A Confederacy of Dunces (3 page)

Mrs. Reilly saw again the horrible, coffee-stained lumber jacket that she had always secretly wanted to give to the Volunteers of America along with several other pieces of Ignatius's favorite clothing.

"You see, I was so overwhelmed by the complete grossness of that spurious 'chairman' that I ran from his office in the middle of one of his cretinous ramblings and rushed to the nearest bathroom, which turned out to be the one for 'Faculty Men.' At any rate, I was seated in one of the booths, having rested the lumber jacket on top of the door of the booth. Suddenly I saw the jacket being whisked over the door. I heard footsteps. Then the door of the restroom closed. At the moment, I was unable to pursue the shameless thief, so I began to scream. Someone entered the bathroom and knocked at the door of the booth. It turned out to be a member of the campus security force, or so he said. Through the door I explained what had just happened.

He promised to find the jacket and went away. Actually, as I have mentioned to you before, I have always suspected that he and the 'chairman' were the same person. Their voices sounded somewhat similar."

"You sure can't trust nobody nowadays, honey."

"As soon as I could, I fled from the bathroom, eager only to get away from that horrible place. Of course, I was almost frozen standing on that desolate campus trying to hail a taxi. I finally got one that agreed to take me to New Orleans for forty dollars, and the driver was selfless enough to lend me his jacket. By the time we arrived here, however, he was quite depressed about losing his license and had grown rather surly.

He also appeared to be developing a bad cold, judging by the frequency of his sneezes. After all, we were on the highway for almost two hours."

"I think I could drink me another beer, Ignatius."

"Mother! In this forsaken place?"

"Just one, baby. Come on, I want another."

"We're probably catching something from these glasses.

However, if you're quite determined about the thing, get me a brandy, will you?"

Mrs. Reilly signaled to the bartender, who came out of the shadows and asked, "Now what happened to you on that bus, bud? I didn't get the end of the story."

"Will you kindly tend the bar properly? Ignatius asked furiously. "It is your duty to silently serve when we call upon you. If we had wished to include you in our conversation, we would have indicated it by now. As a matter of fact, we are discussing rather urgent personal matters."

"The man's just trying to be nice, Ignatius. Shame on you."

"That in itself is a contradiction in terms. No one could possibly be nice in a den like this."

"We want two more beers."

"One beer and one brandy," Ignatius corrected.

"No more clean glasses," the bartender said.

"Ain't that a shame," Mrs. Reilly said. "Well, we can use the ones we got."

The bartender shrugged and went off into the shadows.

In the precinct the old man sat on a bench with the others, mostly shoplifters, who composed the late afternoon haul. He had neatly arranged along his thigh his Social Security card, his membership card in the St. Odo of Cluny Holy Name Society, a Golden Age Club badge, and a slip of paper identifying him as a member of the American Legion. A young black man, eyeless behind space age sunglasses, studied the little dossier on the thigh next to his.

"Whoa!" he said, grinning. "Say, you mus belong to everthin."

The old man rearranged his cards meticulously and said nothing.

"How come they draggin in somebody like you?" The sunglasses blew smoke all over the old man's cards." Them police mus be gettin desperate."

"I'm here in violation of my constitutional rights," the old man said with sudden anger.

"Well, they not gonna believe that. You better think up somethin else." A dark hand reached for one of the cards.

"Hey, wha this mean, 'Colder Age?"

The old man snatched the card and put it back on his thigh.

"Them little card not gonna do you no good. They throw you in jail anyway. They throw everbody in jail."

"You think so?" the old man asked the cloud of smoke.

"Sure." A new cloud floated up. "How come you here, man?"

"I don't know."

"You don know? Whoa! That crazy. You gotta be here for somethin. Plenty time they pickin up color peoples for nothing, but, mister, you gotta be here for somethin."

"I really don't know," the old man said glumly. "I was just standing in a crowd in front of D. H. Holmes."

"And you lif somebody wallet."

"No, I called a policeman a name."

"Like wha you callin him?"

"Communiss."

"Cawmniss! Ooo-woo. If I call a po-lice a cawm-niss, my ass be in Angola right now for sure. I like to call one of them mother a cawmniss, though. Like this afternoon I standin aroun in Woolsworth and some cat steal a bag of cashew nuts out the 'Nut House' star screaming like she been stab. Hey!

