John Toole - A Confederacy of Dunces

“You awful, terrible animal.”

“However, to save you the anxiety of awaiting this phalanx of legal luminaries to arrive at your spider web of an apartment, I shall consent to accepting a settlement now, if you wish. Five or six dollars should suffice.”

“My sweater cost me forty dollars,” the young man said. He felt the worn portion that had been scraped by the cutlass. “Are you prepared to pay for it?”

“Of course not. Never become involved in an altercation with a pauper.”

“I can easily sue you.”

“Perhaps we should both drop the idea of legal recourse. For an event so auspicious as a courtroom trial, you would probably get completely carried away and appear in a tiara and evening gown. An old judge would grow quite confused. Both of us would doubtlessly be found guilty on some trumped up charge.”

“You revolting beast.”

“Why don’t you run along and partake in some dubious recreation that appeals to you,” Ignatius belched. “Look, there’s a sailor drifting along Chartres Street. He looks rather lonely.”

The young man glanced down to the Chartres Street end of the Alley.

“Oh, him,” he said. “That’s only Timmy.”

“Timmy?” Ignatius asked angrily. “Do you know him?”

“Of course,” the young man said in a voice heavy with boredom. “He’s one of my dearest, oldest friends. He’s not a sailor at all.”

“What?” Ignatius thundered. “Do you mean that he is impersonating a member of the armed forces of this country?”

“That’s not all he impersonates.”

“This is extremely serious.” Ignatius frowned and the red sateen scarf rode down on his hunting cap. “Every soldier and sailor that we see could simply be some mad decadent in disguise. My God! We may all be trapped in some horrible conspiracy. I knew that something like this was going to happen. The United States is probably totally defenseless!”

The young man and the sailor waved at each other familiarly, and the sailor drifted out of sight around the front of the Cathedral. Following a few steps behind the sailor, Patrolman Mancuso appeared at the end of Pirate’s Alley wearing a beret and goatee.

“Oh!” the young man shrieked gaily, watching Patrolman Mancuso stalking the sailor. “It’s that marvelous policeman. Don’t they know that everyone in the Quarter knows who he is?”

“Do you know him, too?” Ignatius asked guardedly. “He’s a very dangerous man!”

“Everyone knows him. Thank goodness he’s back again. We were beginning to wonder what had happened to him. We love him dearly. Oh, I simply wait to see what new disguise they put on him. You should have seen him a few weeks ago before he had disappeared, he was just too much in that cowboy outfit.” The young man exploded in wild laughter. “He could hardly walk in these boots, his ankles kept giving way. Once he stopped me on Chartres when I was going truly mad with your mother’s W.P.A. hat. Then he stopped me again on Dumaine and tried to start a conversation. That day he was wearing horn-rimmed glasses and a crew sweater, and he told me that he was a Princeton student down here on a vacation. He’s just fabulous. I’m so glad the police have returned him to the people who truly appreciate him. I’m sure he was being wasted wherever he was recently. Oh, that accent of his. Some people like him best as the British tourist. That is choice. But I’ve always preferred his southern colonel. It’s really a matter of taste, I guess. We’ve had him arrested twice for making indecent proposals. That’s always wonderfully confusing to the police. I do hope that we haven’t gotten him in too much trouble, for he’s close to our hearts.”

“He is thoroughly evil,” Ignatius observed. Then he said, “I wonder how many of our ‘military’ are simply people like your friend, disguised tarts.”

“Who knows? I wish they all were.”

“Of course,” Ignatius said in a thoughtful, serious voice, “this could be a worldwide deception.” The red sateen scarf rode up and down. “The next war could turn out to be one massive orgy. Good grief. How many of the military leaders of the world may simply be deranged old sodomites acting out some fake fantasy role? Actually, this might be quite beneficial to the world. It could mean an end to war forever. This could be the key to lasting peace.”

“It certainly could,” the young man said pleasantly. “Peace at any price.”

Two nerve ends in Ignatius’s mind met and formed an immediate association. Perhaps he had found a means of assaulting the effrontery of M. Minkoff.

“The power-crazed leaders of the world would certainly be surprised to find that their military leaders and troops were only masquerading sodomites who were only too eager to meet the masquerading sodomite armies of other nations in order to have dances and balls and learn some foreign dance steps.”

“Wouldn’t that be wonderful? The government would pay us to travel. How divine. We would bring an end to world strife and renew people’s hope and faith.”

“Perhaps you are the hope for the future,” Ignatius said, dramatically pounding one paw into the other. “There certainly doesn’t seem to be anything else very promising on the horizon.”

“We would also help to end the population explosion.”

“Oh, my God!” The blue and yellow eyes flashed wildly. “Your method would probably be more satisfying and acceptable than the rather stringent birth control tactics which I have always advocated. I must dedicate some space to this in my writings. This subject deserves the attention of a profound thinker who has a certain perspective on the world’s cultural development. I am certainly glad that you have given me this valuable new insight.”

“Oh, what a fun day this has been. You’re a gypsy. Timmy’s a sailor. The marvelous policeman’s an artist.” The young man sighed. “It’s just like Mardi Gras, and I feel so left out. I think I’ll go home and throw something on.”

“Wait just a moment,” Ignatius said. He couldn’t permit this opportunity to slip through his swollen fingers.

“I’ll put on some clogs. I’m in my Ruby Keeler phase,” the young man told Ignatius gaily. Then he began to sing. “‘You go home and get your scanties, I’ll go home and get my panties, and away we’ll go. Oh-ho-ho. Off we’re gonna shuffle, shuffle off to Buffalo-ho-ho…’”

“Stop that offensive performance,” Ignatius ordered angrily. These people must be whipped into line.

The young man did a little soft shoe around Ignatius and said, “Ruby was such a darling. I watch her old movies on television religiously. ‘And for just a silver quarter, we can tip the pullman porter, turn the lights down low, oh-ho-ho, off we’re gonna shuffle, shuffle off to…’”

“Please be serious for a moment. Stop fluttering around here.”

“Moi? Fluttering? What do you want, Gypsy Woman?”

“Have you people considered forming a political party and running a candidate?”

“Politics? Oh, Maid of Orleans. How dreary.”

“This is very important!” Ignatius shouted worriedly. He would show Myrna how to inject sex into politics. “Although I had never considered it before, you may hold the key to the future.”

“Well, what do you want to do about it, Eleanor Roosevelt?”

“You must start a party organization. Plans must be made.”

“Oh, please,” the young man sighed. “All this man’s talk is making my mind reel.”

“We may be able to save the world!” Ignatius bellowed in an orator’s voice. “Good heavens. Why haven’t I thought of this before?”

“This kind of conversation depresses me more than you could possibly imagine,” the young man told him. “You’re beginning to remind me of my father, and what could be more depressing than that?” The young man sighed. “I’m afraid I’ll have to be running along. It’s costume time.”