The Royal Family

by William T. Vollmann

  I’m going to the hospital to see her.

  I rest my case. You’re keeping her in the hospital, not at your place, so what kind of goddamned caring is that, son?

  It’s all true. And so I don’t know if I’m not trying hard enough—if I don’t have enough faith in the Queen to really love Irene and believe in her—or if I’m actually being faithful to the Irene who’s lying in the ground. And I—I don’t know what to do.

  Well, at least you’re sincere, Smooth said. The Queen loves sincere people.

  Yeah, Tyler said despondently.

  And you believe in justice?

  What do you mean?

  You believe that if you were working for the FBI you’d be helping good people and punishing bad people?

  I, uh—

  Tell me a story about our great justice system, Henry.

  Know how the police broke this one guy? said Tyler with a sneering chuckle. What they did was they hooked him up to a photocopy machine. And on the glass over the electric eye, underneath the cover, they put a piece of paper that said “FALSE.” So every time they’d ask the suspect a question, they’d hit the “START” button. And then a piece of paper that said “FALSE” would come out. So they’d show that to the suspect and say: See? You’re lying. And they broke that guy. He confessed.

  All right. Fine. You’re on our side. You’re a Canaanite. And how much influence do you think I have with Louis Freeh?

  Let me guess. You’re about to tell me you don’t have any.

  Splendid! cried Smooth, loudly enough for one of the drinkers to turn his head frowningly.

  Oh, forget it, said Tyler.

  We can’t forget it now, no matter how much we both may want to, rejoined the odious man. You’re anxious, I take it, about your actual survival. You’re pissing blood these days. Am I correct, Henry?

  Tyler shrugged his shoulders despairingly.

  Don’t think I don’t want to help you. We’re blood brothers, after all. Tell me we’re blood brothers, Henry.

  We’re blood brothers, said Tyler dully, remembering the autobiography of a serial killer which he’d thumbed through some months ago: the murderer, since electrocuted in Florida, had always made his victims parrot at knifepoint some puerile affirmation of sexual or emotional need before he raped and eviscerated them. What a world! I don’t want to be in this world any longer, he thought to himself.

  Henry, I can see you’re desperate. All the fight’s gone out of you.

  Tyler smiled bitterly.

  All the same, Smooth continued, you’re a lucky whore-hound. The Queen likes you; I know she does . . .

  What’s on your agenda for the Queen and me? said Tyler, unable to keep the anxiety from his voice.

  Number one: You came to me, not I to you. Number two: You begged me and bribed me to set you up with the Queen. True or false?

  I’ve got to go to the hospital, said Tyler.

  To visit Irene, I know. Let me come along, Henry.

  Are you a sadist? asked Tyler in slow quiet wonder.

  Anyhow, it’s not your job you’re worried about, said Smooth, gazing smilingly into his eyes. If I truly believed you cared about that, I would never have picked you up. It’s your sister-in-law’s rotten, stinking twat . . .

  Nothing about Irene was rotten or ever could be, said Tyler steadily.

  That’s what I like about you. Caught in an obsession—a delusion, really—and a very harmful, antisocial one, and the man will not give up! Hey, Loreena! This man fucked his own sister-in-law to death and now he—

  Tyler leaped off his stool and was already cocking his arm for the punch when Smooth kicked him in the stomach. Tyler doubled over retching.

  I’m a black belt, you know, Smooth whispered, his breath tickling Tyler’s ear. You had to be humbled. Now here. I’m putting three hundred dollars in your pocket. Don’t thank me. It’s not from me; it’s from the Queen . . .

  | 198 |

  He knew by then that it would never work out with the false Irene, but he knew also that he didn’t even have to tell her, that unless he physically assaulted her she would never regard him with all the bright-eyed watchful head-turns of a sick pigeon on the sidewalk, still strong and fearful at the very beginning of its death-struggle, because except physically the false Irene could not really be hurt anymore, so all he had to do was not see her and maybe not even tell the Queen that it hadn’t worked out because the Queen had tried to be good to him—he continued in awe of her, fearing to reject her gifts. Last time he’d seen her she’d stood naked against a concrete wall, supporting her little breasts with her hands while the other girls started drawing snakes on the wall, and he didn’t know what to make of it—were they playing or was it a ceremony or what? Dan Smooth would undoubtedly have told him the answer, but listening to Smooth left him almost exhausted.

