The Royal Family

by William T. Vollmann

  It was lunchtime. The office, immense, air conditioned, bright and carpeted, lay almost empty. He had an appointment. The receptionist led him to his assigned place in front of the L-shaped desk with the two computers.

  His credit counselor wore an eggshaped stone in her wedding ring. She was very well kept. She grimaced. She said: I’m not an attorney. I recommend you consult an attorney.

  Dandy, said Tyler. Why didn’t I think of that?

  And this is just a copy, the well kept woman said. You just sign right here. And here. And also here on page three.

  | 446 |

  Celia, suddenly anxious that she might not yet possess the perfectly appropriate dress to wear at Mrs. Tyler’s funeral, and encouraged in this nervousness by John, who believed it impossible for anybody to take too many pains at the impending ceremony, drove with the two brothers down to I Street in order after obtaining the appropriate parking validation to join the big-buttocked matrons at Macy’s stalking down bargains, lonely old ladies inspecting tag after tag, letting the fabric drift through their fingers; hearty old shopping women with two Macy’s bags already in each hand, still wandering and gathering, while from ceiling speakers so-called “easy listening” music fell like a mist of insecticide, not quite drowning out the real music of cash registers. A crisp indigo skirt hung in the PETITES section like a pinioned butterfly; that would have looked very pretty on Irene (who’d been fascinated by shoes and who knew every relative’s waist size). An Asian mother wheeled her little boy in a stroller, looking for something secret and specific. A saleswoman in high heels clattered rapidly back to PETITES, returning an escaped dress to prison. Women mulled through the sales racks in meditative pairs, slowly nodding and considering. Sometimes they looked up, gazing vaguely toward a nonexistent horizon. This was the kind of place in which, like an elf-queen’s cave, one spent a moment and lost a life. By some cheerfully hypocritical caprice, the addictions that it sold were all legal; thus they lacked the thrill of real need and predaciousness. Macy’s smelled better than the Tenderloin, and people didn’t hurt each other in its chrome-trunked forests of sweaters and checked pants-skirts; Tyler used to rebel against it all, as if he were some Communist, but now he was contented enough to sit in one of the overstuffed armchairs because he wasn’t struggling anymore; he had no hope of working free. This place had belonged to Irene’s world, so how could he have anything against it? Where could he go anyhow?

  | 447 |

  Two necktied men swung open the double glass doors as John, Celia and Tyler entered the funeral parlor. —Aw, horseshit, Tyler muttered.

  They kept the lights burning all day in there, to mimic a vigil atmosphere.

  John, is my tie on straight? Tyler whispered. I haven’t worn one in so long, I—

  Let me adjust it for you, said Celia with a friendly smile. He felt her cool fingers on his neck.

  It’s all right now, she said.

  Thanks, Tyler said. Which room is it? I—

  Hank, you were just in this room yesterday, John said. Are you going to screw up now and wander into the wrong room?

  Henry, do you want me to run and get you a drink of water? asked Celia. Are you okay?

  No, I—

  Hank’s fine, laughed John. It’s just an act he puts on to get the girls. Here’s Mom.

  Mom never wore lipstick, said Tyler.

  Yeah, well, it’s not so bad on her. What do you think, Ceel?

  She looks very . . . well, I don’t know. I feel a little uncomfortable. I—

  Hank, where did you get that ratty necktie? That looks like one of my high school castoffs.

  I think it is.

  Did I ever tell you about Gaspard’s? That’s the place for ties. If I’d known you were going to wear that piece of shit necktie, I would have—oh, hell. So that’s Mom.

  Tyler stared at his mother’s corpse in silence.

  I remember that dress, Celia said faintly.

  Of course you do, John said. That was her favorite dress.

  She looks so thin, Tyler said.

  That’s because you haven’t seen her in a long time, John instantly replied in a needling voice.

  Henry, why don’t you sit down for a minute, Celia said.

  I’m fine, Tyler said.

  He’s actually eating up all your attention, John explained. Hank’s a bit like a vampire. Well, that’s not exactly the right comparison at a time like this, but . . .

