July 24: Wet Dream, Going for a Run, Transitions

In time, Montana came to love and trust Billy Pilgrim.  He did not touch her until she made it clear that she wanted him to.  After she had been on Tralfamadore for what would have been an Earthling week, she asked him shyly if he wouldn't sleep with her.  Which he did.  It was heavenly.

And Billy traveled in time from that delightful bed to a bed in 1968.  It was his bed in Ilium, and the electric blanket was turned up high.  He was drenched in sweat, remembered groggily that his daughter had put him to bed, had told him to stay there until the oil burner was repaired.

Somebody was knocking on his bedroom door.

"Yes?" said Billy.

"Oil-burner man."

"Yes?"

"It's running good now.  Heat's coming up."

"Good."

"Mouse ate through a wire from the thermostat."

"I'll be darned."

Billy sniffled.  His hot bed smelled like a mushroom cellar.  He had had a wet dream about Montana Wildhack.

You may be wondering where I'm going to go with this post.  There are many possibilities.  I could write about my first sexual experience, since this passage is about the first time Billy and Montana have sex.  I could write about wet dreams, since Billy has had one.  Or I could write about sexual violence against women, since Montana has been kidnapped and brought to Tralfamadore for the purpose of mating with Billy.  So many possibilities.

Vonnegut was a science fiction writer.  He wrote speculative fiction and literary fiction.  If you can't tell, there is always a underpinning of social commentary, as well.  Slaughterhouse is about aliens and time travel.  But it's also about war and human tragedy and politics and death.  Vonnegut, like any great writer, is working on many levels.

I just went for a run.  I haven't been running much this summer at all.  I got out of the habit.  It's so much easier, when I get home, to simply sit down on the couch and close my eyes versus putting on my running clothes and shoes and heading back out the door.  I know myself.  If I don't exercise as soon as I get home, I'm not going to exercise at all.  This afternoon, I decided to find out how out-of-shape I really am.

Answer:  not as bad as I thought.

One of the benefits of running is that it clears my head.  Shakes out all of the cobwebs from my workday.  Now, sitting here, reflecting on this little passage from Vonnegut, I'm able to think a little more clearly.  I'm not worrying about the work I've done the past eight hours, or the work I have to do tomorrow.  It's all about the work that's in front of me right now.  Writing this blog post.

That's sort of what Billy does through this whole book.  As he becomes unstuck in time, over and over, he has to shake off one present as he enters another present.  He leaves Montana behind for his bed in Ilium.  Trades one kind of heat for another kind of heat.  One kind of sexual experience for another.  Billy masters the ability to adjust quickly to his alternating realities.

Me?  I need a little time.  I ran for about a half hour this afternoon.  Now, after I'm done typing this post, I'll probably put my head back for a little while and take a nap.  Maybe read a book.  I haven't decided yet.  Maybe I'll time travel back to when I first met my wife or to our wedding night or to the mornings my daughter or son were born.  It's not difficult.  Just a matter of dredging up some specific, concrete detail from those moments.  A smell or sound.  A word or song.

This post is working on many levels, if you haven't noticed.  I have successfully avoided writing about anything potentially embarrassing, although I'm not opposed to those kinds of disclosures.  I have shifted subjects pretty quickly from sexual encounters and wet dreams to running and work and time travel.  I'm not quite as skillful as Vonnegut at these kinds of transitions.  So it goes.

Tonight, Saint Marty is thankful that he didn't injure himself running.