Confederacy of Dunces, A - John Kennedy Toole [59]
Six
Mattie’s Ramble Inn was on a corner in the Carrollton section of the city where, after having run parallel for six or seven miles, St. Charles Avenue and the Mississippi River meet and the avenue ends. Here an angle is formed, the avenue and its streetcar tracks on one side, the river and levee and railroad tracks on the other. Within this angle there is a separate little neighborhood. In the air there is always the heavy, cloying odor of the alcohol distillery on the river, an odor that becomes suffocating on hot summer afternoons when the breeze blows in from the river. The neighborhood grew haphazardly a century or so ago and today looks hardly urban at all. As the city’s streets cross St. Charles Avenue and enter this neighborhood, they gradually change from asphalt to gravel. It is an old rural town that has even a few barns, an alienated and microcosmic village within a large city.
Mattie’s Ramble Inn looked like all the buildings on its block; it was low, unpainted, imperfectly vertical. Mattie’s rambled slightly to the right, tilting toward the railroad tracks and the river. Its façade was almost invulnerable, covered as it was with tin advertising posters for a variety of beers and cigarettes and soft drinks. Even the screen on the door advertised a brand of bread. Mattie’s was a combination bar and grocery, the grocery aspect limited to a sparse selection of goods, soft drinks, bread, and canned foods for the most part. Beside the bar there was an ice chest that cooled a few pounds of pickled meat and sausage. And there was no Mattie; Mr. Watson, the quiet, tan, cafe au lait owner, had sole authority over the restricted merchandise.
“The problem come from not havin no vocation skill,” Jones was saying to Mr. Watson. Jones was perched on a wooden stool, his legs bent under him like ice tongs ready to pick up the stool and boldly carry it away before Mr. Watson’s old eyes. “If I had me some trainin I wouldn be moppin no old whore flo.”
“Be good,” Mr. Watson answered vaguely. “Be well behave with the lady.”
“Wha? Ooo-wee. You don understan at all, man. I got a job workin with a bird. How you like workin with a bird?” Jones aimed some smoke over the bar. “I mean, I’m glad that girl gettin a chance. She been workin for that Lee mother a long time. She need a break. But I bet that bird be makin more money than me. Whoa!”
“Be nice, Jones.”
“Whoa! Hey, you really been brainwash,” Jones said. “You ain got nobody to come in and mop your flo. How come? Tell me that.”
“Don’t get yourself in no trouble.”
“Hey! You soun just like the Lee mother. Too bad you two ain met. She love you. She say, ‘Hey, boy, you the kinda fool oldtimey nigger I been lookin for all my life.’ She say, ‘Hey, you so sweet, how’s about waxin my floor and paintin my wall? You so darlin, how’s about scrubbin my tawlet and polishin my shoe?’ And you be sayin, ‘Yes, ma’m, yes, ma’m. I’m well behave.’ And you be bustin your ass fallin off a chandelier you been dustin and some other whore frien of her comin in so they can compare they price, and Lee star throwin some nickel at your feet and say, ‘Hey boy, that sure a lousy show you puttin on. Han us back them nickel before we call a po-lice.’ Ooo-wee.”
“Didn that lady say she call a po-lice if you give her trouble?”
“She got me there. Hey! I think that Lee got some connection with the po-lice. She all the time tellin me about her frien on the force. She say she got such a high class place a po-lice never stick a foot in her door.” Jones formed a thundercloud over the little bar. “She operatin somethin with that orphan crap, though. As soon as somebody like Lee say, ‘Chariddy,’ you know they somethin crooker in the air. And I know they somethin wron cause all of a sudden the Head Orphan stop showin up cause I’m axing plenty question. Shit! I like to fin out what goin on. I tire of bein caught in a trap payin me twenny dollar a week, workin with a bird as big as a eagle. I wanna get someplace, man. Whoa! I want me a air condition, some color TV, sit around drinkin somethin