A Confederacy of Dunces (35 page)

"Anybody want more coffee?" Mr. Robichaux asked.

"Yeah, gimmee some there, Claude," Santa said, folding,the newspaper and throwing it on top of the refrigerator. "I'm sure sorry Angelo couldn't make it. That poor boy. He told me he's gonna be working day and night on his own so he can bring somebody in. He's out someplace tonight, I guess. You oughta heard what his Rita been telling me. It seems Angelo went out an bought a lot of expensive clothes he can wear so maybe he can attract some character. Ain't that a shame. That just shows you how much that boy loves the force. If they was to kick him out, it'd break his heart. I sure hope he takes in some bum."

"Angelo's got him a hard road to travel," Mrs. Reilly said absently. She was thinking of the PEACE TO MEN OF

GOOD WILL sign that Ignatius had tacked to the front of their house after he had come home from work. Miss Annie had immediately started an inquisition about that as soon as it had appeared, screaming questions through her shutters. "What you think about somebody wants peace, Claude?"

"That sounds like a communiss to me."

Mrs. Reilly's worst fears were realized.

"Who wants peace?" Santa asked.

"Ignatius got a sign up in front the house about peace."

"I mighta known," Santa said angrily. "First that boy wants a king, now he wants peace. I'm telling you, Irene. For your own good. That boy's gotta be put away."

"He ain't wearing no earring. I ask him and he says, 'I ain't wearing no earring, momma.' "

"Angelo don't lie."

"Maybe he just got him a small one."

"A earring's a earring to me. Ain't that right, Claude?"

"That's right," Claude answered Santa.

"Santa, honey, that's a sweet little Blessed Virgin you got on top that TV," Mrs. Reilly said to get them off the earring topic.

Everyone looked at the television set next to the refrigerator, and Santa said, "Ain't that nice, though? It's a little Our Lady of the Television. It's got a suction cup base so I don't knock it over when I'm banging around in the kitchen. I bought it by Lenny's."

"Lenny's got everything," Mrs. Reilly said. "It looks like it's made outta nice plastic, too, don't break."

"Well, how you kids liked that dinner?"

"It was delicious," Mr. Robichaux said.

"It was wonderful," Mrs. Reilly agreed. "I ain't had me a good meal in a long time."

"Aarff," Santa belched. "I think I put too much garlic in them stuffed eggplants, but I got a heavy hand with garlic. Even my granchirren tell me, they say, 'Hey, maw-maw, you sure got a heavy hand with garlic.' "

"Ain't that sweet," Mrs. Reilly said of the gourmet grandchildren.

"I thought the eggplants was fine," Mr. Robichaux said.

"I'm only happy when I'm scrubbing my floors and cooking my food," Santa told her guests. "I love to fix a big pot of meatballs or jumbalaya with shrimps."

"I like to cook," Mr. Robichaux said. "It helps out my daughter sometimes."

"I bet it does," Santa said. "A man who can cook is a big help around the house, believe me." She kicked Mrs. Reilly under the table. "A woman's got a man that likes to cook is a lucky girl."

"You like to cook, Irene?" Mr. Robichaux asked.

"You talking to me, Claude?" Mrs. Reilly had been wondering what Ignatius looked like in an earring.

"Come back out the clouds, girl," Santa ordered. "Claude here was axing you if you like to cook."

"Yeah," Mrs. Reilly lied. "I like to cook okay. But sometimes it gets so hot in that kitchen, especially in the summer. You don't get no breeze out that alley. Ignatius likes to eat junk, anyways. You give Ignatius a few bottles of Dr. Nut and plenty bakery cakes, and he's satisfied."

"You oughta get you a letrit range," Mr. Robichaux said. "I bought my daughter one. It don't get hot like a gas stove."

"Where you getting all this money from, Claude?" Santa asked interestedly.

"I got me a nice pension from the railroad. I was with them for forty-five years, you know. They gimme a beautiful gold pin when I retired."

"Ain't that nice," Mrs. Reilly said. "You made good, huh, Claude?"

"Then," Mr. Robichaux said, "I got me a few little rental properties around my house. I was always putting a little of my salary aside to invest in properties. Property's a good investment."

"It sure is," Santa said, rolling her eyes wildly at Mrs. Reilly.

"Now you well fixed, huh?"

"I'm pretty comfortable. But you know sometimes I get tired of living with my daughter and her husband. I mean, they're young. They got they own family. They are very nice to me, but I'd rather have my own home. You know what I mean?"

