John Toole - A Confederacy of Dunces

How had Reilly ever sunk so low? He had been eccentric as a student, but now… How much worse the rumors would be if it were discovered that the note had been written by a hot dog vendor. Reilly was the sort who would come to the campus with his wagon and try to sell hot dogs right before the Social Studies Building. He would deliberately turn the affair into a three-ring circus. It would be a disgraceful farce in which he, Talc, would become the clown.

Dr. Talc put down his paper and his glass and covered his face with his hands. He would have to live with that note. He would deny everything.

Miss Annie looked at her morning newspaper and turned red. She had been wondering why it was so quiet over at the Reilly household this morning. Well, this was the last straw. Now the neighborhood was getting a bad name. She couldn’t take it anymore. Those people had to move. She’d get the neighbors to sign a petition.

Patrolman Mancuso looked at the newspaper again. Then he held it to his chest and the flashbulb popped. He had brought his own Brownie Holiday camera to the precinct and asked the sergeant to photograph him against certain official backdrops: the sergeant’s desk, the steps of the precinct, a squad car, a traffic patrolwoman whose specialty was school zone speeders.

When there was only one exposure left, Patrolman Mancuso decided to combine two of the props for a dramatic finale. While the traffic patrolwoman, pretending to be Lana Lee, climbed into the rear of the squad car grimacing and shaking a vengeful fist, Patrolman Mancuso faced the camera with his newspaper and frowned sternly.

“Okay, Angelo, is that all?” the patrolwoman asked, eager to get to a nearby school before the morning speed zone hours ended.

“Thank you very much, Gladys,” Patrolman Mancuso said. “My kids wanted to get some more pictures to show to they little friends.”

“Well, sure,” Gladys called, hurrying out of the precinct yard, her shoulder bag bursting with black speeding tickets. “I guess they got a right to be proud of they poppa. I’m glad I could help you out, honey. Anytime you want to take you some more pictures, just gimme the word.”

The sergeant tossed the last flashbulb into a trash can and clamped his hand on Patrolman Mancuso’s vertical shoulder.

“Single-handed you break up the city’s most active high school pornography racket.” He slapped his hand on the incline of Patrolman Mancuso’s shoulder blade. “Mancuso, of all people, brings in a woman even our best plainclothesmen couldn’t fool. Mancuso, I find out, has been working on this case on the q.t. Mancuso can identify one of her agents. Who’s the person really been going out on his own all the time looking for characters like those three girls and trying to bring them in? Mancuso, that’s who.”

Patrolman Mancuso’s olive skin flushed slightly, except in limited areas scratched by the Peace Party auxiliary. There it was simply red.

“Just luck,” Patrolman Mancuso offered, clearing his throat of some invisible phlegm. “Somebody gimme a lead to the place. Then that Burma Jones told me to look in that cabinet under the bar.”

“You staged a one-man raid, Angelo.”

Angelo? He turned a spectrum of shades between orange and violet.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if you was to get a promotion for this,” the sergeant said. “You been a patrolman a pretty long time. And just a couple days ago I was thinking you was a horse’s ass. How’s about that? What do you say to that, Mancuso?”

Patrolman Mancuso cleared his throat very violently.

“Can I have my camera back?” he asked almost incoherently when his larynx was at last clear.

Santa Battaglia held the newspaper up to her mother’s picture and said, “How you like that, babe? How you like the way your grandson Angelo made good? You like that, darling?” She pointed to another photograph. “How you like poor Irene’s crazy boy laying there in the gutter like a washed-up whale? Ain’t that sad? That girl’s gotta get that boy put away this time. You think any man’s gonna marry Irene with that big bum laying around the house? Of course not.”

Santa snatched at her mother’s picture and gave it a moist smack. “Take it easy, babe. I’m praying for you.”

Claude Robichaux looked at the newspaper with a heavy heart as he rode the streetcar to the hospital. How could that big boy disgrace a fine, sweet woman like Irene? Already she was pale and tired from worrying about her son. Santa was right: that son of Irene’s had to be treated before he brought any more disgrace to his wonderful mother.

This time it was only twenty dollars. Next time it might be much more. Even with a nice pension and some properties, a person couldn’t afford a stepson like that.

But worst of all was the disgrace.

George was pasting the article in the Junior Achievement scrapbook that was one of his mementos from his last semester at school. He pasted it on an empty page between his biology drawing of the aorta of a duck and his civics project on the history of the Constitution. He had to give it to that Mancuso guy: he was really on the ball. George wondered if his name was on that list the cops had found in the cabinet. If it was, it might be a good idea to go visit his uncle who lived on the coast. Even then, they’d have his name. He really didn’t have enough money to go anywhere. The best thing was to stay at home for a while. That Mancuso might spot him if he went downtown.

George’s mother, vacuuming on the other side of the living room, hopefully watched her son work on his school scrapbook. Maybe he was getting interested in school again. She and his father didn’t seem to be able to do anything with him. What chance did a boy without a high school education have nowadays? What could he do?

She turned off the vacuum cleaner and answered the doorbell. George was studying the photographs and wondering what that vendor had been doing at the Night of Joy. He couldn’t have been some kind of police agent. Anyway, George hadn’t told him where the pictures came from. There was something funny about the whole business.

“The police?” George heard his mother asking at the door. “You must have the wrong apartment.”

George started for the kitchen before he realized that there was nowhere to go. The apartments in the housing project had only one door.

Lana Lee tore the newspaper into shreds and then tore the shreds into smaller shreds. When the matron stopped by the cell to tell her to clean it up, the members of the ladies’ auxiliary, all three of whom were sharing the cell, said to the matron, “Beat it. We’re the ones living in this place. We like paper on the floor.”

“Shove off,” Liz added.

“Get lost,” Betty said.

“I’ll take care of this cell all right,” the matron answered. “You four have been making noise ever since you come in last night.”

“Get me out this goddam hole,” Lana Lee screamed at the matron. “I can’t take another minute with these three bats.”

“Hey,” Frieda said to her two apartment mates. “Doll doesn’t like us.”

“It’s people like you been ruining the Quarter,” Lana told Frieda.

“Shut up,” Liz said to her.

“Can it, sweets,” Betty said.

“Get me outta here,” Lana screamed through the bars. “I just been through one fucking hell of a night with these three creeps. I got my rights. You can’t stick me in here.”

The matron smiled at her and walked away.

“Hey!” Lana screamed down the corridor. “Come back here.”

“Take it easy, dearie,” Frieda advised. “Quit rocking the boat. Now come on and show us those pictures of yourself you got hidden in your bra.”