Butterfly in the Typewriter (5 page)

The glories of theater were the dreams of his mother. And she savored some notoriety from her labors as director. In November of 1948 a review of the Traveling Theatre Troupers, written with flattering enthusiasm, equates the two-hour variety show to “having a front row seat at a Broadway musical.” It goes on to state, “The high quality of the entertainment was a tribute to Mrs. Toole's experienced and sustained coaching.” There is no doubt her son enjoyed performing, donning characters, and doing impersonations. But the stage was not his forte. Besides, he would find his city so full of interesting people that one did not need the theater to experience rich characters and intriguing plots. His days on the stage would certainly help him in his future literary pursuits. He recognized that the most interesting stories occur through characters and dialogue, not lengthy narration. While he would carry such lessons with him, his entrance into high school was a time to explore his own life goals, to define who he wanted to be, as he narrowed his interests in observation, mimicry, and writing. And once he crossed over that threshold into high school, he asked his friends and family to call him Ken.

D
uring the first eight years of Toole's schooling, the country had recovered from the Great Depression and emerged victorious from World War II. The ideology of sacrificing for the war effort subsided. And while the Cold War generated some unnerving fears and men still fought on battlefields in Korea in the early 1950s, the spectre of a world torn asunder by axis powers gave way to a growing desire for all things new. After all, one way to combat communism was to exercise the right to purchase. Families bought suburban homes, seeking some semblance of domestic utopia. These homes away from city centers necessitated new automobiles. As Toole had predicted, televisions became commonplace in the living rooms of the middle class. And New Orleans, now a foremost tourist city, was undergoing a renaissance. Canal Street bustled with shoppers; tourists crowded the streets of the French Quarter; and from the city that once served as the cradle of blues and jazz, the developing genre of rock and roll emanated from dance halls and music studios. An emboldened generation, tapping their feet, softened the social barriers of race as they danced to the supposedly corrupting, yet utterly intoxicating music. It was a great time to be young in New Orleans.

In the fall of 1950 Toole entered Alcée E. Fortier High School, named after the professor and scholar of Creole and Cajun literature. It resembled many of the brick and limestone schools built in the early twentieth century: a three-door entrance with hallways four stories high, forming a U shape—its arms extending to the rear to form a quad in the back. The tall ceilings and draft windows offered the only relief from the
sweltering heat. Eventually, in 1969, Fortier would become a microcosm of the challenges facing the integration of whites with African Americans. But the civil rights movement of the 1950s, while gaining momentum in Louisiana, had yet to get its footing in the school systems of New Orleans, such were the rigid segregationist power structures of the city. Fortier was an all-white school, and for the first two years of Toole's attendance it was an all-boys school.

Only twelve years old, Toole looked much younger than his classmates, although he had slimmed down from days at McDonogh 14. And while he must have grown accustomed to the two-year age difference between him and his peers, he now walked the same halls with eighteen-year-old seniors who were nearing college life and adulthood. But whatever social bearing the age difference had on him, it did not impact his academic performance. He breezed through the four years of high school as one of those rare students who needs only to attend class and submit the assignments to achieve high marks. He rarely studied and spent much time reading books of his own interests. So impressed with his son, John Toole once declared, “There is not a classroom into which he would go that he wouldn't excel.” Indeed, Toole maintained a high “A” average every quarter, passing all classes with flying colors. But yet, he never reached the top of his class or expressed a desire to prevail in that regard. Without feeling particularly challenged, he contentedly glided through courses with ease. Besides, his head was turning elsewhere. He proved to be a talented mathematician, and he loved books, but human behavior captured his interest above all. As his mother once observed, “The seeing eye and the hearing ear characterized him all his life.”

