jesus--i dunno. you know. what the heck. who knows?
i dunno, boy.
it was a bitch.
yeah. we just got here.
nope. i got a lot of stuff.
yup.
i dunno, boy.
it's a bitch.
didn't recognize you.
i wonder who'll recognize us first? they'll wet their pants.
i'm gonna wet my pants.
one thing, anyway--at least penelope didn't throw out all your crap. i bet alice threw out all my crap after i'd been gone a week.
home. jesus. i'm like this. home!
you know what gets me?
how all the magazines show tits today.
used to be against the law, didn't it?
must have changed that law.
you know what gets me?
you know what gets me?
how everybody says "fuck" and "shit" all the time. i used to be scared shitless i'd say "fuck" or "shit" in public, by accident. now everybody says "fuck" and "shit," "fuck" and "shit" all the time. something very big must have happened while we were out of the country.
at least we found the diamonds.
i'd really feel stupid if we didn't bring anything back home.
i wish you'd tell alice that. and that goddamn mrs. wheeler.
you don't know my mother-in-law, boy.
i didn't tell you everything.
i didn't even scratch the surface. you're lucky, boy. you come home, and nobody's here. when i go home, everybody's going to be there.
you're lucky, boy. my house is gonna be filled with people.
you know what gets me?
thank god we found the fucking diamonds!
you were rich before. this is the first time i was ever rich.
can i have the cadillac?
what'll you do for transportation?
you know what gets me about that cadillac?
when i drive it, i feel like i'm in the middle of a great big wad of bubblegum. i don't hear anything, i don't feel anything. i figure somebody else is driving. it's a bitch.
i'm liable to find anything!
i know, i know. i dunno. at least she's in the same house. sure was spooky, looking in the window there, and there she was.
you know what gets me?
how short the skirts are.
something very important about sex must have happened while we were gone.
you know what gets me? those guys who went to the moon! to the moon, boy!
months?
i'm lonesome already.
when penelope asked me to say something about dropping the bomb on nagasaki, i didn't give a very good answer, i guess. it's a very complicated question. jesus--you know? you have to explain what it's like to be in the air force and how they give you your orders and all that. what it feels like to be in a plane, what the world looks like down there. after i got home from the war, the minister of my church asked me if i would speak to a scout troop that met in the church basement. so i did. they met on thursday nights. i used to belong to that troop. i never made eagle scout. but you know something? it's a very strange kind of kid that makes eagle scout. they always seem so lonesome, like they'd worked real hard to get a job nobody else cares about. they get a whole bunch of merit badges. that's how you get to be an eagle scout. i don't think i had over five or six merit badges. the only one i remember is public health. that was a bitch. the boy scout manual said i was supposed to find out what my town did about sewage. jesus, they just dumped it all in sugar creek. sugar creek! that was a long time ago, but it's all coming back to me now. there was another merit badge you could get for roller skating. there used to be a roller rink at a bend in sugar creek, up above where the sewage went in. i got in a fight there one time. i had on roller skates, and the guy i was fighting had on basketball shoes. he had a tremendous advantage over me. he was a little guy, but he beat the shit out of me. i had to laugh like hell. don't ever fight a guy when you've got on roller skates. jesus--i remember my mother used to make me chew bananas for a full minute before i swallowed--so i wouldn't get sick. makes you wonder what else your parents told you that wasn't true.
i've been looking at motorcycles.
you ever own a motorcycle?
haven't got one.
i dunno. yeah! yeah! yeah! i did.
let's talk about something else.
she did?
there was so much going on.
so that's it! "kestenbaum, kestenbaum." everybody was yelling "kestenbaum, kestenbaum." i thought it was some foreign language.
i sure didn't expect her to drop dead.
jesus.
no, no--shit no. excuse me, penelope.
for saying "shit." or is that okay now?
my mother-in-law. fire engines, pulmotors, doctors, cops, coroners--
well--i walked up to the front door. i was still alive. big surprise. i rang the doorbell, and old mrs. wheeler answered. she had her goddamn knitting. i said, "guess who?" she conked right out.
yeah--cripes. i never did get any sense out of alice. she found me holding up the old lady, dead as a mackerel. it was a bitch. you know--maybe mrs. wheeler was going to die then and there anyway, even if i'd been the paper boy. maybe not. i dunno, boy. that's civilian life for you. who knows what kills anybody?
first nagasaki--now this.
i dunno, boy.
i guess. you're lucky you don't have any old people around here.
you know me, boy.
excuse me.
huh.
he's a kind of gladiator who fights with a knife and a net and doesn't wear anything but a jockstrap.
you told me.
when we were up in the tree so long--with the bats.
fourteen times you told me. i counted.
you'd get this funny look in your eyes, and i'd say to myself, "oh, jesus--he's going to tell me what a retiarius is again."
go to the funeral?
that's against the law, isn't it? i can't wear a uniform anymore.
alice would be absolutely tear-ass.
i didn't know we had any women left.
every time i start thinking like that i get the clap.
hi.
i told you the uniform wouldn't help.
you keep on saying "deep" and "deeply." i wish something good would happen on the surface sometime.
so, kid--how they hanging? or don't you say that to a little kid?
i don't think i'll go.
i dunno.
sorry. at least you've got a place to come back to. i don't have a place to come back to anymore.
i dunno. you know. i used to really love that alice. do you know that?
i dunno.
she tried to like it. she was a very nervous woman.
i dunno. who knows? you know-- you're up there, and you're in some plane nobody ever flew before. you put her into a dive, and everything starts screaming and shaking, and maybe some pipe breaks and squirts oil or gasoline or hydraulic fluid in your face. you wonder how the hell you ever got in such a mess, and then you pull back on the controls, and you black out for a couple of seconds. when you come to, everything's usually fairly okay--except maybe you threw up all over yourself. it's just another job, but you try and tell alice that.
i tried. i sold him some. that was the only insurance i ever sold.
hi, penelope.
i dunno.
jesus--i wouldn't want to be married to him. you know?
i wouldn't want to be married to me. we're too crazy. you know?
i didn't like that violin thing. that was sad.
you never played a violin.
yeah. i practically forgot. but after you busted that thing, i got to thinking, "jesus--maybe i'll start the violin again." that didn't just belong to woodly. that belonged to everybody. maybe he would have sold it to me, and i could have some fun. after you busted the violin, boy, and penelope walked out, i thought to myself, "jesus--who could blame her?"
me?
okay. okay.
i know you think that.
anybody who'd drop an atom bomb on a city has to be pretty dumb.
i don't think so. it could have been.
if i hadn't done it. if i'd said to myself, "screw it. i'm going to let all those people down there live."
yeah, jesus--but wars would be a lot better, i think, if guys would say to themselves sometimes, "jesus--i'm not going to do that to the enemy. that's too much." you could have been the manufacturer of that violin there, even though you don't know how to make a violin, just by not busting it up. i could have been the father of all those people in nagasaki, and the mother, too, just by not dropping the bomb. i sent 'em to heaven instead--and i don't think there is one.
so long, you guys.
i dunno. marry the first whore who's nice to me, i guess. get a job in a motorcycle shop. so long, you guys.