Butterfly in the Typewriter (33 page)

Shortly after Polites's return to New York, Fletcher called to ask about their friend whom he had not heard from for some time. Polites recounts,

As Toole descended into depths his friends could not follow, everything seemed to be changing around him. The student body at Dominican, which had been previously required to wear high heels to dinners and prohibited from wearing pants to class during Toole's first years at the school, was coming under the influence of the hippie generation. One of the three Trader sisters, Elise Trader Diament, sensed that Toole was baffled by these students who sat in class in raincoats and hair rollers and just stared at him, not engaging in discussion. He talked to them about authors one would expect the youth of the late 1960s to embrace—the predecessors of the hippie movement, the Beats. Elise recalled how he admired the Beat Generation and how he “thought Jack Kerouac was wonderful.” Yet the students in hair rollers remained
unresponsive. And perhaps this silence represented the chasm that was growing between the way he saw the world and the way the world seemed to be headed. It was painfully clear that Dominican could never serve as the peak of his literary life. As Elise explained, he was “a very deep person—too deep for Dominican.”

By the fall of 1968, the students at Dominican started to notice that Professor Toole was not acting like his usual self. He was humorless, serious, and bitter—some students described him as “caustic.” He made snide remarks to girls who had received flowers during the holiday season. “How ridiculous,” he muttered. Chatter started to circulate about Professor Toole's odd behavior. As Elise admits, “He had a few dark days.”

Eventually his visions of Dominican students chasing him through the Quarter landed on his doorstep. One weekend over coffee, Toole told Bobby Byrne that students were driving by his house at night and honking the horn to taunt him. Even though Byrne had predicted the Dominicans would surely ruin him, he recognized that Toole was not well. While the threat of students may have been hallucinated, according to one Dominican student, some girls did honk their horns as they drove by his house at night. It was likely youthful teasing and some degree of flirtation. Clearly Toole's state of mind misinterpreted their behavior as hostile. But these occurrences were irritants atop the far more disturbing confession he made to Byrne. He confessed he believed that the government had implanted a device into his brain. “Do you think I am imagining these things?” he asked his friend. Byrne recognized the telltale signs of paranoid schizophrenia. He replied, “Yes,” and advised him to get help. Unbeknownst to Byrne, Toole had gone to his family practitioner about debilitating headaches he was suffering. Of course any physician requires openness from a patient in order to achieve an accurate diagnosis. And while the conversations between doctor and patient remain confidential, his friends acknowledge Toole, even in his darkest moments, held a fierce dedication to his own perception. “He was so convinced of his own mind,” Kubach recalls, “you couldn't change it.” In a rare moment he had opened up to Byrne, acknowledging the possibility that his perception might be distorted. But he had refined his mind over the years to be acute, sharp, quick, and accurate. He trusted it. Barring rarely seen moments of self-doubt, it appeared he would have faith in his own
delusions. Then, as they sipped coffee, it seemed as if Toole flipped a switch somewhere in his mind; he returned to his usual self, making small talk about mutual friends in Lafayette and New Orleans.

Perhaps in an attempt to re-center himself on a track toward the prestigious and gratifying future he so deserved, Toole once again took up the pursuit of his PhD. But his condition and commitment to his parents left Tulane the only viable option for graduate studies. Between Dominican and Tulane he walked in two different worlds, a professor by day and a student by night, just as he had done at Hunter and Columbia. He took only two courses: a seminar on Dreiser and an Old English course with Professor Huling Ussery. His classmates remember him as intelligent and well prepared. His class notes demonstrate clear thinking and the ability to reason. These were not the scribblings of a madman, but rather notes from a mind that could parse out academic pursuits and the unnerving anxiety that something was not right in his world. Toole often visited Professor Ussery during office hours and after class. They began frequent and long one-on-one discussions, conversations that convinced Ussery his student was not well. Ussery could tell Toole was suffering. Just as Toole had done with Sister Beatrice and Angela Gregory, he confided in Ussery. When asked about the nature of their discussion, Ussery declined to comment. But he admits they did not discuss Old English or the PhD program. They were delving deeper and more personal than two professors talking shop. With growing concern for his student's well being, Ussery went to his department chair to suggest they recommend Toole for psychological evaluation. The chair decided that the department would not get involved in the personal matters of a student.

