KURT VONNEGUT DIDNT KNOW DOODLY-SQUAT ABOUT WRITING:

FINALLY, LITERARY ANALYSIS WORTH READING

by Bernard V. OHare
With an introduction by Meghan OHare
Theres only one rule that I know of, babiesGod damn it, youve got to be kind.
Kurt Vonnegut (1922-2007), God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater

My name is Meghan OHare, and I am the daughter of Bernard V. and Mary K. OHare. If
youre reading this, you are probably a Kurt Vonnegut fan and so might already knowor
think you knowall about my mom and dad.
Mr. Vonnegut was my dads best friend from his army days in World War II, and my dad
was Mr. Vonneguts friend, too. They both liked Mr. Derby, who was shot for stealing a
teapot after the firebombing in Dresden, and they both hated William Joyce, who was a
Nazi propagandist in Germany during the war.
As you probably know, Mr. Vonnegut dedicated his most famous book, Slaughterhouse-Five
or the Childrens Crusade: A Duty-Dance With Death, to my mother, Mary OHare. Mr.
Vonnegut truly did come to see my dad while he was trying to write the book, and my mom
really did start slamming the kitchen cabinets around when she heard what Mr. Vonnegut
was up to. He was a sweet man, Mr. Vonnegut, and he didnt want to make the war sound
like a good thing for anybody.
My parents are both dead now. My mother died back in 1999, and now my dads gone, too.
Me, I was their happy accident. My mother thought she was past getting pregnant when I
showed up and surprised everybody.
I was living my own life by the time Dad got sick, so he was pretty much on his own. He
had a brain tumor, and I didnt even know it. I didnt check up on him as often as I should
have, and thats something Ill have to live with. Also, I made a promise to my father before
he died. I wish I hadnt, but I did, and now Im keeping it.
My dad was a lawyer. He used to be the District Attorney, then he changed jobs and only
represented children. He was the one who went to court for kids who had been abused or
neglected by their parents. Sometimes he represented kids when their parents were getting
divorced. Youd be amazed at how many times Dad had to yell at those people who had
forgotten all about their kids while they fought over dishes and big screen TVs. Dad also had
clients who wouldnt go to school, or ran away from home. Some kids had parents who sent
them out to prostitute themselves, or sell drugs, or shoplift DVDs and lingerie. To those kids
Dad had to say, The policeman is not your friend. He hated that, even though he always
said the one thing he learned in the war was not to trust the government.

Id get jealous of those kids sometimes. Even when they were bad, those kids, when they
were nasty and didnt respect anybody, my dad always had time for them. And patience. He
never told them, no backtalk. He never seemed to notice how they sassed him, never
assumed the worst of them.
I asked him once, Why kids? And he said because theyre the most disenfranchised people in
this country. Also because he wanted to show them that someone would listen to whatever
they wanted to say and would be kind and respectful. Maybe then theyd be kind and
respectful to someone else. He was always hoping he could catch one before the kid was lost
forever. Thats the kind of guy my dad is.
Was. I still forget.
Sometimes when he had a bad case, one he knew he couldnt win, Dad would tell the judge
about the Childrens Crusade. Maybe thats where Mr. Vonnegut got the idea for the title of
his book about babies fighting in a war because the adults who had all the power told the
babies it was the right and good thing to do. Or maybe Mr. Vonnegut really did have that
conversation with my mom. I dont know, but I do know Mom thought a lot about how
bad wars and killing were. She didnt know how anyone could do it, kill somebody and then
go home and get married and make babies that maybe would have to go to war. She slept
next to my dad, after all, and had to hear him crying in his sleep about the things he did
when he was a baby killing babies.
So after my dad went to war, he came home and got a job and raised a family. He did the
crossword puzzle. Read the newspaper. A regular guy. And then, the day he got the call
saying Mr. Vonnegut took a bad fall and it wasnt looking good, I guess Dad shut himself up
in his study and started talking into the tape recorder he used to dictate motions and letters
and such to his secretary. He never did learn how to type.
When Dad phoned to tell me about Mr. Vonnegut, his voice was strange, and he kept
repeating himself. I knew he was getting up there in years, but it worried me, how scared and
confused he sounded. I went out to see him, and he let me in, but then he went right back
into his study. I could hear him through the closed door, talking to himself, saying how it
just figured Mr. Vonneguts body was manufacturing bad chemicals that unbalanced his
mind. Thats from Breakfast of Champions. It makes me so sad now because all the while my
dad was complaining about what Mr. Vonneguts body was doing, Dads own body was
making a tumor that was unbalancing his mind. And we didnt even know. We didnt know.
By the time I realized I was going to have to stick around, Dad was staying in his study all
day and all night, talking into that recorder. The tumor must have made him really mad. It
also made him think he was a literary critic, even though he didnt know a thing about
literary criticism. He only came out to bang things around in the kitchen, like my mom did
that day so long ago. Then hed grab a bottle of scotch and go back in.
A lot of people will want to know if my dad was some kind of a nut and also a bad guy like
Mr. Vonnegut made him out to be in Mother Night. Thats the book about William Joyce.
Only in the book, Mr. Vonnegut calls his Nazi propagandist Howard W. Campbell, and hes
actually a spy for the good-guy Americans. So all the time while hes saying the most awful

things about the Jews and so on, what hes really doing is sending secret coded messages to
the good guys and helping them win the war. The problem is, hes still saying the awful
things and, like Mr. Vonnegut says, We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful
what we pretend to be.
Well anyway, in the book, theres a soldier named Bernard B. OHare who arrests Howard
W. Campbell. And I think hes the villain of the story even though hes only a minor
character. Hes so full of hate for the Nazis and all the terrible things they did that he
becomes just like them. He beats Howard W. Campbell up. He says horrible things.
I wish my dad could have seen how important Bernard B. OHare is. Bernard B. OHare is
the one who makes sure we get it, that the real war is the one against the zealotry and hatred
that can take over every one of us, even the people who get called heroes because we think
they are saving the world from bigotry and evil.
Dad was so mad when Mr. Vonnegut did that, made him into a character that shouldve
been the hero, but wasnt. I thought theyd worked it out. I guess maybe Dad got angry all
over again when that tumor shut off the oxygen to his brain.
Mr. Vonnegut talked about my dad a lot and put him into a lot of his books. Sometimes he
was Dad, and sometimes he was just a character Mr. Vonnegut made up. So what I would
say to any of you who are wondering is this: My dad was what people called a real character,
which always made us laugh because it was so literally true owing to his association with a
famous fiction writer. He could also get pretty obnoxious. But he was a good man. And he
definitely wasnt crazy. At least not until the brain tumor.
My dad said I couldnt listen to the tape he made until after he was dead. He made me
promise, though, to get it transcribed and published. Like I said before, now that I know
what he said on that tape, I wish I hadnt said yes.
It may not seem so bad to you, his going on and on about his old war buddy, but listen: My
dad was smart and sweet and kind. He was one of the good guys. I hate that the last words
people will have from him will be bitter, especially when thats not who Bernard V. OHare
was; its not what he and Mr. Vonnegut were with each other. Its sadness talking, sadness
and loneliness you cant see, but I can hear and will always hear and cant ever fix.
I cant vouch for the truth of any of the stories my dad put in here. They could have
happened, though. I think it was supposed to be a eulogy, this thing. I think he thought he
was going to say nice things. But thats not what it ended up being. Dad stayed up for three
daysI could hear him pacing around and mumbling all night. He didnt sleep, but he
drank an awful lot. Heres what I think happened to my dad: His old friend and army
buddy, Kurt Vonnegut, died. He got good and mad about that and somehow made all this
Mr. Vonneguts fault. Because the fact is, my dad loved Mr. Vonnegut. He did. I think
maybe they were the real duprassafter all, they died within a few days of each other.
After Dad died, I brought this tape over to his ancient secretary, Joanie, who has arthritis and
carpal tunnel syndrome from typing out all my dads dreams of justice. Her eyes were all red,
and she kept blowing her nose, but she took the tape in her spotted hands. I asked her to
make a transcript of Dads words.

Anything I can do, dear. You know I loved that man, she said, and then we both cried a
little. Joanie dabbed at her old eyes with a dainty lace handkerchief that I could see shed
ironed. I made snorting noises and wiped at my nose with the back of my hand. Its funny
how whenever I think of my dad, I go right back to being a little kid. Especially after I spent
all those years trying to prove what an adult I was. Its like Im Billy Pilgrim in
Slaughterhouse-Five. Unstuck in time.
My dads old secretary, who wouldve marched herself across the desert, walker and all, if
hed asked her to, must have been surprised when she put those little earplugs in her ears and
pressed play.
So here is what Joanie put on the disc she sent back to me with a little note, the ink blurry
from where it got wet. I didnt do much editing, just left out those sad little places where
Dads voice mustve trailed off, and Joanie typed inaudible. I know he doesnt sound like a
lawyer. He sounds more like a man who has a brain tumor, but still has enough synapses
snapping to be sad and angry that his friend died. I think if Dad had lived, he would have
fixed it up. I wish I could do it for him, but I made a promise. Besides, he was my father and
this is what he said.
Some places, though, I just had to stick in my two cents. Youll see when you read it. I didnt
do a lot of that, though, because, unlike how he loved to hear from his clients, my dad didnt
like it so much when his own kids back-talked. I can still hear him going on and on about
that and how different things were in his day. It drove me crazy when he did it, but now Id
take one of those lectures anytime.

-Meghan OHare
Lancaster, PA
May 5, 2007

***
Listen: I was Kurt Vonneguts friend for a long time. But that doesnt mean the guy could
write. Whenever he was asked how he felt about his books, he said lousy. Well, guess what,
old friendyou werent lying. Hate to break this to you, but Ive been reading and reading
and all I can say is: You wrote your little brains out, and not a damn thing has changed.
Why do I say this now about my friend who just died and who I loved like a brother? You
may think its all over that Bernard B. OHare fiasco in Mother Night, but theres more, oh,
Lordy theres more.
When he still had a body, we talked about a lot of things, my old war buddy and me. About
all the ways things could be different; how people could treat each other with kindness and
respect; how we, this bunch of people living on the same planet, could make sure that
everyone had food in their stomachs; how the air and the water and the whole goddamn
planet didnt have to go to pot; how governments could stop starting stupid wars over things
like religion and land and oil.
So, Kurt, you really thought you could do it, didnt you? All that self-deprecating shit you
said, and you still thought that if you wrote enough books, you could make things better.
Well, hah!
All right. Calming down now. God, Ive got such a headache. Breathe in, breathe out. Better
now.
Yeah, Kurt was my friend. And we did talk a lot, but not so much about his writing. I read
his books, but didnt really pay much attention because he was my friend, and all that was
just his job. He never tried to go to court for me except that one time back when I was the
Northampton County DA, and he thought I should throw a case against a welfare mom who
kept stealing Pop-Tarts for her kids. He did try to sell me a Crown Vic this one time that
had one hundred something thousand miles on it. He kept telling me all the reasons it was a
good deal. Sounded like some lawyers I could name.
Sometimes Kurts books all ran into each other, and Id get them mixed up. Well, except for
Slaughterhouse-Five and Mother Night. I was in both of those, and they were about the war.
Well, maybe everything was about the war. Was and was and maybe still is.
I was in a lot of Kurts books. Once, I was a 60-year-old pilot. Kurt gave me an erection in
that one. To compensate, he said, for making me such an old fart. Thanks, buddy. I love it
when my kids read about my private parts. And then he writes Timequake, and, for no good
reason and without even any warning, Im a dead guy. Now that was a shocker, let me tell
you. Jesus!
Im not like all those ex-governors or losers on reality TV, who everybody forgets about the
minute they get voted off or evicted or kicked off the island or what-have-you. Because even
after he killed me off, Kurt kept talking about me, his dead war buddy, Bernard OHare.

