John Toole - A Confederacy of Dunces

“The party is secret at the moment, I’m afraid.”

“What kinda political party’s a secret?” Mrs. Reilly asked suspiciously “Are you gonna talk with a buncha communiss?”

“Ho hum”

“Somebody gimme some pamphlets on the communiss, boy. I been reading all about the communiss. Don’t try to fool me, Ignatius.”

“Yes, I saw one of those pamphlets in the hall this afternoon. You either dropped it there on purpose so that I could benefit from its message or you tossed it there accidentally during your regular afternoon wine orgy in the belief that it was a particularly elephantine bit of confetti. I imagine that your eyes have some trouble focusing at about two in the afternoon. Well, I read through the pamphlet. It’s almost completely illiterate. Goodness knows where you get such garbage. Probably from the old woman who sells pralines at the cemetery. Well, I am not a communist, so let me alone.”

“Ignatius, don’t you think maybe you’d be happy if you went and took you a little rest at Charity?”

“Are you referring to the psychiatric ward by any chance?” Ignatius demanded in a rage. “Do you think that I am insane? Do you suppose that some stupid psychiatrist could even attempt to fathom the workings of my psyche?”

“You could just rest, honey. You could write some stuff in your little copybooks.”

“They would try to make me into a moron who liked television and new cars and frozen food. Don’t you understand? Psychiatry is worse than communism. I refuse to be brainwashed. I won’t be a robot!”

“But, Ignatius, they help out a lot of people got problems.”

“Do you think that I have a problem?” Ignatius bellowed. “The only problem that those people have anyway is that they don’t like new cars and hair sprays. That’s why they are put away. They make the other members of the society fearful. Every asylum in this nation is filled with poor souls who simply cannot stand lanolin, cellophane, plastic, television, and subdivisions.”

“Ignatius, that ain’t true. You remember old Mr. Becnel used to live down the block? They locked him up because he was running down the street naked.”

“Of course he was running down the street naked. His skin could not bear any more of that dacron and nylon clothing that was clogging his pores. I’ve always considered Mr. Becnel one of the martyrs of our age. The poor man was badly victimized. Now run along to the front door and see if my taxi has arrived.”

“Where you getting money for a taxi?”

“I keep a few pennies stuffed in my mattress,” Ignatius answered. He had blackmailed another ten dollars out of the urchin, also forcing the waif to watch the wagon while he spent the afternoon at Loew’s State watching a film about drag-racing teenagers. The guttersnipe was definitely a discovery, a gift sent by Fortuna to make amends for all of her bad spins. “Go peek through the shutters.”

The door creaked open and Ignatius appeared in his pirate finery.

“Ignatius!”

“I thought that you might react like that. Therefore I have kept all of this paraphernalia stashed at Paradise Vendors, Incorporated.”

“Angelo was right,” Mrs. Reilly cried. “You been out on the streets dressed up like a Mardi Gras all this time.”

“A scarf here. A cutlass there. One or two deft and tasteful suggestions. That’s all. The total effect is rather fetching.”

“You can’t go out like that,” Mrs. Reilly hollered.

“Please. Not another hysterical scene. You’ll dislodge all of the thoughts which are developing in my mind in connection with the lecture.”

“Get back in that room, boy.” Mrs. Reilly began beating Ignatius on the arms. “Get back in there, Ignatius. I ain’t fooling this time, boy. You can’t disgrace me like that.”

“Good heavens! Mother, stop that. I’ll be in no condition for my speech.”

“What kinda speech you gonna make? Where you going to, Ignatius? Tell me, boy?” Mrs. Reilly slapped her son flatly in the face. “You ain’t leaving this house, crazy.”

“Oh, my God, are you going mad? Get away from me this instant. I hope that you’ve noticed that scimitar dangling from my uniform.”

A slap struck Ignatius in the nose: another landed on his right eye. He waddled down the hall, pushed the long shutters open, and ran out into the yard.

“Come back in this house,” Mrs. Reilly screamed from the front door. “You ain’t going nowhere, Ignatius.”

“I dare you to come out in that shredded nightgown and get me!” Ignatius answered defiantly and stuck out his massive pink tongue.

“Get back in here, Ignatius.”

“Hey, knock it off, you two,” Miss Annie shouted from behind her front shutters. “My nerves is shot to hell.”

“Take a look at Ignatius,” Mrs. Reilly called to her. “Ain’t that awful?”

Ignatius was waving to his mother from the brick sidewalk, his earring catching the rays of the streetlight.

“Ignatius, come in here like a good boy,” Mrs. Reilly pleaded.

“I awready got me a headache from the goddam postman’s whistle,” Miss Annie threatened loudly. “I’m gonna ring up the cops in about one minute.”

“Ignatius,” shouted Mrs. Reilly, but it was too late. A taxi was cruising down the block. Ignatius flagged it down just as his mother, forgetting the disgrace of the shredded nightgown, ran down to the curb. Ignatius slammed the rear door right in his mother’s maroon hair and barked an address at the driver. He stabbed at his mother’s hands with the cutlass and ordered the driver to move along immediately. The taxi sped off, churning up some pebbles in the gutter that stung Mrs. Reilly’s legs through the torn rayon gown. She watched the red taillights for a moment, then she ran back into the house to telephone Santa.

“Going to a costume party, pal?” the driver asked Ignatius as they turned onto St. Charles Avenue.

“Watch where you’re going and speak when you’re spoken to,” Ignatius thundered.

During the ride the driver said nothing else, but Ignatius practiced his speech loudly in the back seat, rapping his cutlass against the front seat to emphasize certain key points.

At St. Peter Street he got out and first heard the noise, dim yet frenetic singing and laughing coming from the three-story stucco building. Some prosperous Frenchman had built the house in the late 1700s to house a menage of wife, children, and spinster tantes. The tantes had been stored up in the attic along with the other excess and unattractive furniture, and from the two little dormer windows in the roof they had seen what little of the world they believed existed outside of their own monde of slanderous gossip, needlework, and cyclical recitations of the rosary. But the hand of the professional decorator had exorcised whatever ghosts of the French bourgeoisie might still haunt the thick brick walls of the building. The exterior was painted a bright canary yellow; the gas jets in the reproduction brass lanterns mounted on either side of the carriageway flickered softly, their amber flames rippling in reflection on the black enamel of the gate and shutters. On the flagstone paving beneath both lanterns there were old plantation pots in which Spanish daggers grew and extended their sharply pointed stilettos.

Ignatius stood before the building regarding it with extreme distaste. His blue and yellow eyes denounced the resplendent façade. His nose rebelled against the very noticeable odor of fresh enamel. His ears shrank from the bedlam of singing, cackling, and giggling that was going on behind the closed black patent leather shutters.

Testily clearing his throat, he looked at the three brass doorbells and at the little white cards above each: