CZM Book Club: "2 B R 0 2 B" by Kurt Vonnegut

classic science fiction. And that third mode is new, which is the kick that I'm on right now, and this story is in that mode because I don't know. It's the kind of stuff that like. Okay, So the same reason I really like history because of how it shapes our present, I feel like you can do the same kind of thing culturally and see like where we're at with a lot of different ideas based on the things

that came before. And this week's story is by a classic one of my favorite weird satirical authors, Kurt Vonnegut. And for folks who don't know, Kurt Vonnegut, of course, is most famous as an anarchist who fought the Nazis. This is not actually what he's famous for. But it's true. He's an anarchist who fought the Nazis. He was captured by the Germans kind of clos ish to the end of the war. I don't remember exactly what year, but he, you know, then survived two different Allied bombings while he

was in captivity of the Germans. Because war as hell, and it is not surprising that he ended up an anarchist and a pacifist and a world citizen as he put it. But he did survive those things, and he went on to write very satirical stuff that seems so like lighthearted while playing with heavy issues, and then you realize what this man went through and you're like, oh, yeah, no, that's why he writes lighthearted, satirical stuff about very heavy issues.

And he survived the bombing of Dresden. You think I would put this in my script, but I didn't. And he survived this bombing of this sermon city where he was captive by hiding in a slaughterhouse and talked about how is like cool down there amongst all the bodies

or the cadavers. I think is the way he put it, and the reason that that sticks out to me is I'm going to tell a different story really quick, and maybe I've already told the story in one of my podcasts, but I'm not sure, so I'm gonna tell it again because this is the second time I know about an

anarchist surviving by hiding among bodies. And the other one is that one day I met a man who was selling his father's book, and his father had been a Polish officer when the Russians came and invaded Poland and then killed almost all the officers in the military rather than letting them, oh, I don't know, defend the country against Nazi's killed them all in the massacre of the

Caton Forest. And this man's father was one of the only survivors of that because he had been taken to Russia instead and thrown into a prison camp in Siberia. And this man, when he first met me, he didn't like me because I was like a weird pump and

he thought I was going to be a Bolshevik. And he's like, you and your friends you're not Bolsheviks, are you, And I was like, no, no, we're anarchists, he said, anarchists, And he got really excited and he opened up his dad's book that's called The Shadow Kateen Forest, if anyone's curious, and he flipped through and he found this chapter where his father's life had been saved by a Christian anarchist in the gulags who was like a follower of Kurpatkin

and Tolstoy. And while he was in this gulag, it was so cold outside that people were freezing to death. And the person who ran the morgue was this anarchist in the camp, and so he would let people come and hide among the frozen bodies to warm themselves up because it was warmer than the outside. Which, now that I say it, there's a very dark story, but it meant that I had an interesting connection with a man, you know, almost one hundred years later and seventy years

later or a while later, and I don't know. And so just when I was like reading about Vonnegut hiding among bodies to survive the horrors of war, I was reminded of this other story. But that's not what this story is about, not at all. Instead, content warning for today's episode. This story discusses suicide, and I believe is a critique of eugenics, but is also sort of describing a eugenicist society, and so that's your content warning. If that's not a headspace you want to be in, then

don't listen to this one. This story is called two be Are Not to Be? The letters spelled out it'll be really clever. It doesn't work as well in audio, right, because that's the big reveal, is the way it sounds.

But it's just a bunch of letters and numbers. It was first published in Worlds of If in January nineteen sixty two, and the Project Gutenber Additions, which is where I got this one from, says extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the copyright on this publication was renewed. So like a lot of stuff from the nineteen fifties and sixties is under copyright, but a lot of stuff isn't because of the weird ways the copyright law works.

The little tagline along with the story said, got a problem, just pick up the phone. It solved them all and all the same way.

only man waiting. Not many people were born a day anymore. Welling was fifty six, a mere stripe ling in a population whose average age was one hundred twenty nine. X rays had revealed that his wife was going to have triplets. The children would be his first. Young Welling was hunched in his chair, his head in his hand. He was so rumpled, so still, and colorless, as to be virtually invisible.

His camouflage was perfect, since the waiting room had a disorderly and demoralized air too, chairs and ashtrays had been moved away from the walls. The floor was paved with spattered dropcloths. The room was being redecorated. It was being redecorated as a memorial to a man who had volunteered to die. A sardonic old man about two hundred years old sat on a step ladder, painting a mural he

did not like. Back in the days when people aged visibly, his age would have been guessed at thirty five ors, so aging had touched him that much before the cure for aging was found. The mural he was working on depicted a very neat garden. Men and women in white doctors and nurses, turned the soil, planted seedlings, sprayed, bugs, spread fertilizer. Men and women in purple uniforms pulled up weeds, cut down plants that were old and sickly, raked leaves,

carried refuse to trash burners. Never, never, never, not in medieval Holland nor old Japan had a garden been more formal, been better tended. Every plant had all the loam, light, water, air, and nourishment it could use. A hospital orderly came down the corridor, singing under his breath a popular song. If you don't like my kisses, honey, here's what I will do. I'll go see a girl in purple kiss this sad world to dulu. If you don't want my lovin', why should I take up all this? I'll get off this