  A siren went by. Irene wiggled a loose black tooth and finally pulled it out. Her breath reeked of decay.

  (But he recollected the time he came by dead Irene’s early one morning and knocked at the door for a long time until Irene woke up. John was away on business. When Tyler embraced her, her body likewise gave off a sour smell which shocked him.)

  This black guy, this dope dealer put a gun in my mouth, the false Irene explained. Said that was the only way he could come. I started cussing him out and I got out of there, but not before he whacked me in the teeth with his gun, and this tooth here was funny ever since. I think it died a long time time ago, maybe right after he did that.

  Here’s a tissue, he said. Why don’t you pack it in the hole until it stops bleeding—yeah, that’s good.

  You’re a nice guy, Henry, she said dully. I wish I could be nicer. I don’t know why I can’t, but I just can’t.

  He stroked her hair.

  I used to wish I was dead, she said brightly, but one day I woke up and realized I was already dead, you know, where it counts, so why not relax and not make a big stink?

  I know another dead Irene who—

  But dead people do stink no matter what they ever meant to do . . . And now it’s easier . . . Hey, can you gimme five dollars? Just five. I’m not greedy. I’m not well; I need some medicine, you know what kind . . .

  Sure, he said. Here you go.

  Where do you get your money from anyway?

  From business.

  Oh, I’m sorry, baby. I didn’t mean to butt in. I didn’t know you had anything to hide. I mean, the Queen told me you’re in love with a dead girl and I’m supposed to be her, so I just kind of figured you’d . . .

  Tyler said nothing. A fly landed on Irene’s filthy neck and she wearily brushed it away.

  Can I tell you my real name? she said. My real name’s Consuelo.

  He felt gratefulness and pain. She wanted to share something with him after all; she was freeing him from her; now she could not be Irene anymore; he had to admit that Irene would never be his or even be with him, and alone he would live on and on.

  My husband took the fall for my brother, Consuelo said. My brother’s no good. He got caught by that three strikes law. Suspicion of robbery, they said. It was only suspicion. He’s doing three months. An’ some whore named Chokecherry, kind of a frightening name, well, she and he . . . So I started . . . doing . . . this . . .

  She was crying.

  Oh, God, she sobbed. I started doing this, but I was doing this before, and I was lying to you to make you feel sorry for me but you don’t care and I don’t want you to care, I don’t even . . . I’m just a piece of shit. What do I have to lie to you for? You’ve always been decent to me; you don’t judge me, but I—

  So when does your husband get out, Consuelo?

  Oh, it doesn’t feel right when you call me by my name; I should never have told you. . .

  | 199 |

  Driving down Nineteeth toward the Golden Gate, he reached the gas station at Pacheco and turned right, coming home amidst the whitish houses whose dormer windows bulged blindly like the eyes of dead frogs. The n
eighbor’s blue flashing light was on. The trees were snipped and sculpted alike from lawn to lawn—Italian cypresses and then bonsai’d trees. He had been with the false Irene too long now. He could scarcely fathom this place. He honestly could not understand why God had put him here in this cool clean zone while the false Irene and the Queen and all that crew had to live in filth. Or was it their choice? Or was it heredity, destiny, class conflict, inevitability? He was angry with everyone, even with the Queen.

  | 200 |

  He awoke with the taste of the real Irene’s cunt in his mouth.

  | 201 |

  After a week of mendacious coolness the heat had returned. Tyler’s car was at the local shop, Sacramento labor being a relative bargain, so he walked down to J Street where across from the palm-tree’d square once called Freedom Park by the Wobblies, then Plaza Park by the corporations which had transformed Sacramento from a hot slow farming town into a desperately ugly conglomeration of malls and industrial parks, then Wino Park by those who had eyes, then Cesar Chavez Park by those who, like Tyler, deify the dead, he found the pawn shop of his recollections, where he inspected gold chains, then strolled past the cigar shop to the next pawn shop whose gold chains were supposedly new, and in this abode of discounted joy the woman drew herself up behind the counter and said: Well, what is it?

