Breakfast of Champions

The book came out a year before I was born.  1973, to be exact.  I didn't discover Vonnegut's writings until I ventured off on my own to college, nearly 20 years later.  Like other author's that I quickly become enamored with, I devoured his library of work as fast as I could.

Admittedly, many of the more subtle points of Mr. Vonnegut's writings escaped me, for I was a simple babe in the woods in those younger years.  Wide-eyed, questioning, but not yet really understanding much of how things really worked in this world.

When I re-read many of Vonnegut's books about a decade later, they made a lot more sense to me.  By this point, I had a little world travel under my belt, had surfed and skied and gotten really drunk in a lot of different places on the planet.  From all outwardly appearances, things seemed to be going swimmingly, but really, I was just a robot, going through the paces.  I was quite sick during this time, and not one person understood what I was going through, including myself.  I just knew I was slowly falling apart and rotting away. 

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It's been over a week now since I received my first Lyme Disease antigen shot.  I still don't have much information to share about this yet, but will after my next appointment - I promise.  For now, however, I just want to share a very relevant passage from the preface of Kurt Vonnegut's 1973 book "Breakfast of Champions", a passage that was pointed out to me by my doctor on my last visit (he had just started reading the book).

When my doctor asked me if I had read Vonnegut before, I just smiled.

"I've been to the location of Slaughterhouse Five in Dresden", I said.  "Yes, I'm a fan of his work".  

The doctor then reminded me of that passage in the preface, and as he described it, it all came back to me.    

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As for the suspicion I express in this book, that human beings are robots, are machines:  It should be noted that people, mostly men, suffering from the late stages of syphilis, from locomotor ataxia, were common spectacles in downtown Indianapolis and in circus crowds when I was a boy.

Those people were infested with carnivorous little corkscrews which could be seen only with a microscope.  The victims’ vertebrae were welded together after the corkscrews got through with the meat between.  The syphilitics seemed tremendously dignified - erect, eyes straight ahead.

I saw one stand on a curb at the corner of Meridian and Washington streets one time, underneath an overhanging clock which my father designed.  The intersection was known locally as “The Crossroads of America.”

This syphilitic man was thinking hard there, at the Crossroads of America, about how to get his legs to step off the curb and carry him across Washington Street.  He shuddered gently, as though he had a small motor which was idling inside.  Here was his problem:  his brains, where the instructions to his legs originated, were being eaten alive by corkscrews.  The wires which had to carry the instructions weren’t insulated anymore, or were eaten clear through.  Switches along the way were welded open or shut.  

This man looked like an old, old man, although he might have been only thirty years old.  He thought and thought.  And then he kicked two times like a chorus girl.

He certainly looked like a machine to me when I was a boy.  

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A little FYI:  The bacterial spirochete that causes Lyme Disease is a close cousin to the spirochete that is responsible for Syphilis.  Even many of the symptoms that each causes are similar.  Before it was known that a simple shot of penicillin could cure syphilis, many struggled and lived with the disease.  Kind of like Lyme today, except no magic bullet has yet been found to eradicate the Lyme spirochete.

I plan on doing more writing in the future.  Of course, my plans and desires don't often pair up well with the physical state of my body and the need for my body to rest.

The last couple of weeks have been rough.  I've been filled with the desire to do so many things lately, my mind on overdrive.  The 18 hours of bright, beautiful sunshine we've been getting probably has a lot to do with this.  However, my lower back and left knee and head, jaw, and right wrist, and…. have had other ideas.  Due to their conspiratorial efforts,  I've spent most of my time recently in my zero-gravity chair or on the floor.  At least my head has been a bit clearer as of late.  It's a blessing and a curse.  I can read without too much trouble, but I'm also now more aware of how bad of shape certain parts of my body are.  One of the many Catch-22's when dealing with Lyme.  

The Dresden Messe on the outskirts of Dresden, Germany.  The location of the actual Slaughterhouse from Vonnegut's "Slaughterhouse Five, or The Children's Crusade: A Duty-Dance with Death"

This is approximately where the entrance to the actual Slaughterhouse was located.  The whole area  sits on a wide bend in the Elbe River, so a lot of industrial type stuff went on out here.  It is very slowly being built back up and restored since the reunification of East Germany with West Germany in 1990.