The Royal Family

by William T. Vollmann

  It has everything to do with it. Anyway, you married a Korean. That’s how Koreans are. If you don’t like it, you can divorce me.

  What a goddamned cold thing to say!

  You heard me. If you don’t like the way I am, you can divorce me.

  So you can marry Hank?

  I think you should be grateful to Henry that he treats me so nice. Saves you the trouble.

  Are you in love with him, Irene?

  Excuse me, Irene said. I’m going to close the bathroom door now. I want to pee.

  | 335 |

  Sacramento was rainy and windy, then sunny and windy. The September cornfields, greenish-brown, had just begun to go, like a cyanotype exposure nudged by many many photons into its first perceptible color shift: a permanent image was forming on the paper just as death was settling on the cornfields. He sat in the living room of his mother’s house reading in the Bee about a father who stabbed his wife and warned the children that if they told he would kill them, too; then the father drove away, leaving them to wait for two weeks of obedient silence in the bedroom with the decomposing body. Violent death in and of itself retained little power to disturb Tyler’s already anxious ease, but the hiddenness of that family’s literally rotten secret reminded him of Irene’s suicide, whose threateningly garish message remained only half obscured, like some Chinese movie poster behind a grating. Irene had loved Hong Kong action films. He remembered the posters in those two Chinatown theaters; forcing his mind away from the dangerous, morbid image, the grinning teeth and red calligraphy of heart’s blood from his murdered heroine, he withdrew from the grating, struggling up from memory to optimistic convenience even though the way remained as steep as the street-slope at Powell and Sacramento Streets; now he couldn’t see that threatening poster anymore. It was a grey day in his skull’s San Francisco; Tyler drove up through Chinatown on that lackadaiscal, that torpid throughway appropriately called Sacramento; he couldn’t get away from Sacramento even though his purpose might be shaded by clouds and awnings. By the First Chinese Baptist Church on Waverly a lady was awkwardly carrying her child. She struggled a little way up the hill and stopped just past the Chinese Playground, panting. He gazed pleasurably upon a Chinese girl whose hair was as shiny as her little black car. Then the poster began blinking red and black, red and black behind his closed eyes, no matter how tightly he squeezed them—red and black, red and black: Irene’s blood, Irene’s hair. For a moment he thought he couldn’t stand it, but if he didn’t stand it then what would happen? —All right then, he said to himself. Here is the poster and I am looking at it. This is the movie which Irene wants to see. Irene takes my hand. I am afraid that one of John’s colleagues will notice, but at the same time I don’t care, or I guess I do care but I wouldn’t let go of her hand no matter who saw. I pay the cashier for two tickets. We go inside, and now the poster is behind us. I hold Irene’s hand so tightly that she can’t pull it away and leave me. We sit down in the row of seats, and with my right hand I reach across myself to take her right hand while my left arm goes happily around her neck. Irene loves me. Irene will never love me. I love Irene. I love you, Irene. Irene, please let me kiss your cunt.

  Okay, this is it! laughed Irene nervously. You’re too tall! —And she let go of his hand.

  How about if I buy you some elevator shoes?

  When I’m in an elevator shoe mood, I’ll call you.

