Confederacy of Dunces, A - John Kennedy Toole [3]
“My boy’s floating around in our tub all day long. I can’t hardly get in my own bathroom no more.”
“I thought he was married, precious.”
“Ignatius? Eh, la la,” Mrs. Reilly said sadly. “Sweetheart, you wanna gimme two dozen of them fancy mix?”
“But I thought you told me he was married,” Miss Inez said while she was putting the cakes in a box.
“He ain’t even got him a prospect. The little girl friend he had flew the coop.”
“Well, he’s got time.”
“I guess so,” Mrs. Reilly said disinterestedly. “Look, you wanna gimme half a dozen wine cakes, too? Ignatius gets nasty if we run outta cake.”
“Your boy likes his cake, huh?”
“Oh, Lord, my elbow’s killing me,” Mrs. Reilly answered.
In the center of the crowd that had formed before the department store the hunting cap, the green radius of the circle of people, was bobbing about violently.
“I shall contact the mayor,” Ignatius was shouting.
“Let the boy alone,” a voice said from the crowd.
“Go get the strippers on Bourbon Street,” an old man added. “He’s a good boy. He’s waiting for his momma.”
“Thank you,” Ignatius said haughtily. “I hope that all of you will bear witness to this outrage.”
“You come with me,” the policeman said to Ignatius with waning self-confidence. The crowd was turning into something of a mob, and there was no traffic patrolman in sight. “We’re going to the precinct.”
“A good boy can’t even wait for his momma by D. H. Holmes.” It was the old man again. “I’m telling you, the city was never like this. It’s the communiss.”
“Are you calling me a communiss?” the policeman asked the old man while he tried to avoid the lashing of the lute string. “I’ll take you in, too. You better watch out who you calling a communiss.”
“You can’t arress me,” the old man cried. “I’m a member of the Golden Age Club sponsored by the New Orleans Recreation Department.”
“Let that old man alone, you dirty cop,” a woman screamed. “He’s prolly somebody’s grampaw.”
“I am,” the old man said. “I got six granchirren all studying with the sisters. Smart, too.”
Over the heads of the people Ignatius saw his mother walking slowly out of the lobby of the department store carrying the bakery products as if they were boxes of cement.
“Mother!” he called. “Not a moment too soon. I’ve been seized.”
Pushing through the people, Mrs. Reilly said, “Ignatius! What’s going on here? What you done now? Hey, take your hands off my boy.”
“I’m not touching him, lady,” the policeman said. “Is this here your son?”
Mrs. Reilly snatched the whizzing lute string from Ignatius.
“Of course I’m her child,” Ignatius said. “Can’t you see her affection for me?”
“She loves her boy,” the old man said.
“What you trying to do my poor child?” Mrs. Reilly asked the policeman. Ignatius patted his mother’s hennaed hair with one of his huge paws. “You got plenty business picking on poor chirren with all the kind of people they got running in this town. Waiting for his momma and they try to arrest him.”
“This is clearly a case for the Civil Liberties Union,” Ignatius observed, squeezing his mother’s drooping shoulder with the paw. “We must contact Myrna Minkoff, my lost love. She knows about those things.”
“It’s the communiss,” the old man interrupted.
“How old is he?” the policeman asked Mrs. Reilly.
“I am thirty,” Ignatius said condescendingly.
“You got a job?”
“Ignatius hasta help me at home,” Mrs. Reilly said. Her initial courage was failing a little, and she began to twist the lute string with the cord on the cake boxes. “I got terrible arthuritis.”
“I dust a bit,” Ignatius told the policeman. “In addition, I am at the moment writing a lengthy indictment against our century. When my brain begins to reel from my literary labors, I make an occasional cheese dip.”
“Ignatius makes delicious cheese dips,” Mrs. Reilly said.
“That’s very nice of him,” the old man said. “Most boys are out running around all the time.”
“Why don’t you shut up?” the policeman said to the old man.
“Ignatius,” Mrs. Reilly asked in