“What’s the matter? Don’t you like it here? Why we have the movies and library and a PX. What on earth else do you want?”
I’ve never been so full of blind goddamn rage. I’m off my rocker––without reason. I’m not rational. What can I say to you?
You won’t feel like writing letters to me again, not after this let down. There’s nothing to write about. I’m sick at heart and probably won’t write again for God knows how long. I’ve been disemboweled. My guts are hanging out and little white maggots are crawling all over them. I’ve had my throat slashed from ear to ear and to all purposes I’m dead. Decayed flesh, dead and rotten.
I’m just about beaten in submission––submission to the brutal and stupid lack of imagination on the part of those people who have God-like power, namely, the power to RUN MY LIFE. And now they’re running and ruining your life.
I’ve got to do SOMETHING. I’m boiling; the pressure is up and the safety valve is inadequate; the seams are creaking and groaning.
All this because I love you and need you more than the nature of things ever intended. That is something that cannot be explained to anyone else.
Kurt
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7 Nov 45
Tootles:
Last night I wrote you an air mail letter, urging you to come out here and sweat out the discharge with me––but I didn’t mail it. I didn’t mail it because this place is shot full of the rumor that the points will be lowered to 50 before December 1st. Rumor further has it that this happy event may take place on or about November 15th. The Army has a reason for everything, those in command boast. And they’ve given a reason for not providing a schedule whereby a man might predict his release. Some damned fool General explains in the Army Times: “When you tell a man when he’s going to get out you lose a good soldier.” In my case, a mediocre and insoucient typist. The fact that they might be wrecking a good civilian, or that a good civilian is worth five tank regiments and an aircraft carrier hasn’t occured to him. So what? For thirty days more at the outside I should blow my brains out, I’m asking?
I hope you’re holding up all right. I suppose we are having a dirty run of luck, but we’ve had a blessed run of unbelievable, heaven-granted luck when the luck really counted. Until now, I’d forgot that was true. I’ve been crawling through this sewer for almost three years, Sweety, an now I can see light. What has happened to me in the Army since we’ve been married strikes you as outrageous fortune. And it is; but it’s a little outrage, Darling. You’ve come in on the tail end of it. You came in after I’d come through the big outrage––with two legs, two arms, and two eyes. As you can see, an inexplicable wave of holiness swamped me this morning, so I’ll not bitch and rant and tear my hair for a couple of days. The meek shall inherit the Earth, in a month or less––and then they’ll cease to be so goddamn meek.
Thus, arm in arm with you, I dare to defy my Century to the lists.—Schiller. Nice?
Kurt—
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8 Nov 45
Yea and forsooth, my pretty little wife––Have you read the heavenly bit of news which states that Prisoners of War with more than 60 days in stir are to be discharged immediately? We of Message Center have read this marvelous thing in the Kansas City Journal and are now awaiting the official telegram from the Nation’s Capital. Capital. This is distinctly IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The Sergeant Major just came through the office, asking if any of us were Prisoners of War and if so how long. Ha! I told him.
Jeeeheeezus, Lamby-pie. My guess is that I’ll be shipped to Atterbury in about a week, spend perhaps another week there and I’M OUT. That’s allowing them plenty of time, an outside estimate. Two damned lousy little weeks, Darling. We’ll buy me a grey flannel suit, ten white shirts and a dozen pairs of sox and we’re off into the big boisterous world. Holy smokes: it’s about time! No more humiliation. No more emotional suppression. Free as Hell! Picture, if you can, what this means to me. God, what a load is about to be taken from me. Joy. Joy. Joy. Joy. Joy. Joy.
We’re off––Angel. We’ll have to call a family meeting to decide where we’re going; what we’re going to try to do. We’ll plan what’s left of our lives to conform to our own private set of morals, and, unlike the common man, we’ll try to plan it so we damned well WILL contribute by creating.
