If John Kennedy Toole hadn’t commited suicide, he’d be 71 today. I look around and think, as we all have done from time to time, “We’ll laugh about this someday.”
I feel like Ignatius Reilly, looking out at those surrounding me:
The gas company is here. They’ve been here all day. They said they were going to replace my gas meter since it was covered with sea water. They said it would take two hours. It’s been six hours, and they’ve dug four holes in my yard. They told me that four of them would be back tomorrow. The old meter is still in place.
The electrical contractors estimated it would take the good part of a week to rewire my house after the flood permeated all the old wiring. This is the third week. They’ve cracked the plaster around most of the old switch plates but assure me they have a ‘craftsman’ who can make them look ‘just like new’. That’s what I want, all right – an eighty year-old house with paint patches that look new. They think they might be finished by the end of the week. “Next week at the latest,” they said. We’re living in the only electrified portion of our house, our game room, on an inflatable bed, between the pool table and the bar.
The police were here again today. I showed them a footprint, two windows the creeps tried to open after cutting the screen, and a soda can, contents half-finished. The two detectives scratched their chins and told me they weren’t ‘the I.D. guy’ so they couldn’t say whether additional fingerprints or other evidence would be wanted. After a collective shrug and an affirmative nod at each other, they left. So I’ve walked all over the footprint and will pour out the unfinished Sprite and recycle the aluminum.
Comcast sent out a technician to hook up my internet connection. He told me how underpaid he was, then pulled on a few wires and asked me to initial a piece of paper in three places. He said if I had any trouble with my internet connection I should call the number at the top of the receipt. Surprise. The internet didn’t work. I called the number and a guy named Chad answered. He asked me my name and I gave it to him. He called me Mr. Clifton. (You have to remember in most of Asia the surname comes first.) Chad politely told me I had several things wrong and that they would need to send out a technician. I told him the technician had just left. Chad laughed. “Mr. Charles, we’ll send out an even better technician next week.”
I was on the phone with my insurance adjuster for about an hour about the robbery. It's obvious our losses will exceed the deductible. Of course it was all recorded. I tried not to sound paranoid as she feigned interest in my plight and prodded for details about our absence from the house. I'm pretty sure she's going to try to establish that the house was temporarily abandoned. Quickly, my recollection of details began to resemble the memory Alberto Gonzales under Congressional inquiry.
So as it was with Ignatius Reilly, and with Jonathan Swift before him, I must confess, today I share their epigraph: “When genius appears in the world, you may know him by this sign, that the dunces are all in confederacy against him."
Cheers
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