old planet. Let some sweet baby have my place. The orderly looked in at the mural, and the muralist looks so real, he said, I can practically imagine I'm standing in the middle of it. What makes you think you're not in it, said the painter. He gave us a tyiric smile. It's called the Happy Garden of Life. You know that's good of doctor Hits, said the orderly. He was referring to one of the male figures in white, whose head was a portrait of doctor Benjamin Hits, the

hospital's chief Obstrataian Hits was a blindingly handsome man. A lot of faces still to fill in, said the orderly. He meant that the faces of many of the figures in the mural were still blank. All blanks were to be filled with portraits of important people on either the hospital staff or from the Chicago office of the Federal Bureau of Termination. Must be nice to be able to make pictures that look like something, said the orderly. The

painter's face curdled with scorn. You think I'm proud of this, daub, he said. You think this is my idea of what life really looks like. What's your idea of what life looks like? Said the orderly. The painter gestured at a foul dropcloth. There's a good picture of it, he said. Frame that, and you have a picture a damn sight more honest than this one. You're a gloomy old duck, aren't you, said the orderly. Is that a crime? Said

the painter. The orderly shrugged. If you don't like it, here grandpa, he said, And he finished the thought with the trick telephone number that people who didn't want to live anymore were supposed to call. The zero in the telephone number he pronounced not The number was two b R not to be. It was the telephone number of an institution whose fanciful sobriquets included automat Birdland Cannery, catbox, d Lausser, easygo, goodbye, happy hooligan, kiss me quick, lucky Pierre, Sheep,

dip warring blender, weep no more? And why worry? To be or not to be? Was the telephone number of the municipal gas chambers of the Federal Bureau of Termination. And you know what phone numbers you should call instead of that one? Is the phone numbers that would have accompanied these ads if this was recorded in the nineties. But it's not. It's recorded in the twenty twenties, so there's no phone numbers. I think would that'd be so weird. There was an AD and it was like send a

self address damp envelope for more information. Be so weird.

moved on welling. The waiting father mumbled something without raising his head, and then he fell silent again. A coarse, formidable woman strode into the waiting room on spike keels. Her shoes, stockings, trench coat, bag, and overseas cap were all purple. The purple the painter called the color of grapes. On judgment day, the medallion on her purple musette bag was the seal of the Service Division of the Federal Bureau of Termination. An eagle perched on a turnstile. The

woman had a lot of facial hair and unmistakable mustache. Fact. A curious thing about gas chamber hostesses was that, no matter how lovely and feminine they were when recruited, they all sprouted mustaches within five years or so.

know anything about all. A body's a body, eh, he said, alrighty, as a master of fine art, I recommend this body here. He indicated a faceless figure of a woman who was carrying dried stalks to a trash burner, well siddle or a duncan. That's more of the disposal people, isn't it. I mean I'm in service. I don't do any disposing. The painter clapped his hands and mocked, delight, you say you don't know anything about art, and then you prove in the next breath that you know more about it

than I do. Of course, the sheave carrier is wrong for a hostess, A snipper, a pruner, that's more your line. He pointed to a figure in purple who was sawing a dead branch from an apple tree. How about her? He said, you like her at all? Gosh, she said, and she blushed and became humble. That that puts me right next to doctor Hits. That upsets you, he said, good gravy, No, she said, it's it's just such an honor. Ah, you admire there em, eh, he said, who doesn't admire him,

she said, worshiping the portrait of Hits. It was the portrait of a tanned, white haired omnipotent Zeus two hundred and forty years old, who doesn't admire him? She said again. He was responsible for setting up the very first gas chamber in Chicago. Nothing would please me more, said the painter, than to put you next to him for all time, sawing off a limb that strikes you as appropriate. That is kind of like what I do, she said. She was demure about what she did. What she did was

make people comfortable while she killed them. And while Leora Duncan was posing for her portrait, into the waiting room bounded Doctor Hits himself. He was seven feet tall, and he boomed with importance, accomplishments, and the joy of living well, Miss Duncan, Miss Duncan, he said, And he made a joke. What are you doing here? He said? This isn't where

the people leave, this is where they come in. We're going to be in the same picture together, she said, shyly, good, said Doctor Hits heartily, and say, isn't that some picture I share? Am honored to be in it with you? She said, Let me tell you, he said, I'm honored to be in it with you. Without women like you, this wonderful world we've got wouldn't be possible. He saluted her and moved toward the door that led to the delivery rooms. Guess what was just born, he said, I can't.

She said, triplets. He said triplets.

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she said. Nobody made three appointments with us. Nothing but singles going through today unless somebody called in after I left. What's the name, Welling, said the waiting father, sitting up, red eyed and frowsy.

shoes wouldn't be happy, said Welling. He gestured with his hands to symbolize care free simplicity. All I have to do is pick out which one of the triplets is going to live. Then deliver my maternal grandfather to the happy hooligan and come back here with a receipt. Doctor Hits became rather severe, with Welling towered over him. You don't believe in population control, mister Welling, he said. I

think it's perfectly keen, said Welling. Tautley. Would you like to go back to the good old days when the population of Earth was twenty billion about to become forty billion, then eighty billion, then one hundred and sixty billion. Do you know what a druplet is, mister Welling, said Hits. Nope, said Welling sulkily. A drupelet, mister Welling, is one of the little knobs, one of the little pulpy grains of

a BlackBerry, said doctor Hits. Without population control, human beings would now be packed on this surface of this old planet like drupelets on a BlackBerry. Think of it. Welling continued to stare at the same spot on the wall.