Throughout his high school years, Toole set to observe and mimic the personalities he encountered in New Orleans. He had surely visited relatives living downtown, but he now had the independence and mobility to explore and observe other neighborhoods, often without his mother knowing of his adventures. Piercing through the façade of the city, exploring the intricacy of its culture, he began his ever-expanding catalog of characters. While tourists came to watch Carnival floats pass by at the Mardi Gras parades, Toole came to understand that the spirit of the city lay in a display of unmasked revelers dispersed throughout its many neighborhoods. He was beginning the long process of assembling
his own parade. And there was no greater companion in this endeavor than his friend Cary Laird.

Much like Toole, Laird had skipped two grades. In their freshman year they shared a common bond in being the youngest students at Fortier. Both incredibly bright, their names always appeared every quarter in the honor roll column in the school newspaper,
Silver and Blue
. The two friends often competed with each other to get the highest scores on tests. They loved to read, and they both liked opera. But their sophistication was never beyond adolescent infatuations. They were both wild about Marilyn Monroe, although Toole developed a near obsession with her. In 1955 he wrote a letter of praise to the
New York Times
for an article by Bosley Crowther, who described the central tension in Monroe's new film
The Seven Year Itch
as “the primal urge in the male animal,” meeting a “voluptuous young lady” for a “summer in the hot city.” Any fan of Marilyn Monroe's would find his review titillating, but Toole felt compelled to compliment the author.

While Toole and Laird had much in common, they looked like opposites. Laird was blond, while Toole had dark hair. Laird was Southern Baptist, while Toole was Roman Catholic, although not devout. And while Toole was an only child with aging parents and a household that held itself up to a rigor of formality, Laird had a sister and a devoted mother and father who created a relaxed home life. Despite the differences between the two friends, Laird's sister, Lynda, remembers how their personalities complemented one another. Whenever Toole visited the Laird house, the family rollicked, as the two friends became a comic duo, mimicking everyone from their teachers to Hollywood stars. They would enter into impromptu skits, impersonating their teachers or people they had overheard on the street. And they left everyone in the Laird house in stitches.

One of their favorite duets was Bing Crosby and Louis Armstrong from the 1956 film
High Society
. Without warning, the two friends would break into song, recreating the quick jazzy exchange between the smooth, debonair Crosby and the wide-eyed, smiling Armstrong. In his later years Laird would sometimes do the routine on his own, bouncing back and forth from the velvety baritone of Crosby to the raspy improvisations of Armstrong. And when done, people stood astonished at how he could change his voice and mannerisms so quickly. Laird would
often say, “If you think that was good, you should have seen Ken. He was even better.”

Of course, living in New Orleans, Toole didn't have to look to the big screen to find great characters. Toole and Laird found a wealth of material in their immediate surroundings, which inspired them to embellish scenes they witnessed for the sake of humor. They talked about their busty Spanish teacher who always sat astutely at her desk. But whenever she opened her desk drawer, her breasts flopped in, making it impossible to close. Unaware of the obstruction, she would slam her breasts in the compartment, and yelp expletives in Spanish. And the Latin teacher seemed to blame all the misfortunes of the world on people who weren't studying Latin. Pretending to be newscasters, Toole and Laird would report a horrible tornado had ripped through Louisiana and killed hundreds of people, or a hurricane had carried away thousands of homes, or a horrific trolley car accident resulted in the deaths of dozens. Whatever the tragedy, the reason was the same: “Well it looks like somebody did not study their Latin.”

Outside the bounds of their school, the two friends ventured around New Orleans, absorbing the flavors of the different neighborhoods and creating fictional characters based on their observations. Downtown, there was little Tammie Reynolds whose mother would tell her to play on the sidewalks, what New Orleanians call
banquettes
. “Awww—little Tammie,” she would say, “go'on da banket by ya grammaw.” From the Irish Channel there was Antoinette, the promiscuous girl who “always wore dangling earrings and smacked gum.” She was just crazy about her beefy boyfriend named AJ, who was obviously an Italian because he used his initials as his nickname. And roaming throughout the city, looking for suspicious characters, was Captain Romigary, one of New Orleans finest policemen. He specialized in “hawtatheft.”

