A Confederacy of Dunces (50 page)

Fourteen

Ignatius spent the day in his room napping fitfully and attacking his rubber glove during his frequent, anxious moments of consciousness. Throughout the afternoon the telephone in the hall had been ringing, each new ring making him more nervous and anxious. He lunged at the glove, deflowering it, stabbing it, conquering it. Like any celebrity, Ignatius had attracted his fans: his mother's jinxed relatives, neighbors, people Mrs. Reilly had not seen for years. They had all telephoned. At every ring Ignatius imagined that it was Mr.

Levy calling back, but he always heard his mother say to the caller the lines that were becoming tearfully standard, "Ain't this awful? What I'm gonna do? Now our name is really ruint."

When Ignatius could stand it no longer, he would billow out of his room in search of a Dr. Nut. If he chanced to meet his mother in the hall, she would not look at him but rather study the fleecy spheres of lint that drifted along the floor in her son's wake. There seemed to be nothing that he could say to her.

What would Mr. Levy do? Abelman, unfortunately, was apparently a rather petty person, a man too small to accept a little criticism, a hypersensitive molecule of a human. He had written to the wrong person; the militant and courageous broadside had been delivered before the wrong audience. At this point his nervous system could not manage a court trial.

He would break down completely before the judge. He wondered how long it would be before Mr. Levy descended upon him again. What senile conundrums was Miss Trixie babbling to Mr. Levy? An infuriated and confused Mr. Levy would return, this time determined to have him incarcerated at once. Now waiting for this return was like waiting for an execution. The dull headache persisted. The Dr. Nuts tasted like gall. Abelman certainly wanted a great deal of money; that sensitive plant of an Abelman must have been greatly offended. When the true author of the letter was discovered, what would Abelman demand in lieu of $500 thousand? A life?

The Dr. Nuts seemed only as an acid gurgling down into his intestine. He filled with gas, the sealed valve trapping it just as one pinches the mouth of a balloon. Great eructations rose from his throat and bounced upward toward the refuse-laden bowl of the milk glass chandelier. Once a person was asked to step into this brutal century, anything could happen.

Everywhere there lurked pitfalls like Abelman, the insipid Crusaders for Moorish Dignity, the Mancuso cretin, Dorian Greene, newspaper reporters, strip-teasers, birds, photography, juvenile delinquents, Nazi pomographers. And especially Myrna Minkoff. The consumer products. And especially Myrna Minkoff. The musky minx must be dealt with.

Somehow. Someday, She must pay. Whatever happened, he must attend to her even if the revenge took years and he had to stalk her through decades from one coffee shop to another, from one folk singing orgy to another, from subway train to pad to cotton field to demonstration. Ignatius invoked an elaborate Elizabethan curse upon Myrna and, rolling over, frantically abused the glove once more.

How dare his mother contemplate a marriage. Only someone as simpleminded as she could be so disloyal. The aged fascist would conduct witchhunt after witchhunt until the formerly intact Ignatius J. Reilly was reduced to a fragmented and mumbling vegetable. The aged fascist would testify for Mr.

Levy so that his future stepson would be locked away and he would be free to satisfy his warped and archaic desires upon the unsuspecting Irene Reilly, to perform his conservative practices upon Irene Reilly with free enterprise. Prostitutes were not protected by the Social Security and unemployment compensation systems. No doubt the Robichaux roue was thus attracted to them. Only Fortuna knew what he had learned at their hands.

Mrs. Reilly listened to the squeaking and belching emanating from her son's room and wondered whether, on top of everything else, he were having a fit. But she didn't want to look at Ignatius. Whenever she heard his door opening, she tried to run to her room to avoid him. Five hundred thousand dollars was a sum she could not even imagine. She could hardly imagine the punishment given someone who had done something bad enough to be worth five hundred thousand. If there were any cause for suspicion on Mr. Levy's part, there was none on hers. Ignatius had written whatever it was.

Wouldn't this be fine? Ignatius in jail. There was only one way to save him. She carried the telephone as far down the hall as she could, and for the fourth time that day, she dialed Santa Battaglia's number.

"Lord, honey, you really worried," Santa said. "What happened now?"

"I'm afraid Ignatius is in worst trouble than just a picture in the paper," Mrs. Reilly whispered. "I can't talk over the phone.

Santa, you was right all along. Ignatius gotta go to the Charity."

