Butterfly in the Typewriter (6 page)

Whether or not they acknowledged it, his father was gradually sinking into a debilitating mental illness. For lack of an official diagnosis, his nephew, Harold Toole, termed it senility. But the initial signs of his neuroses seemed to be exhibited in moments of slight paranoia throughout the 1950s, although they were far less dramatic than the saber episode. In addition to John's concerns over home security, he began displaying extreme caution when selling a car. When Lynda, Laird's sister, went to John to purchase her first vehicle, she had to meet some of his rigorous criteria. Even though she had the money to buy the car outright, he needed to ensure her finances demonstrated she could actually afford
the car. He then required her to drive down St. Charles Avenue, to prove she could handle the car. Once she passed his financial and driving tests, she said she wanted a convertible, and he replied he would sell her a white one only. That way people could easily see her coming down the street. It was the safest option, he explained. So Lynda left with her brand new white Oldsmobile convertible, and shortly thereafter John retired from automobile sales.

Such eccentric behavior eventually turned into more bizarre obsessions with safety and the apparent onset of paranoia. But this was a private matter. Thelma and her son kept John's illness largely a secret as it gradually worsened, perhaps to protect John or perhaps out of shame. And while Toole's father worked throughout the 1950s, Laird witnessed the early stages of the slow deterioration to come. Toole later confided to one of his adult friends that growing up he rarely invited friends over to his house for fear of embarrassment. Clearly, Laird was an exception.

While Toole may have felt bringing guests to the house was too risky, he still led an enjoyable social life in high school as he entered into a new and challenging world of dating. In 1952, when Toole was fourteen, Fortier opened its doors to female students. The mixture of boys and girls in classrooms and hallways changed the social dynamic in the school. The newspaper,
Silver and Blue
, received a telling facelift, adding the gossip sections “Cat Nips” and “Social Whirl,” which covered student affairs. The first time “Cat Nips” appeared, the anonymous reporter wrote, “We are all one big happy family . . . and the gossip is about you.” In that first column, Toole was snagged by the snooping gumshoe with the suggestive question, “Every morning JOSEPHINE T. meets KENNY before school to discuss lessons????” “Social Whirl” focused on who was seen about town on weekends. The sons and daughters of the social elite might still dance a waltz at formal balls, but a new sound was taking shape in New Orleans, which characterized the social scene of teenagers all over the country in the 1950s. It was a movement that arguably began in the alter ego of Uptown—the poor black neighborhood of the Ninth Ward—and it created just as much frenzy and fear as jazz did in the early 1900s.

While Toole was performing in blackface at an outdoor theatre in Uptown in the late 1940s, a young black musician from the Ninth Ward named Fats Domino was playing piano in honkytonk bars in New
Orleans. An undisputed innovator in music, Domino quickly catapulted to a recording studio and began touring across the country. In the mid-fifties, audiences went wild for “Ain't That a Shame” and “Blueberry Hill.” Such success terrified old order white Southerners. Organizations such as the KKK attacked early rock and roll concerts, and they urged parents to save their children from the evils of listening to “Negro music” with its sexually suggestive language. But young people of every color won out.

Despite its initial controversy, eventually white musicians, who were inspired in part by Fats Domino and Professor Longhair, eased the music's transition to mainstream, predominantly white audiences. The nation tuned into the
Louisiana Hayride
broadcast in Shreveport, Louisiana, to listen to Elvis Presley and Jerry Lee Lewis. And throughout the fifties, American youth watched Dick Clark's
American Bandstand
to learn the newest dances to the hottest songs. Like most teenagers in the 1950s, Toole listened to rock and roll. And any young man hoping to enter the dating scene in New Orleans would need to know how to dance to it. Cary Laird asked his younger sister, Lynda, to give him some lessons, and Toole joined them to learn the latest moves. They cleared some space in the basement where they had set up a record player. They practiced dances like the Jitterbug and the Cha-Cha. And to Toole's amusement, they covered the Dirty Bop, a provocative and taboo variation of the Jitterbug that had been banned from many school dance floors, which made it all the more interesting to teenagers.

