Confederacy of Dunces, A - John Kennedy Toole [108]
He got up and went into the whirlpool bath. While the water swirled and jetted around him, he wondered how he might somehow be able to dump Levy Pants in the lap of some poor buyer. It must have some uses. A skating rink? A gym? A Negro cathedral? Then he wondered what would happen if he carried Mrs. Levy’s exercising table to the seawall and dumped it into the Gulf. He dried himself carefully, put on his terry-cloth robe, and went back into the rumpus room to get his dope sheet.
Miss Trixie was sitting up on the couch. Her face had been cleaned. Her mouth was an orange smear. Her weak eyes were accentuated by shadow. Mrs. Levy was adjusting a coiffed black wig over the old woman’s thin hair.
“What in the world are you doing to me now?” Miss Trixie was wheezing at her benefactress. “You’ll pay for this.”
“Do you believe it?” Mrs. Levy asked her husband proudly, all traces of hostility gone from her voice. “Just look at that.”
Mr. Levy couldn’t believe it. Miss Trixie looked exactly like Mrs. Levy’s mother.
II
In Mattie’s Ramble Inn, Jones poured a glassful of beer and sank his long teeth into the foam.
“That Lee woman ain’t treatin you right, Jones,” Mr. Watson was telling him. “One thing I don like to see a colored man make fun of hisself for bein colored. That what she be doin with you fix up like a plantation darky.”
“Whoa! Color cats got it har enough without peoples bustin out laughin cause they color. Shit. I make my mistake when I tell that Lee mother a po-lice tell me to get a job. I shoulda tell her them fair employmen peoples sendin me over, scare that gal a little.”
“You better go to the po-lice and tell them you quittin at that place but you gonna fin you another job.”
“Hey! I ain walkin in no precinc and flappin my mouth at no po-lice. Them po-lice take one look at me, throw my ass in jail. Whoa! Color peoples cain fin no job, but they sure can fin a openin in jail. Goin in jail the bes way you get you somethin to eat regular. But I rather starve outside. I rather mop a whore floor than go to jail and be makin plenny license plate and rug and leather belt and shit. I jus was stupor enough to get my ass snatch up in a trap at that Night of Joy. I gotta figure this thing out myself.”
“I still say you go to the po-lice and tell them you be between job a little while.”
“Yeah. And maybe I be between job about fifdy year. I ain seen no peoples screamin for unskill color cats. Ooo-wee. Somebody like that Lee bastar know plenny po-lice. Otherwise that B-drinker, knockout drop cathouse be close down long ago. I ain takin no chance going to no Lee frien in the po-lice and sayin, ‘Hey, man, I jus be vagran a little while.’ He say, ‘Okay, boy, you be servin jus a little while, too.’ Whoa!”
“Well, how the sabotage comin along.”
“Pretty poor. Lee make me work overtime on the floor the other day, she see the crap gettin a little thicker so pretty soon her poor, stupor customer be up to they ankle in dus. Shit. I tol you I wrote a address on one of her orphan package, so if she still distributin for the United Fun maybe we be gettin some answer on that. I sure like to see wha that address bringin in. Maybe it’ll be bringin in a po-lice. Whoa!”
“It pretty clear you not gettin nowhere. Go talk to the po-lice, man. They understand your story.”
“I scare of the po-lice, Watson. Ooo-wee. You be scare, too, if you was jus standin in Woolsworth and some po-lice drag you off. Especially when Lee probly goin roun the whirl with half the po-lice on the force. Whoa!” Jones sent up what looked like a cloud, a radioactive one which gradually sent some fallout down onto the bar and the cooler filled with pickled meat. “Say, whatever happen to that dumb mother was in here that day, the one workin for Levy Pant? You ever seen him aroun again?”
“The man talking about demonstratin?”
“Yeah, the cat got him that fat white freak for a leader, the one tellin them poor color peoples they suppose to drop a nucular bum on top they factory, kill theirselves and get