  Then a train mooed, half-cow, half-wolf. It must have been a long train because the strange call went on and on. His mother slept; she was not well. He went out for coffee and scones. The burglar alarm of the bookstore next door made everyone grimace. After half an hour it had not stopped, and his ears rang. He strolled home. His mother was still in bed. John had taken Mugsy to San Francisco for the duration. The phone rang. The new private nurse was very sorry, but she needed to reschedule the interview for the day after tomorrow; there’d been a death in her family. Tyler said that he was very sorry. He thought about driving immediately to San Francisco, getting some work done in case he had any work to do, then returning in two days or perhaps three, when the nurse, red-eyed, he supposed, had paid steady homage to the dead relative whom he hoped she had loved; but eighty miles each way would have given his old car a beating, so after his mother had woken up and been given all her pills he began the three-hundred-mile drive to Los Angeles, rapturously meditating on nothingness. Yes, he was homeless. He wanted to be homeless. Only when he was under the ground would he have a home. He overnighted in a motel in Panorama City. Early next morning he purchased from the florist (now an old friend) pink rosebuds sparkling with water, and achieved Forest Lawn. The back of his neck tingled; he was afraid that maybe he’d meet John or Irene’s brother Steven, but Irene lay most fortunately alone. —I’ve got to, I’ve got to, I’ve got to got to forget about her, he said aloud. —Her headstone had been freshly cleaned, probably by her mother. He stood the flowers in the iron ring and made his getaway. Industrial Security Supply was the cheapest source for microphone batteries, so he stopped there and bought a four-pack of those, made in Thailand now, he saw, then browsed unenthusiastically through the latest offering of tricks and cheats over in Demo Sales, had a burger, gassed up, and got back on Interstate Five—winds at Grapevine, dusty winds all through the Central Valley, dancing trees in Sacramento, leaves on his mother’s roof. He got the ladder out of the garage and went up with the push-broom to clear the gutters, which needed to be redone, but there didn’t seem to be much point in spending the money until he and John had talked over what would happen to the house after their mother was out of it. She was still resting. (When you get elderly you have to expect such things, she’d said.) He went to the supermarket and bought two sacks of groceries, trying to remember what it was that John usually got for her. He was not a good son. He admitted it. He was not so good at anything. Wouldn’t he be better, if he could get out of everything, too? Was Irene out of it or truly in it at last? And the Queen, where would she go when she was out of it? For a moment he longed to visit Dan Smooth, who was probably snoring on the front porch on Q Street, and who had all the answers even though those answers were unpleasant and might well be incorrect. But it was so hot that Tyler had already begun to fall asleep, too. Nothing could be of any use. In the front yard, withered red maple leaves whirled and clawed like fans in summer. At night it rained hard. He was up early the next morning with his heart most anxiously pounding and an ulcerous ache in his guts. The Bee was on the front porch. He slid off the rubber band, unrolled it, and read about a man whose wife had told him she was leaving, so the man shot his two little boys and then himself while she was screaming on the phone to the police. He went out for coffee. Every time he showed up at that cafe he met new help. Strangers everywhere, he thought, and then immediately saw his neighbor Mrs. Adams tying up her dog to the lamp post.

  Why, good morning, Henry, said Mrs. Adams.

  Morning, Mrs. Adams, said Tyler. How’s everything with you today?

  Oh, my darned dog won’t poop. He’s done number one, but he just won’t do number two. And it’s really important for him to do number two. He’s just impossible all day until he does number two.

  Sometimes I feel that way myself, said Tyler. Can I buy you a coffee, Mrs. Adams?

  Why, how sweet of you, but I’m actually in a bit of rush. But do tell me how your mother is doing. We’re all so concerned about her. Your brother of course has been absolutely wonderful with her. It makes me laugh to see him out there mowing the grass just like he used to when he was a little boy. In his suit and tie yet; he comes straight from work . . .

  Actually, cutting the grass was always my job, Tyler said. John had to take out the trash and rake the leaves.

  Well, he certainly has kept his sense of responsibility, hasn’t he, Tyler? Just yesterday I was passing by and saw him up on your roof on his hands and knees, picking all those leaves out of the gutters.

  That was me, Mrs. Adams.

  Henry Tyler, are you telling
me that after all these years I can’t tell you and John apart? —Oh, there he goes. There he goes. Oh, good doggie. What a good little doggie.

  She bustled out, smiling. From her bright new daypack came the pooper-scooper and the plastic bag.

  A moment later she was back. —Terrible, that story in the paper, don’t you think?

  Not very nice, Tyler agreed, sprinkling some powdered chocolate in his steamed milk.

  Why do you think people do those things? You’re around those sorts of people all the time; haven’t they told you anything?

  Oh, they’re a lot like the rest of us, Mrs. Adams, Tyler said. They just tend to act a little more on their feelings, is all. Is that cappuccino yours?

  They make such good cappuccino in this place, Mrs. Adams said. Ted and I went to Europe last spring and we tried a different coffee house every morning. I don’t even remember all the places we tried. But we never found any coffee that held a candle to the coffee right here at River City.