Toole and Laird went to the French Quarter, downtown, and to the Irish Channel. They even crossed over the race line, at a time when segregation was prevalent. They attended a service at a black Baptist church, participating in the long, lively ceremony of music and dance. And one day they observed a jazz funeral, watching as the brass band, playing dirges, led the deceased to the cemetery while the second line—those following the slow parade—marched sadly behind. As the funeral ended, the brass band erupted in songs of jubilation and the second line
of the returning parade danced in the streets, celebrating the life of the deceased.

From a Fortier Latin teacher to Mid-City burial ceremonies, Toole witnessed the wealth of inspiration in his city. And yet he found some of the most memorable personalities during his high school years right next door to the Laird home on General Taylor Street. On the other side of the Laird's rented duplex lived their landlady, a widow by the name of Irene Reilly. Her husband had died in World War II, and she now lived with her boyfriend, her son, and her mother. She worked at the corner market and talked to the neighborhood customers in that New Orleans Yat accent. “Where Ya't, honey?” she would ask a local shopper. “Aw fine. Just makin' some groceries.” Her boyfriend held the steady job of a postman, but because Irene collected a government check for her husband's death, the two did not marry. The family was an amicable bunch until, as with many families, they started fighting. A disagreement quickly erupted into screams and bellows, and Irene's elderly mother had some of the foulest language in all of New Orleans. When she slung her colorful rants in her deep New Orleans accent, her words carried throughout the house, resonating through a shared vent and into the bathroom in the Laird household. If Toole happened to be visiting the Lairds, which he often did, and the Reillys got into a fight, he would sit in the bathroom with his ear to the vent, listening and chuckling, as the profanity poured from the old woman's mouth. Years later when he wrote
Confederacy
, Toole took the name Irene Reilly for Ignatius's mother, a woman of unending sympathy for her son. But Toole may have transferred some of the profane spirit of Irene's mother to the character Santa Battaglia, who shockingly exclaims, “Fuck Ignatius!”

Like a sponge, Toole absorbed all the different walks of life, all to be used in his repertoire of impersonations. The Laird family served as an aid and an audience to his impeccable portrayals. From the snobbery of wealth to the down-and-out man peddling wares on French Quarter streets, Toole recognized that his hometown was best understood through its unique people.

And yet as he sought out such colorful personalities throughout his city, he had a prime example of New Orleans eccentricity at home—although, in the case of his parents it seemed far less humorous. Laird
saw firsthand some of the odd ways of John and Thelma during his visits to the Toole house. Thelma made rigorous demands on her son (Laird was always careful of his pronunciation around her), but her theatrical expressions made her interesting and enjoyable company. However, Toole's father, while always cordial, displayed sure signs of his developing neuroses, signs that may have gone unnoticed when Toole was a child but now could no longer be ignored. The same man who once let his five-year-old son drive a car was now obsessed with safety and security. He feared intruders could come in the home at any moment, so he installed deadbolt locks on all the internal doors of the house. Once he felt safe inside, he made himself quite comfortable, preferring to walk about in his jockey shorts. Since Laird was a regular visitor, John made few changes in his attire for him, although it must have cut a striking difference next to Thelma's formal reception of guests. One day, as John walked through the house in his underwear, he spotted a prop sword placed in the umbrella stand by the door—surely one of Thelma's harmless items used in one of her productions. John identified it as a deadly weapon that could be turned against the entire family. He drew out the sword from the umbrella stand and turned toward Thelma, scolding her for leaving it close to the entryway. “Someone is going to break in here, find this weapon, and kill us all in our sleep!” he yelled. Laird barely withheld his laughter as he watched the aged man in his underwear wielding the sword above his head, chasing his well-dressed wife about the room, reprimanding her on safety. Looking to Ken, Laird could tell the scene mortified his friend. It was a moment of humor and pain, a conflicted experience that must have permeated the Toole home at times.