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The first time I spoke with Kurt Vonnegut, he had only been dead for about five hours. I didn’t know he was dead yet, of course. When I learned that detail later in the day, one of the things that struck me was that of all the people he might want to speak to, I should have rated a visit.
But I’m getting ahead of myself.
The thing is, when I saw him, I didn’t know Mr. Vonnegut was dead yet.
I was driving to my job as a magazine editor when I saw him standing on the shoulder of Hinchman Road. Two things were odd about that: the time and the location. The day was so young that mist was still loitering in the low-lying areas and rabbits were still darting about on last minute emergencies before bedding down for the day. And the road, well, Hinchman is a road that runs from just outside Bridgman, a town of about 2,000, to somewhere near Baroda, a town of about 800, without ever actually passing through either of them. The road is bordered by farmers’ fields for its entirety, with the exception of this dip where it crosses Hickory Creek.
So yes, it was an odd place to be standing at the break of dawn on a workday, with no fisherman’s gear, no hunter’s orange. Not even a baseball cap. Dressed, in fact, quite nicely. Even from fifty yards away I could see that.
Having just turned the corner and not yet picked up speed, I had time to observe the man and his car, and it was obvious to me that neither of them were locals.
Which is not to say that I know cars. I don’t. People in our town have the habit of waving to one another whenever they pass on the road, and because I tend not to wave, many assume me to be unfriendly, even stuck up. But the truth is I don’t recognize their cars — or more frequently, their pickup trucks. To me, a car (or a truck) is either nice or not, clean or dirty, goes or doesn’t go. Black, white, or some color. That’s about it.
But even to my eye, this car was out of the ordinary. It wasn’t just Nice, it was Very Nice. And it had out-of-state plates.
Anyway, the car registered on my consciousness, but it was the man who really captured my attention. There was something about him.
As soon as I turned the corner, I noticed him standing on the bridge, leaning with his hands spread wide apart on the steel rail and gazing into the creek below.
My toe hovered above the gas pedal, barely touching it. Without really thinking about it, I was letting my Taurus lose what speed it had.
Something about that man in his expensive-looking clothes. Something about that hair. And the way he stooped, as if the world and its knowledge were too much to be borne upright.
And then he looked at me. Straightened and looked through the windshield of my Taurus and into my eyes as if he’d been waiting for me. When I saw that face, my foot slipped off the gas pedal altogether.
Kurt Vonnegut.
If you’ve seen his face once— and who hasn’t — you know it.
I had seen his face countless times. On the jackets of his books, on stage during public appearances, on screen as an extra in his own film.
I wanted more than anything to stop. I mean, come on — Kurt Vonnegut? But I’m not a celebrity chaser, have never read People magazine, wouldn’t dream of intruding into someone’s privacy for the sake of a momentary thrill and an autograph. Not even my favorite writer in the entire world who happens to be standing on the side of the road at dawn. Looking at me.
No, not even then.
I returned the toe of my sensible black pump to the gas pedal.
But couldn’t make the toe do anything once it got there.
Mr. Vonnegut held my gaze. He didn’t look away, didn’t look alarmed by the spark of recognition that must have flashed across my face. He held my gaze and so my car just kind of drifted to a stop a few yards beyond where he stood, sort of off the road, sort of not, coming to rest just beyond the bridge, behind his Very Nice car.
I climbed from the Taurus.
He was still watching me.
I nodded.
He nodded in response.
I took a few steps toward him.
What do you say to a world-famous author standing on a country road at dawn, stooped as if under the weight of the universe?
I cleared my throat.
“Any fish in there?”
He didn’t call me an idiot. Instead, he inclined his head as if to say, Come see for yourself.
As I crossed the last few yards that separated us, several things happened.
The first was that the sun finally rose high enough to slip between the branches of the willows that bordered the stream to touch Kurt Vonnegut’s face, highlighting the lines that etched it.
The second was, he turned back to his earlier position, leaning with his hands spread wide apart, fingers wrapped around the steel rail, to continue peering into the creek.
And three, just before I reached him my vision shimmered, as if for a moment I was looking at the world through a film of water. Another step and it cleared, like I had passed through . . . something. And as firmly as if I had stepped out of my practical pumps and now walked barefoot, I felt that I had stepped out of the role of the responsible and reliable woman who does everything she is expected to do, ever and always, and into the role of someone who does just what she wants to do in this moment.
