Confederacy of Dunces, A - John Kennedy Toole [20]
“Then sometimes I get problems at home. With three kids, my wife’s very nervous.”
“Nerves is a terrible thing. Poor Miss Annie, the next-door lady, she’s got nerves. Always screaming about Ignatius making noise.”
“That’s my wife. Sometimes I gotta get outta the house. If I was another kind of man, sometimes I could really go get myself good and drunk. Just between us.”
“I gotta have my little drink. It relieves the pressure. You know?”
“What I do is go bowl.”
Mrs. Reilly tried to imagine little Patrolman Mancuso with a big bowling ball and said, “You like that, huh?”
“Bowling’s wonderful, Miss Reilly. It takes your mind off things.”
“Oh, my heavens!” a voice shouted from the parlor. “These girls are doubtless prostitutes already. How can they present horrors like this to the public?”
“I wish I had me a hobby like that.”
“You oughta try bowling.”
“Ay-yi-yi. I already got arthuritis in my elbow. I’m too old to play around with them balls. I’d wrench my back.”
“I got a aunt, sixty-five, a grammaw, and she goes bowling all the time. She’s even on a team.”
“Some women are like that. Me, I never was much for sports.”
“Bowling’s more than a sport,” Patrolman Mancuso said defensively. “You meet plenty people over by the alley. Nice people. You could make you some friends.”
“Yeah, but it’s just my luck to drop one of them balls on my toe. I got bum feet already.”
“Next time I go by the alley, I’ll let you know. I’ll bring my aunt. You and me and my aunt, we’ll go down by the alley. Okay?”
“Mother, when was this coffee dripped?” Ignatius demanded, flapping into the kitchen again.
“Just about a hour ago. Why?”
“It certainly tastes brackish.”
“I thought it was very good,” Patrolman Mancuso said. “Just as good as they serve at the French Market. I’m making some more now. You want a cup?”
“Pardon me,” Ignatius said. “Mother, are you going to entertain this gentleman all afternoon? I would like to remind you that I am going to the movies tonight and that I am due at the theater promptly at seven so that I can see the cartoon. I would suggest that you begin preparing something to eat.”
“I better go,” Patrolman Mancuso said.
“Ignatius, you oughta be ashamed,” Mrs. Reilly said in an angry voice. “Me and Mr. Mancuso here just having some coffee. You been nasty all afternoon. You don’t care where I raise that money. You don’t care if they lock me up. You don’t care about nothing.”
“Am I going to be attacked in my own home before a stranger with a false beard?”
“My heart’s broke.”
“Oh, really.” Ignatius turned on Patrolman Mancuso. “Will you kindly leave? You are inciting my mother.”
“Mr. Mancuso’s not doing nothing but being nice.”
“I better go,” Patrolman Mancuso said apologetically.
“I’ll get that money,” Mrs. Reilly screamed. “I’ll sell this house. I’ll sell it out from under you, boy. I’ll go stay by a old folks’ home.”
She grabbed an end of the oilcloth and wiped her eyes.
“If you do not leave,” Ignatius said to Patrolman Mancuso, who was hooking on his beard, “I shall call the police.”
“He is the police, stupid.”
“This is totally absurd,” Ignatius said and flapped away. “I am going to my room.”
He slammed his door and snatched a Big Chief tablet from the floor. Throwing himself back among the pillows on the bed, he began doodling on a yellowed page. After almost thirty minutes of pulling at his hair and chewing on the pencil, he began to compose a paragraph.
Were Hroswitha with us today, we would all look to her for counsel and guidance. From the austerity and tranquility of her medieval world, the penetrating gaze of this legendary Sybil of a holy nun would exorcise the horrors which materialize before our eyes in the name of television. If we could only juxtapose one eyeball of this sanctified woman and a television tube, both being roughly of the same shape and design, what a phantasmagoria of exploding electrodes would occur. The images of those lasciviously gyrating children would disintegrate into so many ions and molecules, thereby effecting the catharsis which the tragedy of the debauching