John Toole - A Confederacy of Dunces

Ignatius was surprised to feel a small rock bounce off the back of his head. Angrily, he shoved the wagon along the flagstones until he was near the end of the alley. There he parked the wagon in a little passageway so that it would be out of sight. His feet hurt, and while he was resting he didn’t want anyone to bother him by asking for a hot dog. Even though business couldn’t be worse, there were times when a person had to be true to himself and consider his welfare first. Much more of this vending and his feet would be bloody stumps.

Ignatius squatted uncomfortably on the side steps of the Cathedral. His recently increased weight and the bloating caused by the inoperative valve made any position other than standing or lying down somewhat awkward. Removing his boots, he began to inspect his great slabs of feet.

“Oh, dear,” a voice said above Ignatius. “What am I seeing? I come out to see this dreadful, tacky art exhibit, and what do I find as Exhibit Number One? It’s the ghost of Lafitte, the pirate. No. It’s Fatty Arbuckle. Or is it Marie Dressler? Tell me soon or I’ll die.”

Ignatius looked up and saw the young man who had bought his mother’s hat in the Night of Joy.

“Get away from me, you fop. Where is my mother’s hat?”

“Oh, that,” the young man sighed. “I’m afraid it was destroyed at a really wild gathering. Everyone dearly loved it.”

“I’m sure that they did. I won’t ask you just how it was desecrated.”

“I wouldn’t remember anyway. Too many martinis that night for little moi.”

“Oh, my God.”

“What in God’s name are you doing in that bizarre outfit? You look like Charles Laughton in drag as the Queen of the Gypsies. What are you supposed to be? I really want to know.”

“Move along, you coxcomb,” Ignatius belched, the gassy eructations echoing between the walls of the Alley. The women’s art guild turned its hats toward the source of the volcanic sound. Ignatius glared at the young man’s tawny velvet jacket and mauve cashmere sweater and the wave of blonde hair that fell over the forehead of his sharp, glittering face. “Get away from me before I strike you down.”

“Oh, my goodness,” the young man laughed in short, merry, childish breaths that made his downy jacket quiver. “You really are insane, aren’t you?”

“How dare you!” Ignatius screamed. He unpinned his cutlass and began to strike the young man’s calves with the plastic weapon. The young man giggled and danced about in front of Ignatius to avoid the thrusts, his lithe movements making him a difficult target. Finally he danced across the Alley and waved to Ignatius. Ignatius picked up one of his elephantine desert boots and flung it at the pirouetting figure.

“Oh,” the young man squealed. He caught the shoe and threw it back at Ignatius, whom it hit squarely in the face.

“Oh, my God! I’ve been disfigured.”

“Shut up.”

“I can easily have you booked for assault.”

“If I were you, I’d stay as far away from the police as possible. What do you think they’d say when they saw that outfit, Mary Marvel? And booking me with assault? Let’s be a little realistic. I’m surprised that they’re permitting you to go cruising at all in that fortune-teller’s ensemble.” The young man clicked his lighter open, lit a Salem, and clicked it closed. “And with those bare feet and that toy sword? Are you kidding?”

“The police will believe anything I tell them.”

“Get with it, please.”

“You may be locked away for several years.”

“Oh, you really are on the moon.”

“Well, I certainly don’t have to sit here listening to you,” Ignatius said, putting on his suede boots.

“Oh!” the young man shrieked happily. “That look on your face. Like Bette Davis with indigestion.”

“Don’t talk to me, you degenerate. Go play with your little friends. I am certain that the Quarter is crawling with them.”

“How is that dear mother of yours?”

“I don’t want to hear her sainted name cross your decadent lips.”

“Well, since it already has, is she all right? She’s so sweet and dear, that woman, so unspoiled. You’re very lucky.”

“I will not discuss her with you.”

“If that’s the way you want to be, all right. I just hope that she doesn’t know that you’re flouncing around the streets like some sort of Hungarian Joan of Arc. That earring. It’s so Magyar.”

“If you want a costume like this, then buy one,” Ignatius said. “Let me alone.”

“I know that something like that couldn’t be bought anywhere. Oh, but it would bring the house down at a party.”

“I suspect that the parties you attend must be true visions of the apocalypse. I knew that our society was coming to this. In a few years, you and your friends will probably take over the country.”

“Oh, we’re planning to,” the young man said with a bright smile. “We have connections in the highest places. You’d be surprised.”

“No, I wouldn’t. Hroswitha could have predicted this long ago.”

“Who in the world is that?”

“A sibyl of a medieval nun. She has guided my life.”

“Oh, you’re truly fantastic,” the young man said gleefully. “And although I didn’t think it would be possible, you’ve gained weight. Where will you ever end? There’s something so unbelievably tacky about your obesity.”

Ignatius rose to his feet and stabbed the young man in the chest with his plastic cutlass.

“Take that, you offal,” Ignatius cried, digging the cutlass into the cashmere sweater. The tip of the cutlass broke off and fell to the flagstone walk.

“Oh, dear,” the young man shrieked. “You’ll tear my sweater, you big crazy thing.”

Down the Alley the women’s art guild members were removing their paintings from the fence and folding their aluminum lawn chairs like Arabs in preparation for stealing away. Their annual outdoor exhibit had been ruined.

“I am the avenging sword of taste and decency,” Ignatius was shouting. As he slashed at the sweater with his broken weapon, the ladies began to dash out the Royal Street end of the Alley. A few stragglers were snatching at their magnolias and camellias in panic.

“Why did I ever stop to talk to you, you maniac?” the young man asked in a vicious and breathless whisper. “This is my very finest sweater.”

“Whore!” Ignatius cried, scraping the cutlass across the young man’s chest.

“Oh, isn’t this horrible.”

He tried to run away, but Ignatius had been holding his arm firmly with the hand that was not wielding the cutlass. Slipping a finger through Ignatius’s hoop earring, the young man pulled downward, breathing to Ignatius, “Drop that sword.”

“Good grief.” Ignatius dropped the sword onto the flagstones. “I think that my ear is broken.”

The young man released the earring.

“Now you’ve done it!” Ignatius slobbered. “You will rot in a federal prison for the remainder of your life.”

“Just look at my sweater, you disgusting monster.”

“Only the most flamboyant offal would be seen in a miscarriage like that. You must have some shame or at least some taste in dress.”

“You awful creature. You huge thing.”

“I will probably spend several years at the Eye, Ear, Nose, and Throat Hospital having this attended to,” Ignatius said, fingering his ear. “You may expect to receive some rather staggering medical bills each month. My corps of attorneys will contact you in the morning wherever it is that you carry on your questionable activities. I shall warn them beforehand that they may expect to see and hear anything. They are all brilliant attorneys, pillars of the community, aristocratic Creole scholars whose knowledge of the more surreptitious forms of living is quite limited. They may even refuse to see you. A considerably lesser representative may be sent to call upon you, some junior partner whom they’ve taken in out of pity.”