By all accounts Toole was a wonderful dancer. Evenings out for the students at Fortier usually included either going to a party, a school dance, a dance hall, or, on special occasions, the Blue Room at the Roosevelt Hotel. Of course, taking those first few steps into the rituals of dating can be awkward, especially as a teenager. But this meant the opportunity for new experiences and new humorous stories, which Toole eagerly shared with Laird. In his senior year, Toole dated a girl everyone called Buzzy, who, according to Lynda Laird, attended the prestigious Holy Name of Jesus School, in Uptown. In January of 1954, “Cat Nips” reported “Ken T. and Buzzy P” as “seen doing the town.” But Toole may have underestimated Buzzy's level of devotion to the Catholic Church. One evening when Toole went to pick up Buzzy for a night out, she welcomed him into her house so he could offer the customary greeting to
her parents. Her mother, unaware of Toole's arrival, yelled down from the second floor, “Buzzy, you'd better get some romance before you become a nun!” Buzzy was humiliated. Toole was amused. But perhaps Buzzy's devotion to clergy life was not as firm as her mother believed. Toole told Laird that he broke up with her when she brought up the topic of marriage.

Whatever embarrassment Buzzy suffered paled in comparison to Toole's embarrassment over his own parents. In regard to dating, his father had an unobtrusive piece of advice: “Kenny boy,” he would say, “you need to beware of loose women!” His mother, however, took a different approach. While she maintained that she stayed out of her son's business when it came to dating, Laird told a different story. According to his account, Thelma would sometimes follow her son on dates. This was not necessarily typical behavior but happened enough times for Laird to retell the story to his sister. Thelma undeniably coveted her relationship with her son. He was everything to her. And while she wanted him to be desired, she also harbored anxiety that he might one day abandon her. She often said that the ladies loved him, but “he only had eyes for her.” And she was convinced that she was his only confidant. This intensity may have stifled Toole's growth toward independence. What was once heartwarming devotion between a young boy and his mother became somewhat distorted in high school—a crucial time when a young man explores relationships with others, as he envisions what form his life will take once out from under the roof of his parents.

Regardless of his mother's intrusions, Toole gained a reputation for being an enjoyable date—a good dancer, polite, always well dressed. It was a reputation he carried into college and beyond. But romantic interests always seemed secondary to his drive to achieve some form of greatness. What that form was still remained unclear. However, in high school, his energetic exploration of writing styles suggested a particular direction.

Toole's academic essays show his interest in both popular culture and history. In “Television, Tomorrow's Entertainment,” he returned to the idea that he muttered to John Geiser on their way to school in kindergarten. Citing historical and statistical evidence, and noting the decline in attendance at cinemas, Toole argues for the growing trend
and popularity of television. He declares at the end of the short essay, “Television is here to stay and soon it may be the world's chief entertainment.” He was acutely perceptive. Around the time he wrote this paper, the Golden Age of television began, a time of innovation and experimentation in the medium.

Toole also understood well the language of patriotism, and for his teachers he embraced it in his writing, showing energy and vision. In a short essay on the Louisiana Purchase, he casts the American heartland in picturesque detail:

After surveying the vast regions of the country, he casts New Orleans as the beginning and the end of it all.

He wrote his high school essays in idealized language about America and American history, which was quite common for the historical narrative offered at the time. In an essay titled “Democracy Is What We Make of It,” the young Toole explores the citizen's responsibility to uphold the principles of “the greatest nation of the earth” and overcome “Communist tyranny.” Without cynicism or humor he expresses a loyal affirmation of the creed of the country. The overtly patriotic voice he used in his class assignments does not indicate the skepticism he may have felt toward the ideal vision of the United States and the Cold War mentality.

