John Toole - A Confederacy of Dunces

“So inappropriate,” the black leather lout sighed, turning suddenly fey.

“All right,” Dorian said. “Turn on the record. I thought it might be fun.” He looked at Ignatius, who was snorting loudly. “I’m afraid, my dears, that it turned out to be a terrible, terrible bomb.”

“Wonderful.” “Dorian’s magnificent.” “There’s the plug.” “I love Lena.” “I truly think that this is her very best recording.” “So smart. Those special lyrics.” “I saw her in New York once. Magnificent.” “Play Gypsy next. I adore Ethel.” “Oh, good, it’s coming on.”

There Ignatius stood like the boy on the burning deck. The music rose from the tabernacle once again. Dorian fled to speak with a group of his guests, actively ignoring Ignatius, as was everyone else in the room. Ignatius felt as alone as he had felt on that dark day in high school when in a chemistry laboratory his experiment had exploded, burning his eyebrows off and frightening him. The shock and terror had made him wet his pants, and no one in the laboratory would notice him, not even the instructor, who hated him sincerely for similar explosions in the past. For the remainder of that day, as he walked soggily around the school, everyone had pretended that he was invisible. Ignatius, feeling just as invisible standing there in Dorian’s living room, began feinting at some imaginary opponent with his cutlass to relieve his self-consciousness.

Many were now singing with the record. Two began dancing near the phonograph. The dancing spread like a forest fire, and soon the floor was filled with couples who swayed and dipped around the Gibraltar of a wallflower, Ignatius. As Dorian swept past in the arms of the cowboy, Ignatius tried futilely to attract his attention. He attempted even to stick the cowboy with his cutlass, but the two were a wily and elusive dance team. Just as he was about to evanesce completely, Frieda, Liz, and Betty burst in from the kitchen.

“We couldn’t take that kitchen anymore,” Frieda said to Ignatius. “After all, we’re human beings, too.” She gave Ignatius a light punch to the stomach. “Looks like you’re left out, Fats.”

“Just what do you mean?” Ignatius asked haughtily.

“Looks like your costume’s not going over too well,” Liz observed.

“Pardon me, ladies. I must leave.”

“Hey, don’t go, Tubby,” Betty said. “Somebody’ll ask you. They’re just trying to bitch you. Don’t give up the ship. They’d bitch their own mother.”

At that moment, Timmy, who had slipped out to the slave quarters again to look for his missing charm bracelet and, he hoped, more games with the chains, appeared in the living room. He wandered over to Ignatius and asked wistfully, “Do you want to dance?”

“There. You see?” Frieda said to Ignatius.

“I want to see this,” Liz shouted. “Let’s see you two do the limbo. Come on. I’ll get a broom we can use for the pole.”

“Oh, my God!” Ignatius said. “Please. I don’t dance.”

“Oh, come on,” Timmy said. “I can teach you. I love to dance. I’ll lead.”

“Go ahead, bigass,” Betty threatened.

“No. It would be impossible. The cutlass, the smock. Someone would be injured. I came here to speak, not dance. I don’t dance. I never dance. I have never danced in my life.”

“Well, you’re going to dance now,” Frieda told him. “You don’t want to hurt this sailor’s feelings.”

“I am not dancing!” Ignatius barked. “I have never danced, and I certainly am not going to begin with some drunken deviate.”

“Oh, don’t be so straight,” Timmy sighed.

“I have always had a rather substandard sense of balance,” Ignatius explained. “We will plunge to the floor in a broken heap. This deranged mariner will be crippled or worse.”

“Tubby looks like a troublemaker,” Frieda said to her friends. “Right?”

With a wink from Frieda, the three girls attacked Ignatius. One wrapped a square leg around his; the other kicked him in the back of the knee; the third pushed him backward onto the cowboy, who was whirling in the vicinity. Ignatius steadied himself by grabbing the cowboy, who broke from Dorian’s horrified grasp and toppled to the floor. As the cowboy landed, the needle jumped from the record and the music stopped. But in its place there began a chorus of shrieking and screaming from the guests.

“Oh, Dorian, get him out!” an elegant shrieked in panic.

There was a metallic crash of rings, bracelets, and cuff links as some of the guests pressed together in a corner.

“Hey, you knocked that bitch of a cowboy over like a tenpin,” Frieda screamed admiringly at Ignatius, who was still flailing his arms to regain his balance.

“Nice work, Fats,” Liz said.

“Let’s aim him at somebody else,” Betty said to her companions.

“What have you done, you huge beastly thing?” Dorian cried at Ignatius.

“This is an outrage,” Ignatius was shouting. “I have not only been ignored and vilified at this gathering. I have been viciously attacked within the walls of your cobweb of a home. I hope that you carry liability insurance. If not, you may well lose this flamboyant property once my legal advisors have attended to you.”

Dorian was down on his knees, fanning the cowboy, whose lids were beginning to flutter.

“Make him leave, Dorian,” the cowboy sobbed. “He almost killed me.”

“I had thought you might be different and funny,” Dorian hissed at Ignatius. “As it is, you have proved to be the most awful thing that has ever been in my house. From the moment that you broke the door, I should have realized that it would end like this. What did you do to this dear boy?”

“My trousers are filthy,” the cowboy shrieked.

“I was savagely attacked and pushed onto that coxcomb cowpoke.”

“Don’t try to lie, Fats,” Frieda said. “We saw the whole thing. He was jealous, Dorian. He wanted to dance with you.”

“Awful.” “Make him go.” “Ruining the party.” “So monstrous.” “Dangerous.” “Total loss.”

“Get out!” Dorian cried.

“We’ll handle him,” Frieda said.

“All right,” Ignatius said grandly as the three girls sank their stubby hands into his smock and started propelling him toward the door. “You have made your choice. Live in a world of war and bloodshed. When the bomb drops, do not come to me. I shall be in my shelter!”

“Can it,” Betty said.

The three girls hustled Ignatius through the door and down the carriageway.

“Thank Fortuna I’m dissociating myself from this movement,” Ignatius thundered. The girls had knocked the scarf down over one eye and he was having trouble seeing where he was going. “You distempered people hardly have voter appeal.”

They pushed him through the gate and onto the sidewalk. The Spanish dagger plants at the gate pricked his calves painfully and he stumbled forward.

“Okay, buster,” Frieda called through the gate as she closed it. “We’re giving you a ten minutes headstart. Then we start combing the Quarter.”

“We better not find your fat ass,” Liz said.

“Shove off, Tubby,” Betty added. “We haven’t had a good fight in a long time. We’re ready for one.”

“Your movement is doomed,” Ignatius slobbered after the girls, who were pushing one another down the carriageway. “Do you hear me? D-o-o-m-e-d. You know nothing about politics and voter persuasion. You will not carry a single ward in the nation. You won’t even carry the Quarter!”

The door slammed and the girls were back in the party, which seemed to have regained its momentum. The music had started again, and Ignatius heard the squealing and shrieking growing louder than before. He knocked on the black shutters with his cutlass, screaming, “You will lose!” The tap and slide of many dancing feet answered his cry.