Free Jailbird by Kurt Vonnegut Page B

that she sang in an Episcopal Church every Sunday for pay. Why not?
    And on and on.
    Emil Larkin, the Presbyterian, and Virgil Greathouse, the Quaker, had been thick as thieves back in the good old days. They had not only dominated the burglaries and the illegal wiretaps and the harassment of enemies by the Internal Revenue Service and so on, but the prayer breakfasts, as well. So I asked Larkin now how he felt about the reunion in prospect.
    “Virgil Greathouse is no more and no less my brother than you or any other man,” he said. “I will try to save him from hell, just as I am now trying to save you from hell.” He then quoted the harrowing thing that Jesus, according to Saint Matthew, had promised to say in the Person of God to sinners on Judgment Day.
    This is it: “Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.”
    These words appalled me then, and they appall me now. They are surely the inspiration for the notorious cruelty of Christians.
    “Jesus may have said that,” I told Larkin, “but it is so unlike most of what else He said that I have to conclude that He was slightly crazy that day.”
    Larkin stepped back and he cocked his head in mock admiration. “I have seen some rough-tough babies in my time,” he said, “but you really take the prize. You’ve turned every friend you ever had against you, with all your flip-flopsthrough the years, and now you insult that last Person who still might be willing to help you, who is Jesus Christ.”
    I said nothing. I wished he would go away.
    “Name me one friend you’ve got left,” he said.
    I thought to myself that Dr. Ben Shapiro, my best man, would have remained my friend, no matter what—might have come for me there at prison in his car and taken me to his home. But that was sentimental speculation on my part. He had gone to Israel long ago and gotten himself killed in the Six Day War. I had heard that there was a primary school named in his honor in Tel Aviv.
    “Name One,” Emil Larkin persisted.
    “Bob Fender,” I said. This was the only lifer in the prison, the only American to have been convicted of treason during the Korean War. He was
Doctor
Fender, since he held a degree in veterinary science. He was the chief clerk in the supply room where I would soon be given my civilian clothes. There was always music in the supply room, for Fender was allowed to play records of the French
chanteuse
, Edith Piaf, all day long. He was a science-fiction writer of some note, publishing many stories a year under various pseudonyms, including “Frank X. Barlow” and “Kilgore Trout.”
    “Bob Fender is everybody’s friend and nobody’s friend,” said Larkin.
    “Clyde Carter is my friend,” I said.
    “I am talking about people on the outside,” said Larkin. “Who’s waiting outside to help you? Nobody. Not even your own son.”
    “We’ll see,” I said.
    “You’re going to New York?” he said.
    “Yes,” I said.
    “Why New York?” he said.
    “It’s famous for its hospitality to friendless, penniless immigrants who wish to become millionaires,” I said.
    “You’re going to ask your son for help, even though he’s never even written you the whole time you’ve been here?” he said. He was the mail clerk for my building, so he knew all about my mail.
    “If he ever finds out I’m in the same city with him, it will be purely by accident,” I said. The last words Walter had ever said to me were at his mother’s burial in a small Jewish cemetery in Chevy Chase. That she should be buried in such a place and in such company was entirely my idea—the idea of an old man suddenly all alone. Ruth would have said, correctly, that it was a crazy thing to do.
    She was buried in a plain pine box that cost one hundred and fifty-six dollars. Atop that box I placed a bough, broken not cut, from our flowering crab apple tree.
    A rabbi prayed over her in Hebrew, a language she had never heard, although she must