A Confederacy of Dunces (31 page)

The world will someday get me on some ludicrous pretext; I simply await the day that they drag me to some airconditioned dungeon and leave me there beneath the fluorescent lights and soundproofed ceiling to pay the price of scorning all that they hold dear within their little latex hearts.

Rising to my full height-a spectacle in itself-I looked down upon the offending policeman and crushed him with a comment which, fortunately, he failed to understand. Then I wheeled the wagon farther into the Quarter. Because it was early afternoon, there were few people stirring on the streets. I guessed that the residents of the area were still in bed recovering from whatever indecent acts they had been performing the night before. Many no doubt required medical attention: a stitch or two here and there in a torn orifice or a broken genital. I could only imagine how many haggard and depraved eyes were regarding me hungrily from behind the closed shutters. I tried not to think about it. Already I was beginning to feel like an especially toothsome ' steak in a meat market. However, no one called enticingly from the shutters; those devious mentalities throbbing away in their dark apartments were apparently more subtle seducers. I thought that a note, at least, might flutter down. A frozen orange juice can came flying out of one of the windows and barely missed me. I stooped over and picked it up in order to inspect the empty tin cylinder for a communication of some sort, but only a viscous residue of concentrated juice trickled out on my hand. Was this some obscene message? While I was pondering the matter and staring up at the window from which the can had been hurled, an old vagrant approached the wagon and pleaded for a frankfurter. Grudgingly I sold him one, ruefully concluding that, as always, work was interfering at a crucial moment.

By now, of course, the window from which the can had been sent flying was closed. I rolled farther down the street, staring at the closed shutters for a sign of some sort. Wild laughter issued from more than one building as I passed. Apparently the deluded occupants therein were indulging in some obscene diversion which amused them. I tried to close my virgin ears to their horrid cackling.

A group of tourists wandered along the streets, their cameras poised, their glittering eyeglasses shining like sparklers.

Noticing me, they paused and, in sharp Midwestern accents which assailed my delicate eardrums like the sounds of a wheat thresher (however unimaginably horrible that must sound), begged me to pose for a photograph. Pleased by their gracious attentions, I acquiesced. For minutes they snapped away as I obliged them with several artful poses. Standing before the wagon as if it were a pirate's vessel, I brandished my cutlass menacingly for one especially memorable pose, my other hand holding the prow of the tin hot dog. As a climax, I attempted to climb atop the wagon, but the solidity of my physique proved too taxing for that flimsy vehicle. It began to roll from beneath me, but the gentlemen in the group were kind enough to grab it and assist me down. At last this affable group bade me farewell. As they wandered down the street madly photographing everything in sight, I heard one kindly lady say, "Wasn't that sad? We should have given him something." Unfortunately, none of the others (doubtless right-wing conservatives all) responded to her plea for charity very favorably, thinking, no doubt, that a few cents cast my way would be a vote of confidence for the welfare state. "He would only go out and spend it on more liquor," one of the other women, a shriveled crone whose face bespoke WCTU

affiliation, advised her friends with nasal wisdom and an abundance of harsh r's. Apparently the others sided with the WCTU drab, for the group continued down the street.

I must admit that I would not have turned down an offering of some sort. A Working Boy can use every penny that he can get his ambitious and striving hands on. In addition, those photographs could earn those corn-belt clods a fortune in some photographic contest. For a moment, I considered running behind these tourists, but just then an improbable satire on a tourist, a wan little figure in Bermuda shorts panting under the weight of a monstrous apparatus with lenses that certainly must have been a CinemaScope camera, called out a greeting to me. Upon closer inspection, I noted that it was, of all people, Patrolman Mancuso. I, of course, ignored the Machiavel's faint mongoloid grin by pretending to tighten my earring. Apparently he has been released from his imprisonment in the rest room. "How you doing?" he persisted illiterately. "Where is my book?" I demanded terrifyingly. "I'm still reading it. It's very good," he answered in terror. "Profit by its lesson," I cautioned. "When you have completed it, I shall ask you to submit to me a written critique and analysis of its message to humanity!" With that order still ringing magnificently in the air, I strode proudly off down the street.

