Confederacy of Dunces, A - John Kennedy Toole [86]
III
Santa Battaglia tasted a spoonful of the potato salad, cleaned the spoon with her tongue, and placed the spoon neatly on a paper napkin next to the plate of salad. Sucking some pieces of parsley and onion from between her teeth, she said to the picture of her mother on the mantelpiece, “They gonna love that. Nobody makes a good potatis salad like Santa.”
The parlor was almost ready for the party. On top of the old console radio there were two fifths of Early Times and a six-bottle carton of Seven-Up. The phonograph she had borrowed from her niece sat on the mopped linoleum in the center of the room, the cord rising to the chandelier where it was plugged in. Two giant-sized bags of potato chips rested in either corner of the red plush sofa. A fork stuck out of the open bottle of olives that she had placed on a tin tray on top of the covered and folded rollaway bed.
Santa grabbed the picture on the mantelpiece, a photograph of an ancient and hostile-looking woman in a black dress and black stockings standing in a dark alley paved with oyster shells.
“Poor momma,” Santa said feelingly, giving the picture a loud, wet kiss. The grease on the glass that covered the photograph showed the frequency of these affectionate onslaughts. “You sure had it hard, kid.” The little black coals of Sicilian eyes glared almost animatedly at Santa from the snapshot. “The only picture of you I got, momma, and you standing in a alley. Ain’t that a shame.”
Santa sighed at the unfairness of it all and slammed the picture down on the mantelpiece among the bowl of wax fruit and the bouquet of paper zinnias and the statue of the Virgin Mary and the figurine of the Infant of Prague. Then she went back to the kitchen to get some ice cubes and one of the kitchen chairs. After she had returned with the chair and a little picnic cooler of ice cubes, she arranged her best jelly glasses on the mantelpiece before her mother’s picture. The proximity of the picture made her grab it and kiss it again, the ice cube in her mouth cracking against the glass.
“I say a prayer for you every day, babe,” Santa told the snapshot incoherently, balancing the ice cube on her tongue. “You better believe they’s a candle burning for you over in St. Odo’s.”
Someone knocked at the front shutters. In putting the picture down hurriedly, Santa tipped it over on its face.
“Irene!” Santa screamed when she opened the door and saw the hesitant Mrs. Reilly on the front steps and her nephew, Patrolman Mancuso, standing down on the banquette. “Come on in, sweetheart darling. You sure looking cute.”
“Thanks, honey,” Mrs. Reilly said. “Whoo! I forgot how long it takes to drive down here. Me and Angelo been in that car almost a hour.”
“Id’s the traffig is whad id is,” Patrolman Mancuso offered.
“Listen to that cold,” Santa said. “Aw, Angelo. You better tell them men at the precinct to take you out that toilet. Where’s Rita?”
“She diddit feel like cubbig. She’s got her a headache.”
“Well, no wonder, locked up in that house with them kids all day long,” Santa said. “Aw, she oughta get out, Angelo. What’s wrong with that girl?”
“Nerbs,” Angelo answered sadly. “She’s got nerbous trouble.”
“Nerves is terrible,” Mrs. Reilly said. “You know what happened, Santa? Angelo lost the book Ignatius give him. Ain’t that a shame? I don’t mind about the book, but don’t never tell Ignatius about it. We’ll really have us a fight on our hands.”
Mrs. Reilly put her finger to her lips to indicate that the book must forever be a secret.
“Well, gimme your coat, girl,” Santa said eagerly, almost tearing Mrs. Reilly’s old purple woolen topper off. She was determined that the ghost of Ignatius J. Reilly would not haunt her party as it had haunted so many evenings of bowling.
“You got you a nice place here, Santa,” Mrs. Reilly said respectfully. “It’s clean.”
“Yeah, but I want to get me some new linoleum for the parlor.