About how I hated the war and lost my religion and all that. He was all the time mentioning
how I was dead, though, which always gave me a chill. Some kind of message there, huh?
I loved Kurt so I tried to love his books, too. That was before Kurt fell and ended up in a
hospital bed, with tubes and needles stuck to his skin with surgical tape. And then he up and
died and left me on this planet full of sadness and garbage and war, and I realized just how
full of shit he was.1
Mother Night, for example. Reading about Bernard B. OHare, I felt betrayed all over again,
just like I did when it first came out and Kurt thought it was such a big ha-ha on me. Back
then I called Kurt up to yell at him about it, but he just kept saying, It was a joke, man, a
joke!
Ha-ha.
Where was I? Oh, yeah, Mother Night.
So heres what Kurt had Howard W. CampbellNazi, anti-Semite, evildoersay to me. I
have it right here; been reading it over and over and getting madder and madder. He said,
There are plenty of good reasons for fightingbut no good reason ever to hate without
reservation, to imagine that God Almighty Himself hates with you, too. Wheres evil? Its
that large part of every man that wants to hate without limit, that wants to hate with God on
its side. And everybody loves that quote.
Now that hes dead, people are saying all kinds of wonderful things about my friend Kurt
Vonnegut. All these people, some of them who didnt even like him when he was alive.
Telling lies, making him a saint. The sainted Kurt Vonnegut. A humanist, they call him, the
funniest guy on the planet, a prophet for our age. A this, a that.
Kurt a humanist? My ass! If he was such a goody-two-shoes lover of human beings, why did
he have to be such a son of a bitch about all the people in his books? There arent any villains
in his stories, he used to say. Well, there might not be any villains, but where are the good
people? Answer me that!2
Back in the 70s when Meghan was still a little kid, there was this show on TV she loved. It
was called Kung Fu. It starred David Carradine, whos something of a crackpot himself. You
can see, looking at him, that hes searching for something, and hes going to think of all
1

Daddy, you dont really feel that way. Remember that time after Mom died, and the phone rang, and you
thought it was her even though you knew she was dead? But it was just the dry cleaner wondering why you
hadnt picked up your suits. And then you hollered at him, Thats Marys job! Mary picks up the goddamnn
dry cleaning! and you slammed the phone so hard it fell off the wall. You yelled, goddamnn you, Mary!
How am I supposed to get my suits? And then you started to cry. Its like that.
2

I just have to say something here, Daddy. You knew Mr. Vonnegut. And you knew what kinds of things he
thought were important. Didnt you know that I was always hiding on the stairs listening when you sat
together at the kitchen table and talked and talked? Did you think I didnt hear the pain and anger in your
voices? Or the empathy? Why were so many of Mr. Vonneguts characters such simpletons? With their bad
habits and imperfect bodies and human foibles? And why were they so effective just the way they were? Its
the same reason you loved the teenagers you represented who spray painted their anger on church walls or
watched TV all day instead of going to school. You wanted so much more for them.

