Read Online Welcome to the Monkey House: The Special Edition by Gregory D. Sumner Kurt Vonnegut - Free Book Online Page B

to see him.
    “Could you come for a walk?” he said. He was a shy person, even with Catharine. He covered his shyness by speaking absently, as though what really concerned him were far away—as though he were a secret agent pausing briefly on a mission between beautiful, distant, and sinister points. This manner of speaking had always been Newt’s style, even in matters that concerned him desperately.
    “A walk?” said Catharine.
    “One foot in front of the other,” said Newt, “through leaves, over bridges——”
    “I had no idea you were in town,” she said.
    “Just this minute got in,” he said.
    “Still in the Army, I see,” she said.
    “Seven more months to go,” he said. He was a private first class in the Artillery. His uniform was rumpled. His shoes were dusty. He needed a shave. He held out his hand for the magazine. “Let’s see the pretty book,” he said.
    She gave it to him. “I’m getting married, Newt,” she said.
    “I know,” he said. “Let’s go for a walk.”
    “I’m awfully busy, Newt,” she said. “The wedding is only a week away.”
    “If we go for a walk,” he said, “it will make you rosy. It will make you a rosy bride.” He turned the pages of the magazine. “A rosy bride like her—like her—like her,” he said, showing her rosy brides.
    Catharine turned rosy, thinking about rosy brides.
    “That will be my present to Henry Stewart Chasens,” said Newt. “By taking you for a walk, I’ll be giving him a rosy bride.”
    “You know his name?” said Catharine.
    “Mother wrote,” he said. “From Pittsburgh?”
    “Yes,” she said. “You’d like him.”
    “Maybe,” he said.
    “Can—can you come to the wedding, Newt?” she said.
    “That I doubt,” he said.
    “Your furlough isn’t for long enough?” she said.
    “Furlough?” said Newt. He was studying a two-page ad for flat silver. “I’m not on furlough,” he said.
    “Oh?” she said.
    “I’m what they call A.W.O.L.,” said Newt.
    “Oh, Newt! You’re not!” she said.
    “Sure I am,” he said, still looking at the magazine.
    “Why, Newt?” she said.
    “I had to find out what your silver pattern is,” he said. He read names of silver patterns from the magazine. “Albemarle? Heather?” he said. “Legend? Rambler Rose?” He looked up, smiled. “I plan to give you and your husband a spoon,” he said.
    “Newt, Newt—tell me really,” she said.
    “I want to go for a walk,” he said.
    She wrung her hands in sisterly anguish. “Oh, Newt—you’re fooling me about being A.W.O.L.,” she said.
    Newt imitated a police siren softly, raised his eyebrows.
    “Where—where from?” she said.
    “Fort Bragg,” he said.
    “North Carolina?” she said.
    “That’s right,” he said. “Near Fayetteville—where Scarlett O’Hara went to school.”
    “How did you get here, Newt?” she said.
    He raised his thumb, jerked it in a hitchhike gesture. “Two days,” he said.
    “Does your mother know?” she said.
    “I didn’t come to see my mother,” he told her.
    “Who did you come to see?” she said.
    “You,” he said.
    “Why me?” she said.
    “Because I love you,” he said. “Now can we take a walk?” he said. “One foot in front of the other—through leaves, over bridges——”
    ·    ·    ·
    They were taking the walk now, were in a woods with a brown-leaf floor.
    Catharine was angry and rattled, close to tears. “Newt,” she said, “this is absolutely crazy.”
    “How so?” said Newt.
    “What a crazy time to tell me you love me,” she said. “You never talked that way before.” She stopped walking.
    “Let’s keep walking,” he said.
    “No,” she said. “So far, no farther. I shouldn’t have come out with you at all,” she said.
    “You did,” he said.
    “To get you out of the house,” she said. “If somebody walked in and heard you talking to me that way, a week before the wedding——”
    “What would they think?” he