John Toole - A Confederacy of Dunces

“Aw, that’s okay, honey.”

“Actually, even riding in a car affects me enough. Of course, the worst thing is riding on top in one of those Greyhound Scenicruisers. So high up. Do you remember the time that I went to Baton Rouge in one of those? I vomited several times. The driver had to stop the bus somewhere in the swamps to let me get off and walk around for a while. The other passengers were rather angry. They must have had stomachs of iron to ride in that awful machine. Leaving New Orleans also frightened me considerably. Outside of the city limits the heart of darkness, the true wasteland begins.”

“I remember that, Ignatius,” Mrs. Reilly said absently, drinking her beer in gulps. “You was really sick when you got back home.”

“I felt better then. The worst moment was my arrival in Baton Rouge. I realized that I had a round-trip ticket and would have to return on the bus.”

“You told me that, babe.”

“The taxi back to New Orleans cost me forty dollars, but at least I wasn’t violently ill during the taxi ride, although I felt myself beginning to gag several times. I made the driver go very slowly, which was unfortunate for him. The state police stopped him twice for being below the minimum highway speed limit. On the third time that they stopped him they took away his chauffeur’s license. You see, they had been watching us on the radar all along.”

Mrs. Reilly’s attention wavered between her son and the beer. She had been listening to the story for three years.

“Of course,” Ignatius continued, mistaking his mother’s rapt look for interest, “that was the only time that I had ever been out of New Orleans in my life. I think that perhaps it was the lack of a center of orientation that might have upset me. Speeding along in that bus was like hurtling into the abyss. By the time we had left the swamps and reached those rolling hills near Baton Rouge, I was getting afraid that some rural red-necks might toss bombs at the bus. They love to attack vehicles, which are a symbol of progress, I guess.”

“Well, I’m glad you didn’t take the job,” Mrs. Reilly said automatically, taking guess as her cue.

“I couldn’t possibly take the job. When I saw the chairman of the Medieval Culture Department, my hands began breaking out in small white bumps. He was a totally soulless man. Then he made a comment about my not wearing a tie and made some smirky remark about the lumber jacket. I was appalled that so meaningless a person would dare such effrontery. That lumber jacket was one of the few creature comforts to which I’ve ever been really attached, and if I ever find the lunatic who stole it, I shall report him to the proper authorities.”

Mrs. Reilly saw again the horrible, coffee-stained lumber jacket that she had always secretly wanted to give to the Volunteers of America along with several other pieces of Ignatius’s favorite clothing.

“You see, I was so overwhelmed by the complete grossness of that spurious ‘chairman’ that I ran from his office in the middle of one of his cretinous ramblings and rushed to the nearest bathroom, which turned out to be the one for ‘Faculty Men.’ At any rate, I was seated in one of the booths, having rested the lumber jacket on top of the door of the booth. Suddenly I saw the jacket being whisked over the door. I heard footsteps. Then the door of the restroom closed. At the moment, I was unable to pursue the shameless thief, so I began to scream. Someone entered the bathroom and knocked at the door of the booth. It turned out to be a member of the campus security force, or so he said. Through the door I explained what had just happened. He promised to find the jacket and went away. Actually, as I have mentioned to you before, I have always suspected that he and the ‘chairman’ were the same person. Their voices sounded somewhat similar.”

“You sure can’t trust nobody nowadays, honey.”

“As soon as I could, I fled from the bathroom, eager only to get away from that horrible place. Of course, I was almost frozen standing on that desolate campus trying to hail a taxi. I finally got one that agreed to take me to New Orleans for forty dollars, and the driver was selfless enough to lend me his jacket. By the time we arrived here, however, he was quite depressed about losing his license and had grown rather surly. He also appeared to be developing a bad cold, judging by the frequency of his sneezes. After all, we were on the highway for almost two hours.”

“I think I could drink me another beer, Ignatius.”

“Mother! In this forsaken place?”

“Just one, baby. Come on, I want another.”

“We’re probably catching something from these glasses. However, if you’re quite determined about the thing, get me a brandy, will you?”

Mrs. Reilly signaled to the bartender, who came out of the shadows and asked, “Now what happened to you on that bus, bud? I didn’t get the end of the story.”

“Will you kindly tend the bar properly?” Ignatius asked furiously. “It is your duty to silently serve when we call upon you. If we had wished to include you in our conversation, we would have indicated it by now. As a matter of fact, we are discussing rather urgent personal matters.”

“The man’s just trying to be nice, Ignatius. Shame on you.”

“That in itself is a contradiction in terms. No one could possibly be nice in a den like this.”

“We want two more beers.”

“One beer and one brandy,” Ignatius corrected.

“No more clean glasses,” the bartender said.

“Ain’t that a shame,” Mrs. Reilly said. “Well, we can use the ones we got.”

The bartender shrugged and went off into the shadows.

In the precinct the old man sat on a bench with the others, mostly shoplifters, who composed the late afternoon haul. He had neatly arranged along his thigh his Social Security card, his membership card in the St. Odo of Cluny Holy Name Society, a Golden Age Club badge, and a slip of paper identifying him as a member of the American Legion. A young black man, eyeless behind spaceage sunglasses, studied the little dossier on the thigh next to his.

“Whoa!” he said, grinning. “Say, you mus belong to everthin.”

The old man rearranged his cards meticulously and said nothing.

“How come they draggin in somebody like you?” The sunglasses blew smoke all over the old man’s cards. “Them po-lice mus be gettin desperate.”

“I’m here in violation of my constitutional rights,” the old man said with sudden anger.

“Well, they not gonna believe that. You better think up somethin else.” A dark hand reached for one of the cards. “Hey, wha this mean, ‘Colder Age’?”

The old man snatched the card and put it back on his thigh.

“Them little card not gonna do you no good. They throw you in jail anyway. They throw everbody in jail.”

“You think so?” the old man asked the cloud of smoke.

“Sure.” A new cloud floated up. “How come you here, man?”

“I don’t know.”

“You don know? Whoa! That crazy. You gotta be here for somethin. Plenty time they pickin up color peoples for nothing, but, mister, you gotta be here for somethin.”

“I really don’t know,” the old man said glumly. “I was just standing in a crowd in front of D. H. Holmes.”

“And you lif somebody wallet.”

“No, I called a policeman a name.”

“Like wha you callin him?”

“Communiss.”

“Cawmniss! Ooo-woo. If I call a po-lice a cawmniss, my ass be in Angola right now for sure. I like to call one of them mother a cawmniss, though. Like this afternoon I standin aroun in Woolsworth and some cat steal a bag of cashew nuts out the ‘Nut House’ star screaming like she been stab. Hey! The nex thing, a flo’walk grabbin me, and then a po-lice mother draggin me off. A man ain got a chance. Whoa!” His lips sucked at the cigarette. “Nobody findin them cashews on me, but that po-lice still draggin me off. I think that flo’walk a cawmniss. Mean motherfucker.”