kinds of weirdo ways to get it. That thingwhy cant I remember? Wanting something,
wanting it so baditll get you every time. Oh God.
But thats not what I was talking about. In the show my daughter loved so much, David
Carradine played this Shaolin priest from China. The priest has a price on his head because
he killed a little kid. A little kid he kills, and this is the hero of the story. Of course the kid
was rich and snotty, so I guess its okay, right? Anyway, the hero/kid-murdering priest runs
away to the US of A. This is in the time of the Old West. No Interpol or anything. But the
point isyeah, the point is that because the priest is such a Zen kind of guy, he doesnt
believe in violence. Hes always whispering these lovely thoughts about nature and being a
pacifist and not talking unless you have something important to say. But in every goddamnn
episode, he cracks some guys head open.
So you can see the connection, right? Between Kung Fu and Kurt Vonnegut? Because there
are all these connections I never noticed before. Like the way all the music on The Food
Channel shows is the same as in porn movies. Really, if you listen, its just the same. Or like
this here, how Kurt was the Shaolin priest of humanism. For the sake of saying lovely things
about kindness and equality and good will, Kurt made fun of everybody, everything.
Religion sucks, government sucks, using your brain too much sucks, but so does forgetting
to use it at all. This is what happens when smart, funny humanists go bad.
On the subject ofwhere was I? Humor, I think. Im working on this transition thing,
something else Kurt, quite honestly, wasnt so good at. Nothing but blank spaces or little
dots separating completely different ideas until your eyes roll back into your head. Humor.
So I got these off the covers of his books: Our finest black humorist. We laugh in selfdefense. A laughing prophet of doom. Madcap, zany, social satirist. Youve got to
admire it, the way Kurt could market himself to everyone. He knew what he was doing.
Bathroom humor for the kids, all about farting and so on. Making fun of the dumb and
clueless for the elitist intellectuals. Making fun of intellectuals for everybody else. Marketing,
all shameless marketing. Dont you know when youre being bamboozled, People of Earth?
Even my beloved, long-gone Mary was taken in. For every line that was just plain mean and
gratuitously nasty, she had one she found hysterically funny. The funny stuff made the sad
stuff sadder, she said. Mary thought one of Kurts funniest characters was Billy Pilgrims fat
wife. But its funny, Bernie, Mary said. And sad. And real, too. Cant you just picture it?
Billy Pilgrims poor, silly wife ooing and ahing over her new jewelry and forgetting about
what a wonderful marriage she has? All she can think is, this time Im really going to lose
weight for him. Ive done that myself, sworn I would lose weight and make you proud to
have me on your arm. When I think of this, all I can do is remember how Mary was always
so ashamed of her chubby waist and wish I could hold onto it again. Christ. Mary.
Well, enough of that. Breathe in, breathe out.
Now, what was I talking about? Oh, right. People call Kurt a great science fiction writer. Let
me tell you, he might have been playing at the science fiction stuff, but Kurt stopped being a
science fiction writer decades ago. Lets look at dystopias, for example. Theyre supposed to
be instructive, a future society reflecting on our own, right? Thats the rule. So what does
Kurt Vonnegut the famous writer do? He writes a dystopia, okay, but heres what it is: Its a
million years into the future and the human race has evolved into Flipper. Brainless seafood.