"If I was you," Mrs. Reilly said, "I'd stay where I was. If your little daughter don't mind having you around, you got you a nice setup. I wisht I had me a nice child. Be grateful for what you got, Claude."

Santa ground the heel of her shoe into Mrs. Reilly's ankle.

"Ouch!" Mrs. Reilly cried.

"Lord, I'm sorry, babe. Me and my big feet. Big feet's always been my problem. They can hardly fit me down by the shoe store. That clerk sees me coming, and he says, 'Lord, here comes Miss Battaglia again. What I'm gonna do?' "

"Your feet ain't so big," Mrs. Reilly observed, looking under the kitchen table.

"I just got them squshed up in this little pair of shoes. You oughta see them things when I'm barefoot, girl."

"I got bum feet," Mrs. Reilly told the other two. Santa made a sign for Mrs. Reilly not to discuss her deficiencies, but Mrs.

Reilly was not to be silenced. "Some days I can't hardly walk.

I think they went bad when Ignatius was little and I useta have to carry him around. Lord but he was slow walking. Always falling down. He was sure heavy, too. Maybe that's how I got my arthuritis."

"Listen, you two," Santa said quickly so that Mrs. Reilly would not describe some new, horrible deficiency. "Why don't we go see that cute little Debbie Reynolds?"

"That would be nice," Mr. Robichaux said. "I never go to the show."

"You wanna go see a show?" Mrs. Reilly asked. "I don't know.

My feet."

"Aw, come on, girl. Let's get out the house. It smells like garlic in here."

"I think Ignatius told me this movie ain't no good. He sees every picture that comes out, that boy."

"Irene!" Santa said angrily. "You all the time thinking of that boy, and with all the trouble he's giving you. You better wake up, babe. If you had any sense, you woulda had that boy locked away at Charity Hospital a long time ago. They'd turn a hose on him. They'd stick a letrit socket in that boy. They'd show that Ignatius. They'd make him behave himself."

"Yeah?" Mrs. Reilly asked with interest. "How much that cost?"

"It's all for free, Irene."

"Socialized medicine," Mr. Robichaux observed. "They probly got communiss and fellow travelers working in that place."

"They got nuns operating the place, Claude. Lord, where you all the time getting this communiss stuff from?"

"Maybe them sisters been fooled," Mr. Robichaux said.

"Ain't that awful," Mrs. Reilly said sadly. "Them poor sisters.

Operating for a buncha communiss."

"I don't care who's operating the place." Santa said. "If it's free and they lock people away, Ignatius oughta be there."

"Once Ignatius started talking to them people, they'd maybe get mad and lock him up for good," Mrs. Reilly said, but she was thinking that even that alternative wasn't too unattractive.

"Maybe he wouldn't listen to the doctors."

"They'd make him listen. They'd beat him in the head, they'd lock him up in a straitjacket, they'd pump some water on him,"

Santa said a little too eagerly.

"You gotta think about yourself, Irene," Mr. Robichaux said.

"That son of yours is gonna put you in your grave."

"That's it. You tell her, Claude."

"Well," Mrs. Reilly said, "We'll give Ignatius a chance. Maybe he'll make good yet."

"Selling weenies?" Santa asked. "Lord." She shook her head.

"Well, lemme go dump these dishes in the zink. Come on, let's go see that precious Debbie Reynolds."

A few minutes later, after Santa had stopped in the parlor to kiss her mother goodbye, the three of them set out for the theater. The day had been a balmy day; a south wind had been blowing steadily from the Gulf. Now the evening was still warm. Heavy odors of Mediterranean cooking floated across the congested neighborhood from the opened kitchen windows in every apartment building and double house. Each resident seemed to be making some contribution, however small, to the general cacophony of dropping pots, booming television sets, arguing voices, screaming children, and slamming doors.

"St. Odo Parish is really at it tonight," Santa commented thoughtfully as the three slowly strolled down the narrow sidewalk between the curb and the steps of the double houses built in solid, straight rows down each block. The streetlights shone on the treeless stretches of asphalt and cement and continuous old slate roofs. "It's even worst in the summertime.

Everybody's out on the streets till ten-eleven o'clock."

"Don't tell me, precious," Mrs. Reilly said as she hobbled dramatically between her friends. "Remember I'm from Dauphine Street. We useta put the kitchen chairs out on the banquette and set there till midnight sometimes waiting for the house to cool off. And the things the people down here say!

