Butterfly in the Typewriter (23 page)

Toole arrived in New Orleans on Saturday, December 22.
The Christmas holiday was in full swing; carols played on the radio, families hung tinsel on their Christmas trees, and shoppers strolled along Canal Street marveling at the displays. But unlike the snowy scenes in the department store windows, New Orleans was no winter wonderland. As was typical for the winter months in southern Louisiana, cold rains drenched the city throughout the holiday season of 1962. But Toole had so yearned for his return home that even the winter rains may have signaled to him welcomed relief from army life.

For most of his vacation, he relaxed in his parents' apartment on Audubon Street, content with homemade meals and a comfortable bed. He received several invitations from friends in Lafayette, but, as he confessed to Fletcher, “Nothing would lodge me from the comforts of home.” On a few occasions he ventured out to reconnect with his beloved city. Wandering about his hometown, reminiscing the past, and pleased with his year in the service, he likely grappled with a looming dilemma. In eight months he would be discharged. But the future was uncertain. He could teach or continue graduate studies, each option a worthy pursuit, although neither one closer to his dream of becoming a fiction writer. In the past his responsibilities of work and school, along with his own insecurities had stifled his muse. Since the age of sixteen when his novella
The Neon Bible
lost the writing contest, he mostly kept his attempts at fiction and poetry to himself, sharing occasionally with his mother. But his winter trip home may have reminded him of his ambition to write a true New Orleans novel. He was always intrigued by the stories taking place every day in New Orleans, with its panoply of characters much like the city: proud and desperate, opulent and decomposing, all at once. But no writer had yet captured its essence, at least not the New Orleans that he knew.

The few surviving letters that document his winter visit to New Orleans indicate an introspective journey, where Toole would once again find that spark of inspiration he'd found stargazing in Mississippi in 1954. He had never really recaptured that energetic spirit, despite his attempts at writing. This time his eye would turn toward his hometown in all its conflicted complexity. The accounts of his interactions with the
few friends he visited suggest something was shifting in Toole. In a letter to Fletcher that recounts his visit home, Toole exhibits the sensibilities of a fiction writer, one who not only narrates an intriguing moment, but also explores the composition of the moment, such as characters and plot. His observations in this single letter indicate traces of material found in
Confederacy
.

Toole details a visit he made to Bobby Byrne, his unforgettable colleague from Southwestern Louisiana Institute, which was now University of Southwestern Louisiana. Welcoming Toole into his New Orleans home, Byrne stood dignified and sloppy, refined in elocution, and ridiculously dressed. Toole writes to Fletcher,

Toole must have recalled this moment when he wrote the first chapter of
Confederacy
. Dressed in his “monstrous flannel nightshirt,” Ignatius greets Patrolman Mancuso as he and Mrs. Reilly converse over coffee and chicory. Like Byrne, Ignatius prefers the comforts of his nightshirt, disregarding decorum in the presence of company. Ignatius also has a worldview that “weathers humanity's derision and apathy.” And throughout the novel he offers countless dogmas, as he revolts against the Modern Age. While Toole had spent nearly a year observing Byrne at SLI, Toole's return to New Orleans may have reminded him of Byrne's potential to be made into a character for his novel.

Continuing his rounds of SLI faculty in New Orleans, he spent an afternoon with Nick Polites, who was home from Chicago to see his family. His aunt, the librarian at SLI, Mario Mamalakis, was also visiting for the holidays. In Toole's account of the visit, he observed the unique chemistry between the Polites family members:

Toole recognized the way in which the opposing personalities created humorous tension. He applied this rule of opposites to
Confederacy
as well. Every negative character has a positive counterpart, and while the negative characters (Lana Lee, Mrs. Levy, Ignatius Reilly) appear to be atop the wheel, even when they do not see themselves as such, by the end of the novel the positive characters (Burma Jones, Darlene, Miss Trixie, Mr. Levy, Irene Reilly) have ascended. And the tension between the character personalities generates the movement of the plot—just as it stirred the conversation in the Polites home, much to Toole's amusement.

Toole also reports to Fletcher a meeting he had with several other friends from SLI. In early January, he met with professors J. C. Broussard and Lottie Ziegler, along with Polites and a couple visiting from the Netherlands, whom he referred to as the Dutch Couple. The group gathered at the Sazerac Bar in the Roosevelt Hotel, the same establishment Huey Long favored for his favorite cocktail, Ramos Gin Fizz. They conversed over drinks as they sat under the vibrant Paul Ninas murals that adorned the walls, scenes of New Orleans life, depicting black laborers working fields of cotton and unloading cargo at the docks, while white proprietors watch and affluent tourists mill about Jackson Square.

