The Royal Family

by William T. Vollmann

  Gun up now. C’mere. C’mere. He’ll phone you tonight. I know it.

  | 409 |

  You want me to talk to him? said Smooth. The Queen told me—

  Oh, forget it. After all, he’s my own brother.

  They stood and waited.

  You see, Henry, we both believe her. We both take her on faith.

  Yeah.

  She said tonight, so—

  But I still don’t get quite what you’re doing here.

  Maj wants you to try harder with me, Henry. Maj wants us to be bosom buddies.

  Yeah, well, go be bosom buddies with Domino. Sometimes you’re just so much work . . .

  You mean when you’re depressed.

  Yeah.

  You mean when you’re horny for Coreen.

  Irene.

  Got your goat, didn’t I? Ha, ha! Works every time! You know there’s no malice in me, don’t you, Henry? You know I’m not all evil and envious like you.

  Oh, leave me alone.

  Nice million-dollar white man place you got here.

  Don’t you ever do anything but play with people?

  But this isn’t about playing, Henry. This is really quite serious, you see. This is about saving our Queen. Because if your brother can convince Brady to lay off, for Domino’s sake—

  I told you it won’t work.

  How do you know that?

  Because I know John and I know Brady, all right?

  Then let me try. Put me on the line when it rings. I mean, what the heck. You don’t care what John thinks, now, do you, Henry?

  Tyler clenched his fists.

  I’ve got you coming and going, don’t I? Just the same way Domino’s got your brother. I’ve got you by the balls. And you know what, Henry? I’m one of those perverts who sometimes likes to squeeze . . .

  Even Maj said it wouldn’t work.

  No she did not. She said we could try if we liked. I think it makes her happy, that we’re trying to save her . . .

  Good, said Tyler abruptly.

  You mind if I get personal? Smooth whispered. You mind if I tell you about my niece?

  You already told me.

  I’ll tell you how it was.

  You already told me how it was.

  Since we have time to kill, I’ll tell you how it was, said Smooth. You know how those Asians love giving really nice fruit for presents? Go over to your Chinese friend’s house for dinner, and for dessert there’ll be lots of perfect pears—you know, high quality, the succulent kind.

  Yeah, I know.

  Well, of course you know, Henry. You were with an Asian girl. Your brother’s girl.

  Oh, go to hell.

  And sometimes they have these little tangerines. You peel the skin off, and then there are juicy little wedges—well, segments I suppose you’d call them. And this girl, when I pulled her little underpants down . . .

  The phone rang.

  | 410 |

  So you’re dirtying this part of my life, too, said John. Tell me something. Have you fucked her? Have you fucked her?

  Who? sneered Tyler. Domino—or Irene?

  Sitting near him on the kitchen floor, Dan Smooth contorted himself in a thousand silent grimaces of laughter, wriggling and twitching, shivering and twitching, rolling his eyes and bulging out his cheeks, so that Tyler, repulsed and terrified, was reminded once again that he was Dan Smooth with his illictness and his defiance. He was treating John the way that Smooth always treated him, the way he loathed to be treated.

  I’m sorry, John, he said into the telephone. No, I never slept with Domino. And I won’t. I’m her friend, John, that’s all. And, you know, she’s to be pitied because—

  How dare you say that to me? shouted John.

  I think she wants to be a part of your world. She wishes that she could be your kind of person, and dress like you, eat like you, live like you. I mean, I don’t know what your relationship is, but—

  What do you want?

  Has Domino ever told you about our little family down here?

  Oh, so you finally found a family for yourself, did you? Old Hank got religion. As for your own—

  Brady’s Boys are putting Domino at risk, John. And they’re threatening a very good woman who’s helped Domino a lot and who—

  A whore, you mean, said John. A filthy whore.

  That’s right.

  Oh, I see it now. And you’re plugging this whore and you know better than to ask me for any favors, so you—

  She’s been good to Domino, John.

  She’s good to her. Does she fuck her? Is this some—

  Do you really want to know?