In the year two thousand, said doctor Hits, before scientists stepped in and laid down the law, there wasn't even enough drinking water to go around, and nothing to eat but seaweed, and still people insisted on their right to reproduce like jack rabbits, and their right, if possible, to live forever. I want those kids, said Welling quietly. I want all three of them. Of course you do, said doctor Hits. That's only human. I don't want my grandfather

to die, either, said Welling. Nobody's really happy about taking a close relative to the cat box, said doctor Hitz gently sympathetically. I wish people wouldn't call it that, said Leora Duncan. What said doctor Hits. I wish people wouldn't call it the cat box and things like that. She said, It gives people the wrong impression. You're absolutely right, said doctor Hits. Forgive me, he corrected himself. Gave the Municipal gas Chambers their official title, a title no one ever

used in conversation. I should have said ethical suicide Studios. He said. That sounds so much better, said Leora Duncan. This child of yours, whichever one you decide to keep, mister Welling, said doctor Hits. He or she is going to live on a roomy, clean, rich planet thanks to population control, in a garden like that mural there. He shook his head. Two centuries ago, when I was a young man. It was a hell that nobody thought could

last another twenty years. Now, centuries of peace and plenty stretch before us, as far as the imagination cares to travel. He smiled luminously. The smile faded as he saw that Welling had just drawn a revolver. Welling shot doctor Hits dead. There's room for one, a great, big one, he said. Then he shot Leora Duncan. It's only death, he said to her, as she fell. There room for two. And then he shot himself, making room for all three of

his children. Nobody came running. Nobody seemingly heard the shots. The painter sat down on top of his step ladder, looked down reflectively on the sorry scene. The painter pondered the mournful puzzle of life, demanding to be born, and once born, demanding to be fruitful, to multiply, and to live as long as possible, to do all of that on a very small planet that would have to last forever.

All the answers that the painter could think of were grim, even grimmer surely than a catbox, a happy hooligan an easygo. He thought of war, He thought of plague. He thought of starvation, he knew that he would never paint again. He let his paint brush fall to the drop cloths below, and then he decided he had had about enough of life in the happy Garden of life too, and he came slowly down from the ladder. He took Welling's pistol, really intending to shoot himself, but.

it out. Thank you, sir, said the hostess. Your city, thanks you, your country, thanks you, your planet, thanks you. But the deepest thanks of all is from future generations. The end. So there's a lot going on in this story, right. I like read the story, and I was like, am I going to read this, but and then I read it again and I was like, yeah, I'm gonna The way that he plays lightly with this stuff is so

interesting to me. But there's two of the things that he plays with that are, you know, seemingly the darkest and the most dangerous to tread upon, both the discussion of suicide and also explicitly using gas chambers. But he lost his mother to suicide before he went off and fought the Nazism and was taken captive by them and survived that as well. So it's like he's playing with stuff that he knows about that he has had to

interact with, you know. And eight years before he wrote this story, or before this story was published, he wrote a story called The Big Trip Up Yonder and this is about It's set earlier or the population is exploding because death has been solved, like no one's dying of old age, and it's kind of a satirical story about this family living in a very small apartment and they're all like scrambling over who gets to be in the will whenever like great Grandpa eventually you know, winds up

dying somehow or another, and how everyone just like misses having privacy and like overcrowding and stuff. Right, But I also think that this is a story as a deep critique of eugenics, right, even though it's like playing with this, like what would we do? And what's interesting is that we actually do have information about what we would do, like how population numbers go down. Now that there's like an inherent good or bad to that I didn't like write this into a script. I don't have a study

in front of me or whatever. I've read about studies where as soon as you offer people were capable of having birth, as soon as you offer them information about birth control and things like that, population growth starts to decline. And basically like feminism is the actual answer to the limitation of living in a world with finite resources, and that's not addressed specifically in here. Instead it's like people

being like, oh shit, what do we do? Right? But I really like the painter, right, I like this person who's just like, honestly, this like paining I'm drawing on the wall. This isn't the real reflection of society, like the splatter on the drop cloths, that's the real reflection of society. And like, how well done is this fucking writing?

Where it's like, oh, and then that's reflected because like and they all die on the drop cloth, right, and how like the person is like, oh a do it yourself for is not going to be messy forever asked to clean up after you. But they killed all the people on the drop cloths, right, and so it's like, oh, it's just like it's a really well crafted story. I'm going to read more Vonnegut. I've read a little bit of him, but I'm going to read more of him. And that is this week's Cool Zone Media book Club.

And I will catch you all next week when I read you more stories from one of the three modes, or maybe you'll come up with a fourth mode. Who knows, Uncle's on Media book Club?