John Toole - A Confederacy of Dunces

“Wheel? Mr. Mancuso is a good man. You oughta be glad he didn’t take you in!”

“In my private apocalypse he will be impaled upon his own nightstick. Anyway, it is inconceivable that I should get a job. I am very busy with my work at the moment, and I feel that I am entering a very fecund stage. Perhaps the accident jarred and loosened my thought. At any rate, I accomplished a great deal today.”

“We gotta pay that man, Ignatius. You wanna see me in jail? Wouldn’t you be ashamed with your poor momma behind bars?”

“Will you please stop talking about imprisonment? You seem to be preoccupied with the thought. Actually, you seem to enjoy thinking about it. Martyrdom is meaningless in our age.” He belched quietly. “I would suggest certain economies around the house. Somehow you will soon see that you have the required amount.”

“I spend all the money on you for food and whatnots.”

“I have found several empty wine bottles about lately, the contents of which I certainly did not consume.”

“Ignatius!”

“I made the mistake of heating the oven the other day before inspecting it properly. When I opened it to put in my frozen pizza, I was almost blinded by a bottle of broiled wine that was preparing to explode. I suggest that you divert some of the monies that you are pouring into the liquor industry.”

“For shame, Ignatius. A few bottles of Gallo muscatel, and you with all them trinkets.”

“Will you please define the meaning of trinkets?” Ignatius snapped.

“All them books. That gramaphone. That trumpet I bought you last month.”

“I consider the trumpet a good investment, although our neighbor, Miss Annie, does not. If she beats on my shutters again, I’ll pour water on her.”

“Tomorrow we looking at the want ads in the paper. You gonna dress up and go find you a job.”

“I am afraid to ask what your idea of ‘dressing up’ is. I will probably be turned into an utter mockery.”

“I’m gonna iron you a nice white shirt and you gonna put on one of your poppa’s nice ties.”

“Do I believe what I am hearing?” Ignatius asked his pillow.

“It’s either that, Ignatius, or I gotta take out a mortgage. You wanna lose the roof over your head?”

“No! You will not mortgage this house.” He pounded a great paw into the mattress. “The whole sense of security which I have been trying to develop would crumble. I will not have any disinterested party controlling my domicile. I couldn’t stand it. Just the thought of it makes my hands break out.”

He extended a paw so that his mother could examine the rash.

“That is out of the question,” he continued. “It would bring all of my latent anxieties to a head, and the result, I fear, would be very ugly indeed. I would not want you to have to spend the remainder of your life caring for a lunatic locked away somewhere in the attic. We shall not mortgage the house. You must have some funds somewhere.”

“I got a hundred fifty in the Hibernia Bank.”

“My God, is that all? I hardly thought that we were existing so precariously. However, it is fortunate that you have kept this from me. Had I known how close we were to total penury, my nerves would have given out long ago.” Ignatius scratched his paws. “I must admit, though, that the alternative for me is rather grim. I doubt very seriously whether anyone will hire me.”

“What do you mean, babe? You a fine boy with a good education.”

“Employers sense in me a denial of their values.” He rolled over onto his back. “They fear me. I suspect that they can see that I am forced to function in a century which I loathe. That was true even when I worked for the New Orleans Public Library.”

“But, Ignatius, that was the only time you worked since you got out of college, and you was only there for two weeks.”

“That is exactly what I mean,” Ignatius replied, aiming a paper ball at the bowl of the milk glass chandelier.

“All you did was paste them little slips in the books.”

“Yes, but I had my own esthetic about pasting those slips. On some days I could only paste in three or four slips and at the same time feel satisfied with the quality of my work. The library authorities resented my integrity about the whole thing. They only wanted another animal who could slop glue on their best sellers.”

“You think maybe you could get a job there again?”

“I seriously doubt it. At the time I said some rather cutting things to the woman in charge of the processing department. They even revoked my borrower’s card. You must realize the fear and hatred which my weltanschauung instills in people.” Ignatius belched. “I won’t mention that misguided trip to Baton Rouge. That incident, I believe, caused me to form a mental block against working.”

“They was nice to you at college, Ignatius. Now tell the truth. They let you hang around there a long time. They even let you teach a class.”

“Oh, it was basically the same. Some poor white from Mississippi told the dean that I was a propagandist for the Pope, which was patently untrue. I do not support the current Pope. He does not at all fit my concept of a good, authoritarian Pope. Actually, I am opposed to the relativism of modern Catholicism quite violently. However, the boldness of this ignorant lily-white redneck fundamentalist led my other students to form a committee to demand that I grade and return their accumulated essays and examinations. There was even a small demonstration outside the window of my office. It was rather dramatic. For being such simple, ignorant children, they managed it quite well. At the height of the demonstration I dumped all of the old papers—ungraded, of course—out of the window and right onto the students’ heads. The college was too small to accept this act of defiance against the abyss of contemporary academia.”

“Ignatius! You never told me that.”

“I did not want to excite you at the time. I also told the students that, for the sake of humanity’s future, I hoped that they were all sterile.” Ignatius arranged the pillows about his head. “I could never have possibly read over the illiteracies and misconceptions burbling from the dark minds of those students. It will be the same wherever I work.”

“You can get you a good job. Wait till they see a boy with a master’s degree.”

Ignatius sighed heavily and said, “I see no alternative.” He twisted his face into a mask of suffering. There was no use fighting Fortuna until the cycle was over. “You realize, of course, that this is all your fault. The progress of my work will be greatly delayed. I suggest that you go to your confessor and make some penance, Mother. Promise him that you will avoid the path of sin and drinking in the future. Tell him what the consequence of your moral failure has been. Let him know that you have delayed the completion of a monumental indictment against our society. Perhaps he will comprehend the magnitude of your failing. If he is my type of priest, the penance will no doubt be rather strict. However, I have learned to expect little from today’s clergyman.”

“I’m gonna be good, Ignatius. You’ll see.”

“There, there, I shall find some employment, although it will not necessarily be what you would call a good job. I may have some valuable insights which may benefit my employer. Perhaps the experience can give my writing a new dimension. Being actively engaged in the system which I criticize will be an interesting irony in itself.” Ignatius belched loudly. “If only Myrna Minkoff could see how low I’ve fallen.”

“What that girl’s doing now?” Mrs. Reilly asked suspiciously. “I put out good money for you to go to college, and you have to pick up with somebody like that.”