Be as happy as I am, Angel. This will soon be possible:
Whither thou goest, I go; whither thou lodgest, will I lodge; thy people shall be my people, and thy God shall be my God.
Darling wife, I love you.
KURT
XXXXXXX
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If what my collegue here tells me is true, that houses cost roughly six dollars per square foot of floor, not including plumbing, light fixtures and furnishings, this rabbit warren should run (22ft x 20ft) us about $2640. We’ll borrow it.
Not only that, but I love you most intensely, and am having one helluva time waiting for November 15th.
KURT––
XXXXXXX
This is an opening between the kitchen and the living-dining room––useful for a bar or buffet
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November 8th—1945—Thursday
S-w-e-a-t-i-n-g i-t o-u-t:
I’m waiting for the OFFICIAL word, Angel. It is 8:30 P.M., Thursday. Another batch of telegrams is due in here shortly; the last batch of the night. A replacement for me has been requisitioned—so I know the BIG NEWS is likely to break at any minute. Jesus, when? Methinks in twenty-four hours or less. Holy smokes: talk about being tense. Sleeping is out of the damned question. Maybe I’ll be out in a week? Or less? A possibility. Things were a damned sight better than we thought, eh?
Scammon Lockwood is exciting––I’ll say that for him. He sounds like something out of Popular Mechanics, doesn’t he? He’s surely well-oriented in the world of machines. If I show any promise I think he’ll give us a big boost to where we want to go. I’m fairly convinced that he’s not a phoney––aren’t you? What we need is professional advice and an in with the editors. He can give it to us, I think. Young and inexperienced as I am, our primary purpose for the present should be to MAKE MONEY while I learn to write. If I can get shrewd and prolific enough to turn out a steady flow of frivolous slush in exchange for a steady flow of hard cash I’ll certainly throw myself into the job with all my heart. Witness Philip Wylie and his fishing series. We’ll keep and nourish bigger ideas until we’re older––and one helluvalot more skilful, and truthful––i.e. accurate.
Right now love is the biggest thing––the thing to nourish: because it’s the thing that can make us most genuinely, thuroughly happy. That’s what I’m coming home to. That’s the basis; that’s the foundation on which we’ll be free to build in a few short days. Golly, you’re a heavenly person, Woofy. I love you, Darling. I will eat you up…….. in a minute or two. Tick tock. Wait. We’re on the THRESHOLD. I love you, Darling. Tick tock.
Kurt
XXXXXXX (OVER)
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Sunday afternoon––11 November 45
FOR THIS IS THE VERY ECSTASY OF LOVE
WHOSE VIOLENT PROPERTY FORDOES ITSELF
AND LEADS THE WILL TO VIOLENT UNDERTAKINGS.
–Hamlet
Beloved:––
Still no news. I’ve spent the bulk of these past few days––now that the end is in sight––staring at the ceiling, trying to figure out how I’ll spend the vast remainder of my days. And I’ve spent the bulk of these past few nights dreaming of the sparkling little lake of heavenly nights we’ve spent together and of the turquoise ocean of them that lies before us. The nocturns are lush and loving, warm and splendid––but the day dreams are obscure, clouded. I wonder….
/> Rich man, poor man, beggar man, thief? Doctor, Lawyer, Merchant, Chief? From your loving me I’ve drawn a measure of courage that never would have come to me otherwise. You’ve given me the courage to decide to be a writer. That much of my life has been decided. Regardless of my epitaph, to be a writer will have been my personal ultimate goal.
