New York is a walking town—at least, it was until the virus came and tried to kill all eight million of us.
Instead of taking lunch while I was at Thompson, I used to go on long walks. I must have passed Woody Allen on the street a dozen times. I’d give a little half wave. He’d occasionally half-wave back. We never spoke. Ah, the writers’ brother- and sisterhood.
Another writer I saw on my daily walks was Kurt Vonnegut. I was surprised that Vonnegut was such a big guy. I don’t like to bother people, but one of the times I saw him, I finally introduced myself. He didn’t know my work, but I knew his. Vonnegut and I sat on the steps of an East Side brownstone and shot the breeze one sunny afternoon in the early winter. I’d read just about all of his books. So we talked about God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater and Cat’s Cradle, then photography and movies.
I remember that we talked about a mutual favorite, Richard Brautigan, who wrote Trout Fishing in America, which was not about fishing. Vonnegut was funny and seemed kooky, but there was a sadness about him, a little like his literary alter ego Kilgore Trout. The success of Slaughterhouse Five, the first of his novels to feature Trout, apparently drove him to attempt suicide. So it goes.
I will always remember something Vonnegut wrote in God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater. “Hello, babies. Welcome to Earth. It’s hot in the summer and cold in the winter. It’s round and wet and crowded. At the outside, babies, you’ve got about a hundred years here. There’s only one rule that I know of, babies—‘God damn it, you’ve got to be kind.’”
Vonnegut told me he hadn’t read People Will Always Be Kind, so I sent him a copy through his publisher. But I never saw him again after that day on the brownstone steps.
By the way, after we talked, he walked inside the brownstone. He lived there. Or maybe he was breaking in. Who could tell with Kurt Vonnegut? Or was it Kilgore Trout I’d been talking to?