Toole's paranoia came to a head one day in Ussery's class. Thomas Bonner was in the course with Toole and remembers him as “competent in his preparations and quiet in demeanor.” Having taught at University of Southwestern Louisiana (formerly SLI), Bonner knew Toole's old Lafayette circle. But after acknowledging their common acquaintances, such as the Rickelses, Byrne, and Broussard, their communication ceased. It appeared Toole kept to himself, not socializing with other graduate students. One day in the basement classroom in Gibson Hall, as Toole sat in his regular seat by a pillar in the middle of the room, he stood up during the class session. As Bonner recalls, Toole announced

The students were clearly unaware of any event in class that might have prompted such a reaction. Toole never returned to class. Obviously, he sensed that forces beyond his control confined him. He had become suspicious of his students at Dominican, and he determined some contingent at Tulane worked against him.

But, these neuroses were minor compared to his most horrifying realization that he shared with Patricia and Milton Rickels. Since returning from Puerto Rico, he often spent an overnight in Lafayette visiting the Rickelses. Typically he would make the drive on a Saturday afternoon; they would have dinner and drinks, talking into the evening, then enjoy a relaxing breakfast the next morning before he returned to New Orleans. But on one of his weekend visits in 1968, he pulled into the Rickelses driveway after the two-hour trip and remained in the car. Noticing he was not moving, Patricia went out to greet him. “What are you doing, Ken? Come on inside.” He looked at her and said, “No. I don't think you want me.” Patricia dismissed his self-pity. “Oh don't be an ass!” she replied. “Come on inside.” Ken nodded, “Ok. But I am going to leave my bags in here, because I don't think you want me.” He came into the home, and they enjoyed a pleasant meal. After dinner they sat around the table, talking as usual, but Toole's conversation surprised them. For the first time, he told them that he had written a novel and that it had been under consideration at Simon and Schuster. They praised his worthy accomplishment. But then Toole shared his shocking insight:
A Confederacy of Dunces
had been stolen and given to another author at Simon and Schuster.

In what sounded like an elaborate conspiracy theory, Toole explained that George Deaux, the writer who came to teach at SLI a few weeks after Toole left for Columbia University, had gained access to
A Confederacy of Dunces
and Simon and Schuster published it under a different title. Indeed, during the time Toole and Gottlieb exchanged letters
and the manuscript, Simon and Schuster had published three of Deaux's novels, and Robert Gottlieb had worked as an editor on them all. Deaux's second wife worked in the publishing industry, as well, and Toole somehow connected her to Simon and Schuster. According to Toole, Deaux had gained access to the manuscript through his wife and Robert Gottlieb.

Patricia listened to her dear friend explain how the work that was supposed to save him from the rigors of teaching and the pressures of living with his parents, had been unjustly taken from him. Sympathetic to his distress, Patricia assumed him correct. While there was no evidence to support his claim, she had an unfavorable view of Deaux from his days at SLI. But Milton Rickels placed the story in context with Toole's odd behavior in the driveway. Much like Byrne, Milton recognized his symptoms of paranoia and his increasing detachment from reality. That night, as Toole rested in the guest room across the hall, Milton explained to his wife that her dear friend was losing his mind. “No. No, it can't be true,” Patricia muttered, as she lay on her pillow in disbelief.