  But you get the gist, Tyler said to Celia, who said nothing.

  | 448 |

  When he saw how happy John was to get a bargain on the casket, Tyler felt him to be innocent; he felt that he himself had fallen so far below him, into hellish guilt. He thought John infinitely better than himself. John thought the same.

  | 449 |

  John rolled the wine around in his mouth and made a face.

  It’s okay, sir?

  If this were a cabernet I’d send it back.

  He’s a schmuck, said John to everyone (a category comprising Celia, his brother, some of the neighbors—his mother’s best friends Mr. and Mrs. King were on vacation in Santa Barbara—and an aunt they hardly knew). I’ve had this waiter for two years and he never improves.

  Celia cleared her throat. —I feel a little tickling feeling, she said.

  How’s the wine, Hank? said John.

  Good, thanks.

  Well, that was a beautiful, beautiful funeral, Mrs. Simms said. You brothers certainly went all out.

  It was the least we could do for Mom, John said.

  And, Henry, it was such a pleasure to see you doing your part.

  Thank you, Mrs. Simms.

  You looked so nice in that suit. Did John loan it to you?

  No, it was a rental, except for the tie, which I, uh—

  That’s the sort of man I like, said Mr. Simms. Pays his own way. No obligations.

  And the casket was beautiful, said the old aunt. Was it mahogany?

  Tyler nodded with his mouth full, hastily swallowed, and prepared to explain, but by then John was already saying: Celia and I looked at every damned casket they had in stock. When we saw the mahogany, we knew it was just right for Mom.

  And she was smiling almost, said Mrs. Simms. Well, well. And what’s going to happen to the house?

  Hank and I were about to talk about that, said John, and Tyler’s heart sank. He cleared his throat and was swallowing a mouthful of half-chewed asparagus, trying to think of some polite way to change the subject when John slipped his arm around Mrs. Simms, leaned toward her as her husband and Celia looked complacently on, and said: Now tell me the latest with your daughter. —Then Tyler remembered: Oh, yes. Mrs. Simms has a daughter.

  She still doesn’t want to work. She wants us to keep doing everything.

  Well, what are you gonna do? John chuckled. Maybe she’ll change her mind.

  She listens to that Satanic music in her headphones. That really bothers me.

  Well, her friend does, Mr. Simms interjected. We don’t know about Fiona. Maybe Fiona listens when we’re not around. How would we ever know?

  I read that Satanism is the biggest problem in America today, said Celia. Of course I never—

  It really bothers me, Mrs. Simms repeated. Actually it makes me quite upset to talk about it. Could we please talk about something else?

  Have you tried one of those reprogrammers? the elderly aunt put in. Apparently they can kidnap your child and readjust her to get her back in tune with reality. They do a lot of work with cults.

  It really bothers me, said Mrs. Simms. I need to see the dessert list now. This place has the best desserts.

  Look, Hank, said John. Why don’t you let me buy you some shares of Tostex? It’s a revenue builder.

  In Tyler’s heart a feeling had begun to unfurl itself until it was as big, tall and ugly as Sacramento’s new courthouse. Sooner or later, he always got that feeling from his brother. It resembled his sensations upon entering the Wonderbar early on a rainy weekday afternoo
n and seeing the sadfaced unhealthy regulars already there, the jukebox silent, the place dark and ghastly, and no one wearing even the excuse of exhaustion, the day not having yet advanced sufficiently to be dismissed, merely wasted and dismissed like life itself, passing without desperation, passing, just passing, until cirrhosis, accident, stroke, cancer, suicide, homicide or heart attack.

  The other thing is that you’ve got to improve your cash flow. What I want is for you to take Mom’s house.

  Well, John, that’s very—

  I mean, it needs a lot of work to maintain it, but at least you could live there rent-free until you grew up and made something of your life.

  Oh, fuck off, Tyler said.

  Mrs. Simms gasped.

  Or if you sold it off, well, of course you’d get socked with capital gains, but you might as well take what you can get. I mean, how often do gift horses come begging in your life, Hank?

  Oh, every once in a while, but they usually give me V.D.

  Unbelievable, said Mr. Simms.

  Cut the clowning around and face facts. You’re a nobody and you’re going downhill fast. You’ve got to try to reverse the slide. It’s a bit late, but you can still make something of yourself. Just write off the first forty years and forget ’em. Just—

  I don’t want the house.