Toole, Broussard, and Polites all wrote letters to Fletcher about the evening. Fletcher received the letters on the same day at his apartment in Florence, Italy. He refers to them as the Roosevelt Hotel Triptych—three varied depictions of the same event. In Toole's letter, he surveys the group and dishes slight jabs to both Broussard and Polites. He writes,

For Fletcher, who knew each member of this cast, from Ziegler's periodic ticks to the unassuming Dutch couple visiting New Orleans, the group was certainly unique and, with the addition of a few potent cocktails, potentially hilarious. They formed a confederacy of sorts. And the meeting held true to a tenet of Toole's novel: where three or more characters convene, a rumpus will ensue.

Toole walked away from the evening, shrugging off Broussard and Polites with indifference. From all three letters it seems the old friends from Lafayette found little cheer in the reunion. But Broussard and Polites provide the other two pictures in this triptych, offering an insightful account of Toole's behavior that evening. Broussard describes Toole as

Granted, Broussard tended to exaggerate. In his letters to Fletcher, everything from meals to personalities was either the best or the worst he had ever experienced. Unsurprisingly, a negative impression quickly escalated to an indictment. But Broussard's comments still hold significance. Toole often mentioned his achievements with a nonchalance that lacked humility, especially around Polites, whom he always seemed eager to impress. His inflated ego and nonchalant manner may have caused some eyes to roll; however, in the early days of 1963, it likely served as a veneer to his anxieties over the future. While he exhibited
pride in his success in the army, he took little stock in it, as he had no intention of becoming a career soldier. Someone probably asked him about his plans after the army: the inevitable question that hung like fire over his head. If he gave the impression that Wieler begged for him to return to Hunter, then, like Broussard, he embellished the truth. Wieler eagerly offered Toole a position, but his letters do not suggest he was “imploring his return.” In fact, it appears from Wieler's responses that Toole sent inquires to him about returning to Hunter. Here again, Toole distorted the truth for his own self-aggrandizement. Like any young man making his way into his unsure future, perhaps unnerved by the unknown, recognition, praise, and a sense of being desired soothed those anxieties.

Unlike Broussard, Polites was accustomed to Toole's occasional arrogance. In his letter to Fletcher, Polites observes, “The army is spoiling him, as all people and all institutions spoil him by flattery.” From Tulane to SLI, Polites had watched institutions dole out accolades to his friend. However, Polites suspected Toole's swagger belied a less confident state of mind. He writes, “Ken looked healthy and tanned, but perhaps beneath the bronzed surface he is dissipated. I really don't know, except that perhaps he may be impervious to alcohol.” While Polites detected the psychological toll of hedonism underneath Toole's exterior, he may have seen a man performing to his own social expectations, as an exemplar of accomplishment, but secretly struggling over the uncertainty of his future, what Toole would vaguely term months later in a letter to his parents, “the situation.”

While on leave, Toole also intended to visit the Rickelses in Lafayette, but spent all his time in New Orleans instead. Once he was back in Puerto Rico, he felt compelled to write, especially after Byrne told him that Milton Rickels, whom Toole called Rick, had an accident, a particularly threatening event for his frail body. Toole writes to his surrogate Lafayette family,

In a self-conscious moment, he appears to believe the Rickelses might be indifferent to his visits. Patricia maintained they always loved his company, and they let him know it. Contrary to his performance at the Sazerac Bar, this letter offers another rare moment of Toole with his mask off, similar to the sincere letter to his father when he suffered from shingles. He expresses concern for his friend with no need for wit or reports of his accomplishments. Had he gone to Lafayette, he may have been momentarily relieved from his compulsion toward an elevated status of success, perhaps reminded of what he saw in the Rickelses that gave him such comfort during his days at SLI. But he seemed to be transfixed by a contemplation of what he would make of his future. His friend Nick Polites made an astute, albeit cynical, observation of Toole during this winter holiday. Reporting to Fletcher, Polites suggests that Toole was “developing his tendency toward inertia to a point of absolute self-realization.” Indeed, the burgeoning author sat in stillness on the verge of becoming a novelist.

After twelve days of relaxation, Toole bid farewell to his parents and reluctantly boarded a plane bound for Puerto Rico.