple pride/Which on thy soft cheek for complexion dwells/In my love’s veins thou hast too grossly dy’d,” said Shakespeare, still chiding the violet.

  The stranger tried to smil
e in pure, timeless, placeless pleasure. The smile, however, would not come. The almighty here-and-now was making itself too strongly felt.

  The stranger had come to Tampa for only one reason—that his old bones had betrayed him. No matter how much his home in the North meant to him, no matter how little Florida meant to him—his old bones had cried out that they couldn’t stand another winter in the snow and cold.

  He had thought of himself, as he accompanied his old bones down South, as a silent, harmless cloud of contemplation.

  He found himself instead, only hours after his arrival in Tampa, the author of a savage attack on another old man. The back that he’d turned to Sweeny saw far more than his eyes. His eyes had gone out of focus. His book was a blur.

  His back sensed keenly that Sweeny, a kind and lonely man of simpleminded pleasures, was all but destroyed. Sweeny, who’d wanted to go on living, even if he had only half a stomach and one kidney, Sweeny, whose enthusiasm for life hadn’t diminished an iota after he’d lost his spleen in nineteen hundred and forty-three—now Sweeny didn’t want to live anymore. Sweeny didn’t want to live anymore, because an old man he’d tried to befriend had been so savage and mean.

  It was a hideous discovery for the stranger to make—that a man at the end of his days was as capable of inflicting pain as the rawest, loudest youth. With so little time left, the stranger had added one more item to his long, long list of regrets.

  And he ransacked his mind for elaborate lies that would make Sweeny want to live again. He settled, finally, on an abject, manly, straightforward apology as the only thing to do.

  He went to Sweeny, held out his hand. “Mr. Sweeny,” he said, “I want to tell you how sorry I am that I lost my temper. There was no excuse for it. I’m a tired old fool, and my temper’s short. But the last thing in my heart I want to do is hurt you.”

  He waited for some fire to return to Sweeny’s eyes. But not even the faintest spark returned.

  Sweeny sighed listlessly. “Never mind,” he said. He didn’t take the stranger’s hand. Plainly, he wanted the stranger to go away again.

  The stranger kept his hand extended, prayed to God for the right thing to say. He himself would lose the will to live if he abandoned Sweeny like this.