The Royal Family

by William T. Vollmann

  Let’s say that a woman becomes pregnant, and the doctor sends her home with “information.” She learns that if she is thirty-five years old, she has one chance in three hundred and eighty-four in giving birth to a child afflicted with Down’s syndrome. At thirty-six, it will be one chance in three hundred and seven. At forty, it will be one chance in a hundred and twelve. Research bears all this out. (We see the cross-section of a vagina, sliced and brown. Inside a spherical paperweight, we find lumps of gristle studded with sores.) The fetus grows into danger. In the medical museum in Vienna we see a tiny white thing, half baby, half shrimp, floating in a jar of death. Another fetus grows into another sort of death. Eighty or a hundred years from conception, it will all be over. Perhaps forty years from now the fetus will have become a middle-aged hooker in black, with high heels and a run in her stocking, a tired woman burdened by a heavy black leather purse.

  Her fourth time, the degradation was the nurse pumping her for dollars. Domino had to hide the degradation. She had to hide how she felt. No painting offended the plain white walls. There were no magazines in the waiting room. On her first visit to the place, the nurse held her hand. The second time the nurse was more businesslike. That was when the requests for a tip began worming their way into Domino’s sweaty ears. All she had was a twenty she’d stolen from an old barfly . . . The doctor had a round face. He was balding, professional, courteous in an old-fashioned way. He called her Miss. Domino liked that. He had no name. Domino had no name. The nurse had no name. —There, that’s it, the doctor said. If you bleed more than two days, give me a call. Later she would remember coming out into blue sky and old buildings—gracious props of God—and she remembered massaging her belly which had already begun to ache. In the middle of that night, when she was fucking a man for money, she hemorrhaged. The man drove her to the emergency room. Later they told her that she had almost died.

  | 217 |

  Things happen, Chocolate said. I got friends, they been trying to conceive a child for years and can’t do it and others get one right away. There must be a reason. You know what I’m saying, Dom? A divine reason.

  Oh, fuck that, said Domino.

  She hadn’t told the others when she got the abortion. It was nobody’s business but hers. Later on, though, she’d started feeling sorry for the dead baby. She got so she couldn’t stop thinking about it. The dead baby came swimming through her heart’s windows at night, making her heart’s cat hiss, spreading its unformed flipper-arms wide like a torpedo’s fins to explode inside her with dead and bloody grief; she bit her lip and the tendons stuck out in her neck like tree-roots; the dead baby sucked the blood from her heart and then tumbled down to the empty place inside her where it had died.

  I know how you feel, Chocolate said while within the crack pipe, smoke like white San Francisco fog roiled into her mouth, then into Domino’s mouth, which was framed by white scars from the broken glass which had penetrated her body in numberless accidents.

  You ever had an abortion? the blonde suddenly said in a low anxious voice.

  Uh huh, said Chocolate. ’Course I did. We all gotta have those.

  I feel a little strange, Domino said. You know. In my tummy.

  Oh, everybody start to feel that. Never mind about that, Dom.

  I just kind of sat there empty afterward, Chocolate. Know what I mean? I felt so bad. And this was my ninth time.

  Uh huh. Hey, Dom, let’s go score some rock. I know a trick who—

  Chocolate?

  What?

  What’s your real name?

  Why the fuck you want to know?

  Because.

  Brenda.

  Brenda, huh? Well, I guess Chocolate will work. Brenda’s some stupid twat’s name.

  What the fuck you ask me for if you gonna insult me?

  Then I woke up with a pinching cramp this morning, Chocolate, and I felt kind of scared . . .

  You’re gonna bleed for a couple of days, Dom. Don’t have a heart attack. For Jesus sake. Stupid twat name she tells me. Dom, you anybody else I cut your face.

  I feel, you know, neutral.

  About callin’ me a twat?

  About what I did. To my . . .

  Well, you got to. I always felt neutral about it.

  Always?

  I felt, well, weird but okay. Even that first time I never told the daddy, and back then when I just turn sixteen I actually got a pretty goddamned good idea who that daddy might be . . .