  Fine. So you want me to call up Brady and say exactly what?

  (This is all so dreary! whispered Dan Smooth in delight. Tyler felt unspeakably nauseated.)

  I don’t know what you should say. Brady’s pretty hard to appeal to, as I recall. But if you. . .

  I could set Domino up. I’d be happy to give her a start. Anytime she wants to get out of that sleazy world of yours I can—

  John, she can’t. She won’t. That’s what she is. That’s—

  Don’t you dare tell me who she is.

  She—

  I said don’t you dare tell me who she is. Anyhow, continued John with his usual shrewdness, you don’t care about helping Domino, do you? You want to take the heat off that filthy whore you’re plugging.

  Let me ask you something. How do you feel about a man who on the one hand hires you to write contracts for his whorehouse and on the other—

  So you’re saying he’s a hypocrite. Well, what about you? You know what I mean, Hank. Jonas Brady is an amazing man. Jonas Brady is maybe even a great man, and I will not have you—

  Seeing Smooth making frantic backpedalling signals there on the kitchen floor, Tyler swallowed his bile and said: Can I ask you to think about it? Talk to Domino—

  Don’t tell us what to talk about.

  Well, will you please at least think about it?

  John hung up.

  | 411 |

  That was when Tyler called himself aside and explained to himself what his self admitted—namely, that Irene and John’s marriage had never been as hellish as he for his own convenience had pretended. He remembered one Fourth of July in San Francisco when housetops flickered in and out of fog as if on lightning-fire, and then the occasional green and blue flower of fireworks blossomed over the city, then cast down seeds and embers into the white darkness while Irene lay under a blanket on the sofa next to her husband, watching romantic thriller-videos which accompanied themselves with soft piano music, and she slowly got paler and sleepier until her eyes closed and her long pale fingers gripped the cushion while John frowned at the video, half-bored but unwilling to turn it off before he’d learned how the story turned out—and maybe, just maybe, he’d wished to avoid disturbing his dreaming wife. Fireworks pounded like Tyler’s heart.

  | 412 |

  Mr. Rapp, smiling piratically gold-toothed, licked his upper lip with an almost indescribably delicate motion of his tapering tongue.

  Gibbon’s always good for one-liners, said Mr. Rapp. I read him every night before I go to sleep. Gibbon’s been on my night-table for thirty years. I love that man. I’ve never finished his book, and I never will. John, how often do you read Gibbon?

  Corruption is the most infallible symptom of constitutional liberty, John quoted sourly. He added: I hate Gibbon.

  Too good! shrieked Mr. Rapp in high glee. John can quote Gibbon. Do it again, John, please!

  Does this have anything to do with my job, Mr. Rapp? If it doesn’t, I’d rather not quote Gibbon. The guy was an egghead. My mother force-fed him to me.

  John, I’d like to ask you something, said Mr. Rapp, and this does have something to do with your job. John, are you listening?

  I’m right here, Mr. Rapp.

  John, the question I want to ask you is this: Are you an egghead?

  You asked me that once before.

  And what
did you say?

  That I was your performing animal.

  Oh yes. That was really quite naughty of you, John—almost cruel. Well, I’ll ask it in a different way. Are you yourself, in spite of all your boorish precautions, actually, deep down, a soulful fellow? Do you actually know things? Are you hiding your light under a bushel-basket, John?

  Having a soul is not what you pay me for, Mr. Rapp. Excuse me, but I need to get back to that immigration brief.

  Do you have a soul or not, John?

  Mr. Rapp, you yourself know that this kind of talk is not appropriate in the workplace, even if it’s your workplace. Sure I have a soul. Sure I’m an egghead. Now may I please get back to work?

  Singer! cried Mr. Rapp, ringing the other senior partner’s buzzer. John’s finally admitted that he’s an egghead!

  Then lower his salary, said Mr. Singer’s bored voice. Or else raise it.