  And what did Mr. Adams think?

  Oh, he can’t tell the difference. He’s been an easy husband. Whatever he eats or drinks, to him it all tastes the same.

  That’s the way to be, all right, said Tyler. I wish I could kill all my taste buds.

  John has the most sophisticated tastes in your family, wouldn’t you say? I read in the Bee that drinking a glass of wine every night is good for your heart. He keeps buying your mother bottles of wine whose names I can’t even pronounce!

  That sounds like John, said Tyler.

  Wasn’t it a shame about Eileen, said Mrs. Adams.

  Irene, Tyler said, something exploding in his chest.

  That’s what I said. Irene. Why do you think she was so unhappy? You were very close to her, I understand.

  Something was bleeding inside Tyler’s chest.

  Weren’t you, Henry?

  I certainly was, Mrs. Adams. Yes, ma’am, I certainly was.

  Then how could she—

  She wanted a dog, Tyler lied gleefully. That was the real reason. She wanted a little Airedale just like yours, but John wouldn’t let her have one.

  John wouldn’t let her have a dog? cried Mrs. Adams in indignation. And what business was that of his? What could anyone possibly have against dogs?

  He said that they were nasty, disgusting creatures. He just refused to let her have one, Tyler explained, following up on his attack.

  But isn’t he taking care of Mugsy?

  He put her in one of those no-name kennels. Full of disease and vicious pit-bulls, I hear. They just tear apart dogs Mugsy’s size . . .

  And Mugsy’s in one of those places? How horrible!

  Horrible’s exactly what it is.

  And you just sit there and let it happen? Shame on you! Remind me never to trust Bubbles to either of you!

  John hates dogs, Tyler explained. You wouldn’t believe how vitriolic he gets.

  Well! said Mrs. Adams. I never knew that about John. And to think that I even let him sit our dog once—not Bubbles, of course. That was before Bubbles’s time. I let him sit Jessie. Do you remember Jessie?

  Why, sure I do, Tyler lied.

  And I paid John very well, too, at that time, Mrs. Adams said. Twenty-five dollars. Do you think he mistreated her?

  Oh, I don’t think so, said Tyler, continuing to play the part most masterfully. Although with John you never know.

  You never know, repeated Mrs. Adams, hypnotized. I never knew that about John. I never, never knew.

  | 336 |

  His mother was resting. He’d already filled up the refrigerator and telephoned his answering machine which connected him to San Francisco like still another long foul snail-track of memory. One message: A lady wanted him to find out why her husband got off work at eleven every night but never came home until one. Maybe four hundred dollars if he got lucky—half of October’s rent. The Sacramento Bee reported two more robberies in midtown and a rape-murder in Oak Park, the latter possibly perpetrated by some of the gangbangers in peaked or tasseled wool caps who leaned up against the window of Ray’s Taco Rico on Broadway, which had been around under various names since the 1930s; he used to go there for shakes and burgers with his high school co-inmates who’d believed that they had important things in common; maybe they did; maybe they had; Tyler had lost touch with all of them. He drove down to Ray’s and ordered a burger. On the wall hung a calendar, courtesy of a beer company, which sang the praises of the GREAT QUEENS OF AFRICA, in this case Queen Amina of Zaria. The gangbangers came in. Ray kept saying: Right here, cheese and chicken salad, right here.

  Are you happy, dear? said his mother weakly.

  Don’t worry about me, Mom. I’m more worried about you.

  You sound just like John.

  I get it, he chuckled. A headache was coming on—the same kind of headache as when some long snort of speed-cut cocaine wears off. He massaged his eyebrows.

  Henry?

  Yes, Mom.

  Did Irene actually borrow my copy of The Possessed? I can’t seem to find it. I remember when I told her . . . oh, dear. She probably thought she had to read it to please me.

  I’ll go look in the living room, he said.

  There it was, in the third shelf down of the bookcase by the piano, in its usual place in the five-volume set of Dostoyevsky, with every book crowned by distinguished dust.

