Confederacy of Dunces, A - John Kennedy Toole [73]
“Help! Thief!”
“Shut up, for Christ’s sake,” George said and slammed the door. “You oughta be locked up, you big fruit. You know that?”
“What?” Ignatius screamed. “What impertinence was that?”
“You big crazy fruit,” George snarled more loudly and slouched away, the taps on his heels scraping the sidewalk. “Who wants to eat anything your fruity hands touched?”
“How dare you scream obscenities at me. Someone grab that boy,” Ignatius said wildly as George disappeared into the crowds of pedestrians farther down the street. “Someone with some decency grab that juvenile delinquent. That filthy little minor. Where is his respect? That little guttersnipe must be lashed until he collapses!”
A woman in the group around the mobile hot dog said, “Ain’t that awful? Where they get them hot dog vendors from?”
“Bums. They all bums,” someone answered her.
“Wine is what it is. They all crazy from wine if you ast me. They shouldn’t let people like him out on the street.”
“Is my paranoia getting completely out of hand,” Ignatius asked the group, “or are you mongoloids really talking about me?”
“Let him alone,” someone said. “Look at them eyes.”
“What’s wrong with my eyes?” Ignatius asked viciously.
“Let’s get outta here.”
“Please do,” Ignatius replied, his lips quivering, and prepared another hot dog to quiet his trembling nervous system. With shaking hands, he held the foot of red plastic and dough to his mouth and slipped it in two inches at a time. The active chewing massaged his throbbing head. When he had shoved in the last millimeter of crumb, he felt much calmer.
Grabbing the handle again, he shoved off up Carondelet Street, waddling slowly behind the cart. True to his promise to make it around the block, he turned again at the next corner and stopped by the worn granite walls of Gallier Hall to consume two more of the Paradise hot dogs before continuing on the last leg of his journey. When Ignatius turned the final corner and saw again the PARADISE VENDORS, INC., sign hanging out over the sidewalk of Poydras Street at an angle, he broke into a relatively brisk trot that brought him panting through the doors of the garage.
“Help!” Ignatius breathed pitifully, bumping the tin hot dog over the low cement sill of the garage.
“What happened, pal? I thought you was supposed to stay out a whole hour.”
“We’re both fortunate that I have returned at all. I am afraid that they have struck again.”
“Who?”
“The syndicate. Whoever they are. Look at my hands.” Ignatius shoved two paws into the man’s face. “My entire nervous system is on the brink of revolt against me for subjecting it to such trauma. Ignore me if I suddenly go into a state of shock.”
“What the hell happened?”
“A member of the vast teen-age underground besieged me on Carondelet Street.”
“You was robbed?” the old man asked excitedly.
“Brutally. A large and rusty pistol was placed at my temples. Actually, was pressed directly upon a pressure point, causing the blood to stop circulating on the left side of my head for quite a while.”
“On Carondelet Street at this time of day? Nobody stopped it?”
“Of course no one stopped it. People encourage this sort of thing. They probably derive some sort of pleasure from the spectacle of a poor and struggling vendor’s being publicly humiliated. They probably respected the boy’s initiative.”
“What did he look like?”
“A thousand other youths. Pimples, pompadour, adenoids, the standard adolescent equipment. There might have been something else like a birthmark or trick knee. I really can’t recall. After the pistol had been thrust against my head, I fainted from lack of circulation in the brain and from fright. While I was lying in a heap on the sidewalk, he apparently ransacked the wagon.”
“How much money did he get?”
“Money? No money was stolen. After all, there was no money to steal, for I had not been able to vend even one of these delicacies. He stole the hot dogs.
“Yes. However, he apparently didn’t take them all. When I had recovered, I checked the wagon. There are still one or two left, I think.”
“I never heard of