What must I do to become a writer? From what I know about authors––Mencken, Lewis, Sinclair, Wylie, Wells, Farrel, Lardner, Hecht––most of them are products of the advertizing and newspaper worlds. Of those I’ve named, none gives much credit to Universities for their successes. By and large they were born to write––and most of their information has been picked up through a voracious appetite for books. Wylie is the most noteworthy collector of extraneous information. So I think I’ll serve an apprenticeship in an advertizing concern––Leo Burnett’s, if he’ll have me. Under the G.I. Bill of Rights we’ll have tuition, fees and books paid for, with an additional $90 per month for living expenses. That, obviously, is not adequate––far from it. The necessity of establishing myself as a valuable and fairly well-paid family head is important. If I go to the University of Chicago, I will be 25 or 26 years old by the time I finish the anthropology course we’re considering having me take. I am going to give Chicago a try for a year. But sweety, in spite of the fact that we’ll be bucking the iron-clad middle class prejudice against men without degrees, if I decide I’m getting no damned or very little benefit from my studies I’m going to chuck them. I’ll go to work as a full time reporter or copy writer. I think it’s the soundest way to gain our end––and lucrative as well.
We want to end up with a sydincated daily column or a writing job in Hollywood or as a playwright or as a novelist. Or a brick layer, or a beach comber, or a merchant seaman, or a street cleaner. But we’ll have tried.
I love you, Angel. We’ll take turns putting our heads on each other’s beloved tummies and talking things over. By the time you get this you’ll have only a short time to wait–hours, maybe. Darling, I’m a humorless and thick bastard from time to time––of that I’ll say more when I get home. People are walking contradictions: I’ve noticed it in myself recently. I’ll stop it when love resumes its three dimensions instead of two––
Love lieth deep; love dwells not in lip depths.
KURT XXXXXXX
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November 12th—Monday night
1945
Dear Heart:
This is akin to torture, this waiting. This is the most sterile life imaginable: an insipid broth concocted of ten parts working, ten parts sleeping, two parts eating, three parts movies, and ten parts sitting––wondering what in Hell is behind it. I have two days off each week, but I’m damned if I wouldn’t rather work every day to make the time go faster. I’ve a bald and baseless hunch that tomorrow is the day that orders for my release will come through. If the orders do come, the train ride to Atterbury will follow in a couple of days.
I’ve done quite a nice job of delivering Wylie-esque lectures these last two days to the dull, the sloth and the thunderstruck who sleep in the barracks with me. This marks the first time I’ve opened my yap to my dim-witted companions since I got here in October. It all started with a Troglodyte’s allowing as how he would like a television set when he gets out. It was like shooting fish in a rain barrel. I led the poor dupe to doom by asking him why he wanted a television set. I’d learned my lesson well. There wasn’t an undangled jaw in the place as I closed my passionate case against the world of gadgets which the cave men most of us are have come to think of as marvelous progress.
All of which reminds me that I am not infallible, Cookie, and that I would do well to keep my ears open for homely wisdom that those who have actually bucked the world can give me. As you know, I haven’t bucked the world as yet. This is one thing I learned this apres midi––from a graduate lawyer. “Right after I got out of Law School (St. John’s) my wife and I got to thinking. We decided that if a man makes his living in a profession––Doctor, Lawyer, Dentist, Architect––he’s going to be making his living with his hands. If something happens to him or his hands––I don’t care if he’s making a million a year––his money’s going to stop coming in. If something goes wrong with him, he and his family are going to be in a very tough spot indeed. That’s why my wife and I opened a fruit store in Rockway Beach. Christ, I’ve got four of the damned things now, and even while I’m here in the Army I’m getting a sweet income from them. In a couple of more summers, once I’m discharged, I’ll be able to retire––at 35!”
…Which makes me think that our LIbrary-Bar might well be worth looking into, Sweety. If, in a couple of years, we do open a bar, it won’t be denying our original aims––it’ll simply serve to augment them. Perchance security in the face of dubious artistic endeavor. Besides, I rather fancy myself in the role of Mine Host. We’ll supervise it for a while and then get someone else to run the joint. We stand a blissful chance of wringing a great deal of pleasure out of life, fifteen minutes of which have ebbed since I started this letter. Remind me to study the New Testament in the light of what Wylie said about him. I think we stand to learn a lot by doing so. That, I think, comes under the heading of Unitarianism.
