Confederacy of Dunces, A - John Kennedy Toole [136]
What does this mean, Ignatius? Do you really want me to recruit fags? Who wants to be a registered Sodomite? Ignatius, I am very worried. Are you hanging around with some queers? I could have guessed that this would happen. The paranoid fantasy of the arrest and accident was the first clue. Now the whole thing is out in the open. Your normal sexual outlets have been blocked for so long that now the sexual overflow is seeping out into the wrong channels. Since the fantasy, which was the beginning of it all, you have been undergoing a period of crisis which is culminating in overt sexual aberration. I could tell that you were going to flip sooner or later. Now it has happened. My group therapy group will really be depressed when they hear that your case has taken a turn for the worse. Please leave that decaying city and come north. Call me collect if you want to and we can talk over this problem of sexual orientation that you are having. You must have therapy soon or you will become a screaming queen.
“How dare she?” Ignatius bellowed.
Whatever happened to the Divine Right party? I had several people who were all ready to join. I don’t know if they’ll go for this Sodomite business, although I can see that we might use this Sodomite party to drain off the fringe-group fascists. Maybe we could split the right wing in half. Still I don’t think this is a good idea at all. Suppose non-Sodomites want to join and we refuse. We will be accused of being prejudiced, and the whole thing will flop. The lecture was not exactly a success, I’m afraid. It went over all right — right over the people’s heads. There were two or three middle aged people in the audience who tried to heckle me with these very hostile remarks, but a couple of my friends from the group therapy group challenged them hostility for hostility and finally drove those reactionaries out of the auditorium. Just as I suspected, I was a little too advanced for the neighborhood audience. Ongah did not show up, that crumb. As far as I’m concerned, they can send him back to Africa. I really thought that guy had something on the ball. Apparently he’s very apathetic politically. He promised me he would be there, that schmuck. Ignatius, this Sodomite plan does not sound very practical at all. In addition, I think it is only a dangerous manifestation of your declining mental health. I don’t know how I can tell my group therapy group about this weird development — however predictable it might have been. The group has been really pulling for you all along. Some are even identifying with you. If you go, they might go, too. I need immediate communication from you. Please call collect anytime after 6 P.M. I am very, very worried.
M. Minkoff
“She’s totally confounded,” Ignatius said happily. “Wait until she hears of my apocalyptic meeting with Miss O’Hara.”
“Ignatius, what’s that you got?”
“A communication from Myrna minx.”
“What that girl wants?”
“She’s threatening suicide unless I swear that my heart is hers alone.”
“Ain’t that awful. I bet you been telling that poor girl a lota lies. I know you, Ignatius.”
Behind the door there were sounds of dressing; something that sounded like a piece of metal fell to the floor.
“Where you going to?” Mrs. Reilly asked the peeling paint.
“Please, Mother,” a basso profundo voice answered. “I’m rather rushed. Stop bothering me, please.”
“You might as well stay at home all day long for all the money you bringing in,” Mrs. Reilly screamed at the door. “How I’m gonna meet the note I gotta pay that man?”
“I wish that you would let me alone. I am addressing a political meeting tonight, and I must organize my thoughts.”
“A political meeting? Ignatius! Ain’t that wonderful. Maybe you’ll make good in politics, boy. You got you a fine voice. What club, honey? The Crescent City Democrats? The Old Regulars?”
“The party is secret at the moment, I’m afraid.”
“What kinda political