The Royal Family

by William T. Vollmann

  | 127 |

  And meanwhile John worked late at the office, beneath and among those great plaid and pulsing mirrors called skyscrapers. One time Chocolate, high on crystal meth, got chased out of the Tenderloin by the police, and when she came into the financial district it was rush hour with summer’s blue and gold peach-fuzz light on the skyscrapers, and a businessman in a multitude of businessmen marched crushingly toward her; Chocolate’s eyes could not let go of his face. —That man’s a skyscraper! she thought crazily. —He’s so tall and wide and rectangular! He’s shouting something about smoking cigars with his friends . . . —And indeed at that hour all the skyscrapers were moving like chessmen, so it seemed to her. Twenty-one storeys above her, chessmaster John moved his queen’s knight’s pawn on the tobacco brief, while in Pacific Heights lonely Celia sat smoking cigarettes, waiting for him to telephone.

  | 128 |

  Do say something clever for us, John, said Mr. Rapp.

  I don’t feel like it.

  You’re not going to disappoint us, now, are you, John? Because that just wouldn’t be good enough.

  I am afraid that we are going to find pleasures in some cases opposite to pleasures, John snarled. —Plato, Philebus, 13a.

  Well said! cried Mr. Rapp, clapping his hands. But is that perhaps a comment on the present proceedings? You see, everybody, how clever our new full partner is? Roland, could you top that? And, by the way, what’s your impression of Plato, John? I dip into the Laws from time to time . . .

  Just another egghead, Mr. Rapp, said John. There are too many eggheads in the world.

  Now, John. I need to ask you something. With your legal bent, and your gift for recitation, aren’t you yourself, perhaps (dare I say it), an egghead?

  No, Mr. Rapp. I’m a performing animal. I perform under duress, or for a reward.

  Ouch, John, that was cruel! It may be true, but sometimes it’s better not to say those things.

  * * *

  •BOOK VIII•

  * * *

  Sunflower

  •

  * * *

  Until women can attain not only a genuine independence in relation to men but also a new way of conceiving themselves and their role in sexual relations, the sexual question will remain full of unhealthy characteristics and caution must be exercised in proposals for new legislation. Every crisis brought about by unilateral coercion in the sexual field unleashes a “romantic” reaction which could be aggravated by the abolition of organized legal prostitution.

  GRAMSCI, prison notebooks (ca. 1930)

  * * *

  •

  | 129 |

  Sunflower died, and Beatrice said: You know those candle with the color? It’s better to buy them than to make them. Otherwise the dead people, they doan accept.

  But Domino said: What should I buy that bitch a candle for? One time she begged me to show some heart and loan her ten to fix, so I did and then she never paid me back. She just pissed my kindness away.

  The Queen, who until just now had been alone going through her spells like old Chinese women rapidly shuffling through an immense pile of purple eggplants, tossing them all aside, searching for the perfect vegetable, said: Domino, I want you to be quiet now an’ listen. Sunflower died for you. She laid herself down an’ took those bullets of pain that were comin’ for you, to which Domino replied in bored unwholesome fashion: Nobody died for me, not even Jesus, and the Queen said: Not Jesus, that’s exactly my point, Dom. You gotta find the other kind of happiness. I mean that Canaan brand . . . to which Domino replied: Oh, please! then said to Beatrice (just to get a rise out of her): You know why I call Sunflower a bitch?

  She’s no bitch.

  You know why? Because she was a dog. And now you know what she is? A dead dog. A dead, stinking dog!

  That Henry Tyler’s comin’ here again, announced the tall man.

  Domino brightened. —Henry, boy! she shouted. I know you have a relationship with your dick, but why don’t you zip up your fly?

  All rightie now, the Queen chuckled. All right.

  Why you doan care about Sunflower? whispered Beatrice. She was a nice, nice girl . . .

  C’mere, Bea, said the Queen.

  But Beatrice leaned against a concrete block, resting her big cheek on her fingers. When she closed her eyes she could see the white door of eternity, cracked through the whitewash, now gaping ajar, so that there was a darkness, with something rough and shaggy beside it; she could see Sunflower ascending the bare brown hill of death, drawing near that door around which beautiful little girls peered in dirt-streaked dresses, waiting to welcome Sunflower with their black hair and black eyes. She heard the death’s-head master of ceremonies whisper: Sweet as a pastry, hot as a candle, bright as the sun!

