Confederacy of Dunces, A - John Kennedy Toole [11]
“This is highway robbery!” Ignatius thundered. “You will hear from our attorneys.”
Mrs. Reilly paid with two of the bills the young man had given her and, as she swayed past Miss Lee, she said, “We know when we not wanted. We can take our trade elsewheres.”
“Good,” Miss Lee answered. “Beat it. Trade from people like you is the kiss of death.”
After the padded door had closed behind the Reillys, Miss Lee said, “I never liked mothers. Not even my own.”
“My mother was a whore,” the man with the racing form said, not looking up from his paper.
“Mothers are full of shit,” Miss Lee observed and took off her leather coat. “Now let’s you and me have a little talk, Darlene.”
Outside, Mrs. Reilly took her son’s arm for support, but, as much as they tried, they moved forward very slowly, although they seemed to move sideward more easily. Their walking had developed a pattern: three quick steps to the left, pause, three quick steps to the right, pause.
“That was a terrible woman,” Mrs. Reilly said.
“A negation of all human qualities,” Ignatius added. “By the way, how far is the car? I’m very tired.”
“On St. Ann, honey. Just a few blocks.”
“You left your hat in the bar.”
“Oh, I sold it to that young man.”
“You sold it? Why? Did you ask me whether I wanted it to be sold? I was very attached to that hat.”
“I’m sorry, Ignatius. I didn’t know you liked it so much. You never said nothing about it.”
“I had an unspoken attachment to it. It was a contact with my childhood, a link with the past.”
“But he gave me fifteen dollars, Ignatius.”
“Please. Don’t talk about it anymore. The whole business is sacrilegious. Goodness knows what degenerate uses he will find for that hat. Do you have the fifteen dollars on you?”
“I still got seven left.”
“Then why don’t we stop and eat something?” Ignatius pointed to the cart at the corner. It was shaped like a hot dog on wheels. “I believe that they vend foot-long hot dogs.”
“Hot dogs? Honey, in all this rain and cold we gonna stand outside and eat weenies?”
“It’s a thought.”
“No,” Mrs. Reilly said with somewhat beery courage. “Let’s get home. I wouldn’t eat nothing outta one of them dirty wagons anyway. They all operated by a bunch of bums.”
“If you insist,” Ignatius said, pouting. “Although I am rather hungry, and you have, after all, just sold a memento of my childhood for thirty pieces of silver, so to speak.”
They continued their little pattern of steps along the wet flagstones of Bourbon Street. On St. Ann they found the old Plymouth easily. Its high roof stood above all the other cars, its best feature. The Plymouth was always easy to find in supermarket parking lots. Mrs. Reilly climbed the curb twice trying to force the car out of the parking place and left the impression of a 1946 Plymouth bumper in the hood of the Volkswagen in the rear.
“My nerves!” Ignatius said. He was slumped down in the seat so that just the top of his green hunting cap appeared in the window, looking like the tip of a promising watermelon. From the rear, where he always sat, having read somewhere that the seat next to the driver was the most dangerous, he watched his mother’s wild and inexpert shifting with disapproval. “I suspect that you have effectively demolished the small car that someone innocently parked behind this bus. You had better succeed in getting out of this spot before its owner happens along.”
“Shut up, Ignatius. You making me nervous,” Mrs. Reilly said, looking at the hunting cap in the rearview mirror.
Ignatius got up on the seat and looked out of the rear window.
“That car is a total wreck. Your driver’s license, if you do indeed have one, will doubtlessly be revoked. I certainly wouldn’t blame them.”
“Lay down there and take a nap,” his mother said as the car jerked back again.
“Do you think that I could sleep now? I’m afraid for my life. Are you sure that you’re turning the wheel the right way?”
Suddenly the car leaped out of the parking spot and skidded across the wet street into a post supporting a wrought-iron balcony. The post fell away to one side,