What kind of dystopia is that? Now, my daughter Meghan says its political. Subversive. I say
its a waste of a perfectly good idea, the way Kurt squandered the entire evolution card. And
for why? To talk about fish? The point is what, exactly? Hes just breaking the rules. Again.
I mean, the guy had all kinds of great sci fi ideas. Plus all those ideas I gave him when hed
call in the middle of the night. Not that he ever gave me credit. And the one he ends up with
is fish? All our best ideas, he gave to that jerk everybody thinks is his alter ego. Which brings
me to Kilgore Trout.
Kurt came to my house this one time. As usual, we sat at the kitchen table and had some
drinks. We smoked. We talked about the war a little, but not much. More about how silly
and fun it was to have little people growing up in our houses. And then, maybe because hed
had a few too many drinks, Kurts eyes filled with water, and he said, I hate being a writer.
Why, Kurt, I asked, why? And he starting going on and on about how he had these great
ideas that spoke to him, but hed never get them published. He complained about the critics
whod be up his ass, and how hed have to go sell cars and die a sad, not so fabulously wellto-do, old man.
Kurt was always chock full of what-if ideas. They were funny and poignant and dealt with
big issues like ecology and religion and morality. The problem was they were all kind of oneliners, just riffs, really, on the universe and our role in it. You couldnt make a whole novel or
even a good short story with them. And, as Kurt said, wheres the market for great science
fiction paragraphs? But he loved these ideas so much, he couldnt let them go. Because they
were all saying important things, these little ideas, but still, it was all a no go.
Well here is where I have to admit that Kurt was kind of a genius. Not such a hot writer, but
a genius. Or let me rephrase that. A con artist. Because Kilgore Trout, my friends, was a
brilliant scam.
Kurt gave all those great little ideas to a fictional character. It was ingenious. Kurt could just
throw all his ideas in and pretend like Trout had already written the whole thing.3 Makes me
laugh just thinking about it, Kurt getting credit for stories he barely summarized. But heres
what I want to know: Why couldnt my good old war buddy Kurt have made Kilgore Trout
into a self-righteous prick instead of me?
My wifes dead now, but she and my daughter used to talk about Kurts books all the time. I
think the two of them might have had little crushes on him even though his face was all
bristly, and he smelled like an old ashtray. Meghan used to say that she even loved the books
she didnt like, something else I never understood.

Now, just think about this for a minute. Kilgore Trouts stories werent just stuck in willy-nilly the way
youre saying. It was a technique. Mr. Vonnegut always thought about what he was doing even if it didnt
seem that way. I mean, look at that story in God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater where one of the characters wants
to ask God, what in hell are people for? Even if Eliot Rosewater is nutty, youve got to love him for adoring
all those unlovable people just because theyre human beings. And doesnt Mr. Vonnegut make us wonder
about the rest of those sad sacks and shrinks and senators and yes, Daddy, lawyers, too, dont we want to
know just what in hell theyre all for?

No matter what kind of crap the guy puts on paper, people just love, love, love Kurt. Take
Meghan, for example. Shes a teacher now, a job I think is more important than being a
writer or a lawyer. I dont think she has any idea how proud I am of her.4 Literature, Meghan
says, is the best way to get the kids thinking. Shes always telling her classes how
Slaughterhouse-Five changed her life.
One of her students, a real show-off, a guy we would have called a turkey in law school,
wrote this paper called Post-Modernist Histiographic Metafiction : The Metafictional
Aspects of Vonneguts Slaughterhouse-Five. When she came over for dinner that Sunday,
Meghan asked me: What should I do with this kid? He took his whole paper right off the
Internet. She showed me the paper, typed out all neat and with a little plastic cover. I read
the title.
I dont even know what this means, I said.
Well, its saying that Mr. Vonnegut was a postmodernist who wrote metafiction.
So what makes it metafiction? I asked. Im chuckling to myself right now about how Im
using dialogue to impart information as I say this into the recorder. Ha-ha, I think.
Well, for example, when Mr. Vonnegut writes himself into some of his stories, hes using a
metafictional device. Hes being sort of self-reflective.
Okay, I said. Self-indulgent more like, is what I thought.
You know how he repeats things like so it goes whenever somebody dies? Or uses science
fiction tropes even though hes not really writing science fiction? Thats postmodern.
Meghan was getting on a roll, using her teacher voice.
Now I dont want to burst my sweet daughters bubble, but thats a load of crap. I knew
Kurt. I especially knew Kurt trying to write about Dresden. This was the only way he could
do it. How else can somebody write a true story about burying children who have been burnt
to a crisp? I didnt say any of that, just, So, thats metafiction? Meghan sighed a little. I
could tell she was thinking, I cant teach this old fart doodly-squat. Why dont kids ever realize