  Since Beatrice was saying nothing, Domino thought to see in her what she had always perceived in Sunflower, namely, the shine of naked idiocy, so she said: You’re a dog, too, bitch! at which the Queen, sighing, got up and went out; but Beatrice replied, smiling bitterly: They say, doan hit that dog, but if you die, that dog will carry you across the black river.

  I dunno what the fuck you’re talking about. You bitchy little bitch . . .

  Come on, Bea, said Strawberry. Let’s go make some money.

  Bye-bye, Henry, said Beatrice. Anytime you call me, I come running, running!

  I get it, said Tyler with a laugh.

  He stood there a little uncertainly, wondering whether he were supposed to follow the Queen.

  Meanwhile, waggling their asses and smiling into the oncoming traffic, the two whores strolled backward down Sutter past Jones to the old Commodore Hotel outside which they waited for an hour or two, then shifted battle stations to O’Farrell and Jones by the Gazebo Smoke Shop with its zebras of tiles. It was hot and bright enough to make Strawberry squint, so they went and stood by the 501 Club where the shadow of something fraying on a wire trembled just above the orange cocktail glass on the sign. Down the gently sloping street, a building which many decades ago might have been called a skyscraper stood up-pointing like a stubby hypodermic needle with an American flag on it on that sweltering Sunday afternoon, no one going in or out of the locked gate of the Hong Kong Oriental Massage.

  Fat sunny Beatrice, crossing her arms under her breasts, her treetrunk thighs spread wide apart as she leaned against a barfront, finally said: You sad about Sunflower?

  Sure, baby. I know Maj will give her a nice funeral. You’ll see.

  Who you like better, Sunflower or Domino?

  Ain’t no comparison. Sunflower I love, but Domino’s just a sick, sadistic, unhealthy, unwholesome—

  What’s the worst thing that make her so bad?

  She has HIV, you know, and she’s still selling pussy. I call that selling murder.

  They stood there all afternoon. Their feet got tired. The sun went behind a cloud, and then it got foggy and then it rained. Beatrice sighed, lifting one foot, then the other. The rain came down harder and harder.

  A drunken panhandler lay down under his shopping cart. Rainwater washed his purple face.

  Hey, said Strawberry, shaking him. Hey, mister. Don’t lie down there to sleep in the rain. You’ll get pneumonia and die.

  The man vomited. Strawberry helped him to his feet. He puked all over her, then slowly wove down the sidewalk, leaving his cart behind.

  Strawberry began to laugh. —You think I can still make money this way?

  Oh, shit, chucked Beatrice. Oh, shit. You doan smell so nice now, honey. Thank God for rain. Maybe this rain is gonna wash you clean.

  Fuck that, said Strawberry. My feet hurt. Let’s go back.

  You go, said Beatrice. I gotta get well now. I need it.

  I got an extra dose of china white, said Strawberry. I’ll share with you if you promise to pay me back.

  Okay, thank you, baby. Let’s go. I pay you back tomorrow. I promise. Where’s our Mama gonna stay tonight?

  She said that place off Eddy Street, you know, that blac
k hotel . . .

  I know. That bad, bad place.

  Don’t worry, Bea. Queen’s gonna be there.

  I know. Oh, my back hurts. You have that china white on you?

  No, you wait here. I got to go get my secret stash. I’ll be right back.

  She ran off. After an hour, Beatrice, bitter and exhausted, was just about to give up when one of her regulars, a middle-aged widower whose paunch curved like an old Union Pacific roundhouse, pulled up and she ran to his car. They went to the Lonely Island Hotel.

  Short time? said the Indian woman at the top of the stairs.

  Beatrice nodded.

  Fifteen dollars, said the Indian woman.

  The john reached into his wallet and paid. The Indian woman led them to a room which overlooked the street. In the wastebasket lay a freshly used condom, oozing slime.

  Beatrice took off all her clothes, eased herself down onto the mushy, unstable mattress, and immediately fell asleep. She was dreaming of Sunflower. The john, who was a good man, stood there for a while watching his fat and pretty whore lying on the bed snoring with her legs spread, ever so slightly moving her abscessed pelvis in and out. Then he put thirty dollars onto the nightstand and went out, softly closing the door behind him.

  | 130 |

  Beatrice dreamed of Sunflower.

  | 131 |

  Later that same night, while Mrs. Tyler was bathing Mugsy, and Dan Smooth sat on his porch reading in the Sacramento Bee that chemical castration had been approved after all for recidivist sex offenders, Tyler, coughing, sauntered through the Tenderloin and came into the Wonderbar, which the tall man had just entered with a stolen calculator, rolling his bloodshot eyes, croaking: Hey, you want this? It’s got a built-in briefcase. How can you be without it? until he got eighty-sixed by Heavyset and stamped out cursing, vengefully smearing on the sidewalk some stinking shoe-ooze which was yellow-green like the meat of a Mexican avocado. And of course it was at the Wonderbar that Tyler found Domino, who was not yet crack-paranoid but her face had already turned the color of weak tea in a glass in one of those Vietnamese soup restaurants on Jones Street, and she wore a mask of sweat.

  He sat down beside her. —Where’s Maj?

  Henry, you don’t know shit. She never comes in here. Not unless she really needs something.

  So that’s why you’re here, huh? While the cat’s away the mice will play.

  Oh, fuck off.

  You don’t look too well.

  I’m not.

  Did you get that photo of you I left with Justin?

  It looked like me, she said happily.

  You remember when I took that?

  No, I guess I was too fucked up . . .

  Tyler coughed.

  And what’s wrong with you? said the blonde.

  Oh, just a light case of AIDS. The gift that keeps on giving, know what I mean?

  What did you say? she cried in a rage. I can’t believe what you just said.

  Oh, I’d never give you AIDS, Domino, he said, coughing.

  She relaxed. —Have a lozenge, she said, opening a flat silver tin of pills.

  Why, thank you, sweetheart.

  What’ll you have, dear? said Loreena the barmaid.

  Shot of tequila, he said.

  Loreena poured the shot to the brim as always, brought the lime and said: Three hundred and fifty dollars. Tyler gave her four dollars and squeezed the lime in.

  Here, he said to Domino. You want a sip before I mix my germs in?

  All right, the blonde said, poising her twin straws over the glass like a blonde mosquito. —Hey, wait a second. Why’s it so cloudy? Did you put your dick in there?

  Sweetheart, if I put my dick in it would be ruby red, he told her.

  Oh, you’re so sick! she chuckled. Suddenly she hugged him. —That’s why I like you. . .

  Another john sat down next to them and said to Tyler as if the blonde weren’t there: She’s beautiful, isn’t she?

  Yes she is.

  Buy you a drink?

  All right. Thank you.

  I grew up in this bar, the john said. I literally grew up right behind that pool table. I’m an alcoholic, and proud of it. My Daddy was an alcoholic, too. He popped off at forty-eight. I’ve been in this bar all my life, and I’ll never forget the night Domino first walked in.

  Uh huh, said Tyler.

  The john drank down his beer as rapidly as a police car speeding the wrong way down Turk Murphy alley in Chinatown, and then he ordered another one, hushed and resigned connoisseur, unlike John and Celia, who were wine-tasting in Napa in a babble of words, driving from vineyard to vineyard so that stakes and inhumanly regular leaf-heights strobed by beneath the tree-swollen hills, Celia remarking on the lovely weather, John checking each winery off the map as they pulled up to the tasting room. But as soon as the two beers had passed into the john’s blood, he likewise brightened and found his strength, now feeling as able as John or Celia to kick up a little social dust, praise God, so he clapped his hand on Tyler’s shoulder and with a smile as ingenuous as a little boy’s asked him what sort of work he did.

  As little as possible, said Tyler, unimpressed by his rejuvenation.

  I’m a welder, the man rushed on, or I should say I was a welder. They just laid me off last week.

  I’m sorry to hear that, Tyler said. In that case I’ll buy you the next round.

