Confederacy of Dunces, A - John Kennedy Toole [64]
“That really sounds rather stirring,” Ignatius observed. Then he shouted, “Forward!”
The formation obeyed so rapidly that before Ignatius could call anything else, the banner had already passed through the factory and was rising up the stairs to the office.
“Halt!” Ignatius screamed. “Someone come help me off this table.”
Oh, Jesus, you be my friend
Right, oh, yeah, right up till the end.
You take my hand
And I feel grand
Knowing you walking
Hearing me talking
I ain’t complaining
Though maybe it’s raining
When I’m with Jesus.
“Stop!” Ignatius called frantically, watching the last of the battalion file through the door. “Come back in here immediately.”
The door swung closed. He got down on his hands and knees and crawled to the edge of the table. Then he swung around and, after a long while spent in maneuvering his extremities, managed to sit on the edge of the table. Noticing that his feet were swinging only a few inches from the floor, he decided to risk the jump. As he pushed himself free of the table and landed on the floor, the camera slid from his shoulder and hit the cement with a hollow, cracking sound. Disemboweled, its film entrails spilled onto the floor. Ignatius picked it up and flipped the switch that was supposed to set it in motion, but nothing happened.
Oh, Jesus, you pay my bail
When they put me in that old jail.
Oh, oh, you always giving
A reason for living.
“What are those maniacs singing?” Ignatius asked the empty factory while he tried to stuff foot upon foot of film into his pocket.
You never hurt me,
You never, never, never desert me.
I never sinning
I always winning
Now I got Jesus.
Ignatius, trailing unwound film, hustled to the door and entered the office. The two women were stonily displaying the back of the stained sheet to a confused Mr. Gonzalez. Their eyes closed, the choir members were chanting compulsively, lost in their melody. Ignatius pushed through the battalion loitering benignly on the fringes of the scene toward the desk of the office manager.
Miss Trixie saw him and asked, “What’s happening, Gloria? What are all the factory people doing in here?”
“Run while you’re able, Miss Trixie,” he told her with great seriousness.
Oh, Jesus, you give me peace
When you keeping away them po-lice.
“I can’t hear you,” Miss Trixie cried, grabbing his arm. “Is this a minstrel show?”
“Go dangle your withered parts over the toilet!” Ignatius screamed savagely.
Miss Trixie shuffled away.
“Well?” Ignatius asked Mr. Gonzalez, rearranging the two ladies so that the office manager could see the lettering on the other side of the sheet.
“What does this mean?” Mr. Gonzalez asked, reading the banner.
“Do you refuse to help these people?”
“Help them?” the office manager asked in a frightened voice. “What are you talking about, Mr. Reilly?”
“I am talking about the sin against society of which you are guilty.”
“What?” Mr. Gonzalez’s lower lip quivered.
“Attack!” Ignatius cried to the battalion. “This man is totally without charity.”
“You ain give him a chance to say nothin,” observed one of the discontented women holding the sheet. “You let Mr. Gonzalez talk.”
“Attack! Attack!” Ignatius cried again, even more furiously. His blue and yellow eyes protruded and flashed.
Someone halfheartedly whizzed a bicycle chain over the top of the file cabinets and knocked the bean plants to the floor.
“Now look what you’ve done,” Ignatius said. “Who told you to knock those plants over?”
“You say, ‘Attagg,’” the owner of the bicycle chain answered.
“Stop that at once,” Ignatius bellowed at a man who was apathetically making a vertical slash in the DEPARTMENT OF RESEARCH AND REFERENCE — I. REILLY, CUSTODIAN sign with a pen knife. “What do you people think you’re doing?”
“Hey, you say, ‘Attagg,’” several voices answered.
In this lonesome place
You give me grace
Giving your light
Through the long night.
Oh, Jesus, you hearing my woe
And I never, I never, never gonna let you go.
“Stop that awful song,” Ignatius