The Royal Family

by William T. Vollmann

  On Geary and Jones, the Nazareth Hotel, he was happy to learn, was NOW RENTING. Chocolate was strutting up Eddy Street in a jet black raincoat, swishing a riding crop made of a broken-off car antenna.

  See that bitch? she said, strung out on an unknown drug, pointing at nothing. I did twelve months on account of that bitch ’cause some white lady said I looked like her. Can’t she see? I dunno. She drinks too many sodas.

  Is that right, said Tyler.

  You think I’m out to lunch, don’t you? You think I’m crazy like Mary. You know, you have your females and you have your deep thought females. I’m just different. I wanna climb trees and help build the treehouse.

  I get it.

  Henry, can you lend me five dollars? I need to fix so bad I’m gonna puke. Just five, Henry. Just this once.

  What did the Queen say?

  I’m afraid to ask her.

  Why’s that?

  ’Cause I done asked her too many times awready.

  Where is she now?

  You wanna date her?

  Sure.

  Why not me, Henry? I got a pussy, too. Maj’ll never find out. You can pay me twenty an’ I’ll give you a nice flatback. I give real good head. I bet I can give better head than Maj. Please.

  You love her, Chocolate?

  More than anybody in the world, definitely including you. But love is love an’ business is business.

  At least you’re honest, he laughed, giving her four ones, which was all the cash he had left.

  You don’t love her as much as you used to, the whore accused. All the time your lips be mumblin’ Irene, Irene.

  Cut it out.

  Hey. I’m getting fifty bucks a shot from that guy over there. If you gimme thirty I’ll give you better than I give him.

  All right, Chocolate, he said, not really listening. I’ve got to find Maj now.

  She’s sleepin’, Henry. Half a black down, inside that junked car.

  Nudging him, she pulled down her shorts to show him her blackish, raw-scratched crotch.

  Thanks, he said, walking on. She slowly and disconsolately followed. Tonight or tomorrow would be the end, he believed. Why has the LORD pronounced all this great evil against us? What is our iniquity? . . . Because your fathers have forsaken me, says the LORD, and have gone after other gods. His face was as dark grey as the Tenderloin streets at night with the pale, slotted cliffs shimmering above them, the darkness lit up with whores’ brassieres which shone like globs of glowworms. He tasted tears in his mouth.

  Justin, what’s happening? he said.

  Just kickin’ back with our Queen, the tall man said, leaning wearily with his hands in the pockets of his bright new bluejeans. Just stealin’ some nightshade.

  Ah, said Tyler wisely, picking his teeth. Does your leg hurt?

  It goddamn hurts. You packin’?

  Not tonight.

  That’s what she said.

  Why, you old misogynist!

  No, I do not know where Domino is at. Why ain’t you packin’?

  I sold my gun, Tyler explained. Needed to pay some expenses.

  Then you be a worthless mother. Some gangstas popped a cap at me, but they missed. I wanna track ’em down, ex ’em out . . .

  That’s life in our set, muttered Chocolate sarcastically.

  You talkin’ smack to me, girl? I said, you givin’ me static?

  Oh, brother, said Tyler. Where’s Maj?

  Why? Wanna turn her out? Wanna pimp her out?

  Something like that, he sighed.

  She’s takin’ Sapphire to the emergency room, Chocolate said. Comin’ back pretty soon, maybe about one two three hours . . .

  What’s wrong?

  Just one of her fits. She bit her tongue pretty bad, that’s all . . . And I been feelin’ poorly, too. I had a fever of a hundred an’ four degrees an’ they wanted to call the emergency room but I said what the hell ’cause if I kick the bucket so fuckin’ what. Know what I mean? An’ now I feel so dizzy an’ I got no place to stay. I gotta make ten dollars soIcan. . .

  Around the corner Domino was saying: And if we continue to let her, we’ll never make an honest buck.

  That’s right, that’s right, said Bernadette.

  Making a buck out of us is her program, said Domino, strolling into sight.

