Postscript

On April 11, 2007, Kurt Vonnegut died of injuries sustained during a fall in his Manhattan home. He was eighty-four. When I received word, I couldn’t help but think of that moment in Hartford when Vonnegut rose from his chair and stepped slowly, so gingerly, over that errant microphone cord.

Someone was cruel enough to send me a link to the Fox News coverage. The reporter cited Vonnegut’s “unique brand of despondent leftism,” which struck me as an apt reflection of Fox’s unique brand of thrift-store fascism. I couldn’t bring myself to scan any of the other obits. I knew what they said, all the praise mustered for such occasions.

Vonnegut would have been revolted. As a younger man, he had lusted after acclaim. He thought people were actually listening to him, a respectable Christian mistake. Vonnegut was an athiest, of course. No sweet dreams of heaven for him. No jokes tossed down to the suckers in purgatory. He leaves us his books, his pleas for kindness, his foolish hope for our salvation.