Mourning the Loss of Kurt Vonnegut

Posted by Guest Blogger at 5:03 PM on April 13, 2007.

Guest Post by Steven Adams.

On the day Kurt Vonnegut died I had to get my oil changed. It's a necessary evil I acknowledge by wearing a T-shirt that looks like it's splattered in oil but has ancient Arabs on horses with raised swords or shotguns galloping away from tall oil rigs. I am so fucking funny, but I am on the borderline of tears because my hero is dead and I'll never read another thing by him. I am glad he finally gets to rest.

I am almost in a head-on collision on my way to the Toyota dealership where I must do the deed. One of the many college kids in this town, with a girl in tow, is in a giant hurry to get to the gas station across from the dealership where I take my car, and he blasts right though the yield sign. His face says, "Oh shit, I fucked up" first and then, "No, I didn't, so I'll carry on." I shake my head while my heart slows, and I pat myself on the back for avoiding death by the "me generation." I always watch out for everyone else on the road.

The dealership has my name stored in the computer I booked the appointment online. My service director for the afternoon compliments the fact that I brought a book, "The Confession of Nat Turner," and he asks what it's about. "The only slave to lead a revolt before the Civil War," I tell him. He reminds me that there is now wireless in the recently renovated lobby.

I've been coming here for two years, but the lobby has been made brand new over the last few months, and it looks like a palace. The tile is so shiny that the florescent light draws counter squares to its formal grid. There are many products here to massage and pamper an automobile. The chairs look very comfy and all the faces on the magazines are attractive. I feel like I am at a doctor's office, and I feel sick.

There is also a new, loud, flat-screen television, and the woman on it -- who is so gorgeous she doesn't look real -- delivers monotone news about a suicide bomber. The screen is overwhelmed with too much information, and I notice that no one inside the lobby is looking with me.

There are two women reading books, which somehow comforts me, until I realize they are both self-help books, complete with grinning charlatans on the back covers. One woman, who is grossly overweight, is rapidly taking notes and underlining passages. I wonder what revelation she has stumbled upon.

In the corner another woman is unveiling a new blackberry by pulling it out of the box, then the plastic, and then, now in a hurry, unwinding it away from the other accessories. She is an attractive middle-aged businesswoman, and her phone rings twice while I am in her presence: first, her child, and next, her underling who is lost and needs directions. He's some poor sap trying to find the place where he's supposed to sell her product, which I guess is wine, judging by the giant bag she carries and the emblem on the front of it. My mouth waters and I feel like drinking or smoking something myself. I get a cup of coffee and there are only Styrofoam cups to put it in.

I open the book and my eyes go over the pages where Nat is read the confession they wrote for him, but I can't help but think about Vonnegut, and how the last prose of his I read was a rant against the Iraq war. He lived through the bombing of Dresden, which gave him the inspiration to write Slaughterhouse Five. I am the only one looking at the footage of the bomb exploding in the background of a press interview on TV. It is great television.

I go back to slaves when the next segment promises American Idol talk and the contestant who is known only for her legs. Everyone in the lobby is now watching the television. Nat wants to make sure his confession includes the statement that his master was kind to him, even though Nat killed him.

When they call my name to pick up my keys, and I am signing for more than I originally intended to pay for, I notice that the clerk is looking at my heart, where those Arabs ride their horses. She does not look me in the eye after that, which I see as a sign of cowardice.

I decide to take the long way home because my head is screaming about canaries in coal mines and I need to think before I write this down. It's not good fiction, I say, because it's too much non-fiction. But there is too much to be a coincidence anymore, so I'll type it out anyway.

There is a brand-new Nissan dealership going up by my exit near the interstate. Across from this impressive work of architecture is the empty lot and building that once held a Chrysler dealership.

I finally tear up as I pass an old hippie walking against the traffic with a giant beer wrapped in a paper sack. I'm sad because I guess he was in Vietnam and wants to just forget what he saw, or maybe even what he sees.

So do I.

So it goes.

Tagged as: kurt vonnegut