  Christ, Domino, where would you be without her? Tyler cried out, utterly dejected in his soul. At that moment the whole crew of them seemed to him to be as beasts, ferocious and incapable of love or gratitude.

  Without whom? returned Domino pertly.

  You know your relative pronouns at least. I like that . . . he muttered.

  Oh, leave her alone, said Bernadette. She just got georgia’d by two black men. She’s in pain. She’s agitated.

  And what’s their blackness got to do with it is what I want to know, Chocolate said. What’s the difference what color their cocks were if they made her do the G? You’re all the same. Deep down, you all think black folks is just niggers.

  Did you get hurt bad, Domino? he said, sorry for the blonde but still almost insufferably weary.

  What’s it to you? You’re not here to see me anyway. You’re here to eat out Maj’s pussy. Why would you care?

  My car’s parked by the Wonderbar, he said. You want a ride to the hospital?

  Thank you, the blonde said. I know you mean well. It’s too late. Everything’s too late.

  Tyler narrowed his eyes and asked: Are you bleeding?

  Oh, fuck off.

  Your whole face is swollen. But wait a second, Dom. Those are old bruises.

  She stepped beneath a streetlight so that he could see her better, muttering: No, uh, I—

  Look at you! he cried, shocked. You’ve got a black eye and a split lip. And your tooth . . . Those aren’t from today, either. What happened to you?

  Stuff, said the blonde wearily.

  You okay? he asked again and again.

  Who do you think you are, the Queen? You’re not my mother. You’re just a prick like everybody else.

  Irritated and hurt, Tyler walked away, peering into the obsidian darknesses of parked cars. The tall man smirked.

  Chocolate was pouring out a line of detergent at the back door of the Wonderbar when he got back. Literacy is a disease, she mumbled

  You want a ride? Tyler said.

  She never answered. She was getting cracked up and paranoid.

  Finally he had to leave. —Thanks for the ride, she said bitterly.

  | 467 |

  What had happened was this. Have you ever seen one of those antique jigsaw puzzles whose pieces are held together by a springloaded frame? Depress a lever, and everything flies apart. The royal family was a family no longer, and its members associated merely out of vestigial habit. They had every practical reason to continue honoring their kinship; but such sensible behavior as that would hardly be human.

  The first outright cleavage had been precipitated (one could almost say perpetrated) by insects. Just as when, peering beneath the twin freeway bridges at Mission and Duboce into the grimy shade, you can spy Mission Street palmy and picturesque beyond, so when the tall man steel-shuttered his eyelids and went to sleep his perceptions carried him past his grief into strangely happy dreams. But when he awoke he was already scratching. His ankles wore chains of whitish bites which his fingernails quickly turned red. He went about his business that day and tried not to think about it, but at night he couldn’t sleep, and in the morning the desperately itching welts were on his buttocks and elbows and behind his knees. Again he went about his business, scratching. His sisters were clamoring for their medicine, but all he did was cop a dime bag for Strawberry. Surely the Queen took note of his discomfort, but she said nothing. In the old days one pass of her magic hands across his body would have relieved his misery entirely. The next day the welts reached his wrists, which he scratched until they bled, and then they began to blossom on his belly below the navel. He entered the Rolley’s supermarket on Geary Street and appr
oached the pharmacist’s counter. Beside him stood one other customer, an old Chinese, who was being unenthusiastically waited on by a bored white girl. Behind the glass Justin could see two other pharmacy employees drinking coffee. Finally a Filipino-looking lady came out and asked him what he wanted.

  I got scabies, the tall man said. See them red bumps on my hands? I have ’em all over my body now. They be gettin’ worse and they itch like hell. I want you to sell me some Mites-Off cream.

  Have you tried anything else? the woman said.

  Slabbered that calamine lotion on ’em, which didn’t do no good.

  You’ll have to see a doctor, the woman said. Calamine is the strongest thing we can sell you over the counter. Maybe you have a virus.

  Look, lady, I’m aware what scabies is, said Justin. Know who you’re talkin’ to? You’re talkin’ to the scabies expert.