"Well, at last. I been talking myself hoarse telling you that.

Claude just rang up a little while ago. He says Ignatius made a big scene at the hospital when they met. Claude says he's ascared of Ignatius, he's so big."

"Ain't that awful. It was terrible in the hospital. I already told you how Ignatius started screaming. All them nurses and sick people. I coulda died. Claude ain't too angry, huh?"

"He ain't angry, but he don't like you being alone in that house.

He ax me if maybe him and me shouldn't come over there and stay with you."

"Don't do that, babe," Mrs. Reilly said quickly.

"What kinda trouble Ignatius is in now?"

"I'll tell you later. Right now I can only say I been thinking about this Charity business all day, and I finally made up my mind. Now is the time. He's my own child, but we gotta get him treated for his own sake." Mrs. Reilly tried to think of the phrase that was always used in courtroom dramas on TV. "We gotta get him declared temporary insane."

"Temporary?" Santa scoffed.

"We gotta help out Ignatius before they come drag him off."

"Who's gonna drag him off?"

"It seem like he pulled a boo-boo when he was working at Levy Pants."

"Oh, Lord! Not something else. Irene! Hang up and call them people at the Charity right now, honey."

"No, listen. I don't wanna be here when they come. I mean, Ignatius is big. He might make trouble. I couldn't stand that.

My nerves is bad enough now."

"Big is right. It'll be like capturing a wild elephant. Them people better have them a great big net," Santa said eagerly.

"Irene, this is the best decision you ever made. I tell you what.

I'll call up the Charity right now. You come over here. I'll get Claude to come over, too. He'll sure be glad to hear this.

Whoo! You'll be sending out wedding invitations in about a week. You gonna have you some little properties before the year's out, sweetheart. You gonna have you a railroad pension."

It all sounded good to Mrs. Reilly, but she asked a little hesitantly, "What about them communiss?"

"Don't worry about them, darling. We'll get rid of them communiss. Claude's gonna be too busy fixing up that house of yours. He's gonna have his hands full turning Ignatius's room into a den."

Santa broke into some baritone peals of laughter.

"Miss Annie's gonna turn green when she sees this place fixed up."

"Then tell that woman, say, 'You go out and shake yourself a little. You'll get your house fixed up, too.' " Santa guffawed.

"Now get off the line, babe, and get over here. I'm calling the Charity right now. Get out that h6use fast!"

Santa slammed the telephone down in Mrs. Reilly's ear.

Mrs. Reilly looked out the front shutters. It was very dark now, which was good. The neighbors would not see too much if they took Ignatius away during the night. She ran into the bathroom and powdered her face and the front of her dress, drew a surrealistic version of a mouth beneath her nose, and dashed into her bedroom to find a coat. When she got to the front door, she stopped. She couldn't say goodbye to Ignatius like this. He was her child.

She went up to his bedroom door and listened to the wildly twanging bedsprings as they reached a crescendo, as they built toward a finale worthy of Grieg's In the Hall of the Mountain King. She knocked, but there was no answer.

"Ignatius," she called sadly.

"What do you want?" a breathless voice asked at last.

"I'm going out, Ignatius. I wanted to say goodbye."

Ignatius did not answer.

"Ignatius, open up," Mrs. Reilly pleaded. "Come kiss me goodbye, honey."

"I don't feel at all well. I can hardly move."

"Come on, son."

The door opened slowly. Ignatius stuck his fat gray face into the hall. His mother's eyes watered when she saw the bandage.

"Now kiss me, honey. I'm sorry it all had to end like this."

"What do all of these lachrymose cliches mean?" Ignatius asked suspiciously. "Why are you suddenly pleasant? Don't you have some old man to meet somewhere?"

"You was right, Ignatius. You can't go to work. I shoulda known that. I shoulda tried to get that debt paid off some other way." A tear slid from Mrs.

Reilly's eyes and washed a little trail of clean skin through the powder. "If that Mr. Levy calls, don't answer the phone. I'm gonna take care of you."

"Oh, my God!" Ignatius bellowed. "Now I'm really in trouble.

Goodness knows what you're planning. Where are you going?"

"Stay inside and don't answer the phone."

"Why? What is this?" The bloodshot eyes flashed with fright.

"Who was that you were whispering to on the phone?"