  I’d like to spend about a hundred bucks on one of these, he said.

  Links style or rope style?

  Well, should she hang herself or just be locked up? he said. It’s up to you.

  The woman pulled out the first gold chain that came to hand and said: This is probably a little more than a hundred dollars.

  And how about that one?

  It’s all by weight.

  Well, ma’am, then would you mind weighing it for me and telling me how much it is?

  The woman sighed heavily, slammed his choice down on the scale, and said: Eighty-three twenty-four.

  I hope to see you again before then.

  I beg your pardon?

  It’s perfect.

  The other one’s a hundred twelve.

  Oh, I’m a cheapskate. I guess I’ll take the one that caught my eye.

  Eighty-nine twenty.

  Guess I’d better pay before the price goes up again.

  That’s the tax, sir.

  It certainly is.

  What is your name? I need it for our receipt.

  I prefer privacy, thanks, said Tyler.

  Sir, you’ll have to give me a name.

  Adolf Hitler, said Tyler.

  The woman snatched up the gold chain and stalked off to the manager. The manager looked up from the telephone and shot Tyler a sly glance. Tyler gazed back at him serenely.

  Returning, the woman wrote C A S H on the receipt.

  Why, how did you know my name? said Tyler. I’m Johnny Cash’s third cousin once removed.

  I’ll get you a box, said the woman.

  She spread the gold chain out on the cotton and tried to stab it down with golden colored pins, which didn’t take. Tyler watched with friendly interest.

  What are the pins made of? he inquired.

  You can take it from me they’re not real gold, said the woman, giving up her attempt to skewer the chain. She would have been a poor lepidopterist.

  Tyler slid his finger under the chain, enjoying the smoothness and cool weight of it, and then he thanked the woman, took the box, and went out.

  | 202 |

  He awoke with the taste of Irene’s cunt in his mouth.

  | 203 |

  And now it was Saturday evening near the Tenderloin, and the red lights chirred green and he rolled past the Opera House, accompanied by sparse lights. The greenish dome of City Hall reminded him of Dan Smooth’s head. Straight up through the timed lights on Gough Street was the way to salvation, toward the Bay and the Marin headlands, but he meant to go the other way, down to the grimy darkness where the Queen was. His heart exuded self-praise. Who was he tricking? He didn’t love her; he loved Irene. But he wanted to pay his respects. He wanted to be thanked. He wanted the Queen to know that he continually thought of her. For once, the eyes were not narrowed in his grey face. His confidence, his hope, needed only a couple of finishing touches. It never dawned on him that hanging about the Queen’s court might be as improper a thing for a man to do as joining Apache women at their card games. He’d sent word by way of the parking garage that he was coming, and Beatrice, who was wide, sunny and busy like Mission Street itself with all its palm trees and families, said that the tall man would be meeting him on Larkin and Golden Gate at nine-thirty sharp. He had the gold chain in his coat pocket. It was that which gave him his confidence. Like Celia, who at that very moment sat in an Afghan carpet shop on Polk Street purchasing a magnificent bundle of threads which she could not realistically afford, he believed that offerings of money, being more easily made, were more craftily practical than the other kind. It is written that when the Greeks made sacrifices to Zeus, they threw only entrails into the sacred fire, keeping the meat for themselves. Little wonder that Zeus did not always reciprocate with ready-wrapped treasures.

  At the corner, a pert black girl with a hairdo like a giant paintbrush started stretching her arms and shoulders. —You call me, you come to me, she said.

  I wish I could, said Tyler. But I have a date with the Queen.

