Pre-War

Pre War:

The word photography was first used in 1839, and it was in that year, too, that Louis J.M. Daguerre revealed to the French Academy that an image formed on a silvered metal plate covered with a thin film of silveriodide could be developed in the presence of mercury vapor.

In 1841, only two years later, an assistant to Daguerre, Andre Le Fevre, was arrested in the Tuileries Gardens for attempting to sell a gentleman a picture of the woman and the pony. That was where Weary bought his picture too - in the Tuileries. Le Fevre argued that the picture was fine art, and that his intention was to make Greek mythology come alive. He said the columns and the potted palm proved that.

When asked which myth he meant to represent, Le Fevre replied that there were thousands of myths like that, with the woman a mortal and the pony a god.

He was sentenced to six months in prison. He died there of pneumonia. So it goes.

Billy was a baby who had just been bathed by his mother. Now his mother wrapped him in a towel, carried him into a rosy room that was filled with sunshine. She unwrapped him, laid him on the tickling towel,powdered him between his legs, joked with him, patted his little jelly belly. Her palm on his little jelly belly made potching sounds. Billy gurgled and cooed.

He was in pre-birth, which was red light and bubbling sounds. And then he swung into life again and stopped. He was a little boy taking a shower with his hairy father at Ilium Y.M.C.A. He smelled chlorine from the swimming pool next door, heard the springboard boom.

Little Billy was terrified, because his father had said Billy was going to learn to swim by the method of sink-or-swim. His father was going to throw Billy into the deep end, and Billy was going to damn well swim.

It was like an execution. Billy was numb as his father carried him from the shower room to the pool. His eyes were closed. When he opened his eyes, he was on the bottom of the pool, and there was beautiful music everywhere. He lost consciousness, but the music went on. He dimly sensed that somebody was rescuing him. Billy resented that.

Billy wasn't a Catholic, even though he grew up with a ghastly crucifix on the wall. His father had no religion. His mother was a substitute organist for several churches around town. She took Billy with her whenever she played, taught him to play a little, too. She said she was going to join a church as soon as she decided which one was right.

She never //did// decide. She did develop a terrific hankering for a crucifix, though. And she bought one from a Santa Fe gift shop during a trip the little family made out West during the Great Depression. Like so many Americans, she was trying to construct a life that made sense from things she found in gift shops. And the crucifix went up on the wall of Billy Pilgrim.

He was twelve years old, quaking as he stood with his mother and father on Bright Angel Point, at the rim of the Grand Canyon. The little human family was staring at the floor of the canyon, one mile straight down.

"Well--" said Billy's father, manfully kicking a pebble into space, "there it //is//." They had come to this famous place my automobile. The had had seven blowouts on the way.

"It was worth the trip," said Billy's mother raptly. "Oh god--was it ever worth it."

Billy hated the canyon. He was sure that he was going to fall in. His mother touched him, and he wet his pants.

There were other tourists looking down into the canyon, too, and a ranger was there to answer questions. A Frenchmen who had come all the way from France asked the ranger in broken English if many people committed suicide by jumping in.

"Yes, sir," said the ranger. "About three folks a year." So it goes.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 15px;">And Billy took a very short trip through time, made a peewee jump of only ten days, so he was still twelve, still touring the West with his family. Now they were down in Carlsbad Caverns, and Billy was praying to God to get him out of there before the ceiling fell in.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 15px;">A ranger was explaining that the Caverns had been discovered by a cowboy who saw a huge cloud of bats come out of a hole in the ground. And then he said that he was going to turn out all the lights, and thatit would probably be the first time in the lives of most people there that they had ever been in darkness that was total.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 15px;">Out went the lights. Billy didn't even know whether he was still alive or not. And then something ghostly floated in air to his left. It had numbers on it. His father had taken out his pocket watch. The watch had a radium dial.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 15px;"> He was sixteen years old, in the waiting room of a doctor. Billy had an infected thumb. There was only one other patient waiting-an old, old man. The old man was in agony because of gas. He farted tremendously, and then he belched. 'Excuse me,' he said to Billy. Then he did it again. 'Oh God he said, 'I knew it was going to be bad getting old.' He shook his head. 'I didn't know it was going to be this bad.'

<span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 15px;">The train ride he had taken in 1944-- from maneuvers in South Carolina to his father's funeral in Ilium. He hadn't seen Europe or combat yet. This was still in the days of steam locomotives.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 15px;">Billy had to change trains a lot. All the trains were slow. The coaches stunk of coal smoke and rationed tobacco and rationed booze and the farts of people eating wartime food. The upholstery of the iron seats was bristly, and Billy couldn't sleep much. He got to sleep soundly when he was only three hours from Ilium, with his legs splayed toward the entrance of the busy dining car.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 15px;">The porter woke him up when the train reached Ilium. Billy staggered off with his duffel bag, and then he stood on the station platform next to the porter, trying to wake up.

<span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 15px;">“Have a good nap, did you?” said the porter.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 15px;">“Yes,” said Billy.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 15px;">“Man,” said the porter, “you sure had a hard-on.”