  Brenda? said the blonde, longing just then to be as jaunty as miniskirted Chocolate with her headphones on and her wrinkled fist jammed firmly against her hip and her lips parted in a heroin smile with darkness deep inside as she raised knee and showed leg.

  What?

  Brenda, my tummy hurts.

  You gonna be fine, Dom. You want me to get the Queen?

  Shit, no. What’s the use of bothering her? She never—

  I don’t wanna hear you badmouth her, Dom. But if you wanna smoke some weed, that gonna take your cramps away, I guarantee . . .

  Brenda? repeated the blonde, her eyes as slow and bleary as a car’s yellow eyes creeping down a hooker avenue.

  Call me Chocolate. Brenda just some stupid twat name.

  Brenda, my—

  Lemme guess. Your tummy hurts.

  Oh, fuck off.

  Well, you did it. Nobody did it to you. You said you didn’t want no baby, so . . .

  You think I’m trash? You think I’m not good enough to have a baby? Is that what you think?

  Hey, honey, lots of women like us got other goals. We’re professional women. We never got any appropriate time until we make a time and that’s not how life works.

  So you’re saying I should have kept my baby. You’re saying I’m a fucking murderess.

  I’m saying I love you, Domino. Domino, you’re my sweetheart.

  And you probably think I’ll burn in hell, don’t you, you Bible-thumping tattooed negroid bitch? I bet when you’re alone with the Queen you tell her, Domino’s just dirt. Domino’s scum. Admit it to me. Admit that you look down on me.

  Domino . . .

  Tell me you hate me. Tell me I’m trash, because I killed my baby.

  Domino, you remember what the Queen said? She said, when you put out a thought in the universe, you gonna get something back. Girl, you better start taking responsibility for your thoughts.

  Fuck off.

  All right, Domino, that’s enough. Other people got problems, too.

  Why, you selfish little nigger twat, don’t try to hide that hatred in your eyes. Now I know how you feel about me. You watch your back, girl, or some night you might wind up shanked. Some night you might wind up with a big old butcher knife wedged deep up your gonorrhea-infected snatch . . .

  | 218 |

  The falling out between Domino and Chocolate actually went back almost a year, to the night when Domino for pure goodness had gotten Chocolate a date (in other words, Domino saw the john first, but the john liked Chocolate’s looks better), so Chocolate agreed to let her have a third of the heroin. After the date, Chocolate wanted to wash the sperm out of her mouth with a bottle of some Thunderbird because she and Domino were standing right across the street from the liquor store on South Van Ness where at this very time of night a certain clerk might give Chocolate free booze in exchange for a little pussy because she’d managed to make him believe that she had no money—a demonstrably useful fiction to maintain, so she asked Domino if she would buy for her with the john’s twenty. In other words, Chocolate’s logic had just entirely contradicted itself, but never mind. —Sure, that’ll work, said Domino, clip-clopping into the liquor store on her silver high heels. As she was paying for the wine, a brawny black woman named Ada, of whom Domino was scared because she sold ass for Domino’s former pimp, brushed past Chocolate and asked for two dollars because she was hungry. Domino had already given Ada two dollars for food earlier that day, the Queen and Justin not being in sight to protect her. She didn’t have any
more money for Ada, since the change from the twenty belonged to Chocolate. It wasn’t her money, and she told Ada so, but with a weak and sinking voice entirely uncharacteristic of her, because she felt in her soul that she was already dreaming a nightmare so terrible that self-defense must prove useless. —What do you mean it’s not your money? the black girl shouted. ’Course it’s your money! Don’t you be scammin’ me, bitch! —Through the liquor store window Domino could see Chocolate running away; she hoped to get the tall man, who was out trying to score a perfect baggie of white girl, but Chocolate, who kept scratching at her red eyes, trying to peel the swollen orange eyelids back and scrape out the infection that grew inside, unfortunately for Domino found herself presented on the very next block with a very attractive sexual offer which she owed it to herself not to refuse, being pretty broke, and once she accepted she got not only money, but also a deep needleful of pure China white heroin which blissfully sidelined her until late the following morning, so Domino remained most friendlessly alone as Ada pursued Domino all night, breaking up her dates. Whenever a car slowed, Ada scared the driver away. Wherever Domino went, even all the way to the Tenderloin’s red-streaked night where sparks came tumbling underneath the door of a welding shop like Fourth-of-July cigarette ash, the black girl was punching her and spitting on her. She fucked up Domino’s eye. Domino didn’t want to strike back because Ada was eight months pregnant and Domino would do major jail time if she killed her baby. She lost one of her high heels as she fled down the street, with Ada loping behind cursing. When she found Chocolate at last, it was dawn and Chocolate was lying grinning and mumbling in a doorway. Domino had been so frightened as to entirely forget her easy graceful old ways of intimidation; therefore she actually begged Chocolate for two dollars so Ada would leave her alone.