The nex thing, a flo'walk grabbin me, and then a po-lice mother draggin me off. A man ain got a chance. Whoa!" His lips sucked at the cigarette. "Nobody findin them cashews on me, but that po-lice still draggin me off. I think that flo'walk a cawmniss. Mean motherfucker."

The old man cleared his throat and played with his cards.

"They probly let you go," the sunglasses said. "Me, they probly gimma a little talk think it scare me, even though they know I ain got them cashews. They probly try to prove I got them nuts. They probly buy a bag, slip it in my pocket.

Woolsworth probly try to send me up for life."

The Negro seemed quite resigned and blew out a new cloud of blue smoke that enveloped him and the old man and the little cards. Then he said to himself, "I wonder who lif them nuts.

Probly that flo'walk hisself."

A policeman summoned the old man up to the desk in the center of the room where a sergeant was seated. The patrolman who had arrested him was standing there.

"What's your name?" the sergeant asked the old man.

"Claude Robichaux," he answered and put his little cards on the desk before the sergeant.

The sergeant looked over the cards and said, "Patrolman Mancuso here says you resisted arrest and called him a communiss."

"I didn't mean it," the old man said sadly, noticing how fiercely the sergeant was handling the little cards.

"Mancuso says you says all policemen are communiss."

"Oo-wee," the Negro said across the room.

"Will you shut up, Jones?" the sergeant called out.

"Okay," Jones answered.

"I'll get to you next."

"Say, I didn call nobody no cawmniss," Jones said. "I been frame by that flo'walk in Woolsworth. I don even like cashews."

"Shut your mouth up."

"Okay," Jones said brightly and blew a great thundercloud of smoke.

"I didn't mean anything I said," Mr. Robichaux told the sergeant. "I just got nervous. I got carried away. This policeman was trying to arress a poor boy waiting for his momma by Holmes."

"What?" the sergeant turned to the wan little policeman.

"What were you trying to do?"

"He wasn't a boy," Mancuso said. "He was a big fat man dressed funny. He looked like a suspicious character. I was just trying to make a routine check and he started to resist. To tell you the truth, he looked like a big pervert."

"A pervert, huh?" the sergeant asked greedily.

"Yes," Mancuso said with new confidence. "A great big pervert."

"How big?"

"The biggest I ever saw in my whole life," Mancuso said, stretching his arms as if he were describing a fishing catch.

The sergeant's eyes shone. "The first thing I spotted was this green hunting cap he was wearing."

Jones listened in attentive detachment somewhere within his cloud.

"Well, what happened, Mancuso? How come he's not standing here before me?"

"He got away. This woman came out the store and got everything mixed up, and she and him run around the corner into the Quarter."

"Oh, two Quarter characters," the sergeant said, suddenly enlightened.

"No, sir," the old man interrupted. "She was really his momma. A nice, pretty lady. I seen them downtown before.

This policeman frightened her."

"Oh, listen, Mancuso," the sergeant screamed. "You're the only guy on the force who'd try to arrest somebody away from his mother. And why did you bring in grampaw here? Ring up his family and tell them to come get him."

"Please," Mr. Robichaux pleaded. "Don't do that. My daughter's busy with her kids. I never been arrested in my whole life. She can't come get me. What are my granchirren gonna think? They're all studying with the sisters."

"Get his daughter's number, Mancuso. That'll teach him to call us communiss!"

"Please!" Mr. Robichaux was in tears. "My granchirren respect me."

"Jesus Christ!" the sergeant said. "Trying to arrest a kid with his momma, bringing in somebody's grampaw. Get the hell outta here, Mancuso, and take grampaw with you. You wanna arrest suspicious characters? We'll fix you up."

"Yes, sir," Mancuso said weakly, leading the weeping old man away.

"Ooo-wee!" Jones said from the secrecy of his cloud.

Twilight was settling around the Night of Joy bar. Outside, Bourbon Street was beginning to light up. Neon signs flashed off and on, reflecting in the streets dampened by the light mist that had been falling steadily for some time. The taxis bringing the evening's first customers, midwestern tourists and conventioneers, made slight splashing sounds in the cold dusk.