Why didnt you ever tell me? You were hard sometimes, you know? Me, too, I guess. All those
disappointments. Remember when I was working at Howard Johnsons after school, and you let me use the
Datsun to drive there and back? That one day when I came home with the engine knocking and billowing
smoke. You threw open the hood and checked, and there was no oil. And you were so mad, you jerked back
up and banged your head on the hood. I heard the sound it made, like a little explosion, can hear it still. Your
face was so awful, flushed and tight, with that cut and the blood trickling down your forehead. Thats the face
I saw for years and years when I tried to think how you saw me. I remember myself back then, yelling about
how you never said anything about checking the oil, and how was I supposed to know, and it was all your
own stupid fault anyway. Then I ran inside and slammed the door. I acted mad and put out, but that wasnt it.
I just couldnt stand seeing your face. You were angry, sure, but you looked so sad and confused, too, like
you were thinking: How could I have raised such a nincompoop? Theres a stranger living in my house who
cant get one thing right, who doesnt care about anybody or anything but herself. How did that happen?
Even now, when I want to see you proud and beaming, I see the smoking car, your face, that blood.

their parents dont actually have an interest in things like metafiction? Even the smart ones
dont get that all were doing is trying to stay in their lives somehow.5
So it goes, so it goes, so it goes.
So Kurt breaks all the rules and everybody loves him. Oh, please, dont even get me started.
Kurts like a little kid. Are we there yet, are we there yet? We get it. We got it the first forty
times. Enough already. So, Kurt, if there really is a heaven, and youre up there writing your
crappy books, let me just say: Dont repeat stuff over and over and over. And over. Ha-ha.
Get it? And they say lawyers have no sense of humor.
My daughter and my wife used to go on and on about what an idealist Kurt was. And a
romantic. About how people learning to be kind to other people was the most important
thing. They agreed that what Kurt was saying in everything he wrote was: People, be kind to
each other. Take care of each other. Be good to your planet. Make sure everybody has food
to eat. Only create machines and religions and governments that help people feel strong and
peaceful. Love as often and as sweetly as you can. All that made Kurt a romantic, they said.
Kurt a romantic? Hah! What the hell was he trying to say about love in books like Cats
Cradle and Mother Night?
For our fiftieth wedding anniversary, the kids gave Mary and me a beautiful surprise party.
They knew exactly what we would want. It was just family; none of the people I was always
pretending to like were invited. It was in the same lodge where Mary and I had gotten
married, up in the mountains and beside a lake surrounded by pine trees. After we ate, we all
went out onto the stone porch where Mary and I had said our vows. It all felt so great, I
didnt even know what to do with myself. Meghan made the toast. This is what she said:
Dads good friend is Kurt Vonnegut, a man whose books, back when I was in high school
and college, were practically required reading for everyone I knew. Not for classes, but for
our own minds. We all read and loved and quoted Mr. Vonneguts books. Of course, that
was many years ago, but when I started thinking about what I wanted to say to Mom and
Dad here today, out of nowhere and over all those years, it hit me. In one of his books Mr.
Vonnegut has a made-up language. One of the words in that made-up language is karass. It
means a team of people who together carry out Gods will without ever knowing they are
doing it. Another is duprass, the rarest and most unique form of karass, because it is a karass
made up of only two people. In another book, Mr. Vonnegut describes a couple who are a
Nation of Two, complete and whole unto themselves, who have no purpose and no
meaning, one without the other. After all this time, these stories came to me instantly
because I remembered that when I read them for the first time, when I was sixteen years old,
5

I was never sure you were interested. You know what I found the other day when I was cleaning out your
desk? Remember when I was in high school, and we started that underground newspaper? It was pretty
funny, a bunch of kids pretending to be making big political statements just so we could use dirty words and
make fun of our teachers. And then the principal called and threatened to expel me. I thought you were going
to have a stroke. And for all these years, what I remembered was how furious at me you were. But then I
found the letter you wrote back then, saying the school should be proud that students like me were learning to
question authority, that you supported my decision to express my beliefs, that the administrations
infringement on my Constitutional rights might be an actionable offense, and you were reviewing your
options. Signed, Bernard V. and Mary K. OHare. Why didnt I know you better?