  The Queen! she cried in amazement. It won’t work. The conspiracy—

  But just then the light changed. He waved and drove on, feeling very loyal. He hadn’t checked his answering machine all day.

  | 204 |

  The tall man was late. Tyler stood waiting in front of the Mitchell Brothers as if for the strip show, taking his time, until the man behind the window said: Do you want to go in or don’t you? and Tyler said: Well, give me a minute to make up my mind and he leaned there for another ten minutes until the man said: You can’t just stay here. You’ll have to go elsewhere to make your decision . . . and Tyler said: Now, you say that if I go in now it costs fifteen dollars but half an hour from now it’ll cost twenty-five? and the man said that’s right and Tyler leaned there for another ten minutes and then said: I’m trying to make up my mind whether I’d rather pay fifteen dollars or twenty-five dollars. Can I just wait here for half an hour? —It’s the same show, the man said. —Yes, said Tyler, but somehow I have the feeling that for twenty-five dollars I’ll get more.

  So he wasted the man’s time until he saw Justin coming from the direction of the parking garage.

  He raised his hat.

  Hello, Henry, said the tall man.

  Good evening, Justin, said Tyler. How are you and how’s the Queen?

  Oh, shitty as always, said the tall man. More goddamned cops and vigs nosing around. Let’s get out of here.

  You can’t just stay here, said the man behind the ticket window.

  Okay, sir, said Tyler. We’ll be back for the hundred-dollar show.

  The tall man led him down Leavenworth Street past a late-night soup restaurant through whose window Tyler glimpsed a slender Vietnamese girl with a rainbow ribbon in her hair; with a rag and window cleaner the girl was wiping each plexiglass-covered table to mirror-ness.

  Hey, Justin.

  What?

  Where are you from, anyway?

  I’m concrete. I’m a sidewalk. I come from all over.

  When I’m with a woman I come all over, so that makes two of us.

  You know what, Henry? You try to be funny, but you ain’t funny. You’re just a sad-assed honky sonofabitch.

  Guess my ass would be pretty happy if you stuck your finger up it in the back seat of my faggoty car.

  You’re too fuckin’ much. We turn left.

  | 205 |

  The voice in the first cell—a tremulous old male voice—was saying: When you want to touch her hair you put her hand on your head so she knows you’re not insulting her sacred place, and she smiles, oh, Jesus, that’s how you do it; and then when you eat her out she is, well, she is caressin
g your hair so, so softly.

  Does he have an Oriental gal interrogating him? said the Queen. He’s talking about Oriental gals. He sounds like a nice guy.

  Yeah, I think that one no problem, said a smiling Thai girl, sticking her head out from between the red curtains. He just like the girl too much! Very funny, very nice man! Him so good!

  All right, let him out, said the Queen.

  She kisses you of her own accord but with closed lips, the dreamy old voice went on.

  Wait a minute, the Queen said. I don’t like the sound of that. You interrogate him some more.

  Her wet, tight, thoroughly delicious cunt . . . the voice mumbled. I’m so sleepy, but . . . shaven up to the top, then a nice overhang of hair. Tell her I want to be her friend.

  All right, called the Queen. Nothing wrong with any of that. He sounds a little confused, but his heart’s in the right place. Who reported him?

  Smooth, said Justin.

  Dan Smooth reported him? What’d he say?

  Said he hurt a child.

  Smooth doesn’t lie about stuff like that. Get to the bottom of it. Tell this guy he’s gotta come clean or I’m gonna cut his balls off and cook ’em and make him eat ’em.

  Awright, Maj, the tall man said. Want me to kick him around?

  Just talk to him. You can do that well.

  That Henry Tyler’s waitin’ on you.

  Oh, he is? I heard he left that girl I got him.

  That’s right, Maj.

  All rightie. I’ll see him.

  | 206 |

  Where is she, Henry?

  I don’t know. I stopped seeing her after she told me her real name.

  Ah. So you stuck it out that long. Well well well. C’mere.

  He came to her.

  Kneel down.

  He knelt.

  Touch me, Henry, said the Queen. Just touch my shoulder or touch my hand. It don’t matter. Oh, you’re my sweet little baby boy. That’s right. Now close your eyes. You’re going to see that Irene you love. Close ’em tight. Now tell me what you see. You can tell me. Don’t be ashamed.