Butterfly in the Typewriter

by Cory MacLauchlin

  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 n
ot 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.

  Whether or not they acknowledged it, his father was gradually sinking into a debilitating mental illness. For lack of an official diagnosis, his nephew, Harold Toole, termed it senility. But the initial signs of his neuroses seemed to be exhibited in moments of slight paranoia throughout the 1950s, although they were far less dramatic than the saber episode. In addition to John’s concerns over home security, he began displaying extreme caution when selling a car. When Lynda, Laird’s sister, went to John to purchase her first vehicle, she had to meet some of his rigorous criteria. Even though she had the money to buy the car outright, he needed to ensure her finances demonstrated she could actually afford the car. He then required her to drive down St. Charles Avenue, to prove she could handle the car. Once she passed his financial and driving tests, she said she wanted a convertible, and he replied he would sell her a white one only. That way people could easily see her coming down the street. It was the safest option, he explained. So Lynda left with her brand new white Oldsmobile convertible, and shortly thereafter John retired from automobile sales.

  Such eccentric behavior eventually turned into more bizarre obsessions with safety and the apparent onset of paranoia. But this was a private matter. Thelma and her son kept John’s illness largely a secret as it gradually worsened, perhaps to protect John or perhaps out of shame. And while Toole’s father worked throughout the 1950s, Laird witnessed the early stages of the slow deterioration to come. Toole later confided to one of his adult friends that growing up he rarely invited friends over to his house for fear of embarrassment. Clearly, Laird was an exception.

  While Toole may have felt bringing guests to the house was too risky, he still led an enjoyable social life in high school as he entered into a new and challenging world of dating. In 1952, when Toole was fourteen, Fortier opened its doors to female students. The mixture of boys and girls in classrooms and hallways changed the social dynamic in the school. The newspaper, Silver and Blue, received a telling facelift, adding the gossip sections “Cat Nips” and “Social Whirl,” which covered student affairs. The first time “Cat Nips” appeared, the anonymous reporter wrote, “We are all one big happy family . . . and the gossip is about you.” In that first column, Toole was snagged by the snooping gumshoe with the suggestive question, “Every morning JOSEPHINE T. meets KENNY before school to discuss lessons????” “Social Whirl” focused on who was seen about town on weekends. The sons and daughters of the social elite might still dance a waltz at formal balls, but a new sound was taking shape in New Orleans, which characterized the social scene of teenagers all over the country in the 1950s. It was a movement that arguably began in the alter ego of Uptown—the poor black neighborhood of the Ninth Ward—and it created just as much frenzy and fear as jazz did in the early 1900s.

  While Toole was performing in blackface at an outdoor theatre in Uptown in the late 1940s, a young black musician from the Ninth Ward named Fats Domino was playing piano in honkytonk bars in New Orleans. An undisputed innovator in music, Domino quickly catapulted to a recording studio and began touring across the country. In the mid-fifties, audiences went wild for “Ain’t That a Shame” and “Blueberry Hill.” Such success terrified old order white Southerners. Organizations such as the KKK attacked early rock and roll concerts, and they urged parents to save their children from the evils of listening to “Negro music” with its sexually suggestive language. But young people of every color won out.

  Despite its initial controversy, eventually white musicians, who were inspired in part by Fats Domino and Professor Longhair, eased the music’s transition to mainstream, predominantly white audiences. The nation tuned into the Louisiana Hayride broadcast in Shreveport, Louisiana, to listen to Elvis Presley and Jerry Lee Lewis. And throughout the fifties, American youth watched Dick Clark’s American Bandstand to learn the newest dances to the hottest songs. Like most teenagers in the 1950s, Toole listened to rock and roll. And any young man hoping to enter the dating scene in New Orleans would need to know how to dance to it. Cary Laird asked his younger sister, Lynda, to give him some lessons, and Toole joined them to learn the latest moves. They cleared some space in the basement where they had set up a record player. They practiced dances like the Jitterbug and the Cha-Cha. And to Toole’s amusement, they covered the Dirty Bop, a provocative and taboo variation of the Jitterbug that had been banned from many school dance floors, which made it all the more interesting to teenagers.

  By all accounts Toole was a wonderful dancer. Evenings out for the students at Fortier usually included either going to a party, a school dance, a dance hall, or, on special occasions, the Blue Room at the Roosevelt Hotel. Of course, taking those first few steps into the rituals of dating can be awkward, especially as a teenager. But this meant the opportunity for new experiences and new humorous stories, which Toole eagerly shared with Laird. In his senior year, Toole dated a girl everyone called Buzzy, who, according to Lynda Laird, attended the prestigious Holy Name of Jesus S
chool, in Uptown. In January of 1954, “Cat Nips” reported “Ken T. and Buzzy P” as “seen doing the town.” But Toole may have underestimated Buzzy’s level of devotion to the Catholic Church. One evening when Toole went to pick up Buzzy for a night out, she welcomed him into her house so he could offer the customary greeting to her parents. Her mother, unaware of Toole’s arrival, yelled down from the second floor, “Buzzy, you’d better get some romance before you become a nun!” Buzzy was humiliated. Toole was amused. But perhaps Buzzy’s devotion to clergy life was not as firm as her mother believed. Toole told Laird that he broke up with her when she brought up the topic of marriage.

  Whatever embarrassment Buzzy suffered paled in comparison to Toole’s embarrassment over his own parents. In regard to dating, his father had an unobtrusive piece of advice: “Kenny boy,” he would say, “you need to beware of loose women!” His mother, however, took a different approach. While she maintained that she stayed out of her son’s business when it came to dating, Laird told a different story. According to his account, Thelma would sometimes follow her son on dates. This was not necessarily typical behavior but happened enough times for Laird to retell the story to his sister. Thelma undeniably coveted her relationship with her son. He was everything to her. And while she wanted him to be desired, she also harbored anxiety that he might one day abandon her. She often said that the ladies loved him, but “he only had eyes for her.” And she was convinced that she was his only confidant. This intensity may have stifled Toole’s growth toward independence. What was once heartwarming devotion between a young boy and his mother became somewhat distorted in high school—a crucial time when a young man explores relationships with others, as he envisions what form his life will take once out from under the roof of his parents.