  Mr. Rapp was looking at John with an expression which somehow reminded him of something which Irene had once been saying in a low, earnest plaintive voice, in it already the knowledge that she would not be able to convince John of whatever it was, her hand flittering sadly through the air. He couldn’t remember the details. Irene was looking at him. He gritted his teeth.

  | 413 |

  The bay was very calm and almost indigo that weekend, with the occasional steep white triangle of a sail between Coit Tower and the islands. John and Domino could see the Marin headlands more distinctly than usual; the water became milky near those far shores, ringing them with the haze of adulation.

  You told me you know Hank, said John.

  You mean Henry? That sonofabitch! chuckled Domino. So you and Henry really truly came out of the same hole? I mean, you have such class, and that scumbag—

  John laughed delightedly, then was ashamed. He hated Hank, but still, Hank was his brother. It was fitting and good that Domino had derogated Hank—this time. But she shouldn’t do it too often. That privilege must be reserved for John.

  He said: He tells me that the heat’s really on you down there.

  Down where? drawled the blonde, widening her eyes with pretended innocence as she pulled John’s hand between her legs.

  Look, he said. If there’s some friend you care about who’s being—

  You mean Maj? Stinking old Maj? That’s Henry’s new hole. So that’s why he’s come crying to you. I’m saying it’s a dog eat dog world. (Oh, sorry, I forgot your wife was Korean. They eat dogs, don’t they?) Let Maj cut her own goddamned cake, you hear what I’m saying?

  Fine. So you don’t care. Well, that makes it easy.

  Domino was bitterly sad and ashamed of the words she had just uttered. But it felt so unnatural, so positively dangerous, for her to admit that she cared about any other human being! And she could not forget how Maj had georgia’d her right before the entire family, using that subhuman little dildo of hers, Sapphire—although she also had to admit that that had been the best orgasm she’d ever had. She didn’t hold a grudge, but . . . but Maj had humiliated her! Moreover, as soon as John had finished with her, she would be transformed back again into just another pale woman checking her makeup in the side mirror of somebody’s parked car, shivering, desperate to follow any stranger into excrement-smeared alleys. She scowled, and a tear rolled down her cheek.

  What’s the problem now? said John, who hated crying women.

  Nothing. Forget it, said the blonde, knowing that there was still time to step back across the moral divide, knowing likewise that she was incapable of so doing.

  She knew that her omission was no crime against Maj. John had offered not to save everyone in the royal family, but only to protect Domino herself and perhaps Maj. She knew Maj well enough to be sure that she would never leave the others, for after all she had nowhere to be sent to; she already was and always would be saved. Maj was her mother, her only love, her dear—rotten old nigger Maj!

  Let’s talk about you and me, baby, she said.

  | 414 |

  Have we the right to accuse Domino of failing her Queen? Peter denied Christ three times before cockcrow, and still got to be gatekeeper of Heaven. Canaanites, who must live incomparably harsher lives—for His self-sacrifice lasted only a few thirsty bloody hours, while theirs runs forever—surely ought to be exempt from moral crucifixion for similar acts. Moreover, she did not betray her Queen through any positive act, and she was no weaker in her heart than the tall man, say, or Chocolate, or Strawberry . . .

  | 415 |

  Smooth tried to talk with the blonde about the matter, but she swore up and down that she’d made John speak to Brady himself. —John’s just a prick, she said. I can twist any man’s prick around my little finger; I don’t care how hard it is. But what Bady’s going to do about it, I have no fuckin’ idea. That’s not my department, okay?

  Smooth didn’t believe her. He knew her too well.

  Daytimes I work at Costco now, she said wearily to John. That pays my expenses. But in the night times I have to do this, to pay Maj’s expenses. She’s no good. I don’t even want to talk about it or I’m going to cry.

  That night the Queen gazed into Domino’s heart, which was as filled with colors as the reflections of many strip clubs’ neon signs in a single fresh puddle on new black asphalt, and the Queen said: I love you, Dom.