  I’m sorry, the woman said. Mites-Off is by prescription only. You’ll have to go to the doctor first.

  I go to some doctor they gonna make me wait a couple of days and pay ’em sixty dollars, said the tall man, trying to keep his temper. I know you can find some way round that.

  There’s a free clinic on Eddy Street, the woman said, looking him up and down. Why don’t you go there? The wait’s only half an hour.

  You see that snail slime down there? said Justin. You want to really fuck with somebody, you take ’em and make ’em lick it.

  The woman turned her back on him and returned behind the glass to her colleagues. The tall man could see the Mites-Off bottle behind the counter and he almost could have reached it, but then the Chinese would have opened his mouth in amazement, and the other pharmacist would have called Security and he would have been caught before he could run very far. The tall man departed, scratching.

  He had been to the free clinic several times before. It was always closed. He stalked over there and it was closed again.

  He scored three dime bags for the girls, scratching. Without him what would those sad bitches do?

  Down under O’Farrell and Leavenworth’s walls which were so white and sunny under the cloudless sky he met by prearrangement his sisters who came heel-clacking by: Chocolate, Strawberry and Domino. (The false Irene was sitting in a doorway sniffling. He wasn’t about to support that bitch.) First he saw them silhouetted like the shoulders of beer bottles in a bar cooler whose windowpane was white with condensation. They stopped. They smiled at him, and he scratched himself in a rage.

  You lookin’ like a fierce O.G. full of stories, Chocolate tried to compliment him. Strawberry fired off a jealous glare at her, and he grinned a little, scratching.

  What you got for me? he said shortly, scanning the cars for vigs. You get me some fresh money, bitch?

  Why you talkin’ that way to me, Justin? I be your trueblue homegirl.

  Quit playin’ them games, Choc. You know who his homegirl is. Leave my man alone.

  Only Domino still hadn’t said anything. She stared into the tall man’s eyes, licking her lips with that chemical craving which he knew so well and which stupid-ass johns so often mistook for sexual desire. At Strawberry’s interjection she grimaced, then began looking up and down the street out of habit as she combed her hair.

  Strawberry, you be lookin’ a mess. What the fuck’s wrong with you?

  Oh, I, uh, I need to make some money. Hey, you seen Maj? I wanted to ask her—

  No, I ain’t seen her. Just get on with it.

  He sat down regally upon the topmost step of a dark doorway, and his love and fellatrice rushed up to him, kissing his knees as he slipped the balloon into her hand. —Now go do your thing, he said, scratching. Show some willpower. Go maintain yourself. Next.

  Chocolate flew upstairs for her own private audience, whispering: Justin, you lookin’ so good to me . . . and the way she said good made the tall man’s penis harder than superclass rock cocaine, but he replied: Don’t you feel even a little bit ashamed, to be cock-stealin’ from your own sister? Ain’t you a snaky skanky bitch! Now, gimme gimme. I paid out good money for that dime bag.

  Please, Justin, jus’ carry me one more time. I feel so sick. I don’t feel right. I swear I’m gonna make it up to you. Swear I’ll do anything.

  Don’t make no difference. If you tell you do anything you gonna do anything regardless. ’Cause I be your connection, bitch. You so scandalous. Now break bread.

  Maj said—

  Don’t make no difference.

  Last came Domino, who, knowing the score, crawled up to him with a ten dollar bill in her hand. He always gave her quality stuff, and she for her part, although he’d offended and threatened her many times, never tried to deceive him anymore. The tall man liked Domino at that moment. She paid her way. She never disrespected him. If she weren’t such a royally vicious pain-in-the-ass bitch, he might have taken her on. Strawberry for her part had become a pretty spiritless bitch. Sooner or later he’d have to fight somebody over her, and he didn’t know that she was worth it. Why should he always have to keep her protected? Domino might be a psychotic old broad, but at least she kept herself together whenever trouble came. Still, he pitied Strawberry, who for all her faults was loyal. Wishing to avoid further trouble between her and Domino, and flattering himself that he could have Strawberry, Domino, and Chocolate, too, in any combination and at any time of the day or night, he smiled patronizingly into the blonde’s face, making certain that she understood what a favor he was doing her, and then he said: You got sense. More sense than a whole lot of niggers I know.

