A Confederacy of Dunces (38 page)

George watched him push the wagon a few feet down the block, stop, and tape a piece of tablet paper to the front of his wagon. George would use psychology on him; he'd play up to the vendor's education. That and the money should make him rent out his bun compartment.

Then an old man stuck his head out of the garage, ran up behind the vendor, and struck him across the back with a long fork.

"Get moving, you ape," the old man shouted. "You're already late. It's already afternoon. Today you're gonna bring in a profit or else."

The vendor said something coolly and quietly. George couldn't understand it, but it lasted a long time.

"I don't care if your mother takes dope," the old man answered. "I don't wanna hear no more bullshit about that automobile accident and your dreams and your goddam girl friend. Now get outta here, you big baboon. I want five dollars minimum from you today."

With a push from the old man, the vendor rolled to the corner and disappeared onto St. Charles. After the old man returned to the garage, George slouched off in pursuit of the wagon.

Unaware that he was being trailed, Ignatius pushed his cart against the traffic down St. Charles toward the Quarter. He had stayed up so late the night before working on his lecture for the kickoff rally that he hadn't been able to move from his yellowed sheets until almost noon, and then it had only been his mother's violent pounding and screaming that had awakened him. Now that he was out on the streets, he had a problem. Today the sophisticated comedy was opening at the RKO Orpheum. He had been able to bleed ten cents out of his mother for carfare home, although she had even begrudged him that. Somehow he had to sell five or six hot dogs quickly, park the wagon somewhere, and get to that theater so that his disbelieving eyes could drink in every blasphemous technicolored moment.

Lost in speculation about means for raising the money, Ignatius did not notice that for quite some time his cart had been traveling in a straight and unswerving line. When he attempted to pull closer to the curb, the cart would not incline to the right at all. Stopping, he saw that one of the bicycle tires had lodged in the groove of a streetcar track. He tried to bump the cart out of the groove; it was too heavy to be easily bounced. He bent and tried to lift the cart on one side. As he slipped his hands beneath the big tin bun, he heard through the light mist the grinding of an approaching streetcar. The hard little bumps appeared on his hands, and his valve, after wavering for a moment of frantic decision, slammed closed.

Wildly Ignatius pulled upward on the tin bun. The bicycle tire shot up out of the tracks, rose upward, balanced for a second in the air, and then became horizontal as the cart turned over loudly on its other side. One of the little lids in the tin bun opened and deposited a few steaming hot dogs on the street.

"Oh, my God!" Ignatius mumbled to himself, watching the silhouette of the streetcar forming a half-block away. "What vicious trick is Fortuna playing on me now?"

Deserting the wreck, Ignatius lumbered down the tracks toward the streetcar, the white muu-muu of a uniform swishing around his ankles. The olive and copper trolley car ground slowly toward him, leisurely pitching and rocking. The motorman, seeing the huge, spherical, white figure panting in the center of the tracks, slid the car to a halt and opened one of the front windows.

"Pardon me, sir," the earring called up to him. "If you will wait a moment, I shall attempt to right my listing craft."

George saw his opportunity. He ran over to Ignatius and said cheerily, "Come on, prof, let's you and me get this off the street."

"Oh, my God!" Ignatius thundered. "My pubescent nemesis.

What a promising day this appears to be. I am apparently to be run over by a streetcar and robbed simultaneously, thereby setting a Paradise record. Get away, you depraved urchin."

"You grab that end and I'll get this one."

The streetcar clanged at them.

"Oh, all right," Ignatius said finally. "Actually, I would be perfectly happy to let this ridiculous liability lie here on its side."

George took one end of the bun and said, "You better close that little door before more of them weenies falls out."

Ignatius kicked the little door closed, as if he were playing to win in a professional football game, neatly severing a protruding hot dog into two six-inch sections.

"Take it easy, prof. You gonna break your wagon."

"Shut up, you truant. I didn't ask you to make conversation."

"Okay," George said, shrugging. "I mean, I'm just tryna help you out."

