Butterfly in the Typewriter (15 page)

Interestingly, in the same interview that Byrne offers this psychoanalytic reading of Ignatius Reilly, he rails against the absurdity of using Freudian psychology to interpret literature. Byrne might have a point in Ignatius being the alter ego of Toole, but he seems to miss the more likely possibility of why Toole grinned and reveled in his observations of his over-the-top colleague. To any medievalist, Byrne could be seen as a textbook rendition of a medieval clown: a character both of the mind and of the body, humorous in that he speaks with knowledge and eloquence but still succumbs to the whims of the belly, much like Shakespeare's Falstaff.

With Byrne at the forefront of absurdity, Toole watched this great play of humanity at SLI. He could not stop himself from mimicking such a rich palate of colorful personas. His colleagues were astounded at his ability to mirror the mannerisms and inflections in a person. People he spoke with, conversations he overheard, everyone was potential material to Toole. At dinner parties or interludes between classes, he would tell entertaining stories about people at SLI or sometimes people from New Orleans, impersonating them with precision. Eventually his colleagues started to wonder if anyone was safe from his observations. One night at dinner with Rickels and her husband, Milton, two of his dearest friends in Lafayette, Milton asked him directly, “Ken, you make fun
of so many people. Do you make fun of us when we aren't around?” “Certainly” he replied.

Toole had no misgivings over mimicking someone, even friends for whom he cared deeply. His friend Nick Polites, who was in Dr. Fogle's graduate class with Toole at Tulane and who also joined the SLI English department in the fall of 1960, saw Toole's full repertoire of SLI professor impersonations. Because Polites never mingled much with the rest of the English faculty, Toole was free to tell his stories of the faculty, and he did so with enthusiasm. As Polites recalls,

In the course of an evening, Toole might repeat his impersonations several times, as if refining them to perfection. Like many of his friends, Polites made a good audience, laughing and marveling. Of course, Toole maintained a steadfast rule to never turn his mirror of imitation on someone in his presence. Had Polites ever asked a question similar to that of Milton Rickels, Toole would have likely confirmed; of course he mimicked Polites when he was not around.

So with the pressures of success somewhat alleviated
, he enjoyed working and socializing with department members. In doing so he reaped much material for his future novel—he had his main character Ignatius Reilly in the works. And while Toole probably thought of Lafayette as a pit stop on his journey elsewhere, either toward a writing career or back to graduate school, it became much more to him than a way station. Observing the absurdity and hilarity in Lafayette, he quickly became quite the entertainer at parties, but this is only one side
of his experience there. The other side is a story of the heart. In Lafayette, he made endearing and long-lasting friendships. Many of his colleagues cared deeply for him, but no one loved him more than Patricia Rickels.

Toole appeared to Rickels as the impressive new hire, fresh in from New York City. She knew he originally came from New Orleans, but everything about him emanated a Manhattan vogue. He dressed in the Ivy League style, and while most faculty and students strolled along the walkways, Toole would throw his tie over his shoulder and dash across campus “as if he was off to some place important, or running for office.” When Patricia met Toole she quickly recognized his brilliance. “He was young. He was handsome. He was flashy . . . smart as a whip and funny as hell.” She often invited Toole over to eat dinner with her husband and child. And while he received many dinner invitations, usually from his married colleagues who were sympathetic to the loneliness of bachelorhood, he favored the company of the Rickels family.

It's not surprising Toole was so fond of them. By all accounts they were an extraordinary family. Patricia, having endured a regretful marriage to a Mississippi man, had divorced, finished graduate school, and moved to Lafayette where she fell in love with and married Milton Rickels, a successful professor whose mind was sharp, but whose legs had been crippled by polio. Together they doted on Patricia's son from her previous marriage, Gordon, who was thrilled to have “a real father” in Milton. And Milton, who was unable to have children, now felt the joy of fatherhood. In some ways they mirrored the Toole family: a strong mother, a father who struggled with illness, and a beloved son. However, the Rickels home was filled with an evident unconditional love between husband and wife and between parents and child. Patricia never chided Milton for not being the man she wanted him to be. While he depended on crutches to walk and physically struggled with common tasks like standing up from a chair, his disability never stopped him from living a full life of publishing, researching in archives all over the country, teaching, and of course being a dedicated husband and stepfather. Gordon, like Toole, was an extraordinarily bright child. And Toole felt a particular connection with him, perhaps seeing something of himself in the only child. On occasion, with Patricia's permission, he would pick up Gordon in his small two-door car, and they would “play
bachelors for the day.” Gordon liked to ride fast in Toole's sporty Chevy, and Toole enjoyed having company while grocery shopping, a chore he loathed. Before leaving Lafayette, Toole gave Gordon all of his childhood books—
Alice in Wonderland
,
The Yearling
,
Heidi
, and others—some of the stories that his mother used to read to him before bed, those same works that had sparked his own imagination at a young age.

The Rickelses must have provided Toole a welcomed escape from the pressures of his own family. Toole rarely spoke to anyone in Lafayette about his home life, but on occasion he opened up to Patricia. He told her of his days acting on the stage when he was a boy. And he told her of his father's odd behavior, sharing with her that, for a period, his father became obsessed with the virtue of apples, handing out the shiny red fruit to visitors, all the while “preaching at the difference it would make in them and how regular their bowels would be.” Such a story was funny for a moment, until it was clear the humor in the absurd behavior of his father was never far from the pain that it caused him.

