John Toole - A Confederacy of Dunces

“Who told you to butt in?” Frieda demanded of Liz, grabbing her by her cropped hair.

Dorian, stumbling over the chairs, tried to push the girls back to the table, snapping, “Now sit down there and be decent.”

“This party stinks,” Betty said. “Where’s the action?”

“How come you invited us down here if all we’re gonna do is sit here in this frigging kitchen?” Frieda demanded.

“You’ll only start brawling in there. You know it. I thought it would be a neighborly thing to do to ask you down out of courtesy. I don’t want any trouble. This is the nicest party we’ve had in months.”

“Okay,” Frieda growled. “We’ll sit out here like ladies.” The girls punched one another about the arms in agreement. “After all, we’re only paying tenants. Go in there and be nice to that phony cowboy, the one that sounds like Jeanette MacDonald, the one that tried to bitch us on Chartres Street the other day.”

“He’s a very fine and friendly person,” Dorian said. “I’m sure he didn’t see you girls.”

“He saw us all right,” Betty said. “We copped him on the head.”

“I’d like to kick his superior balls in,” Liz said.

“Please,” Ignatius said importantly. “All I see about me is strife. You must close ranks and present a unified front.”

“What’s with him?” Liz asked, opening the beer can she had thrown at Ignatius. A spray of foam shot out and wet Ignatius on his distended Paradise product stomach.

“Well, I’ve had enough of this,” Ignatius said angrily.

“Good,” Frieda said. “Shove off.”

“The kitchen is our territory tonight,” Betty said. “We decide who uses it.”

“I certainly am interested in seeing the first sherry party that the auxiliary gives,” Ignatius snorted and lumbered to the door. As he was exiting, an empty beer can struck the door frame near his earring. Dorian followed him out and closed the door. “I can’t imagine how you decided to besmirch the movement by inviting those rowdies here.”

“I had to,” Dorian explained. “If you don’t invite them to a party, they break in anyway. Then they’re even worse. They’re really fun girls when they’re in a good mood, but they had some trouble with the police recently, and they’re taking it out on everyone.”

“They shall be dropped from the movement immediately!”

“Anything you say, Magyara,” Dorian sighed. “I myself feel a little sorry for the girls. They used to live in California, where they had a grand time. Then there was an incident about assaulting a bodybuilder at Muscle Beach. They had been Indian arm wrestling with the boy, or so they say, and then it seems that things got out of hand. They literally had to flee southern California and dash across the desert in that magnificent German automobile of theirs. I have given them sanctuary. In many respects they’re wonderful tenants. They guard my building better than any watchdog could. They have loads of money that they get from some aging movie queen.”

“Really?” Ignatius asked with interest. “Perhaps I was hasty about dropping them. Political movements must get their money from whatever source they can. The girls have, no doubt, a charm which their blue jeans and boots obscure.” He looked over the seething mass of guests. “You must get these people quiet. We must bring them to order. There is crucial business at hand.”

The cowboy, the phony bitch, was tickling an elegant guest with his riding crop. The black leather lout was pinning an ecstatic guest to the floor. Everywhere there were screams, sighs, shrieks. Lena Home was now singing within the phonograph. “Clever,” “Crisp,” “Terribly cosmo,” the group around the phonograph was saying reverently. The cowboy broke away from his aroused fans and began to synchronize his lips to the lyrics on the record, slinking around the floor like a chanteuse in boots and Stetson. With a barrage of squeals, the guests gathered around him, leaving the black leather lout with no one to torture.

“You must stop all of this,” Ignatius shouted to Dorian, who was winking at the cowboy. “Aside from the fact that I am witnessing a most egregious offense against taste and decency, I am also beginning to smother from the stench of glandular emissions and cologne.”

“Oh, don’t be so drab. They’re just having fun.”

“I am very sorry,” Ignatius said in a businesslike tone. “I am here tonight on a mission of the utmost seriousness. There is a girl who must be attended to, a bold and forward minx of a trollop. Now turn off that offensive music and quiet these sodomites. We must get down to brass tacks.”

“I thought you were going to be fun. If you’re just going to be tacky and dreary, then you’d better leave.”

“I shall not leave! No one can deter me. Peace! Peace! Peace!”

“Oh, dear. You are serious about this, aren’t you?”

Ignatius broke away from Dorian and rushed across the room, pushing through the elegant guests, and unplugged the phonograph. As he turned around, he was greeted by the guests’ emasculated version of an Apache war cry.

“Beast.” “Madman.” “Is this what Dorian promised?” “That fantastic Lena.” “The outfit—grotesque. And that earring. Oh, my.” “That was my very favorite song.” “Horrible.” “How unbelievably gross.” “So monstrously huge.” “A bad, bad dream.”

“Silence!” Ignatius bellowed over their enraged babbling. “I am here tonight my friends, to show you how you may save the world and bring peace.”

“He’s truly mad.” “Dorian, what a bad joke.” “Where in the world did he come from?” “Not even vaguely attractive.” “Filthy.” “Depressing.” “Someone turn on that delicious record again.”

“The challenge,” Ignatius’s continued at full volume, “Is placed before you. Will you turn your singular talents to saving the world, or will you simply turn your backs on your fellow man?”

“Oh, how awful!” “Not at all amusing.” “I’ll have to leave if this tacky charade continues.” “In such poor taste.” “Someone turn on that record again. Dear, dear Lena.” “Where is my coat?” “Let’s go to a smart bar.” “Look, I’ve spilled my martini on my most priceless jacket.” “Let’s go to a smart bar.”

“The world today is in a state of grave unrest,” Ignatius screamed against the mewing and hissing. He paused for a moment to glance down in his pocket at some notes he had scribbled on a piece of Big Chief paper. Instead he pulled out the torn and dogeared photograph of Miss O’Hara. Several guests saw it and shrieked. “We must prevent the apocalypse. We must fight fire with fire. Therefore, I turn to you.”

“Oh, what in heaven’s name is he talking about?” “This is making me so depressed.” “Those eyes, they’re frightening.” “Let’s go to a smart bar.” “Let’s go to San Francisco.”

“Silence, you perverts!” Ignatius cried. “Listen to me.”

“Dorian,” the cowboy pleaded in a lyric soprano. “Make him keep quiet. We were having such fun, such a grand, gay time. Oh, he’s not even amusing.”

“That’s right,” an extremely elegant guest, whose taut face was brown with suntan makeup, said. “He’s truly awful. So depressing.”

“Must we listen to all of this?” another guest asked, waving his cigarette as if it were a magic wand which would make Ignatius disappear. “Is this a trick of some kind, Dorian? You know that we dearly love parties with a motif, but this. I mean, I never even watch the news on television. I’ve been working all day in that shop, and I don’t want to come to a party and have to hear all of this sort of thing. Let him talk later if he really has to. His remarks are in such terrible taste.”