  By late afternoon Tyler was going south on I-80 with the Bay on his right, shining blue, brassy and silver—a worked surface, as an artist would say. His friend Adrienne said that there was going to be an illegal Survival Research Laboratories performance down on Second and Natoma; they’d been banned in the city; maybe sooner or later they’d get tired or burned out and the strange furtive machine performances in night parking lots would come to an end, so he probably should have gone; he kind of wanted to, but he was feeling sick and tired.

  | 337 |

  He opened his mail, which said:

  Dear Henr Tlyyyr & Mrs. Henr Tlyyyr,

  We are pleased to offer you our unique financing program to bring instant, guaranteed relief from the burdensome payments you may be making on outstanding credit card balances, mortgage payments, automobile loans, and other consumer debt.

  He crumpled that letter up and threw it at the wastebasket, but missed. Then he opened a beer.

  He was behind on the rent again.

  He telephoned the court clerk he used to go out with and asked her to please look up an Africa Johnston’s misdemeanor case from 1978, but the lady said: Henry, those records no longer exist. They have been deleted. Paperwork Reduction Act.

  But I have the case number, he said.

  I’m sure you do, she laughed. Listen, Henry, I really really really have to go.

  | 338 |

  Soon after that the vigs started coming around everywhere, terrorizing the street girls, calling the cops on them, and sometimes even going undercover to date them in order to ask where the Queen was, because, as Stalin once said, Cut off the head and the body dies. Once the whores knew who those men were, they rejected them and their money in scared, angry voices, but the only way to find that out was to go with them the first time. A vig whose gaze was as sick and ugly as one of those dark bars in which the regulars celebrate their own birthdays went up to Chocolate’s trick pad at the Royal Hotel for a fifty-and-ten,* fucked her without a rubber, then offered her a hundred dollars more to introduce him to the Queen. He said he wanted her for a bachelor night.

  I’m the Queen of the Tenderloin, said Chocolate. I got my own line. I lay out my line. They follow me themselves.

  She was lying sideways on the stinking bed with her reddish-chocolate thigh up on the pillow. She hadn’t taken off her pair of copper bracelets all summer because they eased her tendonitis, which tortured her more than ever now because she was an old bitch as she put it. —You’ve jerked off too many pricks! sneered Domino, to which Chocolate, never tongue-tied, replied simply: Your time gonna come, Dom, just like mine.

  The vi
g said: Don’t bullshit me, bitch. This is the last time I’m gonna ask you nice. Now take me to the Queen.

  Chocolate with her beautiful kissable mouth and those sweet, hurt eyes of hers lay gazing at the man with an almost flaming gentleness, in order to conceal her intense fear and hatred, and she was silent, thinking to herself: If he starts trouble I got to grab my high heeled shoe an’ bang on the door till the manager comes. Then I’ll get eighty-sixed from here but at least I . . .

  How about it, bitch? said the vig with a tight little grin. Ain’t you girlfriends with the Queen?

  I have one girlfriend. Me. Me alone.

  You know the Queen?

  Nope.

  You know Henry Tyler?

  If I did, would I tell you? I don’t know you.

  You know me now, the vig said.

  Yeah, right.

  And I’m watching you.

  Well, watch me all you want, ’cause I ain’t doin’ anything illegal, and if I am, you ain’t gonna catch me!

  What about what you just did with me here?

  That ain’t nothin’. That’s only entrapment.

  Are you the Queen?

  You’re full of it.

  Looking her in the face, the vig said: I hear the Queen does magic. Black magic. Listen carefully, Chocolate. I’m going to quote you Leviticus 20.27. A man or a woman who is a medium or a wizard shall be put to death; they shall be stoned with stones; their blood shall be upon them. Amen.

  Uh huh, said Chocolate.

  Are you the Queen?

  Are you a jerkoff?

  You gonna miss me when I go?

  No.

  Can I miss you?

  No.

  What’ll you do if I miss you?

  Fine. You can miss me all you want.

  Come blow me again, bitch.

  Uh-uh, said Chocolate, sitting up and reaching for her high heel. —I already done my job. I’m gonna give you my mouth motor, first you gonna gimme that hundred dollars . . .