In college he would directly undermine such idealistic precepts of the nation, a sentiment that eventually culminated in his character Ignatius Reilly whose New Orleans–centric vision of the world is laughable
and who finds the country lacking in “geometry and theology.” And Toole would also mock simplistic notions of government and economies, humorously voiced in
Confederacy
through the character Claude Robichaux, who is convinced anyone that opposes him is a “comuniss.” While Toole maintained a patriotic line in his classwork, early traces of this cynical tendency appear outside of his schoolwork. In 1951 he joined the staff of the school newspaper, making his entry through a satire edition titled
Ess and Bee
, presumably an inversion of B.S. Taking on the character of a Russian ring-toss athlete Ivan Vishivsky O'Toole of the Russian institution Liquidate University, he offers testimony of losing to a Fortier student at the world ring toss championship held in “Upper Lower Slobbovia.” O'Toole testifies in his Russian dialect:

This is the first documented instance of his writing in a dialect, and his interest in commenting on current events through satire shines. In this case, he cast the competition between communism and democracy through the ridiculous metaphor of ring tossing. After writing this article, he stayed on with the newspaper until he graduated.

Toole employed the use of dialect in some of his creative writing in high school as well. In the John Kennedy Toole Papers at Tulane University (called the Toole Papers hereafter), there is an undated manuscript titled “Going Up” that is likely from this time period. His name appears on this manuscript as Kennedy Toole, which he started using again in print when he became the managing editor of
Silver and Blue
in his senior year. Told in the voice of an elevator operator who speaks in the downtown New Orleans accent, the narrator tells of a serendipitous event when he accidentally left a lady on the twelfth floor, although she asked for the thirteenth. He feared her reprisals, but because his mistake
resulted in her securing employment, everything ended for the best. Despite the flaws of “Going Up,” it demonstrates Toole's early interest in capturing the cadence of speech in the commoner of New Orleans.

These stabs at fiction and satire may have been a warm-up to his watershed moment as an aspiring author. By 1953 the Tooles had moved to 2226 Cambronne Street in a less desirable neighborhood on the edges of Uptown, away from the lush green archways and park spaces. Thelma later explained to reporter Dalt Wonk that they moved in order to be closer to Fortier, but Cambronne was farther away from Fortier than Webster Street was. Most likely, their move had more to do with a decrease in income. And leaving the heart of Uptown was a sacrifice Thelma would have met with bitterness. Perhaps the pressures of home primed Toole for some time away from New Orleans. In Toole's senior year the Lairds invited Toole on a family visit to an aunt and uncle that lived on a farm in Mississippi. Toole eagerly accepted. In 1954 he and the Lairds piled into their old Studebaker and headed due north to McComb, Mississippi. To the Lairds, there was little novelty in visiting the family farm, but to Toole everything teemed with the uniqueness of country life. The dairy farm and fields of crops offered new scenery. Toole rode on the back of a tractor and, as his best friend watched, eventually took his hand at driving one. It was no Oldsmobile. He struggled to shift the gears of the foreign contraption. Toole's enthusiasm made him a welcomed visitor. Laird's aunt Alice loved his company, which was in no small part due to his flattery of her. He commented that she had the look of the Italian actress Anna Magnani.

The weekend visit soon came to an end, but Toole didn't want to leave. He had seen another side of life, with different kinds of people. On the way back to New Orleans, he seemed invigorated by the whole experience. They passed road sign after road sign of religious platitudes, messages pleading for the moral sensibility of the passersby, signs that said “Drink and Drive and Burn Alive.” The overt dogma emblazoned on highway signs spoke to the tension between salvation and damnation, between religion and commercialism. Toole looked at Mississippi and its staunch religious conservatism as ripe, literary material. It was not a reflection of his own beliefs. While raised Catholic in a city with deep ties to Catholicism, the Tooles were not avid churchgoers. The parade of wealth made of the religious ceremony in Uptown churches
drove Thelma and her son away from attending mass, so she claimed. Although, she maintained that her son was always “a Christian in the true sense of the word.” But what repulsed Thelma about the Catholic service intrigued Toole when he encountered it in another form in the Baptist church. The highway signs in Mississippi were religious messages blended with advertisements for products such as Burma-Shave shaving cream. And thus pleas to the faithful were simultaneous pleas to the consumer.