  I love you, too! shrieked Domino, sticking her tongue in the Queen’s ear.

  | 416 |

  Maj?

  What?

  I learned something about Henry.

  From who?

  His brother.

  And?

  It’s something bad.

  Dom, forget it. Don’t be a snitch. You know I love Henry.

  | 417 |

  At an office party, John heard a woman say: I want to divest. I want somebody to buy us. Then we can relax. Our stock hasn’t gone public yet, but soon it will.

  John thought: You sound like one of the Capp Street girls.

  | 418 |

  There is nothing quite like putting on a clean, well-starched dress shirt to make a man feel good. John stood frowning pleasantly at his reflection in the patchily steamed bathroom mirror, wondering whether or not to shave again, while Celia adjusted his tie for him. —Let her do it, he thought to himself. I can do it better, but it makes her happy. (Besides, he liked her tender hands against his throat.)

  They were going to the opera. John had never entirely made up his mind whether dress circle were the best value, all things being weighed in proportion, but this year he’d chosen the very same tier. Irene had never liked opera. She’d gone uncomplainingly throughout their short marriage—in part, he supposed, to be dutiful, in part to show off her clothes. Celia, on the other hand, loved opera—or else she loved John, which practically speaking was the same thing. They sat side by side high up in the steep rows of brass-number-plated red velvet seats, gazing down on the golden curtain in the gilded arch. Leonine reliefs yawned upon the wall. The other operagoers filed in, spectacles in hand or on their noses, covering their mouths, crying: Nice to see you! —which meant: Nice for you to see me! —People kept boiling up from the hidden corridors. Bemusedly, Celia gazed down on their bald heads and grey heads, with the occasional lush young crown of hair to set the others off. Here came Mr. Rapp in a very dark navy blazer; he raised his nose and craned about until he spotted John, whose responsive wave half-resembled the Roman salute. (Why did I feel like going to sleep? Mr. Rapp would afterward query himself. I think it must be the dinner. And I didn’t like the way . . . —You didn’t like what? his wife said. —Well, I’m not sure it affected me.) Beaming ushers read tickets and pointed. Celia herself looked as stunning as any of the Asian girls who in lowcut black dresses were accompanied by alert, cleancut husbands with binoculars. John had his lightweight Zeisses, which he hardly ever used, his eyesight being as good as any test pilot’s, but it gave him pleasure to let Celia look through them. She would actually have preferred the less practical but more ornate opera glasses which accom
panied the skinny old ladies in pearl necklaces; they raised them high to peer at the redecorated ceiling, whose illuminated rosettes crawled reflected in the lenses like upside-down images of daisy-heads in a pond.

  When do you think they’ll ease your workload? Celia was saying.

  When Singer has a stroke, said John impatiently. Can we talk about something else?

  The gong struck for the first, then the second time. It became dark. Celia gazed down into the orchestra pit’s lights and shining horns. At least she always knew where she stood with John. She gripped John’s hand, her head on his shoulder.

  | 419 |

  Between them there lay many a conversation from Irene’s epoch, a time in which Celia had simultaneously suffered greater misery (or allowed herself a greater consciousness of the same old misery) and also been able to command more respect from John, because he and she both knew that as a married man he was wronging two women, and therefore had better restrain his curtness. That long ago night when Tyler after taking Irene out for dinner at Kabuki Cho had chanced upon his brother holding Celia’s hand, John had been saying: Are you tired?

  No, Celia sighed. Just depressed. I feel so awful.

  Do you want to sleep? John said, bringing his face aggressively close to hers, as if she might run away.

  I want to sleep with you, Celia said dully. And you want to sleep with me. Or maybe you don’t want to sleep with me.

  I want to sleep with you, John said wearily. But we can’t tonight.

  We can’t ever. Never ever.

  That’s not true, he said, his mouth tightening.

  It feels like never ever.

  I understand, John said, wondering: Is this worth it? How much of this crap will I have to put up with?

  I don’t think you do know how I feel, said Celia. I do believe you think you know.