  That’s giving in, Chocolate mumbled. You can’t give in to extortion.

  Whatever, Domino said. Well, it’s not you giving in; it’s me. This all happened because of you. I can’t find the Queen. Won’t you help me?

  No, said Chocolate, opening her eyes. You know why? Because you kept that money, bitch. What the fuck did you do with my money?

  Then Ada was upon her, shouting: Guilty, guilty! and Domino was so afraid that she fell on her hands and knees literally pissing in her panties, and she felt the first blow on the back of her head, a hard bloody blow that cracked her skull, and she felt the second blow, and she heard Chocolate’s snoring and she heard her own screaming and then, thank God, the tall man was there, and it was Ada who was screaming. Domino never saw Ada again. She never talked to the tall man about what had happened, and the Queen when she heard made everyone, I mean everyone, promise never to speak of that night when Domino had lost the management of herself and become a dirty submissive little child. (Soumis, you know, that means submissive, said Dan Smooth mildly, looking up at Tyler from his French dictionary. A fille soumise is a prostitute under police control.)

  That night almost killed Domino. It did something to her soul. It sealed her in a protective prison of rage.

  Later the Queen sent for Chocolate and said: Why didn’t you help her? Domino’s your sister.

  Oh, Maj, Chocolate whined, I know I fucked up, but she stole that twenty dollars from me. She never—

  You givin’ me static, you evil little bitch? said the Queen. You go to Domino right now an’ say you’re sorry.

  Please, Maj. I’m afraid of Domino now . . .

  Don’t think Queenie can’t understand you. Don’t think you’re out of trouble, either. Now, what exactly do you propose to do for Domino? She got hurt. She got scared. She could have died.

  I know, Maj. I said I’m sorry.

  Go an’ say it to her. She suffers. She’s got a lot to suffer. She’s not like Sunflower was. She does it to herself. But this time you did it to her, too. You got to bear your cross now, baby. You know what your cross is gonna be? Domino’s always gonna hate you.

  No, I—

  That’s right. She’ll hate you. An’ you got to love her back, even though one day she gonna try an’ get you. Because it’s your fault. Okay?

  Maj, I—

  Did you hear me?

  Okay, the whore whispered.

  Then go an’ tell her. Now.

  Chocolate did. And, as always, the Queen was correct. Domino never forgave her. After all, she never forgave anyone. And relations between those two must have been much worse, were it not for the fact that Domino, whose hair was gradually becoming as grey as Tyler’s face, could not bear to think of that night when she had been so helpless and so afraid of another human being . . .

  | 219 |

  Like most aggressors, Chocolate took revenge on the one she’d wronged. Several of the other prostitutes having overheard portions of her conversation with Domino about the metaphysics of feticide, Chocolate afterward claimed to have received the blonde’s confession that one of her babies had not been aborted before birth, which was why Domino, inexorably desperate, had strangled it, thrown it on a pile of newspapers and set it on fire. Of course this was a malicious lie. At worst, if Domino had ever engaged in any such acts, it would have been because she had miscarried, and her baby wasn’t breathing anyway.