Lord."

"Vicious is what it is," Santa agreed. "Dirty mouths."

"Poor poppa," Mrs. Reilly said. "He was so poor. Then when he went and got his hand caught in that fanbelt, the people in the neighborhood had the nerve to say he musta been drunk.

The anonymous letters we got about that. And my poor old Tante Boo-boo. Eighty years old. She was burning a candle for her poor departed husband and it fall off the night table and sets her mattress on fire. The people said she was smoking in bed."

"I believe people innocent until they proven "

"That's the same way I feel, Claude," Mrs. Reilly said. "Just the other day I says to Ignatius, 'Ignatius, I think people innocent until they prove guilty.' "

"Irene!"

They crossed St. Claude Avenue during a lull in the heavy traffic and walked along the other side of the avenue under the neon lights. As they were passing a funeral parlor, Santa stopped to talk to one of the mourners standing out on the sidewalk.

"Say, Mister, who they got laid out in there?" she asked the man.

"They waking old lady Lopez," the man answered.

"You don't say. She the wife of that Lopez ran the little market over on Frenchman Street?"

"That's the one."

"Aw, I'm sorry to hear that," Santa said. "What she died from?"

"Heart trouble."

"Ain't that a shame," Mrs. Reilly said emotionally. "Poor girl."

"Well, if I was dressed," Santa told the man, "I'd go in and pay my respects. Me and my friends here just on our way to a picture show. Thank you."

As they walked along, Santa described to Mrs. Reilly the many sadnesses and tribulations that had comprised old lady Lopez 's dismal existence. Finally Santa said, "I think I'll send her family a Mass."

"Lord," Mrs. Reilly said, overcome by old lady Lopez's biography, "I think I'll send a Mass, too, for the repose of that poor woman's soul."

"Irene!" Santa screamed. "You don't even know them people."

"Well, that's true," Mrs. Reilly agreed weakly.

When they arrived at the theater, there was some discussion between Santa and Mr. Robichaux over who was going to buy the tickets. Mrs. Reilly said that she would if she didn't have to meet a payment on Ignatius's trumpet before the week was out.

Mr. Robichaux was adamant, though, and Santa at last let him have his way.

"After all," Santa said to him as he handed tickets to the two ladies, "you the one's got all the money."

She winked at Mrs. Reilly, whose mind had wandered again to that sign that Ignatius refused to explain to her. During most of the movie Mrs. Reilly thought about Ignatius's rapidly decreasing salary, the payment on the trumpet, the payment on the wrecked building, the earring, and the sign. Only Santa's happy exclamations of "Ain't she precious!" and "Just take a look at that cute dress she's got, Irene!" brought Mrs. Reilly back to what was happening on the screen. Then something else drew her from her meditations about her son and her problems, both of which were really the same thing. Mr.

Robichaux's hand had gently covered and was now holding hers. Mrs. Reilly was too afraid to move. Why did movies always seem to make the men she had known-Mr. Reilly and Mr. Robichaux-amorous? She stared blindly at the screen, on which she saw not Debbie Reynolds cavorting in color but rather Jean Harlow taking a bath in black and white.

Mrs. Reilly was wondering if she could easily wrench her hand out of Mr. Robichaux's and bolt from the theater when Santa cried, "Just watch it, Irene, I betcha little Debbie's gonna have her a baby!"

"A what?" Mrs. Reilly screamed wildly, bursting into crazy, loud tears that didn't subside until the frightened Mr.

Robichaux took her maroon head and placed it carefully on his shoulder.

Dear Reader,

Nature has sometimes made a fool; but a coxcomb is always of man's own making.

-Addison

As I was wearing the soles of my desert boots down to a mere sliver of crepe rubber on the old flagstone banquettes of the French Quarter in my fevered attempt to wrest a living from an unthinking and uncaring society, I was hailed by a cherished old acquaintance (deviate). After a few minutes of conversation in which I established most easily my moral superiority over this degenerate, I found myself pondering once more the crises of our times. My mentality, uncontrollable and wanton as always, whispered to me a scheme so magnificent and daring that I shrank from the very thought of what I was hearing. "Stop!" I cried imploringly to my god-like mind. "This is madness." But still I listened to the counsel of my brain. It was offering me the opportunity to Save the World Through Degeneracy. There on the worn stones of the Quarter I enlisted the aid of this wilted flower of a human in gathering his associates in foppery together behind a banner of brotherhood.