A Work of Truly Staggering Genius

"Where y'at, Ken?"

"Hey, Phil. Um... this is going to sound dumb, but I am going by John now." The young professor slumps down on a stool at Phil's bar. Phil had not seen the man in at least a few weeks, maybe a month or two, now that he thought about it. He could not say that he was not a bit shaken by the man’s appearance now. Haggard, unshaven, and pale in complexion. Now he wanted to be called John?

"John's your old man, ain't 'e? Seems confusin'. But whatcha want. Speaking a which -- Sazerac?" Phil wipes down the old wooden bar in front of Ken, er John.

"Just a rye, Phil. Father's never around anyway. It seems, I dunno... childish to go by your middle name. Then there's the questions. ‘Why “Ken”?’ and ‘Why did your mother name you after the president?’, which clearly she didn't. It’s a family name.”

Phil sets the rye on the rocks on the bar and nods with understanding. Not that he really understood -- He had called this man 'Ken' since he first began coming to his bar over ten years ago. People came to a bar to be understood. He watches John look at the drink as he brings it to his lips. Phil understands that look.

"Why so glum, chum?" Ken had usually been the life of the party at the bar, telling various stories and challenging patrons with bar bets. John, on the other hand, was a real downer.

"Just these fuh-... these publishers. I don't know how to make them happy, Phil. 'Make these changes,' they say. So I make the changes. 'It's still not good enough,' they say. ‘Doesn’t have a point.’ As if there is a point to all this madness around us."

"Shoot. You know if I have a printin' press a my own, I'd be printin' and sellin' those stories you tell."

The professor sighs and downs his rye.

"Another, boss?"

"Yes, please, Phil. Has Dot been in?"

"Hain't seen her tonight." Phil held his tongue from making some additional remark about Ken dipping his wick, knowing the man's sincere affection for the demure Dorothy Annette.

"I was hoping to tell her goodbye." Later the bartender will tell others just how final Ken had made it sound. "Like he weren't planning on seein' her again," but now he just nods in understanding again.

"Plannin' a trip?"

"I thought I'd see a bit of the country, Phil. Maybe go west to California. Maybe east to Georgia and Florida."

"New Orleans not hot enough for ya, den?" That finally gets a bit of a smile from his sullen patron.

"Just some things I'd like to see. Have a bit of a road trip. Maybe see what's down in Key West that kept Hemingway from shooting himself in the face before that."

That does bring a smirk to the bartender’s face, though he decides he is not a fan of this John character and his morbid humor at all and wonders if the enigmatic Ken is not really already on a beach somewhere else, replaced by this scruffy, morbid imposter. "Hain't you seen about all there is to see of this country? Shoot. A man's been to New York, Seattle, way down there in Puerto Rico. Pret' soon you be tellin' us you dun run out of things to see 'round here an' are off to Europe. Or Africa. Didn't Ol' Hem go off to Africa too?"

"To shoot elephants or lions. Not in my nature, Phil."

"No, it ain't." Phil nods.

Ken lifts his empty glass again.

"You plan on leavin' tonight?" Ken says he is but still needs to pack his things into the car. "I suppose 'nother one won't hurt." Phil pours himself out a small shot after handing Ken his drink. "Salut and bon voyage. You watch out fer them women in Florida or California or wherever you end up. They's not all as friendly as that Dot." Ken lifts his glass and they drink.

***

"Mr. Percy, I'm sorry, sir, but there is a woman here who is insisting on seeing you and says she just won't take no for an answer." Walker Percy can see just how flustered the grad student who acted as his secretary during the afternoon hours is.

"It's alright, Nancy. Just send her in."

The girl is not gone from his office more than a moment before a round woman in her seventies bustles into his office. He abruptly stands behind his desk.

"Walker Percy, you can sit. I'm Thelma Ducoing Toole. You knew my boy, Ken."

Ken Toole. Kenneth Toole? Nothing was ringing bells in Walker's mind. "Mrs. uh... Toole... I can't say that I..."

"Well, maybe you knew of him. John Kennedy Toole." The name did ring a bell with Walker now because of its association with the late president. "Well, I'm here because I have something you need to read. You haven't answered my letters or my phone calls." She tosses down a ream of paper onto his desk, a manuscript. Now Walker knows. This is the old bat who had been saying that her son had left behind a manuscript "of staggering genius" before gassing himself in his car.

"Mrs. Toole, now I assure you that..."

"Assure me nothing! If you would just take the time to read it, you would see the genius my boy is." He notices she talks about her son as if he were still amongst the living. "So I'm here to make sure you do."

"Mrs. Toole, can I get you something? A glass of tea, maybe?" The woman has put her large posterior into one of the seats in front of Walker's desk.

"No."

Seeing how he was not going to get the old woman to budge until he at least gave the manuscript a cursory glance, Walker Percy picks up the first few pages off his desk and sighs. Then he begins reading.

Forty minutes later he calls to the next room. "Nancy, get Mrs. Toole here a glass of tea or a coffee. And hold any calls. We're going to be here for a bit.”