  Well, so you and I have something in common, the john said.

  You mean Domino, said Tyler wearily.

  She’s a peach, ain’t she? the john said, glowing with enthusiasm.

  Domino, are you a peach?

  Oh, fuck off, Henry.

  You already said that.

  Well, fuck off again.

  You know what she and I make together? the john cackled breathlessly.

  Let me guess. Peaches and cream.

  Oh, you’re so sick, chuckled Domino.

  Tyler had sometimes seen this man going out to get pizza or soda or whatever Domino needed when she was too drunk and had to run into the ladies’ room to vomit and after that slowly let her head sag down onto the bar in that nightly sunset of hers. The john took care of her. He fed her as if she were a baby bird. His bald, ugly face shone with sacredness when he was helping her. He loved her. Even when she was terrible to him she was good to him, because she gave him something to love.

  I took her to our Christmas party, the john confided with a blush, and everybody kept comin’ up to me and sayin’: Who’s that goodlookin’ broad?

  How long did she stay with you? Tyler asked curiously.

  Oh, all night, said the john. And she danced like—it was the finest sight in the world.

  Domino smiled. —And it was. That’s how I dance. When I dance.

  So she had a good time?

  She said she did. I think she was happy.

  Hey, Dennis! whined the blonde. When are you gonna take me home? I need some man to take me home. I’m feeling kind of fucked up . . .

  Let me finish my drink first, said the john. Then I’ll take you wherever.

  No! shouted the whore. I will not wait for you to finish your drink, you stupid old misogynist! Fuck you and go to hell! Go to hell! Go to . . . oh, I, I, I’m going to be sick . . .

  Loreena, we’re going to need some napkins, said Tyler.

  Well well well, said the barmaid. Domino’s puking on my bar, so it must be eleven-o’clock. You can practically set a clock by Domino’s . . . Oh, look at that. Oh, Jesus.

  And after the dance she—

  Take her home, Dennis, said the barmaid.

  Domino? Domino, where you stayin’ at, sweetheart?

  At my—at the—Maj . . . the girl croaked.

  At your what?

  I know where she wants to go, said Tyler. I’ll take her.

  No! You don’t even like me! You just . . . Oh, what’s the point?

  All right, fine, you can take her, the john said. But don’t be takin’ advantage of her when she’s messed up like that
. It’s not a righteous thing to do.

  Wipe your mouth off a little bit, Domino, said Tyler. Can you walk?

  I lost one of my heels.

  That’s all right, he said. The car’s right across the street.

  I said, I lost my goddamned high heel.

  So what do you want? he said wearily. I know. You want me to buy you new high heels.

  That’ll work . . .

  Fine. Now get in the car.

  Thanks for being such a gentleman, the blonde muttered drunkenly.

  Just lie down in the back seat. Don’t be afraid of me.

  I’m not afraid. I love you, Henry. You’re the only one who’s nice to me.

  Thank you, sweetie.

  Dennis is just an asshole. And I hate Loreena’s guts.

  I get it, said Tyler, blinking his eyes.

  I said you’re the only goddamned one who’s ever been nice to me. The only one in the whole goddamned world. You want me to suck your dick?

  Never mind.

  I want to suck your dick. What’s the matter, cocksucker, you think just because you have a car and I don’t you’re any better than I am? Why, I don’t give a fuck about you and your car! I should kick all your goddamned windows out! I . . . Oh, Henry, please, I’m going to be sick . . . Please make it stop.

  It’s all right, Domino. It’ll stop soon. You’ll feel better soon.

  I’m sorry. Where are we? I lost my goddamned high heel but you promised me you’d buy me another one. I’m gonna hold you to it.

  You want to go to the hospital?

  Forget it.

  Is it true what Loreena said, that you’re puking every day?

  Go to hell.

  Domino, I’m worried about you. And Dennis and Loreena care about you, too. And the Queen—

  Oh, those fuckers . . .

  He got onto the freeway at Ninth and Harrison, billboards looming white and yellow, proclamations of spurious choice against the foggy sky, the city in its real life not a choice at all, the grim-glowing girder-blades of the Bay Bridge squatting over him.