  | 220 |

  Crossing the yellow-lit shop-fronts of Van Ness to the Tenderloin where leopardskin-assed girls were bending and leaning into pink Chevvys, black Dodges, silver Hyundais, Tyler found that so many were wearing white that night! They wore white, and they wore lipsticked smiles. They chewed gum. They put to shame the unrentable tongues of icecream-licking girls in the bright window of Rory’s Twisted Scoop on Fillmore Street, where the most prevalent form of prostitution was called “marriage” or “the relationship,” and the trick pad might be any one of the ugly houses of Ocean Beach. (This comparison, of course, was never meant to denigrate John and Celia, who often drove up to Saint Helena to look at houses. Those two weren’t really “in the market” yet, not having declared themselves to be in the market for each other, but John felt that one could never go too far when researching real estate, especially because the research gave them both such pleasure. In the window of the broker’s office he learned about a $750,000 estate on Palmer Drive, a “magificent stone castle” for $1.3 million, a “panorama” for $425,000.) And so Chocolate said to the man in the pickup truck: Darlin’, I’m much more expensive than gold. —The man said: That reminds me of a song I heard somewhere. —Well, sing it to someone else! laughed Chocolate. You fat-assed cheapskate sonofabitch! —Cunt! yelled the man, speeding off. —That was a good one, Choc! Domino said a little gloomily, wondering if her nose-hairs were showing. She had just smoked some bad crack, cut probably with speed, and she knew that after the good feeling (which presently tingled from her toes to her teeth) had gone away, she’d feel nauseous and headachey for a good three days—unless of course she smoked more crack. Chocolate started dancing and shoutingly recited a rap poem she’d conceived whose subject was crack. Sapphire laughed and clapped her feeble little hands.

  A black-and-white pulled up. The passenger-side cop slowly rolled down his window. The whores waited.

  Well, well, said the cop. I smell a little illegal activity going on here.

  He smiled and got out of the squad car.

  Peddling that AIDS-infected ass of yours again, Domino? he said.

  The little Queen strode forward and said: Listen, officer, these girls are my kids. They love me. If you gotta say something to me, please be nice, ’cause they be my kids. How they supposed to feel when you start bad mouthin’ me? How I be feelin’ when you take one of my kids down?

  All right, all right, said the officer soothingly.

  Just say what you need to say and be nice, said the Queen. Otherwise, if you’re not nice, I won’t be nice, and then my tongue would be my sword, and you’d have to take me away.

  All right, Maj, the cop said. Just keep ’em in line. I’ve had complaints, especially about Domino.

  Why, what’s she done? said the Queen, stro
king the girl’s long blonde hair.

  Ripped off a few people, gaffled ’em I guess you’d call it. Next time I’m taking her in.

  He got back into the squad car and slammed the door. The Queen waved.

  Never mind, Domino, she said.

  Domino said nothing.

  All rightie now, said the Queen. Me an’ Henry, we want a little time alone now. We’re gonna fade right now. Domino, you gonna be okay?

  Where you be? said the tall man.

  Wonderbar.

  Why you want to give a silver nickel to that racist piece of shit Heavyset? You losin’ it, Maj.

  Imagine that, said the Queen.

  Inside the Wonderbar, sweaty Nikolai, who stared at every kissing couple because he himself hadn’t kissed anyone in years, was asking: Will you be open on Christmas?

  We’re always open except when we’re closed, Loreena the barmaid replied wearily.

  What time will you be open?

  Look, Loreena said. You know we’re always open unless we aren’t. I just said so. And we always have variable hours, so why do you even ask me?

  But, Loreena, you just make it so nice for all of us regulars that—

  Oh, dry up, asshole.

  Nikolai’s mouth opened and he turned red and then his mouth closed again.

  Tut-tut, Loreena, said the Queen. How you expect to make good money talkin’ like that?

  Oh, hello, Maj. Hi, Henry. This is the shift from hell. And I can’t ever imagine any tips coming from that gentleman, unless he tipped over from being drunk—hah!