Confederacy of Dunces, A - John Kennedy Toole [31]
“But listen,” the office manager said confidentially. “Miss Trixie here earns only forty dollars a week, and she does have some seniority.”
“She does look rather worn,” Ignatius said, watching Miss Trixie spread the contents of her bag on her desk and sort through the scraps. “Isn’t she past retirement?”
“Sshh,” Mr. Gonzalez hissed. “Mrs. Levy won’t let us retire her. She thinks it’s better for Miss Trixie to keep active. Mrs. Levy is a brilliant, educated woman. She’s taken a correspondence course in psychology.” Mr. Gonzalez let this sink in. “Now, to return to your prospects, you are very fortunate to start with the salary I quoted. This is all part of the Levy Pants Plan to attract new blood into the company. Miss Trixie, unfortunately, was hired before the plan went into effect. It was not retroactive, and therefore doesn’t cover her.”
“I hate to disappoint you, sir, but I am afraid that the salary is not adequate. An oil magnate is currently dangling thousands before me trying to tempt me to be his personal secretary. At the moment, I am trying to decide whether I can accept the man’s materialistic worldview. I suspect that I am going to finally tell him, ‘Yes.’”
“We’ll include twenty cents a day for carfare,” Mr. Gonzalez pleaded.
“Well. That does change things,” Ignatius conceded. “I shall take the job temporarily. I must admit that the ‘Levy Pants Plan’ rather attracts me.”
“Oh, that’s wonderful,” Mr. Gonzalez blurted. “He’ll love it here, won’t he, Miss Trixie?”
Miss Trixie was too preoccupied with her scraps to reply.
“I find it strange that you have not even asked for my name,” Ignatius snorted.
“Oh, my goodness. I completely forgot about that. Who are you?”
That day one other office worker, the stenographer, appeared. One woman telephoned to say that she had decided to quit and go on relief instead. The others did not contact Levy Pants at all.
IV
“Take those glasses off. How the hell can you see all that crap on the floor?”
“Who wanna look at all that crap?”
“I told you to take the glasses off, Jones.”
“The glasses stayin on.” Jones bumped the push broom into a bar stool. “For twenty dollar a week, you ain running a plantation in here.”
Lana Lee started snapping a rubber band around the pile of bills and making little piles of nickels that she was taking out of the cash register.
“Stop knocking that broom against the bar,” she screamed. “Goddamit to hell, you making me nervous.”
“You want quiet sweeping, you get you a old lady. I sweep yawng.”
The broom bumped against the bar several more times. Then the cloud of smoke and the broom moved off across the floor.
“You oughta tell your customer use they ashtray, tell them peoples you workin a man in here below the minimal wage. Maybe they be a little considerate.”
“You better be glad I’m giving you a chance, boy,” Lana Lee said. “There’s plenty colored boys looking for work these days.”
“Yeah, and they’s plenty color boy turnin vagran, too, when they see what kinda wage peoples offerin. Sometime I think if you color, it better to be a vagran.”
“You better be glad you’re working.”
“Ever night I’m fallin on my knee.”
The broom bumped against a table.
“Let me know when you finish with that sweeping,” Lana Lee said. “I got a little errand I want you to run for me.”
“Erran? Hey! I thought this a sweepin and moppin job.” Jones blew out a cumulus formation. “What this erran shit?”
“Listen here, Jones,” Lana Lee dumped a pile of nickels into the cash register and wrote down a figure on a sheet of paper. “All I gotta do is phone the police and report you’re out of work. You understand me?”
“And I tell the po-lice the Night of Joy a glorify cathouse. I fall in a trap when I come to work in this place. Whoa! Now I jus waitin to get some kinda evidence. When I do, I really gonna