"You won't have to worry about Mr. Levy, son. I'm gonna fix you up. Just remember your poor momma's got your welfare at heart."

"That's what I'm afraid of."

"Don't never be mad at me, honey," Mrs. Reilly said and, jumping up in her bowling shoes that she had not taken off since Angelo had telephoned her the night before, she embraced Ignatius and kissed him on his moustache.

She released him and ran to the front door, where she turned and called, "I'm sorry I run into that building, Ignatius. I love you."

The shutters slammed and she was gone.

"Come back," Ignatius thundered. He ripped at the shutters, but the old Plymouth, one of its front tires fenderless and exposed as if it were a stock car, was rumbling to life. "Come back, please. Mother!"

"Aw, shut up," Miss Annie hollered from somewhere in the darkness.

His mother had something up her sleeve, some clumsy plan, some scheme that would ruin him forever. Why had she insisted that he stay inside? She knew that he would not be going anywhere in his present condition. He found Santa Battaglia's number and dialed it. He must speak with his mother.

"This is Ignatius Reilly," he said when Santa had answered. "Is my mother coming down there tonight?"

"No, she ain't," Santa replied coldly. "I ain't spoke with your momma all day."

Ignatius hung up. Something was going on. He had heard his mother saying "Santa" over the telephone at least two or three times during the day. And that last telephone call, that whispered communication just before his mother had left. His mother only whispered to the Battaglia bawd and then it was only when they were exchanging secrets. At once Ignatius suspected the reason for his mother's emotional farewell, for its finality. She had already told him that the Battaglia matchmaker had advised a vacation for him in the psychiatric ward at Charity. Everything made sense. In a psychiatric ward he would not be liable to prosecution by Abelman and Levy, or whoever it was who would push the case. Perhaps both of them would sue him, Abelman for character defamation and Levy for forgery. To his mother's limited mind the psychiatric ward would seem an attractive alternative. It was just like her, with the very best of intentions, to have her child harnessed by a straitjacket and electrocuted by shock treatments. Of course, his mother might not be considering this at all. However, whenever dealing with her, it was always best to prepare for the worst. Wife of Bath Battaglia's lie was itself not very reassuring.

In the United States you are innocent until they prove you guilty. Perhaps Miss Trixie had confessed. Why hadn't Mr.

Levy telephoned back? Ignatius would not be tossed into a mental clinic while, legally, he was still innocent of having written the letter. His mother, typically, had responded to Mr.

Levy's visit in the most irrational and emotional manner possible. "I'm gonna take care of you." "I'm gonna fix you up."

Yes, she would fix him up all right. A hose would be turned on him. Some cretin psychoanalyst would attempt to comprehend the singularity of his world-view. In frustration, the psychoanalyst would have him crammed into a cell three feet square. No. That was out of the question. Jail was preferable.

There they only limited you physically. In a mental ward they tampered with your soul and worldview and mind. He would never tolerate that. And his mother had been so apologetic about this mysterious protection she was going to give him.

All signs pointed to Charity Hospital.

Oh, Fortuna, you wretch!

Now he was waddling around in the little house like a sitting duck. Whatever strong-arm men the hospital employed had their sights aimed directly at him. Ignatius Reilly, clay pigeon.

His mother might only have gone to one of her bowling Bacchanalia. On the other hand, a barred truck might be speeding to Constantinople Street right now.

Escape. Escape.

Ignatius looked in his wallet. The thirty dollars was gone, apparently confiscated by his mother at the hospital. He looked at the clock. It was almost eight o'clock. Between napping and assaulting the glove, the afternoon and evening had passed rather quickly. Ignatius searched his room, flinging Big Chief tablets around, mashing them underfoot, dragging them from beneath his bed. He came up with some scattered coins and went to work on the desk, where he found a few more. The total was sixty cents, a sum that limited and blocked escape routes. He could at least find a safe haven for the rest of the evening: the Prytania. After the theater had closed, he could pass along Constantinople Street to see whether his mother had come home.

There was a slipshod frenzy of dressing. The red flannel nightshirt sailed up and hung on the chandelier. He jammed his toes into the desert boots and leaped as well as he could into the tweed trousers, which he could hardly button at the waist. Shirt, cap, overcoat, Ignatius put them on blindly and ran into the hall, careening against the narrow walls. He was just reaching for the front door when three loud knocks cracked against the shutters.