Confederacy of Dunces, A - John Kennedy Toole [138]
“Come back in this house,” Mrs. Reilly screamed from the front door. “You ain’t going nowhere, Ignatius.”
“I dare you to come out in that shredded nightgown and get me!” Ignatius answered defiantly and stuck out his massive pink tongue.
“Get back in here, Ignatius.”
“Hey, knock it off, you two,” Miss Annie shouted from behind her front shutters. “My nerves is shot to hell.”
“Take a look at Ignatius,” Mrs. Reilly called to her. “Ain’t that awful?”
Ignatius was waving to his mother from the brick sidewalk, his earring catching the rays of the streetlight.
“Ignatius, come in here like a good boy,” Mrs. Reilly pleaded.
“I awready got me a headache from the goddam postman’s whistle,” Miss Annie threatened loudly. “I’m gonna ring up the cops in about one minute.”
“Ignatius,” shouted Mrs. Reilly, but it was too late. A taxi was cruising down the block. Ignatius flagged it down just as his mother, forgetting the disgrace of the shredded nightgown, ran down to the curb. Ignatius slammed the rear door right in his mother’s maroon hair and barked an address at the driver. He stabbed at his mother’s hands with the cutlass and ordered the driver to move along immediately. The taxi sped off, churning up some pebbles in the gutter that stung Mrs. Reilly’s legs through the torn rayon gown. She watched the red taillights for a moment, then she ran back into the house to telephone Santa.
“Going to a costume party, pal?” the driver asked Ignatius as they turned onto St. Charles Avenue.
“Watch where you’re going and speak when you’re spoken to,” Ignatius thundered.
During the ride the driver said nothing else, but Ignatius practiced his speech loudly in the back seat, rapping his cutlass against the front seat to emphasize certain key points.
At St. Peter Street he got out and first heard the noise, dim yet frenetic singing and laughing coming from the three-story stucco building. Some prosperous Frenchman had built the house in the late 1700s to house a menage of wife, children, and spinster tantes. The tantes had been stored up in the attic along with the other excess and unattractive furniture, and from the two little dormer windows in the roof they had seen what little of the world they believed existed outside of their own monde of slanderous gossip, needlework, and cyclical recitations of the rosary. But the hand of the professional decorator had exorcised whatever ghosts of the French bourgeoisie might still haunt the thick brick walls of the building. The exterior was painted a bright canary yellow; the gas jets in the reproduction brass lanterns mounted on either side of the carriageway flickered softly, their amber flames rippling in reflection on the black enamel of the gate and shutters. On the flagstone paving beneath both lanterns there were old plantation pots in which Spanish daggers grew and extended their sharply pointed stilettos.
Ignatius stood before the building regarding it with extreme distaste. His blue and yellow eyes denounced the resplendent façade. His nose rebelled against the very noticeable odor of fresh enamel. His ears shrank from the bedlam of singing, cackling, and giggling that was going on behind the closed black patent leather shutters.
Testily clearing his throat, he looked at the three brass doorbells and at the little white cards above each:
Billy Truehard
Raoul Frayle -3A
Frieda Club
Betty Bumper
Liz Steele -2A
Dorian Greene -1A
He jabbed a finger into the bottom bell and waited. The frenzy behind the shutters abated very slightly. A door opened somewhere down the carriageway, and Dorian Greene came walking toward the gate.
“Oh, dear,” he said when he saw who was out on the sidewalk. “Where in the world have you been? I’m afraid that the kickoff rally is fast getting out of hand. I have tried unsuccessfully once or twice to call the group to order, but apparently feelings are running rather high.”
“I hope you’ve done nothing to dampen their morale,” Ignatius said gravely, tapping his cutlass impatiently on the iron gate. He noticed somewhat angrily