But Patricia didn't need anecdotes from Toole's childhood to see that even as he cared deeply for his parents, they could distress him. One weekend his parents came to visit, seeing their son for the first time in the environment of his own home. Toole introduced them to the artist-tenant upstairs, Elmore Morgan, who remembered them in good spirits as they laughed and made jokes. But during their stay, Toole's father noticed that his son's apartment lacked sufficient protection from intruders. Over the weekend John installed deadbolt locks on the external and internal doors. In the event of a break-in, he explained, one would have a plan of retreat. This strategy may have made sense in their apartment in New Orleans with its rooms branching off a long hallway. But the extreme measures made little sense in a two-room apartment in a small rural community, where few people locked their doors at night. Patricia witnessed the new locks on the doors and the embarrassment behind her dear friend's half-smile when explaining his father's behavior.

An evening with the Rickelses meant some moments with a stable family that was genuinely content with spending time together. On the weekends, Toole often joined them on their days in the country, clearing the plot of land they had recently purchased to build their dream home. Because of his weak legs, Milton could not do strenuous labor, so Patricia, Gordon, and Toole hacked away at the thick overgrowth. After
hours of work, they would have a picnic, eating together as they watched the Spanish moss sway in the trees and the slow steady stream of the Bayou Vermillion make its way toward the Gulf of Mexico. After lunch they returned to clearing the land. Occasionally, Toole showed his true colors as a city boy. One day as they cut through thick vines and tall weeds, Pat heard Toole shriek, “Snake!” She looked up to see him running away from the area he had been working. Expecting a venomous serpent to greet her, Patricia carefully approached the cleared section to find a common garden snake. She killed it, and they all had a good laugh at Toole. After all, they bordered the swamps of Louisiana that had been home to reptiles long before humans arrived. With Toole's help, they cleared the land to build the house where, years later, he would come to visit, taking retreat from his life in New Orleans.

Toole survived days in the countryside with the Rickelses, but clearly he felt far more comfortable in the social setting of the dining room. Over modest meals of pasta and wine, the Rickelses relished his witty conversation, lively impersonations, and his stories. Sometimes he would tell them of his shameless pranks he played on the department chair Mary Dichmann. A tall and proud woman, Dichmann had been an officer in the Navy in World War II. As Patricia remembers, “You didn't want to mess with her.” But Toole did. On occasion he would sneak into Dichmann's classroom as soon as the doors in Little Abbeville were opened in the morning and write a message on the board, inoffensive, but sure to embarrass the proud professor. His favorite line was, “Mary Dichmann eats Fritos.” Minutes later, as the students entered and took their seats, they tried to make sense of the cryptic message on the board. When Dichmann arrived and read the message as the students laughed under their breath, she was outraged and embarrassed, but she had no way of knowing who did it. And with her blind devotion to any graduate of Tulane, she would never suspect Toole. Knowing this, he could carry on his pranks and confess to other faculty members, hopefully over dinner, that he was the culprit.

To his friends' enjoyment, Toole also made up stories of two androgynous, globetrotting friends, Flip and Sandy, who were always visiting exotic locales like Buenos Aires or Rio de Janeiro. He would begin each tale with the line, “I got a letter from Flip and Sandy today.” Then he explained the colorful adventures they described in the letter and what
he had written back to them. Intrigued by his most interesting friends, Patricia would sometimes ask if they would ever have a chance to meet Flip and Sandy. “I'm afraid not,” Toole always replied. They finally figured out that Toole was making it all up, but they didn't care. The stories and characters were so interesting they enjoyed losing themselves in the fiction.

From harmless pranks to imaginative storytelling, Toole seemed like an unending wealth of entertaining conversation. But his charm had its limits in the eyes of his colleagues. In addition to his frequent visits to the Rickelses, he visited the homes of other couples in the department. Nearly everyone played host to the young bachelor, and after a meal the wives would often sew buttons on his pants and coats for him. Everyone appreciated his company and conversation, but their sympathies started to wear thin, especially when they recognized his miserliness. “He was a cheapskate!” Patricia Rickels remembers, “He would sponge off of everybody, and everyone would invite him to dinner.” Toole offered good company, but he seemed content to dine at the expense of his friends. Of course, with all these invitations to dinner, and with the convivial sort in what he once called “the fattest English department in the lower Deep South,” Toole experienced a common side effect of moving to Cajun country. Having gone through school as a portly adolescent, he was horrified to discover he was gaining weight. The slim-fitting jacket with which he arrived in Lafayette began to bulge, and his white shirt started to show through the slit in the back. Perhaps that is why the buttons on his shirts and pants kept popping off.

As his body showed signs of his indulgences, the faculty had had enough of his willingness to consume and not contribute. They demanded Toole throw them a party. At first he resisted, saying, “I don't know if I can.” Regardless of his hesitation, they informed him, “You have to!” With an apartment far too small to entertain the English department, he asked his landlord, Mrs. Montgomery, if he could have a party in her garden. After some persuasion, she agreed, and Toole welcomed his colleagues to a small affair with few refreshments. He seemed out of his element as a host. When one of the professors accidentally broke one of Mrs. Montgomery's lawn chairs, Toole became nervous, exclaiming, “She's gonna kill me!”