While Toole's faculties of reason might have made emotional leaps of logic, perhaps spurred by jealousy of Deaux's success as a novelist at Simon and Schuster, his suspicions were not entirely unfounded. Toole never mentioned any specific titles by Deaux, but there are some remarkable similarities between
A Confederacy of Dunces
and Deaux's third novel,
Superworm
, which was published in 1968 just before Gottlieb left Simon and Schuster to become editor-in-chief at Knopf. Considering Toole's theory sprang from a troubled mind, it should be stressed that a comparison between the two novels serves only to offer insight into how Toole may have come to believe his work was stolen from him, not to legitimize his claims.

Toole owned Deaux's first novel,
The Humanization of Eddie Cement
, which had been published in 1964, but that novel as well as Deaux's second book,
Exit
, are nothing like
Confederacy
. Toole must have read
Superworm
to conclude that his novel had been stolen. In
Superworm
, history professor Claude Flowers can no longer stand the villainies of modern times. Taking to task adversaries that represent modernity, Claude dons a self-made superhero costume and plots to undermine the grand inequities in “the system.” The dust jacket
commentary describes Claude as an American Don Quixote. In the foreword of
Confederacy
, Walker Percy defines Ignatius as “a fat Don Quixote.” And while Toole was not alive to read Percy's commentary, he was certainly well aware of the quixotic nature of his main character.

Both Ignatius Reilly and Claude Flowers are self-marginalized intellectuals. They bite their thumb at the modern world through their actions, comments, and dress. Claude “wears Clark's desert boots and Rooster ties, and shirts with button-down collars.” Most days his jacket and trousers are mismatched. Ignatius wears a hunting cap, a plaid flannel shirt, “voluminous tweed trousers,” and “suede desert boots.” Through their misadventures, both characters modify their apparel. Claude becomes Superworm, dressed in long underwear dyed black. And Ignatius becomes a piratical hot dog vendor, complete with eye patch, plastic cutlass, and hot dog cart. They both disregard social standards of dress, and both characters find costumes that empower them to revolt boldly against society.

Claude is much more proactive than Ignatius in his attack on the Modern Age. He is highly attuned to the places of the worst offense with a “nose, sensitive to evil” and the “fetid wave of wrong thought.” He searches for the perfect opportunity to “leap” into his superhero roll. His lectures in history classes bore his students, but his subversive actions inspire them. The laziness of Ignatius prohibits such zest, although his physique certainly gains destructive momentum. While Claude aims to embody the revolutionary spirit, Ignatius aims to incite revolution.

And through their social activism, they develop a savior complex, wherein they continually speak and act for the disenfranchised populations of society. But in both books their schemes to save the world are more about legitimizing their own place in society, rather than a sincere attempt at social reform. In
Confederacy
Ignatius feels compelled to impress the radical activist Myrna Minkoff, his epistolary love. From his Crusade for Moorish Dignity to the Army of Sodomites, he fantasizes about Myrna's amazed reaction. And Claude's subversive heroism offers him an avenue of personal expression, where he can render the paradox of lecturing students on the glories of revolution from the bourgeois comforts of a university professorship; he can operate in mainstream society but take on a persona to become the revolutionary. But the villains they take on—a polluting pizza factory, a billboard sign, and an old
custodian in the Smithsonian in the case of Claude, and a pants factory in the case of Ignatius—convey the absurdity of their revolutionary spirit.

So the noble ambitions in both Ignatius and Claude are skin deep; they are both incredibly selfish men. While they claim to fight for justice, they mistreat the people that they depend upon most. Ignatius constantly insults his mother, while Claude verbally and at times physically assaults his wife. And yet the most abused characters remain surprisingly devoted to their abuser.

And in the end Ignatius and Claude must leave their home. Ignatius narrowly escapes the Cadillac ambulance coming to take him to the psychiatric ward in Charity Hospital, as he heads to New York City with Myrna Minkoff. Claude is not so lucky; the men “in immaculate white suites” place him in the “padded compartment” of a police wagon. While they meet different fates, both characters are purged from the community; their psychotic self-indulgence had become a consuming vortex. And despite the pleading of their loved ones to change, they could not. The only way to deal with Ignatius and Claude is to get rid of them.