John Toole - A Confederacy of Dunces

A man wearing a silk suit and a homburg came out of the shadow of an adjoining doorway for a moment to see whether the girls had gone. Then the man slipped back into the darkness, watching Ignatius, who was waddling back and forth before the building furiously.

Ignatius’s valve responded to his emotions by plopping closed. His hands sympathized by sprouting a rich growth of tiny white bumps that itched maddeningly. What could he tell Myrna about the movement for peace now? Now, like the abortive Crusade for Moorish Dignity, he had another debacle on his itching hands. Fortuna, that vicious slut. The evening had hardly begun; he couldn’t return to Constantinople Street and a variety of assaults from his mother, not now that his emotions had been stimulated toward a climax that had been snatched from his grasp. For almost a week he had been preoccupied with the kickoff rally, and now, ejected from the political arena by three dubious girls, he stood frustrated and furious on the damp flagstones of St. Peter Street.

Looking at his Mickey Mouse wristwatch which was, as usual, moribund, he wondered what time it was. Perhaps it was still early enough to see the first show at the Night of Joy. Perhaps Miss O’Hara had opened. If he and Myrna were not destined to joust on the field of political action, then it would have to be the field of sex. What a lance Miss O’Hara could be to hurl right between Myrna’s offensive eyes. Ignatius looked at the photograph once more, salivating slightly. What kind of pet? The evening could still be wrenched from the jaws of failure.

Scratching one paw with the other, he decided that safety at least dictated his moving along. Those three savage girls might make good their threat. He billowed off down St. Peter toward Bourbon. The man in the silk suit and homburg came out of the shadow of the doorway and followed him. At Bourbon, Ignatius turned and began walking up toward Canal through the night’s parade of tourists and Quarterites, among whom he did not look particularly strange. He shoved through the crowd on the narrow sidewalk, his hips swinging each way free and slamming people aside. When Myrna read of Miss O’Hara, she would spew espresso all over the letter in consternation.

As he crossed onto the Night of Joy’s block, he heard the doped Negro calling, “Whoa! Come in, see Miss Harla O’Horror dancin with her pet. Guarantee one hunner percent real plantation dancin. Ever motherfuckin drink got a guarantee knockout drop. Whoa! Everybody guarantee to catch them some clap off they glass. Hey! Nobody never see nothin like Miss Harla O’Horror Old South pet dancin. Opening night tonight, maybe this be your one and only chance to catch this act. Ooo-wee.”

Ignatius saw him through the crowd that was hurrying past the Night of Joy. Apparently no one was heeding the barker’s plea. The barker himself had paused in his calling to emit a nimbus formation of smoke. He was wearing tails and a stovepipe hat that rested at an angle above his dark glasses, smiling through the smoke at the people who resisted his appeals.

“Hey! All you peoples draggin along here. Stop and come stick your ass on a Night of Joy stool,” he started again. “Night of Joy got genuine color peoples workin below the minimal wage. Whoa! Guarantee plantation atmosphere, got cotton growin right on the stage right in front your eyeball, got a civil right worker gettin his ass beat up between show. Hey!”

“Is Miss O’Hara on yet?” Ignatius slobbered at the barker’s elbow.

“Oo-wee!” The fat mother had arrived. In person. “Hey, man, how come you still warin that earrin and scarve? What you suppose to be anyway?”

“Please.” Ignatius rattled his cutlass a bit. “I haven’t time to chat. I have no success pointers for you tonight, I’m afraid. Has Miss O’Hara begun?”

“She be startin in a few minute. You better get your ass in there and get you a ringside seat. I talk to the head waiter, he say he have a table all reserve for you.”

“Is that true?” Ignatius asked eagerly. “The Nazi proprietress is gone, I hope.”

“She jet away to Califonia this afternoon, say Harla O’Horror so good she gonna go dip her ass in the ocean a while and stop worryin about her club.”

“Wonderful, wonderful.”

“Come on, man, get inside before the show start. Whoa! You don wanna miss one minute. Shit. Harla comin on in a few seconds, go get yourself right down by that motherfuckin stage, see ever goosebump on Miss O’Horror bum.”

Jones propelled Ignatius rapidly through the padded door.

Ignatius stumbled into the Night of Joy with such momentum that his smock swirled around his ankles. Even in the darkness he noticed that the Night of Joy was somewhat dirtier than it had been on his previous visit. There was certainly enough dirt on the floor to permit a very limited cotton crop; but he saw no cotton. That must have been one of the Night of Joy’s vicious come-ons. He looked about for the headwaiter and saw none, so he lumbered through the few old men scattered about at tables in the gloom and seated himself at a small table directly beneath the stage. His cap looked like a solitary green footlight. At this close range he could perhaps make some gesture to Miss O’Hara or whisper something about Boethius that would attract her attention. She would be overwhelmed when she realized that there was a kindred spirit in the audience. Ignatius glanced about at the handful of empty-eyed men seated in the place. Miss O’Hara certainly had to cast her pearls before a dismal lot of swine, who looked like the type of vague, drawn old men who molested children at matinees.

A three-piece band in the wings of the tiny stage was beginning to thump through You Are My Lucky Star. At the moment the stage, which itself looked a bit dirty, was empty of orgiasts. Ignatius looked over at the bar to try to attract some sort of service and caught the eye of the bartender who had served his mother and him. The bartender pretended not to see him. Then Ignatius winked wildly at a woman leaning on the bar, a fortyish Latin who leered a terrifying response with a gold tooth or two. She pried herself loose from the bar before the bartender could stop her and came over to Ignatius, who was huddled against the stage as if it were a warm stove.

“You wanna dreenk, chico?”

Some halitosis filtered through his moustache. He ripped the scarf from his cap and shielded his nostrils with it.

“Thank you, yes,” he said in a muffled voice. “A Dr. Nut, if you please. And be certain that it’s frosty cold.”

“I see what we have,” the woman said enigmatically and clopped back to the bar in her straw sandals.

Ignatius watched her speak to the bartender in pantomime. They made a variety of gestures, most of which were directed at Ignatius. At least, Ignatius thought, he would be safe in this den if the sinewy girls were out prowling the Quarter. The bartender and the woman made some more signs; then she clopped back to Ignatius with two bottles of champagne and two glasses.

“We no have Dr. Nut,” she said and slammed the tray on the table. “Mira, you are owe twenty-four dollar for these champagne.”

“This is an outrage!” He directed a few swipes of the cutlass at the woman. “Bring me a coke.”

“No coke. No nawtheen. Only champagne.” The woman took a seat at the table. “Come on, hawny. Open the champagne. I am very thirsty.”

Again the breath wafted toward Ignatius, who pressed the scarf to his nose so tightly that he felt he would suffocate. He would catch some germ from this woman that would speed to his brain and transform him into a mongoloid. Misused Miss O’Hara. Trapped with subhuman women as co-workers. Of necessity, Miss O’Hara’s Boethian detachment must be rather lofty. The Latin woman dropped the check in Ignatius’s lap.