Confederacy of Dunces, A - John Kennedy Toole [7]
“Whoa!” he said, grinning. “Say, you mus belong to everthin.”
The old man rearranged his cards meticulously and said nothing.
“How come they draggin in somebody like you?” The sunglasses blew smoke all over the old man’s cards. “Them po-lice mus be gettin desperate.”
“I’m here in violation of my constitutional rights,” the old man said with sudden anger.
“Well, they not gonna believe that. You better think up somethin else.” A dark hand reached for one of the cards. “Hey, wha this mean, ‘Colder Age’?”
The old man snatched the card and put it back on his thigh.
“Them little card not gonna do you no good. They throw you in jail anyway. They throw everbody in jail.”
“You think so?” the old man asked the cloud of smoke.
“Sure.” A new cloud floated up. “How come you here, man?”
“I don’t know.”
“You don know? Whoa! That crazy. You gotta be here for somethin. Plenty time they pickin up color peoples for nothing, but, mister, you gotta be here for somethin.”
“I really don’t know,” the old man said glumly. “I was just standing in a crowd in front of D. H. Holmes.”
“And you lif somebody wallet.”
“No, I called a policeman a name.”
“Like wha you callin him?”
“Communiss.”
“Cawmniss! Ooo-woo. If I call a po-lice a cawmniss, my ass be in Angola right now for sure. I like to call one of them mother a cawmniss, though. Like this afternoon I standin aroun in Woolsworth and some cat steal a bag of cashew nuts out the ‘Nut House’ star screaming like she been stab. Hey! The nex thing, a flo’walk grabbin me, and then a po-lice mother draggin me off. A man ain got a chance. Whoa!” His lips sucked at the cigarette. “Nobody findin them cashews on me, but that po-lice still draggin me off. I think that flo’walk a cawmniss. Mean motherfucker.”
The old man cleared his throat and played with his cards.
“They probly let you go,” the sunglasses said. “Me, they probly gimma a little talk think it scare me, even though they know I ain got them cashews. They probly try to prove I got them nuts. They probly buy a bag, slip it in my pocket. Woolsworth probly try to send me up for life.”
The Negro seemed quite resigned and blew out a new cloud of blue smoke that enveloped him and the old man and the little cards. Then he said to himself, “I wonder who lif them nuts. Probly that flo’walk hisself.”
A policeman summoned the old man up to the desk in the center of the room where a sergeant was seated. The patrolman who had arrested him was standing there.
“What’s your name?” the sergeant asked the old man.
“Claude Robichaux,” he answered and put his little cards on the desk before the sergeant.
The sergeant looked over the cards and said, “Patrolman Mancuso here says you resisted arrest and called him a communiss.”
“I didn’t mean it,” the old man said sadly, noticing how fiercely the sergeant was handling the little cards.
“Mancuso says you says all policemen are communiss.”
“Oo-wee,” the Negro said across the room.
“Will you shut up, Jones?” the sergeant called out.
“Okay,” Jones answered.
“I’ll get to you next.”
“Say, I didn call nobody no cawmniss,” Jones said. “I been frame by that flo’walk in Woolsworth. I don even like cashews.”
“Shut your mouth up.”
“Okay,” Jones said brightly and blew a great thundercloud of smoke.
“I didn’t mean anything I said,” Mr. Robichaux told the sergeant. “I just got nervous. I got carried away. This policeman was trying to arress a poor boy waiting for his momma by Holmes.”
“What?” the sergeant turned to the wan little policeman. “What were you trying to do?”
“He wasn’t a boy,” Mancuso said. “He was a big fat man dressed funny. He looked like a suspicious character. I was just trying to make a routine check and he started to resist. To tell you the truth, he looked