"How could you possibly help me?" Ignatius bellowed, baring a tan fang or two. "Some authority of society is probably hot on the scent of your suffocating hair tonic right now. Where did you come from? Why are you following me?"

"Look, you want me to help you pick up this pile of junk?"

"Pile of junk? Are you talking about this Paradise vehicle?"

The streetcar clanged at them again.

"Come on," George said. "Up."

"I hope you realize," Ignatius said as he breathlessly lifted the wagon, "that our association is only the result of an emergency."

The cart bounced back onto its two bicycle tires, the contents of the tin bun rattling against its sides.

"Okay, prof, there you go. Glad I could help you out."

"In case you haven't noticed, you waif, you are about to be hooked on the cowcatcher of that streetcar."

The streetcar rolled by them slowly so that the conductor and motorman could study Ignatius's costume more closely.

George grabbed one of Ignatius's paws and stuck two dollars in it.

"Money?" Ignatius asked happily. "Thank God." He quickly pocketed the two bills. "I'd rather not ask the obscene motive for this. I'd like to think that you're attempting to make amends in your simple way for slandering me on my dismal first day with this ludicrous wagon."

"That's it, prof. You said it better than I ever could. You're a really educated guy."

"Oh?" Ignatius was very pleased. "There may be some hope for you yet. Hot dog?"

"No, thanks."

"Then pardon me while I have one. My system is petitioning for appeasement." Ignatius looked down into the well of his wagon. "My God, the hot dogs are quite disordered."

While Ignatius was slamming doors and plunging his paws down into the well, George said, "Now I helped you out, prof.

Maybe you can do the same for me."

"Perhaps," Ignatius said disinterestedly, biting into the hot dog.

"You see these?" George indicated the brown paper packages he was carrying under his arms. "These are school supplies.

Now this is my problem. I gotta pick them up from the distributor at lunchtime, but I can't deliver them to the schools until after school's closed. So I gotta carry them around for almost two hours. You understand? What I'm looking for is a place to put these things in the afternoon. Now I could meet you someplace about one and put them in your bun compartment and come get them out sometime before three."

"How bogus," Ignatius belched. "Do you seriously expect me to believe you? Delivering school supplies after the schools are closed?"

"I'll pay you a couple of bucks every day."

"You will?" Ignatius asked with interest. "Well, you will have to pay me a week's rent in advance. I don't deal in small sums."

George opened his wallet and gave Ignatius eight dollars.

"Here. With the two you already got, that makes ten for the week."

Ignatius happily pocketed the new bills and ripped one of the packages from George's arms, saying, "I must see what it is that I'm storing. You're probably selling goof balls to infants."

"Hey!" George shouted. "I can't deliver the stuff if it's opened."

"Too bad for you." Ignatius fended off the boy and tore off the brown wrapping. He saw a stack of what looked like postcards. "What are these? Visual aids for civics or some other equally stultifying high school subject?"

"Gimme that, you nut."

"Oh, my God!" Ignatius stared at what he saw. Once in high school someone had shown him a pornographic photograph, and he had collapsed against a water cooler, injuring his ear.

This photograph was far superior. A nude woman was sitting on the edge of a desk next to a globe of the world. The suggested onanism with the piece of chalk intrigued Ignatius.

Her face was hidden behind a large book. While George evaded indifferent slaps from the unoccupied paw, Ignatius scrutinized the title on the cover of the book: Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius, The Consolation of Philosophy. "Do I believe what I am seeing? What brilliance. What taste. Good grief."

"Give that back," George pleaded.

"This one is mine," Ignatius gloated, pocketing the top card.

He handed the torn package back to George and looked at the piece of torn wrapping between his fingers. There was an address on it. He pocketed that, too. "Where in the world did you get these? Who is this brilliant woman?"

"None of your business."

"I see. A secret operation." Ignatius thought of the address on the piece of paper. He would do his own investigating. Some destitute woman intellectual was doing anything for a dollar.

Her worldview must be quite incisive, if her reading material were any guide. It could be that she was in the same situation as the Working Boy, a seer and philosopher cast into a hostile century by forces beyond her control. Ignatius must meet her.

