Kurt Vonnegut died yesterday.

I once had surreal encounter with Kurt Vonnegut.

By about 1972, I was able to arrange my college schedule to get Fridays off. I worked all day at First National City Bank (later called Citibank) as a teller, first in Grand Central Station and then at the 46th and Madison Branch. I would handle half a million dollars a day in cash and checks. Grand Central Station was the busiest banking branch in the world and I saw and learned much.

One day, a man came to cash a check. It was a large royalty check from a New York Publishing house. The name on the check was Kurt Vonnegut. I looked up and there was Kurt, with bushy hair and mustache. I knew him from the back covers of Cat’s Cradle, Sirens of Titan, Slaughter House Five and other books of his that I owned and had read.

My reaction was to ask, in awe, “Are your Kurt Vonnegut?”

He answered “No”, and he handed me his check cashing card. These cards had a signature in ultra-violet ink that I used to confirm the correct signature on the check. I checked the signature on the back of the check and compared it to the signature on the card. They matched.

“Please sign the check again.” I asked, and while he did that, I said. “I liked Cat’s Cradle.”

“I’m not Kurt Vonnegut.” he answered and pushed the check back to me. The signatures matched.

I counted out the money. I remember that he asked for $100 to be in tens and fives. He never smiled or even made eye contact. He didn’t say thank you. He just took the money and left. I thought about making a photocopy of the check, but this was a busy bank with 30 people on line and I never got around to it.

Maybe next time I’ll tell you about the time that I went into a men’s room while Bert Parks was using the urinal. I used the one next to him. Urinal etiquette, though, forbids one from talking to strangers in a men’s room. (to be continued…)