I love you, Angelface. I told you so earlier today. Jim must be home by now, and has probably spirited my sister off to McCormack’s Creek. Love, of which you as my wife have taught me every heavenly thing I know, is stupifying in its importance. Love, as you have shown it to me, is astonishing, overwhelming. Love is a blissful rhythm of joyously hopeful days and moist and billowing nights. Thank God we’re as young as we are, Darling, and thank him for making us so much in love with each other.
– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
SAVE THIS VALUABLE COUPON!!!!!!!!!!!!
This coupon entitles the bearer to one-thousand, seven-hundred and twenty-eight loving kisses, to be bestowed, one each, on every square inch of her beautiful body.
Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
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November T*H*I*R*T*E*E*N*T*H* 1945
Tuesday evening…………………
Dearest Woofy:
At long last, Wife, I’ve discovered that this waiting we’re having to do is another piece of rotten luck, the likes of which has pursued me for the whole of my Army life. Camp Funston is the location of AGFRD#3, a sub-division of greater Fort Riley. I’ve just learned that the last of the 50 pointers and P.W.’s at Fort Riley proper were discharged today––because they are members of SURPLUS units. I am not a member of a surplus unit and consequently cannot leave this stinking place until a replacement is obtained for me. That, Dear Heart, is the horrible reason for the orders for P.W. releases not having come down! Put that in your pipe and smoke it. I’ve been sucking on this bitter briar filled will smouldering horseshit for three years. I wont be held up much longer––no more than a livid ten or fifteen days––on account of it. BUT IT MAKES ME SO GODDAMNED MAD. JESUSCHRISTGODALMIGHTYDAMNSONOFABITCHINGBULLSHITTINGBLUETESTICLEDSTINKINGFATASSEDPIMPOFAHOMOSEXUALONENUTBASTARD….And the pure hell of it is that this is a dry State!
If I don’t write for a while it wont be because I’m on my way home and it wont be because I’ve stopped loving you. It’ll be because I’m so damned upset that I can’t make myself sit in one place long enough to write a letter, and because my mind is so addled that I can’t. That last sentence, I’m afraid, isn’t quite right, but you get the drift of it, I think.
Find out about a place for us to live in Chicago. I’ll call you from Atterbury if I ever get there. And if I’m not home by George Washington’s Birthday write Harry Truman a nasty letter.
JEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEHEEEEEEEEEEZUS, I’M BURNING UP!
You will get this on Friday , November 15th. Don
’t let this letter upset you, Sweety. Because by Friday things may be of a far lovelier complexion––and this is merely an amusing record of how I felt three days ago.
I love you. When the big news breaks it’ll come quickly. We’ve got the unbelievable bliss of its reception still ahead of us. People talk of the happiest times of their lives.
That will be among the happiest times of my life. But without a doubt the happiest times in my life have been spent in bed with you. That is the absolute peak of joy––and we’ll soon have it every night. Why do people stay single? Probably because what we’ve got is brewed of love. A lot of people never get a sniff at it.
Love love love love love love love
KURT––
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Tell me, Spaniel-eyes, would you like to matriculate in the University of Mexico in Mexico City––instead of going to Chicago? I corresponded with them three years ago, when I was planning to quit Cornell and go there. I was called to Duty instead. Just for the hell of it I’m going to write them again as I’ve forgotten the details of their plans for Americans.
You and Phoebe surely gave me the works. I stand properly rebuked and resolved to do better––If it kills me. But can you understand that I cannot bring myself to do anything, leave alone anything good, here? This is the most dismal life imaginable. It’s the most depressing. It will be that way until I’m whole again. From reveille to taps I’m an oaf, a clown, a hulk. I am flesh; heavy flesh that must be dragged from place to place. It responds to heat and pressure and pain. That’s what it responds to.
Love, Kurt Page 13