John Toole - A Confederacy of Dunces

“That is only because I would be beaten senseless with a baked wine bottle if I dared stay at home. Opening the door of my home is like intruding into the den of a lioness. My mother is becoming increasingly abusive and vicious.”

“You know, Reilly, I don’t wanna fire you,” Mr. Clyde said in a paternal tone. He had heard the sad tale of vendor Reilly: the drunken mother, the damages that had to be paid, the threat of penury for both son and mother, the mother’s lascivious friends. “I’m gonna fix you up with a new route and give you another chance. I got some merchandising gimmicks maybe help you out.”

“You may send a map of my new route to the mental ward at Charity Hospital. The solicitous nuns and psychiatrists there can help me decipher it between shock treatments.”

“Now shut up.”

“You see that? You’ve destroyed my initiative already,” Ignatius belched. “Well, I do hope that you have selected a scenic route, preferably something in a park area where there are ample seating accommodations for sufferers from tired, stunned feet. When I rose this morning, my ankles gave way. Fortunately I grabbed for the bedpost in time. Otherwise, I would have landed on the floor in a broken heap. My tarsi are apparently about to throw in the towel completely.”

Ignatius limped around Mr. Clyde to illustrate, his desert boots scuffing along the oily cement.

“Stop that, you big slob. You ain’t crippled.”

“Not completely as of yet. However, various small bones and ligaments are beginning to wave a white flag of surrender. My physical apparati seem to be preparing to announce a truce of some sort. My digestive system has almost ceased functioning altogether. Some tissue has perhaps grown over my pyloric valve, sealing it forever.”

“I’m gonna put you down in the French Quarter.”

“What?” Ignatius thundered. “Do you think that I am going to perambulate about in that sinkhole of vice? No, I am afraid that the Quarter is out of the question. My psyche would crumble in that atmosphere. Besides, the streets are very narrow and dangerous there. I could easily be struck down in traffic or be wedged against a building.”

“Take it or leave it, you fat bastard. That’s the last chance you get.” Mr. Clyde’s scar was beginning to whiten again.

“It is? Well, please don’t have another seizure. You may tumble into that vat of franks and scald yourself. If you insist, I imagine that I shall have to trundle my franks down into Sodom and Gomorrah.”

“Okay. Then it’s settled. You come in tomorrow morning, we’ll fix you up with some gimmicks.”

“I can’t promise you that many hot dogs will be sold in the Quarter. I will probably be kept busy every moment protecting my honor against those fiends who live down there.”

“You get mostly the tourist trade in the Quarter.”

“That’s even worse. Only degenerates go touring. Personally, I have been out of the city only once. By the way, have I ever told you about that particular pilgrimage to Baton Rouge? Outside the city limits there are many horrors.”

“No. I don’t wanna hear about it.”

“Well, too bad for you. You might have gained some valuable insights from the traumatic tale of that trip. However, I am glad that you do not want to hear of it. The psychological and symbolic subtleties of the journey probably wouldn’t be comprehended by a Paradise Vendors mentality. Fortunately, I’ve written it all down, and at some time in the future, the more alert among the reading public will benefit from my account of that abysmal sojourn into the swamps to the inner station of the ultimate horror.”

“Now listen here, Reilly.”

“In the account I struck upon an especially suitable simile in comparing the Scenicruiser bus to a loop-the-loop in a surrealistic amusement park.”

“Now shut up!” Mr. Clyde screamed, waving his fork menacingly. “Let’s go over your receipts for today. How much did you sell?”

“O, my God,” Ignatius sighed. “I knew that we’d get to that sooner or later.”

The two haggled over the profits for several minutes. Ignatius had actually spent the morning sitting at Eads Plaza watching the harbor traffic and jotting some notes about the history of shipping and Marco Polo in a Big Chief tablet. Between notes, he had contemplated means of destroying Myrna Minkoff but had reached no satisfactory conclusion. His most promising scheme had involved getting a book on munitions from the library, constructing a bomb, and mailing it in plain paper to Myrna. Then he remembered that his library card had been revoked. The afternoon had been wasted on the cat; Ignatius had tried to trap the cat in the bun compartment and take it home for a pet. But it had escaped.

“It seems to me that you would be generous enough to give some sort of discount to your own employees,” Ignatius said importantly after an audit of the day’s receipts showed that, upon subtracting the cost of the hot dogs he had eaten, his take-home pay for the day was exactly a dollar and twenty-five cents. “After all, I am becoming your best customer.”

Mr. Clyde stuck the fork in Vendor Reilly’s muffler and ordered him out of the garage, threatening him with dismissal if he didn’t show up early to begin working the French Quarter.

Ignatius flapped off to the trolley in a dark mood and rode uptown belching Paradise gas so violently that, although the car was crowded, no one would sit next to him.

When he walked into the kitchen, his mother greeted him by falling to her knees and saying, “Lord, tell me how come you sent me this terrible cross to bear? What I done, Lord? Tell me. Send me a sign. I been good.”

“Stop that blasphemy this moment,” Ignatius screamed. Mrs. Reilly was questioning the ceiling with her eyes, seeking an answer among the grease and cracks. “What a greeting I receive after a discouraging day battling for my very existence on the streets of this savage town.”

“What’s them bo-bos on your hand?”

Ignatius looked at the scratches he had received in trying to persuade the cat to remain in the bun compartment.

“I had a rather apocalyptic battle with a starving prostitute,” Ignatius belched. “Had it not been for my superior brawn, she would have sacked my wagon. Finally she limped away from the fray, her glad rags askew.”

“Ignatius!” Mrs. Reilly cried tragically. “Every day it seems you getting worst and worst. What’s happening to you?”

“Get your bottle out of the oven. It must be done by now.”

Mrs. Reilly looked at her son slyly and asked, “Ignatius, you sure you not a communiss?”

“Oh, my God!” Ignatius bellowed. “Every day I am subjected to a McCarthyite witchhunt in this crumbling building. No! I told you before. I am not a fellow traveler. What in the world has put that into your head?”

“I read someplace in the paper where they got plenty communiss at college.”

“Well, fortunately I didn’t meet them. Had they crossed my path, they would have been beaten to within an inch of their lives. Do you think that I want to live in a communal society with people like that Battaglia acquaintance of yours, sweeping streets and breaking up rocks or whatever it is people are always doing in those blighted countries? What I want is a good, strong monarchy with a tasteful and decent king who has some knowledge of theology and geometry and to cultivate a Rich Inner Life.”

“A king? You want a king?”

“Oh, stop babbling at me.”

“I never heard of nobody wanted a king.”

“Please!” Ignatius pounded a paw into the oilcloth on the kitchen table. “Sweep the porch, visit Miss Annie, call the Battaglia bawd, practice with your bowling ball out in the alley. Let me alone! I am in a very bad cycle.”