  Domino flushed with pleasure. —Hey, Justin, thanks.

  He slipped the balloon into her bra. —No charge, he said.

  Justin, daddy, I really really appreciate this.

  You owe me. Once I get my solid gold Cadillac you better wash my windshield with you pussy. Now let’s fade out of here.

  Then it was sunset in the Mission district, with the Altamont Hotel, newly painted yellow, contributing as best it could to the luminescence of the evening whose grey sky glowed like a puddle of irridescent steel—gorgeous light, summer light. Chocolate was still on Eddy Street trying to peddle her tail. The false Irene lay in an alley off Sixth Street, retching in withdrawal sickness, praying for Tyler to come. The Queen sat in what used to be Lily’s room at the Lola Hotel on Leavenworth Street, teaching Sapphire how to tie her shoelaces, listening to the crazy whore’s stories, singing hymns with Beatrice, whose optimistically twinkling vaginal work had paid for the room and whose breasts now dangled, and last but not least passing out pinches of pure angel dust from a cardboard box which many many whores had grafitti’d for her. The crazy whore turned off the light, asking Beatrice: Is that your most favorite? and all the women knelt around their Queen who rose and stood naked, shining for them like a lamp. As for the tall man, he was feeling good because Strawberry had copped a prescription for his Mites-Off and then earned the Mites-Off, too, with a quick ass fuck in the back seat of a stretch limousine full of drunken Japanese businessmen on their way to the airport. Her sodomist’s colleagues had photographed the act many many times with their whizzing little Japanese cameras; Strawberry got a hundred dollars, which could have bought her a full gram and a quarter of pure China white. They let her off way down by Daly City where it was chilly and foggy; Strawberry stood hugging herself behind a eucalyptus tree, wondering how she would get back home as meanwhile blood and sperm trickled slowly out of her anus. Although Tyler lived not far away and had once offered to give her a ride whenever she needed it, she had no change to telephone him, saw no phone booth, and had forgotten his number. So she flagged down a taxi which was coming back from the airport. The driver refused to turn the meter on. He said to her: I believe in the Bible. Your time’s going to come. —At Sixteenth and Mission he charged her fifty-two dollars for what should have been a twenty-five-dollar ride. Strawberry didn’t care. She was so happy to be able to help her man that she flew into the Walgreens not even caring about the reddish-brown stain on the back of her dress, oh,
that dress, that once-white emblem of a bride—Cain’s bride. They awarded her that Brady-shaped bottle of salvation, and without a prescription, either! The tall man stripped down inside his sleeping bag, which Strawberry had stolen for him weeks earlier from a German tourist, scratched, uncapped his joy, scratched again, rubbed himself from neck to ankles with the bitter white salvation which Strawberry had purchased, then proceeded to the laundromat and washed all his clothes except his coat, under which he was naked. For good measure he dressed himself in brand-new hand-me-downs which obedient Chocolate had obtained for him at San Francisco General Hospital, and now he was sitting tremendously at his ease in a room at the Crown Hotel, a hot dark stuffy room with television, a safe room which Strawberry had rented with the remainder of her sodomy fee.

  I think you ought to stop scratching, Strawberry said. You might get an infection.

  Listen, bitch. My business is my business.

  Domino said: Strawberry, you’re still bleeding. You need to change that toilet paper.

  It’s okay, you know, just a little bit sore. That always happens down there when I, uh—

  How much did he give you?

  Fifty dollars, Strawberry lied, knowing that Domino and Justin would both despise her if they knew that she had allowed the taxi driver to gaffle her like that.

  Shit, the tall man said.

  Shit what?

  Why we all doin’ this? We could move on. We could be gettin’ what’s ours.

  I know this guy who runs a meth lab, Strawberry said brightly, and he, uh, he really likes me. So maybe we could, uh—