Deadeye Dick

 “To be is to do,” – Socrates

“To do is to be,” – Jean-Paul Sartre

“Do Be Do Be Do,” – Frank Sinatra

Kurt Vonnegut, “Deadeye Dick,” graffiti scrawled in an airport bathroom

The phrase “dead eye” was an expression used in the nineteenth century to denote an expert marksman, a sure shot. A series of dime novels featured a character named “Deadeye Dick,” and the Gilbert and Sullivan production HMS Pinafore (1878) featured a character called Dick Deadeye. In gay culture “dead eye” was slang for anus, and “Deadeye Dick” became a derogatory term for a sodomite. During the 1990s a Louisiana alternative trio took its name, Deadeye Dick, from the Kurt Vonnegut novel of that name. Its single “New Age Girl” became a hit after it appeared on the soundtrack of “Dumb and Dumber.” The main character in Vonnegut’s satire, Rudolph Waltz, got the nickname from the residents of his fictitious hometown, Midland City, Ohio, after firing a rifle from a roof top whose bullet mistakenly struck a pregnant woman miles away, Eloise Metzger, right between the eyes and killed her instantly.

In “Deadeye Dick” Vonnegut employs colorful, descriptive words I wouldn’t think to use, like rapscallion (a mischievous person), swain (a suitor), flippery (showy, frivolous) and blathered on (talked incessantly about little of consequence). In the intro he wrote: “I will explain the main symbols of this book: There is an unappreciated, empty arts building in the shape of a sphere. This is my head as my sixtieth birthday approaches. The neutered pharmacist who tells the tale is my declining sexuality. The crime he committed in childhood is all the bad things I have done.” Several characters in “Deadeye Dick” are ruined due to prescription drugs; Vonnegut concluded: “The late twentieth century will go down in history, I’m sure, as an era of pharmaceutical buffoonery”

Last Saturday I referenced “Deadeye Dick” after Larry Galler spoke about a James Thurber book, mentioning that Vonnegut admired Thurber’s wit and wisdom. In “Deadeye Dick” Rudolph Waltz became a pharmacist but penned a play called “Katmandu” about a hometown hero who sought enlightenment and disappeared in Asia on the way to the land of Shangri La. Vonnegut wrote:

I [Rudolph Waltz] was permitted a certain number of electives when I enrolled as a pharmacy major at Ohio State. And, with nobody watching, so to speak, I took a course in playwriting in my sophomore year. I had by then heard of James Thurber, who had grown up right there in Columbus, and then gone to New York City to write comically about the same sorts of people I had known in Midland City. And his biggest hit had been a play, The Male Animal.

“Katmandu” opens and closes on Broadway in one night, a complete and utter flop.

I’ve been emailing back and forth with a high school classmate about characters from our teen years. Here’s a couple stories I recalled about a guy nicknamed Buck: Once at a party Buck entered a bathroom with his date and told several people to guard the door to see that nobody interrupted him. I’m sure now that what went on inside was less scandalous than our teenage minds imagined. On the first day of class in tenth grade a new math teacher, Mr. Summerville (a big strong former wrestler), was taking the roll by asking students their names. After the first person answered “Vince Curll,” Buck answered “Vince Curll,” and then a third guy said “Vince Curll.” And so on. Summerville was so flustered he just went on without taking the culprits to task and within a week had lost control of the class; he was gone within a month. At the time we all thought it was hilarious, but in retrospect I find it very sad. Of course, if the guy was not cut out to be a teacher, maybe it was good he immediately found that out.