Then, realizing that I had forgotten the wagon, I returned grandly to retrieve it. (That wagon is a terrible liability. I feel as if I am stuck with a retarded child who deserves constant attention. I feel like a hen sitting on one particularly large tin egg.)

Well, here it was almost two o'clock, and I had sold exactly one hot dog. Your Working Boy would have to bustle if success was to be his goal. The occupants of the French Quarter obviously did not place frankfurters high on their list of delicacies, and the tourists were not apparently coming to colorful and picturesque old N.O. to gorge themselves upon Paradise products. Clearly I am going to have what is known in our commercial terminology as a merchandising problem.

The evil Clyde has in vengeance given me a route that is a

"White Elephant," a term which he once applied to me during the course of one of our business conferences. Resentment and jealousy have again struck me down.

In addition, I must devise some means of handling M.

Minkoffs latest effronteries. Perhaps the Quarter will provide me with some material: a crusade for taste and decency, for theology and geometry, perhaps.

Social note: A new film featuring my favorite female star, whose recent circus musical excess stunned and overwhelmed me, is opening shortly at one of the downtown movie palaces.

I must somehow get to see it. Only my wagon stands in the way. Her new film is billed as a "sophisticated" comedy in which she must certainly reach new heights of perversion and blasphemy.

Health note: Astonishing weight increase, due no doubt to the anxiety which my dear mother's increasing unpleasantness is causing me. It is a truism of human nature, that people leam to hate those who help them. Thus, my mother has turned on me.

Suspendedly,

Lance, Your Besieged Working Boy

The lovely girl smiled hopefully at Dr. Talc and breathed, "I just love your course. I mean, it's grand."

"Oh, well," Talc replied delightedly. "That's very kind of you.

I'm afraid the course is rather general. .."

"Your approach to history is so vital, so contemporary, so refreshingly unorthodox."

"I do believe that we must cast aside some of the old forms and approaches." Talc's voice was important, pedantic. Should he invite this charming creature to have a drink with him?

"History is, after all, an evolutionary thing."

"I know," the girl said, opening her eyes wide enough so that Talc could lose himself in their blueness for a moment or two.

"I only wish to interest my students. Let's face it. The average student is not interested in the history of Celtic Britain. For that matter, neither am I. That's why, even if I do admit it myself, I always sense a sort of rapport in my classes."

"I know." The girl brushed gracefully against Talc's expensive tweed sleeve in reaching for her purse. Talc tingled at her touch. This was the sort of girl who should be attending college, not ones like that dreadful Minkoff girl, that brutal and slovenly girl who had almost been raped by one of the janitors just outside of his office. Dr. Talc shuddered at the very thought of Miss Minkoff. In class she had insulted and challenged and vilified him at every turn, egging the Reilly monster to join in the attack. He would never forget those two; no one on the faculty ever would. They were like two Huns sweeping down on Rome. Dr. Talc idly wondered if they had married each other. Each certainly deserved the other. Perhaps they had both defected to Cuba. "Some of those historical characters are so dull."

"That's very true," Talc agreed, eager to join any campaign against the figures of English history, who had been the scourges of his existence for so many years. Simply keeping track of all of them gave him a headache. He paused to light a Benson and Hedges and cleared some of the phlegm of English history from his throat. "They all made so many foolish mistakes."

"I know." The girl looked into her compact mirror. Then her eyes hardened and her voice grew a little surly. "Well, I don't want to waste your time with all this historical chatter. I wanted to ask you what happened to that report that I handed in about two months ago. I mean, I'd like to get some idea of what kind of grade I'm going to get in this course."

"Oh, yes," Dr. Talc said vaguely. His hopeful bubble burst.

Under their skins students were all alike. The lovely girl had turned into steely-eyed businesswoman checking, adding the profits of her grades. "You handed in a report, did you?"

"I most certainly did. It was in a yellow binder."