  So you don’t want the house.

  When the time comes to clean it, or sell it, or whatever, I’ll come up if you need my support. I can do unskilled work—

  I don’t need your support. Mom needed your support. But that’s something I guess you never—

  This is so unpleasant, said Celia.

  The will’s going to get probated in this case, John informed him. So . . .

  Tyler continued to be silent.

  You know what? You know what the difference is between you and me? I may be a pain in the ass sometimes. I may be meticulous or demanding. But at least I feel something. At least I act. I know you think I pick on you. You’re much more polite than I am in conversation. But I refuse to get mad at myself. You may be more polite but you’re the exploiter in all this. You just sit there on your fat duff and—

  Mr. Simms cleared his throat and said: I know that at stressful times like this, feelings within families, sometimes run high, but—

  Yeah, you’re right, Tyler said wearily. Of course, even that you can’t accept. I can see your face. You think I’m just trying to avoid conflict.

  Should we order more wine? asked Celia.

  What are you about, Hank? That’s just what Singer always asks me. And—

  And what are you about, Mr. Noble Principles? How do you answer him? I know! I just bet I know! You say, leave me out of this!

  John laughed a merry, ringing laugh and struck Tyler on the back. —You’ve got me pegged, he said in high good humor.

  How do I feel about this? Tyler asked himself. Why, how terrible! I must be damned! I feel nothing. It’s just as he says: I am nothing! But how can that be? Didn’t my Queen promise me I bore the Mark of Cain? Maybe it’s he who’s nothing. But compared to me he is noble. At least he never . . .

  Look, said John. When all’s said and done, I don’t want you ending up as some homeless bum, okay?

  I don’t figure it will come to that, said Tyler palely.

  I don’t believe we’re wanted here, said Mrs. Simms. This is such an extraordinarily personal conversation.

  You hang out with homeless people, don’t you? I mean, those crack whores, those tramps . . .

  In John’s eyes, Tyler thought he saw an appeal: Don’t say anything about Domino in front of Celia. Please.

  (Smooth white shirts and soft black trousers, shiny black shoes—that was how Domino thought of John. She gave him good marks for money, cleanliness, and deportment. But now he was trying to run away from her. It was only natural that she would refuse to let him go. And he had gone.)

  Yeah, some of them are a bit transient, he said.

  The homeless guys that get forced into that lifestyle, I don’t really have a beef with them, his brother announced. The ones that choose it really piss me off.

  Something in the pomposity, in the sheer chutzpah of this man’s assertion, why, it reminds me of Domino, Tyler realized. He clenched his fists and said: How’s Brady?

  Fine. I hear you parted on bad terms.

  Well, he laid me off.

  He fired you.

  This is the atmosphere I always come back to, Celia told Mr. and Mrs. Simms with an ugly smile. —They say you can’t escape your background, so this must be my background.

  I had no idea it would be like this, said Mrs. Simms.

  John, he laid me off. We had an agreement, and—

  I’d like to see a copy of that agreement.

  Now who’s spying and snooping?

  I want to help you, Hank, John pleaded.

  Oh, you’re the better man, Tyler said. You’ll do fine. You don’t lie to people the way I do. You make good money. You wear nice neckties. You take care of yourself and others. . .

  Do you want me to forgive you or not?

  What kind of forgiveness would it be, if it were up to me? Anyway, it’s too late.

  How do you know what too late is?

  You want to know about too late? Fine. I figure that since this is May, Irene was already five months pregnant this time last year, Tyler said defiantly.

  | 450 |

  He shook John’s hand goodbye. Celia wouldn’t look at him. He’d already dropped by the funeral parlor with his cashier’s check. It pleased him to feel that he owed John and his mother nothing now. He would make his own way, or not. He almost felt sorry for John, because it would have made John so happy to help him. Let John help Celia. He did not sleep in his mother’s house. John and Celia were there. In his motel there was a Bible in the bedside drawer, and he opened it to Genesis and read: Abraham journeyed toward the territory of the Negeb, and dwelt between Kadesh and Shur; and he sojourned in Gerar. Outside, he heard a train go clinking musically by. The place-names, ancient and strange, clattered in his mind like boxcars. He thought upon his doings, and was satisfied with what he had done.