I believed they described my parents. And I still do.

Meghan went on some more about what a great team we were, Mary and me, and at the
time I thought it was just the nicest thing. But now when I think about it, its not such a
compliment. Imagine that, Meghan saying Mary and I were like the Mintons in Cats Cradle,
two old farts who didnt care about anybody but themselves, preferring to share private, little
jokes between them while the world fell apart. And Howard W. Campbell and Helga and
Resi Noth in Mother Night. They werent even a Nation of Twowasnt that the joke of it,
that there were three of them in that little country? And that their true love didnt cancel out
all the bad things they did? And Mary and I thought it was such a lovely thing when our
daughter held up that champagne flute and called us Nazis.6
And Kurt, I wonder what he wouldve thought if hed been there. Probably something like
this: Gee whiz, I sure am glad those kids have no idea what Im talking about. Got their money,
got their love. Yee-hah. Kurt was no romantic. That whole karass thing was a joke. Doing
Gods work. I mean, for Christs sake, the man was an atheist! And these idiot college kids,
what did they learn from Mother Night? That its okay to be a Nazi as long as youre in love?
I dont think so. No, Kurt, you failed again.
Just yesterday, I was thinking about all that and called Meghan into my study to have it out
with her. Shes been staying over at the house since Kurt died, and I guess she thinks Im
acting kind of creepy, sitting here in this study all day. I get confused sometimes, the old
synapses not shooting off so well. But Ive just got to think about things.
At first, I yelled at Meghan; I was so hopping mad atwell, Im not really sure at what, but
it had something to do with trying to understand Kurts stupid books and getting all mixed
up about everything.
After I was done yelling, I sat with my hands clasped between my knees. Meghan wrapped
her arms around me and rested her cheek on the top of my head. We stayed that way for a
while, and things didnt feel so horrible. I felt the weight of my daughters cheek taking my
headache away.
When Meghan went into the kitchen, I tried to feel her arms still around me. I thought,
there are so many things to think about and not enough time. Do I believe in God or not?
Should I be glad no ones sleeping on the sidewalk in Times Square anymore, or should I
hate that its just like the suburbs now, with Disney and the Gap and the Olive Garden? Its
complicated. Its so complicated. I keep looking for all the connections. Sometimes they
come at me like the meteor in a 3-D movie and then I get scared, and sometimes they
whisper at me from their hiding places, and I know theyre laughing. Nothings the way it
used to be.

I know you know I wasnt calling you a Nazi. I cant believe I even have to explain this. It was the idea, the
idea that you and Mom were so good together, had a kind of love that made everything else irrelevant. So
stop doing the lawyer thing and turning everything around. And you wondered why I laughed when you
talked about me maybe going to law school.

I dont even know what Im saying here anymore. Ive had too many drinks, and Ive had
them alone. God, but I miss Kurt. Good-bye, my friend, good-bye, good-bye. goddamnn
you for leaving me here without you.7

Oh, Daddy, I keep reading those last few sentences and seeing you in that old office chair, surrounded by
books and papers, newspaper articles and plaques and certificates. And framed photographs everywhere: on
the walls, scattered around the desk, crammed in bookcases. Formal ones: your wedding, all our proms and
graduations, the family portraits. And the snapshots. The reunion at the lake. You and Mom dancing at the
Governors Ball. That one I hate of me in the bathtub when I was three. And the one of you and Mr.
Vonnegut in Dresden. You touch our faces and then the chair squeaks as you turn back to your tape recorder.
You are holding it so tightly, your fingers are numb. You wear the same face you did after Moms funeral.
Do you remember? When I was leaving, you wanted me to stay, but knew you couldnt ask, knew that in a
moment, you would be alone. Youre thinking so hard, trying to figure it all out.