Welcome to the Monkey House: The Special Edition (49 page)

Desire Under a Hot Tin Streetcar
by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.

Tony Comstock was an expediter in an Ethical Suicide Parlor next door to a Howard Johnson’s in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts. There was a Howard Johnson’s for every square mile of land on the face of the earth, and next door to every Howard Johsnon’s was an Ethical Suicide Parlor. The Howard Johnson’ses had orange roofs, and the Ethical Suicide Parlors mad purple roofs. Tony’s job as an expediter was to make sure that people who had volunteered to die didn’t change their minds at the last minute.

Tony was married, as required by law. He came home from work on day in the spring of 1977, and, as he shook hands squeamishly with his fat, dirty wife Candy, she told him about the big raid by narcotics agents in Barnstable Village, only six miles away. They had caught a high school history teacher with twenty gallons of distilled water in bottles innocently labeled
Vodka
and
Gin
.

“Right here on quaint little old Cape Cod,” said Candy.

“Um,” said Tony, scratching himself. He supposed
it was about time to change his underwear, which he’d been wearing night and day for two weeks now.

Nancy Warren
by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.

Nancy Warren was a trinket redhead with enormous eyes and lips like sofa pillows. Her figure was adorable in the purple jump suit and black cavalry boots of the Ethical Suicide Service. She was a hostess in an Ethical Suicide Parlor next door to a Howard Johnson’s in Hyannis, Massachusetts. She loved the job.

Nancy was a virgin. She was also a Tri-Delt.

Every day at noon she would wash up and go to the Howard Johnson’s for a hamburger with everything and a Hojo Cola. There were fifty thousand Howard Johnsons’ spotted all over the world, and they were all socialized. Everything was socialized. Howard Johnsons’ were the only places to eat out, and Hojo Cola was the only type of cola there was. And next door to every Howard Johnson’s was an Ethical Suicide Parlor, popularly known as an “Easy Go.” The Howard Johnson’s

Nancy Warren was a trinket redhead with enormous eyes and lips like sofa pillows. Her figure was adorable in the purple jump suit and black cavalry boots of the Ethical Suicide Service. She was a hostess in an Ethical Suicide Parlor next door to a Howard Johnson’s in Hyannis, Massachusetts. She loved the job.

Nancy was a virgin.

The pop
War was a thing of the past, and diseases didn’t amount to anything any more, and neither did aging. Nancy was a hundred and sixteen years old, and she looked twenty-two. So death was an enterprise for volunteers. Nancy
was
encouraged people to volunteer. She was a darling recruiting officer for Paradise.

Nancy Warren
by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.

Nancy Warren was a beautiful hostess for an Ethical Suicide Parlor next door to a Howard Johnson’s in Hyannis, Massachusetts. War was a thing of the past, and diseases didn’t amount to anything any more, and neither did aging. So death was an enterprise for volunteers. Nancy was a sort of recruiting officer for Paradise. She loved the work.

The population of Earth was seventeen billion human beings, far too many mammals that big for a planet that small. The people were jammed together like drupelets. Drupelets are the pulpy knobs on raspberries.

So the World Government was reducing the population to a more reasonable figure with a two-ronged
attack. One prong was ethical suicide. The other prong was ethical birth control.

Ethical suicide consisted of asking the Government to kill you.

Nancy was a virgin.

Nancy was a trinket redhead with enormous eyes and lips like sofa pillows. Her figure was adorable in the purple jump suit and black cavalry boots of the Ethical Suicide Service.

She had a doctor’s degree in psychology.

That was ethical because

Ethical birth control consisted of swallowing pills which didn’t actually interfere with your pro-creative powers. They didn’t interfere with nature, which was what made them so ethical. They simply took all the pleasure out of sex.

They also made you piss blue, which made it easy for the police to catch people who weren’t taking them. Not taking the pills was classified as a narcotic. People who didn’t take the pills were called “nothing-heads”. The penalty for being a nothing-head was twenty years in prison, with no chance for parole.

Thus did science and morals go hand-in-hand.

Nancy Warren was a virgin.

Nancy Warren was a trinket red-head with an adorable figure, enormous eyes, and lips like sofa pillows. At a time when most people looked like something the cat drug in, Nancy was brilliantly groomed in the uniform of the Ethical Suicide Service.
The uniform
was purple stretch material that covered and revealed her from neck to knee
, a 1/2urple jump suit
which fitted like a second sk
which looked painted on, and black cavalry boots with jingling spurs.

Nancy was lucky to have a job, or unlucky to have one, depending upon how you feel about work. Most people didn’t have jobs. They simply stayed home and tried to consume and vote intelligently, and learn the new songs. Machines did almost everything better than people could. This included sports. The world high-jumping record was fourteen miles.

Nancy was a sort of
travel agent
recruiting officer for Paradise, encouraging people to die, comforting them while they did it. There were three other hostesses in the Hyannis operation, and two men who did the actual killing. She loved her job.

For
Knox Burger

Ten days older than I am.
He has been a very good
father to me.