"Let me see if I can find it then." Dr. Talc got up and began to look through piles of various antique term papers, reports, and examinations on the top of the bookcase. As he was rearranging the stacks, an old sheet of wide-lined tablet paper folded into an airplane fell out of one binder and glided to the floor. Talc had not noticed the plane, only one of the many that had come sailing through his transom and window one semester a few years earlier. As it landed, the girl picked it up and, seeing that there was writing on the yellowed paper, unfolded the glider.

"Talc: You have been found guilty of misleading and perverting the young. I decree that you be hung by your underdeveloped testicles until dead. -ZORRO"

The girl reread the red crayon message, and as Talc continued to press his search on top of the bookcase, she opened her purse, dropped in the airplane, and snapped the clasp.

Ten

Gus Levy was a nice guy. He was also a regular fellow. He had friends among promoters and trainers and coaches and managers across the country. At any arena or stadium or track Gus Levy could count on knowing at least one person connected with the place. He knew owners and ticket sellers and players. He even got a Christmas card every year from a peanut vendor who worked the parking lot across from Memorial Stadium in Baltimore. He was very well liked.

Levy's Lodge was where he went between seasons. He had no friends there. At Christmas the only sign of the season at Levy's Lodge, the only barometer of Yuletide spirit was the appearance of his daughters, who descended upon him from college with demands for additional money coupled with threats to disavow his paternity forever if he continued to mistreat their mother. For Christmas, Mrs. Levy always compiled not a gift list but rather a list of the injustices and brutalities she had suffered since August. The girls got this list in their stockings. The only gift Mrs. Levy asked of the girls was that they attack their father. Mrs. Levy loved Christmas.

Now Mr. Levy was waiting at the lodge for spring practice to begin. Gonzalez had his reservations to Florida and Arizona in order. But at Levy's Lodge it was like Christmas all over again, and what was going on in Levy's Lodge could have been postponed until he left for the practice camps, Mr. Levy thought.

Mrs. Levy had stretched Miss Trixie across his favorite couch, the yellow nylon one, and was rubbing skin cream into the old woman's face. Now and then

Miss Trixie's tongue would flap out and sample a bit of cream from her upper lip.

"I'm getting nauseous from watching that," Mr. Levy said.

"Can't you take her outside? It's a nice day."

"She likes this couch," Mrs. Levy answered. "Let her have some enjoyment. Why don't you go outside and wax your sports car?"

"Silence!" Miss Trixie snarled with the stupendous false teeth that Mrs. Levy had just bought her.

"Listen to that," Mr. Levy said. "She's really running this place."

"So she's asserting herself. Does that bother you? The teeth have given her a little self-confidence. Of course, you begrudge the woman even that. I'm beginning to understand why she's so insecure. I've found out that Gonzalez ignores her all day, makes her feel unwanted in about a hundred different ways. Subconsciously she hates Levy Pants."

"Who doesn't?" said Miss Trixie.

"Sad, sad," was all that Mr. Levy answered.

Miss Trixie grunted and some air whistled through her lips.

"Now let's cut this out," Mr. Levy said. "I've let you play a lot of ridiculous games around here. This one doesn't even make sense. If you want to open a funeral parlor, I'll set you up. But not in my rumpus room. Now wipe that goo off her face and let me drive her back to town. Let me have some peace while I'm in this house."

"So. You're angry all of a sudden. At least you're having a normal response. That's unusual for you."

"Are you doing this just to make me angry? You can make me angry without all this. Now let her alone. All she wants is to retire. It's like torturing a dumb, animal."

"I am a very attractive woman," Miss Trixie mumbled in her sleep.

"Listen to that!" Mrs. Levy cried happily. "And you want to throw her out in the snow? I'm just getting through to her.

She's like a symbol of everything you haven't done."

Suddenly Miss Trixie leaped up, snarling, "Where's my eyeshade?"

"This is going to be good," Mr. Levy said. "Wait till she sinks those five-hundred-dollar teeth in you."

"Who took my eyeshade?" Miss Trixie demanded fiercely.

"Where am I? Take your hands off me."

"Darling," Mrs. Levy began, but Miss Trixie had fallen asleep on her side, her creamed face smearing the couch.

"Look, Fairy Godmother, how much have you spent on this little game already? I'm not paying to have that couch recovered."