A few other customers were in the Night of Joy, a man who ran his finger along a racing form, a depressed blonde who seemed connected with the bar in some capacity, and an elegantly dressed young man who chainsmoked Salems and drank frozen daiquiris in gulps.

"Ignatius, we better go," Mrs. Reilly said and belched.

"What?" Ignatius bellowed. "We must stay to watch the corruption. It's already beginning to set in."

The elegant young man spilled his daiquiri on his bottle-green velvet jacket.

"Hey, bartender," Mrs. Reilly called. "Get a rag. One of the customers just spilled they drink."

"That's quite all right, darling," the young man said angrily. He arched an eyebrow at Ignatius and his mother. "I think I'm in the wrong bar anyway."

"Don't get upset, honey," Mrs. Reilly counseled. "What's that you drinking? It looks like a pineapple snowball."

"Even if I described it to you, I doubt whether you'd understand what it is."

"How dare you talk to my dear, beloved mother like that!"

"Oh, hush, you big thing," the young man snapped. "Just look at my jacket."

"It's totally grotesque."

"Okay, now. Let's be friends," Mrs. Reilly said through foamy lips. "We got enough bombs and things already."

"And your son seems to delight in dropping them, I must say."

"Okay, you two. This is the kinda place where everybody oughta have themselves some fun." Mrs. Reilly smiled at the young man. "Let me buy you another drink, babe, for the one you spilled. And I think I'll take me another Dixie."

"I really must run," the young man sighed. "Thanks anyway."

"On a night like this?" Mrs. Reilly asked. "Aw, don't pay no mind to what Ignatius says. Why don't you stay and see the show?"

The young man rolled his eyes heavenward.

"Yeah." The blonde broke her silence. "See some ass and tits."

"Mother," Ignatius said coldly. "I do believe that you are encouraging these preposterous people."

"Well, you're the one wanted to stay, Ignatius."

"Yes, I did want to stay as an observer. I am not especially anxious to mingle."

"Honey, to tell you the truth, I can't listen to that story about that bus no more tonight. You already told it four times since we got here."

Ignatius looked hurt.

"I hardly suspected that I was boring you. After all, that bus ride was one of the more formative experiences of my life. As a mother, you should be interested in the traumas that have created my world-view."

"What's with the bus?" the blonde asked, moving to the stool next to Ignatius. "My name's Darlene. I like good stories. You got a spicy one?"

The bartender slammed the beer and the daiquiri down just as the bus was starting off on its journey in the vortex.

"Here, have a clean glass," the bartender snarled at Mrs.

Reilly.

"Ain't that nice. Hey, Ignatius, I just got a clean glass."

But her son was too preoccupied with his arrival in Baton Rouge to hear her.

"You know, sweetheart," Mrs. Reilly said to the young man,

"me and my boy was in trouble today. The police tried to arress him."

"Oh, my dear. Policemen are always so adamant, aren't they?"

"Yeah, and Ignatius got him a master's degree and all."

"What in the world was he doing?"

"Nothing. Just standing waiting for his poor, dear momma."

"His outfit is a little bizarre. I thought he was a performer of some sort when I first came in, although I tried not to imagine the nature of his act."

"I keep on telling him about his clothes, but he won't listen."

Mrs. Reilly looked at the back of her son's flannel shirt and at the hair curling down the back of his neck. "That's sure pretty, that jacket you got."

"Oh, this?" the young man asked, feeling the velvet on the sleeve. "I don't mind telling you it cost a fortune. I found it in a dear little shop in the Village."

"You don't look like you from the country."

"Oh, my," the young man sighed and lit a Salem with a great click of his lighter. "I meant Greenwich Village in New York, sweetie. By the way, where did you ever get that hat? It's truly fantastic."

"Aw, Lord, I had this since Ignatius made his First Communion."

"Would you consider selling it?"

"How come?"

"I'm a dealer in used clothing. I'll give you ten dollars for it."

"Aw, come on. For this?"

"Fifteen?"

"Really?" Mrs. Reilly removed the hat. "Sure, honey."

The young man opened his wallet and gave Mrs. Reilly three five dollar bills. Draining his daiquiri glass, he stood up and said, "Now I really must run."