Confederacy of Dunces, A - John Kennedy Toole [161]
“They not home!” a woman screamed from behind a shutter next door. “They telephone’s been ringing all morning.”
The front shutters of the adjoining house opened and a harried-looking woman came out on the porch and rested her red elbows on her porch rail.
“Do you know where Mr. Reilly is?” Mr. Levy asked her.
“All I know is he’s all over this morning’s paper. Where he oughta be is in a asylum. My nerves is shot to hell. When I moved next door to them people, I was signing my death warrant.”
“Does he live here alone? A woman answered the phone once when I called.”
“That musta been his momma. Her nerves is shot, too. She musta went to get him out the hospital or wherever they got him.”
“Do you know Mr. Reilly well?”
“Ever since he was a kid. His momma was sure proud of him. All the sisters at school loved him he was so precious. Look how he ended up, laying in a gutter. Well, they better start thinking about moving off my block. I can’t take it no more. They’ll really be arguing now.”
“Let me ask you something. You know Mr. Reilly well. Do you think he’s very irresponsible or maybe even dangerous?”
“What you want with him?” Miss Annie’s bleary eyes narrowed. “He’s in some other kinda trouble?”
“I’m Gus Levy. He used to work for me.”
“Yeah? You don’t say. That crazy Ignatius was sure proud of that job he had at that place. I useta hear him telling his momma how he was really making good. Yeah, he made good. A few weeks and he was fired. Well, if he worked for you, you really know him good.”
Had that poor Reilly kook really been proud of Levy Pants? He had always said that he was. That was one good sign of his insanity.
“Tell me. Hasn’t he been in trouble with the police? Doesn’t he have some kind of police record?”
“His momma had a policeman coming around her. A regular undercover agent. But not that Ignatius. For one thing his momma likes her little nip. I don’t see her drunk much lately, but for a while there she was really going good. One day I look out in the back yard and she had herself all tangled up in a wet sheet hanging off the line. Mister, it’s already took ten years off my life living next to them people. Noise! Banjos and trumpets and screaming and hollering and the TV. Them Reillys oughta go move out in the country somewheres on a farm. Every day I gotta take six, seven aspirin.” Miss Annie reached inside the neckline of her housedress to find some strap that had slipped from her shoulder. “Lemme tell you something. I gotta be fair. That Ignatius was okay until that big dog of his died. He had this big dog useta bark right under my window. That’s when my nerves first started to go. Then the dog dies. Well, I think, now maybe I’ll get me some peace and quiet. But no. Ignatius is got the dog laid out in his momma’s front parlor with some flowers stuck in its paw. That’s when him and his momma first started all that fighting. To tell you the truth, I think that’s when she started drinking. So Ignatius goes over to the priest and ax him to come say something over the dog. Ignatius was planning on some kinda funeral. You know? The priest says no, of course, and I think that’s when Ignatius left the Church. So big Ignatius puts on his own funeral. A big fat high school boy oughta know better. You see that cross?” Mr. Levy looked hopelessly at the rotting Celtic cross in the front yard. “That where it all happened. He had about two dozen little kids standing around in that yard watching him. And Ignatius had on a big cape like Superman and they was candles burning all over. The whole time his momma was screaming out the front door for him to throw the dog in the garbage can and get in the house. Well, that’s when things started going bad around here. Then Ignatius was at college for about ten years. His momma almost went broke. She even hadda sell the piana they had. Well, I didn’t mind that. You oughta seen this girl he picks up at college. I says to myself, ‘Well, good. Maybe that Ignatius is gonna get married and move out.’ Was I wrong. All they done