  Early next morning, anxious to escape from his mother’s grave, he packed his suitcase, guzzled two styrofoam cups of coffee in the lobby, checked out and drove toward the freeway, wondering whether he ought to visit Irene’s grave in Los Angeles, but somehow that seemed of no importance. His mother was gone, Irene was gone; soon the Queen would be gone. They shall die of deadly diseases, the motel Bible had said. They shall not be lamented, nor shall they be buried; they shall be as dung on the surface of the ground. He rejected this. John had invited him to breakfast. He and Celia were almost certainly still sleeping in each other’s arms. Tyler had made up his mind that the best policy would be to make Celia hate him, and to accomplish this in an unostentatious manner which would give John no grounds for suspicion. It was not that he thought himself in danger of propositioning her; he would much have preferred to win a new friend. But any such friendship would damage the pattern of his brother’s tranquility. Best to be gone, unlamented, where he could lie upon his Queen’s breast like dung.

  Now he was approaching Loaves and Fishes on Sixteenth Street where the bleak-packed stones on the dirt comprised a pavement which plateaued up above the overpass by the railroad tracks which ran dully perfect beneath the clouds, and a longhaired girl wheeled her bicycle, whose basket was full of clothes, her husband or boyfriend in camouflage stopping, reaching under the fence for his bottle of beer. Tyler felt restless. His energies could settle on no firm object now that he had given up Irene’s grave. He longed to eavesdrop on this couple, or photograph them, or merely go steal mail from anybody’s mailbox. Displeased with these yearnings, he parked, locked all four doors, and walked through the underpass tunnel, in which somebody had painted the words WHITE POWER. Where was he going? Between Kadesh and Shur. Slowly he retraced his steps. Before he knew it, he had walked all the way to the river where it had just raine
d and the anise was already shoulder high and there were purple blossoms everywhere. The water trembled with blue stains between cloud-reflections. Bending down, he picked up a little plastic liquor bottle frosted by stale crack smoke.

  An old panhandler stood holding an illegible message like one of the lost Gnostic Scriptures or Dead Sea Scrolls. He glared at Tyler and said: Repent.

  Repent what?

  Everything, brother.

  I already do.

  Then you’re saved. Move on, so others can see the message.

  Tyler shrugged. He moved on. Then, having considered, he returned to the panhandler and said: You know what? I don’t repent of absolutely everything. There’s a dead woman I love, and I also love my Queen. I don’t repent of either of those loves. So what do you say to that, hey?

  So you’re damned. Move aside.

  What about my mother? She just died.

  Did she repent?

  I wasn’t there.

  Then why ask me? Move on.

  You know what, brother? I’m your enemy. I bear the Mark.

  I love my enemies, because Jesus told me to. Move on.

  Where do you want me to move to?

  Hell.

  I get it, sniggered Tyler, and he wandered off, rolling his eyes.

  | 451 |

  It was a Sunday warmly fogged over. He wanted to be home even though he wasn’t sure whether home meant being with the Queen or something else. Actually, he dreaded seeing the Queen. The uneasy disorganization of her hive had begun to affect him, and the loving guidance he’d previously received from her now seemed unreasonable to demand; he was selfish; she must be tired; for her sake he wanted to go away but feared that such an act would likewise be a kind of betrayal. Suddenly he remembered how late one winter afternoon, it must have been in December, he had met her amidst the immense brick and concrete buildings south of Market, some of whose roofs bore smokestacks like giant cigarettes, or metallic whirling onions for ventilation; at sunset those cubes all had pulled down as snug, heavy, thick, and safe as a good girl’s underpants those steel accordions graffiti’d with signs and signatures resembling snarled wires—pulled down snug, yes, thereby sealing off those loading docks which on whores were known as cunts. Against the steel-shuttered face of a shop whose owner had gone to bed hours since, she who was his Queen was waiting in a long pale coatdress which came almost down to her sneakers, and she was almost smiling, with light weeping from her eyes. That was the last time he had seen her happy. (She always laced her breasts tight against her chest.)