I stood beside Kurt Vonnegut, put my hands on the rail, and felt a previously unknown stillness enter my being.
I know, I know. That all sounds pretty New Age and Out There. Believe me, I know. But that’s how it felt. Take it or leave it.
He didn’t speak and neither did I.
We watched the creek. We watched the morning come to life.
And I don’t know about him, but me, I noticed myself breathing. There’s something that had never happened before.
Red wing blackbirds chirruped and trilled all around us, gangs of adolescent males hot in the pursuit of a mate, a nest, babies to feed and raise and teach to fly out of the nest. They would head south in the fall, and then come back north again next spring and start it all again.
Just listening to them made me tired. Made me want to toss my car keys into the creek and curl up there on the riverbank for a snooze. Not show up for work at all that day. Screw it. Miss the deadline. All that mattered now was standing here beside this man, this artist, this visionary, and saying not a word.
The deadline to get the magazine proofed and out to the printer before three that afternoon — forgotten. The deadline, mind you, that had shoved me from my bed an hour earlier than usual, hissed at me to hurry as I showered and dressed and rushed out the door with coffee mug in hand, forbade me to dawdle when I so much as thought of pausing in the driveway to appreciate the warming of the eastern horizon.
Gone. Forgotten.
But no, not really.
The stillness reverberated with the clash of returning reality. Time quivered, stood up, shook itself off, and looked about for something to gallop towards.
I tried to look at Mr. Vonnegut without turning my head. About all I could see were the hairs above his wrist gleaming in the rising sun and curling around the edges of his gold watch. And his fingernails, clean and clipped.
As if sensing the change in my perception, he asked, “Will you be late for work?”
“Yes.”
“Does it matter?”
A pause.
“Yes.”
“How much?”
As he asked this question, he looked me full in the face.
I felt a jolt. There was something —
“How much?” he repeated.
I decided I would analyze the jolt later and consider his question now: How much?
What would happen if I missed the deadline? If as a result the printer bumped our job and the magazine went out two weeks late? If enough of our measly nine thousand readers got pissed off by the delay and called or e-mailed to complain? If I got fired?
I sensed the return of the line I had crossed. It was creeping up behind me, about to slide under my feet without my having taken one step backwards, returning me to the role of the responsible woman who does everything that is expected of her.
“A lot,” I said.
The line slid under me. I was back in character.
For months I would question the meaning of the look he gave me then.
Surprise? Offense? Disappointment? I wouldn’t learn until we spoke one evening sitting on a dry-stane wall overlooking an ancient Viking church in Orkney. But that was still months and miles and many conversations away.
On this day, on the Hinchman Road bridge, I couldn’t place the emotion reflected on his face, knew only that my words were not what he wanted to hear.
I felt diminished in his eyes and wanted to take the words back. To leap across that line again, to be late for work, to not go to work at all. To spend the rest of the day here beside the creek with Kurt Vonnegut, if he would put up with me. It was what I wanted to do more than anything else in the world.
As if he’d heard my thoughts, Mr. Vonnegut said, “Going to work is what you want to do more than anything in the world.”
“No! It’s not.”
“What do you want to do then?”
I hesitated. Hadn’t he just read my thoughts? Didn’t he know?
“By that I mean how do you dream of spending your days.”
Oh.
I had to think about that one. Like everyone, I suppose, I had vague notions of enjoying life by sleeping in, taking long walks, reading more books, traveling.
“I’d travel.”
“Where?”
I shrugged.
“All over.”
He shook his head, turning to look back down into the creek.
“That’s not good enough,” he said, speaking to the water. “You have no vision, therefore you have no reason to strive for it, no reason to change. So go to work. That’s all you know how to do.”
Talk about a kick to the gut. Talk about tumbling fast and furious from that still place beside the creek to the hellhole of my own bleak imagination — that dark, empty wasteland lit only by faint glimmers of dreams, like 25-watt streetlights spaced blocks apart, doing nothing to brighten the darkness of my interior.
“I better go,” I mumbled.
“Think about Orkney,” Mr. Vonnegut said.
“What?”
“The islands. In Scotland.”
“I know where the Orkneys are.”
“I hear they make great eggs.”
“Eggs.”
“Yes.”
