John Kennedy Toole - A Confederacy of Dunces (Chap. 2.2) lyrics

“I come about that porter job you got advertise in the paper.” “Yeah?” Lana Lee looked at the sungla**es. “You got any references?” “A police gimme a reference. He tell me I better get my a** gainfully employ,” Jones said and shot a jet of smoke out into the empty bar. “Sorry. No police characters. Not in a business like this. I got an investment to watch.” “I ain exactly a character yet, but I can tell they gonna star that vagran no visible mean of support stuff on me. They told me.” Jones withdrew into a forming cloud. “I thought maybe the Night of Joy like to help somebody become a member of the community, help keep a poor color boy outta jail. I keep the picket off, give the Night of Joy a good civil right ratin.” “Cut out the crap.” “Hey! Whoa!” “You got any experience as a porter?” “Wha? Sweeping and mopping and all that n******g sh**?” “Watch your mouth, boy. I got a clean business.” “Hell, anybody do that, especially color peoples.” “I've been looking,” Lana Lee said, becoming a grave personnel manager, “for the right boy for this job for several days.” She put her hands in the pockets of her leather overcoat and looked into the sungla**es. This was really a deal, like a present left on her doorstep. A colored guy who would get arrested for vagrancy if he didn't work. She would have a captive porter whom she could work for almost nothing. It was beautiful. Lana felt good for the first time since she had come upon those two characters messing up her bar. “The pay is twenty dollars a week.” “Hey! No wonder the right man ain show up. Ooo-wee. Say, whatever happen to the minimal wage?” “You need a job, right? I need a porter. Business stinks. Take it from there!” “The las person working in here musta starve to d**h.” “You work six days a week from ten to three. If you come in regular, who knows? You might get a little raise.” “Don't worry. I come in regular, anything keep my a** away from a police for a few hour,” Jones said, blowing some smoke on Lana Lee. “Where you keep them motherf**in broom?” “One thing we gotta understand is keeping our mouth clean around here.” “Yes, ma'm. I sure don wanna make a bad impressia in a fine place like the Night of Joy. Whoa!” The door opened and Darlene came in wearing a satin co*ktail dress and a flowered hat, flouncing her skirt gracefully as she walked. “How come you're so late?” Lana screamed at her. “I told you to be here at one today.” “My co*katoo come down with a cold last night, Lana. It was awful. The whole night he was up coughing right in my ear.” “Where do you think up excuses like that?” “Well, it's true,” Darlene answered in an injured voice. She put her huge hat on the bar and climbed on a stool up into a cloud that Jones had blown. “I hadda take him to the vet's this morning to get a vitamin shot. I don't want that poor bird coughing all over my furniture.” “What got into your head that made you encourage those two characters last night? Every day, every day, Darlene, I try to explain to you the kind of clientele we want in here. Then I walk in and find you eating crap off my bar with some old lady and a fat turd. You trying to close down my business? People look in the door, see a combination like that, they walk off to another bar. What I have to do to make you understand, Darlene? How does a human being get through to a mind like yours?” “I already told you I felt sorry for that poor woman, Lana. You oughta seen how her son treated her. You oughta heard the story he told me about a Greyhound bus. And all the time that sweet old lady sitting there paying for his drinks. I had to take one of her cakes to make her feel good.” “Well, the next time I find you encouraging people like that and ruining my investment, I'm gonna kick you out on your behind. Is that clear?” “Yes, ma'm.” “You sure you got what I said?” “Yes, ma'm.” “Okay. Now show this boy where we keep our brooms and crap and get that bottle that old lady broke cleaned up. You're in charge of getting this whole goddam place as clean as a pin for what you did me last night. I'm going shopping.” Lana got to the door and turned around. “I don't want nobody fooling with that cabinet under the bar.” “I swear,” Darlene said to Jones after Lana had swung through the door, “this place is worse than the army. She just hire you today?” “Yeah,” Jones answered. “She ain exactly hire me. She kinda buyin me off a auction block.” “At least you gonna get a salary. I only work on commission for how much I get people to drink. You think that's easy? Try to get some guy to buy more than one of the kinda drinks they serve in here. All water. They gotta spend ten, fifteen dollars to get any effect at all. I swear, it's a tough job. Lana even pumps water in the champagne. You oughta taste that. Then she's all the time complaining about how business stinks. She oughta buy a drink at this bar and find out. Even when she's got only about five people drinking in here she's making a fortune. Water don't cost nothing.” “Wha she go shopping for? A whip?” “Don't ask me. Lana never tells me nothing. That Lana's a funny one.” Darlene blew her nose daintily. “What I really wanna be is an exotic. I been practicing in my apartment on a routine. If I can get Lana to let me dance in here at night, I can get me a regular salary and quit hustling water on commission. Now that I think of it, I oughta get me some commission for what them people drank up in here last night. That old lady sure drank up a lotta beer. I don't see what Lana's got to complain about. Business is business. That fat man and his mamma wasn't much worse than plenty we get in here. I think the thing got Lana was that funny green cap he had stuck up on his head. When he was talking, he'd pull the earflap down, and when he was listening, he'd stick it up again. By the time Lana got here, everybody was hollering at him, so he had both flaps stuck out like wings. You know, it looked sorta funny.” “And you say this fat cat traveling around with his momma?” Jones asked, making a mental a**ociation. “Uh huh.” Darlene folded her handkerchief and slipped it into her bosom. “I sure hope they don't ever decide to hang around here again. I'll really be in trouble. Jesus.” Darlene sounded worried. “Look, we better do something about this place before Lana comes back. But listen. Don't knock yourself out cleaning up this dump. I never seen it really clean since I been here. And it's so dark in here all the time, nobody can tell the difference. To hear Lana talk, you'd think this hole was the Ritz.” Jones shot out a fresh cloud. Through his gla**es he could hardly see anything at all.