She might have some new and valuable insights. "Well, in spite of my misgivings, I shall make my cart available to you.

However, you must watch the cart this afternoon. I have a rather urgent appointment."

"Hey, what is this? How long you gonna be?"

"About two hours."

"I gotta get uptown by three o'clock."

"Well, you shall be a little late this afternoon," Ignatius said angrily. "I am already lowering my standards by associating with you and fouling up my bun compartment. You should be glad that I haven't turned you in. I have on the police force a brilliant friend, a sly undercover agent, Patrolman Mancuso.

He is just looking for the sort of break a case like yours would offer. Fall to your knees and be grateful for my benevolence."

Mancuso? Wasn't that the name of the undercover agent who had stopped him in the rest room? George got very nervous.

"What does this undercover pal of yours look like?" George sneered in an attempt at bravery.

"He is small and elusive." Ignatius's voice was cunning. "He is given to many disguises. He is a veritable will-o'-the-wisp, scurrying here and there in his never-ending search for marauders. For a while he chose the covert of a bathroom but now is out on the streets where he remains at my beck and call every minute."

George's throat filled with something that choked him.

"This is a frame-up," he swallowed.

"That's enough from you, you guttersnipe. Encouraging the degeneration of some noble woman scholar," Ignatius barked.

"You should be kissing the hem of my uniform in gratitude for my not advising Sherlock Mancuso of your evil goods. Meet me before the RKO Orpheum in two hours!"

Ignatius billowed grandly off down Common Street. George put his two packages in the bun compartment and sat down on the curb. This was really luck meeting a pal of Mancuso's. The big vendor really had him. He looked furiously at the wagon.

Now he wasn't only stuck with the packages. He was stuck with a big hot dog wagon.

Ignatius tossed money at the cashier and literally lunged into the Orpheum, waddling down the aisle toward the footlights.

His timing had been perfect. The second feature was just beginning. The boy with the magnificent photographs was definitely a find. Ignatius wondered if he could blackmail him into watching the wagon every afternoon. The urchin had certainly responded to his mention of a friend on the police force.

Ignatius snorted at the movie credits. All of the people involved in the film were equally unacceptable. A set designer, in particular, had appalled him too many times in the past. The heroine was even more offensive than she had been in the circus musical. In this film she was a bright young secretary whom an aged man of the world was trying to seduce. He flew her in a private jet to Bermuda and installed her in a suite. On their first night together she broke out in a rash just as the libertine was opening her bedroom door.

"Filth!" Ignatius shouted, spewing wet popcorn over several rows. "How dare she pretend to be virgin? Look at her degenerate face. Rape her!"

"They sure got some funny people at matinees," a lady with a shopping bag said to her companion. "Just take a look at him.

He's got on a earring."

Then there was a soft-focus love scene, and Ignatius began to lose control. He could feel the hysteria overtaking him. He tried to be silent, but he found that he couldn't.

"They're photographing them through several thicknesses of cheesecloth," he spluttered. "Oh, my God. Who can imagine how wrinkled and loathsome those two really are? I think I'm getting nauseated. Can't someone in the projection booth turn off the electricity? Please!"

He rattled his cutlass loudly against the side of his seat. An old usherette came down the aisle and tried to grab the cutlass from him, but Ignatius wrestled with her, and she slid to the carpet. She got up and hobbled away.

The heroine, believing her honor to be in question, had a series of paranoid fantasies in which she was lying on a bed with her libertine. The bed was pulled through the streets and floated across a swimming pool at the resort hotel.

"Good grief. Is this smut supposed to be comedy?" Ignatius demanded in the darkness. "I have not laughed once. My eyes can hardly believe this highly discolored garbage. That woman must be lashed until she drops. She is Undermining our civilization. She is a Chinese Communist agent sent over to destroy us. Please! Someone with some decency get to the fuse box. Hundreds of people in this theater are being demoralized.

If we're all lucky, the Orpheum may have forgotten to pay its electric bill."

As the film ended Ignatius cried, "Under her All-American face she is really Tokyo Rose!"