All this he said without looking at me. I supposed he was mocking me.
I don’t remember what I said to him before I left.
The world probably shimmered again as I stepped away from him but I couldn’t really tell through the tears that blurred my eyes.
As I keyed the ignition, I glanced in the rearview mirror. The bridge was empty. I swiveled in the seat, scanning the shoulder of the road, the creek banks. Not a soul.
In his car maybe?
I swiveled again to check it out.
What car?
I leaped from the Taurus, did a ridiculous little dance/search/throw arms up in despair as I turned in circles, ran to look under the bridge, peered ever more desperately into the willows.
A pickup truck (a Not Nice one) lumbered around the corner and slowed beside me.
“Hey, Mrs. D. Your car break down?”
“No,” I muttered, still peering suspiciously into the willows.
Could he have hidden the car in there while I was distracted?
“Everything okay?”
“It can’t just disappear,” I muttered.
“What’s that?”
Finally, I looked at the driver of the pickup. It was my neighbor, John, the guy who rotates corn and soybeans in the field across the street from my house.
“You all right, Mrs. D?”
I started to laugh, possibly just a tad hysterically.
“All right? Oh no! No, definitely not! Most definitely not.”
John looked nervous.
“You want me to drive you home or call Harry?”
I laughed even harder.
John looked like he wanted to escape.
I made a gesture with my arm, waving him away.
“Go! I’ll be fine. Really.”
He went.
And because I couldn't for the life of me think of what else to do, I climbed back into my Taurus and drove the country roads the rest of the way to town and the global headquarters of the engineering society that held me in bondage for sixty or so hours every week.
The production manager rose from her computer when I entered the windowless, cement-block room we shared with my editorial assistant and the man who comprised our graphics department. The clock above her head read 10:15; four hours since I left my house.
I stared at the clock.
“Did Harry find you?” Ginny asked me.
“Is that broken?” I asked her, pointing to the clock.
Dierdre and Jackson both looked up from their computer screens.
“Hey, there you are!” Jackson announced. “Where the hell you been, girl?”
“Is it?” I asked Ginny again.
“What? The clock? No. What is with you? Did you break down or something?”
It was getting to be a little too much to hang on, to not slide gibbering to the floor.
Focus on the deadline, I told myself.
Sliding into my seat, I slammed my purse into the credenza, hit the space bar to wake up my Mac, and got to work. Ignoring the three pairs of eyes that stared at me.
Ginny came over and leaned her butt on my desk.
“Aren’t you going to call Harry?”
I glanced up at her.
“Why?”
“When you didn’t show up, I called your cell. It said you were out of the service area. So I called Harry. I thought maybe something was wrong. He’s out looking for you. He sounded pretty worried.”
“Shit,” I muttered, and reached for the phone. As I dialed, Harry rushed in, looking more flabbergasted than worried.
“You’re here! Why didn’t you call and let me know you were okay? I’ve been out searching for you! Didn’t Ginny tell you? ”
“I did,” Ginny said and slipped away.
“I just got here,” I said.
Holding up the receiver as proof, I added, “I’m calling you now.”
He stood over me, his transparent face telling me that he couldn’t decide whether to be angry, indignant, frustrated by the continuing challenge of being married to this impossible woman, or simply curious about what happened. The final emotion translated into a question.
“What happened?”
I held up an index finger, leaned into the credenza and retrieved my phone. Opened it.
The clock on the phone read 6:38 a.m.
“Damn,” I whispered.
“What?”
I was relieved to see that all traces of anger had already vanished from his countenance and posture. Harry doesn’t ever stay angry for long, which is just as well, stuck as he is with me. On those rare instances when he’s really, truly incensed with me, he withdraws into silence. Which makes me feel I have ceased to exist. Which, I confess, makes me truly crazy.
I’m certain a psychologist could make much of that.
I showed Harry my cell phone.
He keyed a number and put the phone to his ear.
“It works.”
“Look at the time,” I suggested.
He did.
“That’s . . . huh.”
“Let’s take a walk,” I said.
We left the Dungeon, which was what I called our office, and dodged traffic to reach the cemetery across the street, the only place nearby where it was safe to walk in this heavily trafficked but sidewalk-bereft part of town. And there, strolling among the rows of headstones, I told him what had happened to me on the way to work that morning.
