Confederacy of Dunces, A - John Kennedy Toole [18]
She offered Patrolman Mancuso a torn and oily cake box that looked as if it had been subjected to unusual abuse during someone’s attempt to take all of the doughnuts at once. At the bottom of the box Patrolman Mancuso found two withered pieces of doughnut out of which, judging by their moist edges, the jelly had been sucked.
“Thank you anyway, Miss Reilly. I had me a big lunch.”
“Aw, ain’t that a shame.” She filled two cups half full with thick cold coffee and poured the boiling milk in up to the rim. “Ignatius loves his doughnuts. He says to me, ‘Momma, I love my doughnuts.’” Mrs. Reilly slurped a bit at the rim of her cup. “He’s out in the parlor right now looking at TV. Every afternoon, as right as rain, he looks at that show where them kids dance.” In the kitchen the music was somewhat fainter than it had been on the porch. Patrolman Mancuso pictured the green hunting cap bathed in the blue-white glow of the television screen. “He don’t like the show at all, but he won’t miss it. You oughta hear what he says about them poor kids.”
“I spoke with the man this morning,” Patrolman Mancuso said, hoping that Mrs. Reilly had exhausted the subject of her son.
“Yeah?” She put three spoons of sugar in her coffee and, holding the spoon in the cup with her thumb so that the handle threatened to puncture her eyeball, she slurped a bit more. “What he said, honey?”
“I told him I investigated the accident and that you just skidded on a wet street.”
“That sounds good. So what he said then, babe?”
“He said he don’t want to go to court. He wants a settlement now.”
“Oh, my God!” Ignatius bellowed from the front of the house. “What an egregious insult to good taste.”
“Don’t pay him no mind,” Mrs. Reilly advised the startled policeman. “He does that all the time he looks at the TV. A ‘settlement.’ That means he wants some money, huh?”
“He even got a contractor to appraise the damage. Here, this is the estimate.”
Mrs. Reilly took the sheet of paper and read the typed column of itemized figures beneath the contractor’s letterhead.
“Lord! A thousand and twenty dollars. This is terrible. How I’m gonna pay that?” She dropped the estimate on the oilcloth. “You sure that is right?”
“Yes, ma’m. He’s got a lawyer working on it, too. It’s all on the up and up.”
“Where I’m gonna get a thousand dollars, though? All me and Ignatius got is my poor husband’s Social Security and a little two-bit pension, and that don’t come to much.”
“Do I believe the total perversion that I am witnessing?” Ignatius screamed from the parlor. The music had a frantic, tribal rhythm; a chorus of falsettos sang insinuatingly about loving all night long.
“I’m sorry,” Patrolman Mancuso said, almost heartbroken over Mrs. Reilly’s financial quandary.
“Aw, it’s not your fault, darling,” she said glumly. “Maybe I can get a mortgage on the house. We can’t do nothing about it, huh?”
“No, ma’m,” Patrolman Mancuso answered, listening to some sort of approaching stampede.
“The children on that program should all be gassed,” Ignatius said as he strode into the kitchen in his nightshirt. Then he noticed the guest and said coldly, “Oh.”
“Ignatius, you know Mr. Mancuso. Say ‘Hello.’”
“I do believe that I’ve seen him about,” Ignatius said and looked out the back door.
Patrolman Mancuso was too startled by the monstrous flannel nightshirt to reply to Ignatius’s pleasantry.
“Ignatius, honey, the man wants over a thousand dollars for what I did to his building.”
“A thousand dollars? He will not get a cent. We shall have him prosecuted immediately. Contact our attorneys, Mother.”
“Our attorneys? He’s got a estimate from a contractor. Mr. Mancuso here says they’s nothing I can do.”
“Oh. Well, you shall have to pay him then.”
“I could take it to court if you think it’s best.”
“Drunken driving,” Ignatius said calmly. “You haven’t a chance.”
Mrs. Reilly looked depressed.
“But Ignatius, a thousand twenty dollars.”
“I am certain that you can procure some funds,” he told her. “Is