Confederacy of Dunces, A - John Kennedy Toole [176]
“Never mind about those!” Ignatius screamed. “Get in and start this thing. Oh, my God. Don’t stick that guitar in my face like that. Why can’t you just carry a purse like a decent young lady?”
“Go fall in a hole,” Myrna said angrily. She slid into the front seat and started the car. “Where do you want to spend the night?”
“Spend the night?” Ignatius thundered. “We’re not spending the night anywhere. We must drive straight.”
“Ignatius, I’m about to drop dead. I’ve been in this car since yesterday morning.”
“Well, get across Lake Pontchartrain at least.”
“Okay. We can take the causeway and stop in Mandeville.”
“No!” Myrna would drive him right into the alerted arms of some psychiatrist. “We can’t stop there. The water’s polluted. They’re having an epidemic.”
“Yeah? Then I’ll take the old bridge to Slidell.”
“Yes. It’s far safer anyway. Barges are always hurtling into that causeway. We’ll plunge into the lake and drown.” The Renault was dragging very low in the rear and accelerated slowly. “This car is rather small for my frame. Are you sure that you know how to get to New York? I seriously doubt whether I can survive more than a day or two in this fetal position.”
“Hey, where are you two beatniks going?” Miss Annie’s voice called faintly from behind her shutters. The Renault moved into the center of the street.
“Does that old bitch still live there?” Myrna asked.
“Shut up and get us out of here!”
“Are you going to bug me like this?” Myrna glared at the green cap in the rearview mirror. “I mean, I’d like to know.”
“Oh, my valve!” Ignatius gasped. “Please don’t make a scene. My psyche will crumble entirely after the assaults it has recently received.”
“I’m sorry. For a while it sounded like old times with me playing chauffeur and you bugging me from the back seat.”
“I certainly hope it isn’t snowing up north. My system simply will not function under those conditions. And please watch out for Greyhound Scenicruisers along the way. They’ll demolish a toy like this.”
“Ignatius, all at once you’re your old horrible self. All at once I think I’m making a very big mistake.”
“A mistake? Of course not,” Ignatius said sweetly. “But watch out for that ambulance. We don’t want to begin our pilgrimage with an accident.”
As the ambulance passed, Ignatius hunched over and saw “Charity Hospital” printed on its door. The rotating red light atop the ambulance splashed over the Renault for a brief moment as the vehicles passed each other. Ignatius felt insulted. He had expected a massive barred truck. They had underestimated him in sending out an old, well-used Cadillac ambulance. He would easily have been able to smash all of those windows. Then the glowing Cadillac fins were two blocks behind them and Myrna was turning onto St. Charles Avenue.
Now that Fortuna had saved him from one cycle, where would she spin him now? The new cycle would be so different from anything he had ever known.
Myrna prodded and shifted the Renault through the city traffic masterfully, weaving in and out of impossibly narrow lanes until they were clear of the last twinkling streetlight of the last swampy suburb. Then they were in darkness in the center of the salt marshes. Ignatius looked out at the highway marker that reflected their headlights. U.S. 11. The marker flew past. He rolled down the window an inch or two and breathed the salt air blowing in over the marshes from the Gulf.
As if the air were a purgative, his valve opened. He breathed again, this time more deeply. The dull headache was lifting.
He stared gratefully at the back of Myrna’s head, at the pigtail that swung innocently at his knee. Gratefully. How ironic, Ignatius thought. Taking the pigtail in one of his paws, he pressed it warmly to his wet moustache.
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