Butterfly in the Typewriter (24 page)

A
t Fort Buchanan, Toole fell back into the lull of lazy afternoons. But the “inertia” of his holiday visit to New Orleans would give way to a tide of motivation. New Orleans would have its bard yet. He carried with him the seeds of inspiration; the essence of the Crescent City that he knew deserved expression. In late January, he writes to Fletcher,

Toole was well aware that Fletcher lived within meters of countless Italian masterpieces of art. Certainly Florence was far more renowned for its beauty than was New Orleans. But for a New Orleanian, the majesty of Saint Louis Cathedral rivals
Il Duomo
, the intricacy of the ironwork in the French Quarter compares to the gilded Gates of Paradise on the Baptistery of St. John, and the estates of Uptown are the Medici palaces of the American South. For the native son, New Orleans is the center of the world.

Keeping one eye toward his city, Toole restarted the familiar routine in Puerto Rico of managing instructors and preparing for company inspections. In another letter to Fletcher dated February 9, Toole appears relaxed and contemplative:

Emilie Dietrich Griffin detected such contemplation when she came to Puerto Rico in 1962 and spent a day with him. She deemed that he was “walking insanely along the far edges of experience not so much wanting to take reckless chances but wanting to confront the universe, to pierce through to the meaning of things.” A year later, he returned to this meditation.

And one Sunday afternoon in 1963 he found the meaning for which he had searched for years. Sometime in late February or early March he realized he was in an ideal place for writing. He had a room of his own, substantial periods of free time, and a regular paycheck. Seizing the opportunity at hand, he decided to put his assets to good use and try once again to fulfill his dream of authorship. He lacked only the necessary accouterment of any serious novelist. But his good friend David Kubach was aptly equipped. Toole asked Kubach if he could borrow his typewriter, and Kubach agreed.

Toole placed the small portable typewriter on his desk. He rolled a piece of paper into position. His fingers settled into the shallow cups of the typewriter keys. With the first percussive smack of a keystroke, he broke the contemplative silence of his room. He recalled Humphrey Wildblood, the character he created while in New York, renamed him Ignatius Reilly, and set the beginning of his tale under the clock at the D. H. Holmes department store on Canal Street. And as his fingers started their fluttering dance across the keys, the world of Fort Buchanan and Puerto Rico, just outside his window, faded
away. And from the recesses of memory, that immense catalog of personalities he had gathered over the past two decades opened. There Bobby Byrne preached the gospel of Boethius and psychoanalyzed his own obsession with hot dogs. Irene Reilly screamed and cursed, her voice carrying through the bathroom vents into the house next door, while the gum-smacking Irish Channel gal with large hoop earrings smiled coyly at her beefy Italian boyfriend. Hunter College girls scowled at those conservatives breeding in the vast lands west of Manhattan, while the poor mother on Elysian Fields whacked her son over the head with a plank. And sweaty, colored workers labored in the back of the suit factory, while flamboyant merrymakers exchanged witty flirtations at a party in the French Quarter. The sun was setting on the Mississippi River as the clock at D. H. Holmes neared the hour of five and a middle-aged son waited for his elderly mother with the wine cake she promised him before they headed home in their old Plymouth. From this vast parade, Toole selected, merged, refined, and wove characters together with all the absurdities that form the human condition. And there on the once blank sheet of paper in his private room in Puerto Rico emerged the city he had known all his life, his New Orleans.

It all sounds like a myth of the artist struck by genius one day, but for Toole this was the wave that had been building, and now it had unleashed with consuming urgency. For nearly ten years he had tried to muster his muse, ever since he wrote
The Neon Bible
. Since then, his attempted poems and short stories flopped. But this time everything aligned for him; he had an almost unwavering energy. Instructors in all three companies could hear the clacking of the typewriter at all hours of the day and night when they walked by his private room. Chatter circulated that he was writing a humorous novel about a fat medievalist in New Orleans. He shared bits and pieces to a select few, primarily his friend Kubach, and they praised his work.

Toole was well aware of the change that had come over him. He fancied himself in the midst of literary history when he writes in a letter to his parents, “In my private room with the fan, easy chair, book case and plant, I settle down with a borrowed typewriter . . . and grind out my deathless prose.” Through his writing, he once again found purpose and place in his world; he had direction. On March 23 he writes home,

He relinquishes his critical eye, dedicating his energies to the creative process, hoping his motivation would not wane. Almost two weeks later, Toole writes home again reporting the value of his writing to his own disposition.

The pace at which he wrote pleased and surprised him, although he began to doubt the finished quality of the prose, recognizing the need for revision. And he remained wary that his muse could desert him at any moment, as it had in the past. On April 10 he writes,

For several weeks, occupied with his novel, Toole expressed pleasure with his situation at Fort Buchanan. “All is still going very well . . . ” he writes, “and, surprisingly, for me, I am more or less content.” The end of April brought a potential threat to his progress. Kubach was again transferred to Salinas, taking his typewriter with him. Perhaps in private Toole expressed disappointment about his closest friend moving miles away, but to his parents he voiced his concerns about accessing a typewriter. He writes,

His writing was paramount; it was worthy of a substantial investment. In early May he bought a new typewriter, which he would use to finish his novel. He details this purchase to his parents:

As he continued to write, he fixed his eye on the end of his service. The uncertainty of life after the army, which had loomed in the distance during his trip home in January, now pressed upon him. And his writing project was such that he prepared to dedicate the next step of his life
to its publication. Hunter had offered him an instructor position for the upcoming academic year, but he declined it. He informs his parents that

He requests his mother to send him contact information for private schools and colleges in New Orleans, as he planned to teach while finishing the novel. And despite all things going well for him, he ends the letter with a surprisingly spiteful description of an evening spent with the parents of fellow instructor Dave Farr. The disdainful voice of Ignatius shines through in this account. However funny, the humor came at the expense of two people who were welcoming and generous:

During dinner, Toole likely maintained his Southern charm and social graces in front of the parents of his friend. Even after their time in the army, Dave Farr kept in contact with Toole, eagerly wishing to keep his friendship. But Toole's comments speak to the razor-sharp cruelty of which he was capable. The letter also illustrates the degree to which he invested himself into his characters and the toll it took on him. Years later, looking back on this time, he explained, “In the unreality of my Puerto Rican experience, this book became more real to me than what was happening around me; I was beginning to talk and act like Ignatius.” At least in letters, this Ignatian voice was reserved for his mother. In letters to friends like Fletcher, his witty remarks are far less sharp and not nearly as mean.

However regretful his comments, his process worked. On May 15 he documents his progression and begins to take stock in his accomplishment, recognizing both its personal and professional value.

Toole writes with confidence but tempers his arrogance when he handwrites into the typed letter, “I must not set my hopes too high.” Throughout his letters during this period, he claims certainty of the novel's success and then restrains his certitude with expressions of doubt. Toole understood he was investing in a project that would make him vulnerable to rejection. For a person whose natural talents propelled him to extraordinary heights, rejection would strike a devastating blow. The failure of
The Neon Bible
to win the writing contest may have cast a long shadow over his successive attempts to write fiction. Accordingly, he may have taken measures to protect himself against the feelings of failure.

But in Puerto Rico, his inner critic did not stifle his motivation. Day by day, he progressed toward another completed chapter, another step closer to his discharge. It was not until the tenor of Fort Buchanan changed that his motivation lagged. As surprise inspections became more common and the trainees far more disruptive, Toole found it difficult to write. At the end of May, he finished a training cycle that left him exhausted. His one place of refuge was his private room: