The Royal Family

by William T. Vollmann

  | 530 |

  He had planned to drive down to L.A. one more time to visit Irene’s grave, but opening the glove compartment to look for the registration, he saw a note in Smooth’s handwriting which read: Henry—Please give the car to Domino.

  Tyler clenched his teeth. Then he drove to San Francisco. He parked on Capp Street between Seventeenth and Eighteenth, got out, and locked up, striding along with the car keys jingling in his hand. Nobody on Capp Street, so he went to South Van Ness and by a lucky chance saw Strawberry.

  It’s the black Dodge right around the corner there, he said. Give it to Domino. From Dan Smooth.

  She stared at him.

  Happy fuckin’ New Year, he said.

  What are you talking about?

  You don’t remember me either, huh? he muttered with a sad grin. I guess I can leave word at the parking garage, too. Does she still use that place for her mail drop?

  He dropped the keys in her hand and started to walk away, but when he looked back she was still staring at him with eyes like marbles.

  It’s for Domino, he said. You got that, sweetheart?

  A flash of terror illuminated her understanding, and she began to piss.

  Lift up your skirt or it’ll be bad for business, he said. Oh, hell.

  | 531 |

  It was almost chilly on Haight Street. Two fat cops slowly trudged past Villain’s. Nobody sat in front of the Goodwill store. In a glitter-shop’s window he saw an old silver-painted wooden crown which reminded him of his Queen. His feet hurt. The sidewalk smelled like meat and urine. On the wall of Cala Foods someone had written: TONIGHT’S A BLAST, TOMORROW YOU’RE HOMELESS.

  It was then that he realized he was homeless, too.

  | 532 |

  And so his way led to the yellow-orange freight cars of the Union Pacific, land-ships of freedom, thrilling the lonely souls who rode them from broken promises to promises not yet broken, ferrying the dead souls from one sunset to another, carrying the fearful and the hopeful out of law’s imminence. Long low warehouses hunkered in the Sacramento twilight. A man lay upon a loading dock, his head pillowed on his bed roll and his boots dangling into space. Tyler heard booming sounds coming from the direction of the ruined mill. A man in a red wool cap walked toward the sunset, holding a Bible near his eyes. Four or five years ago one homeless camp had gotten religion and erected a great cross in the trees, but the new Christ who was going to launch the cult got cancer and died. The long curvy train tracks led to that rotten monument to a dead belief. The smell of creosote annointed him with labor’s seriousness. He knelt and picked up a heavy crooked old spike gone red and yellow with rust. Then he let it fall out of his hand and clang against the steel. His right leg moved, and then his left. With a blanket rolled beneath his arm, he approached the sad self-absorbed hum of generators, passed beneath the conveyor bridge of the Blue Diamond almond factory, and left the hum behind, heading toward the American River, with long trains sleeping beside him. He walked for a long time, but the trains’ length kept pace with him. On one freight car someone had drawn the ace of spades. Then on his left a train loaded with cargo from or for Portland, Oregon, came rapidly, smoking and silhouetted, the heavy cars clattering ear-ringingly, the emptier ones merely clicking. Far ahead, the locomotive reached the trestle bridge and began to slow down. From the doorway of a reddish-brown boxcar leaped a long bedroll, followed by a man who landed softly in the gravel on his knees and outstretched hands, a shirtless man in his late prime whose muscular chest and arms screamed with tattoos. He powerfully rose, slung the bedroll over his shoulder, and began to lope with immense sureness toward another train.

  Pardon me, called Tyler.

  The man stopped and faced him, alert, unafraid.

  What’s the quickest way out of here? said Tyler.

  See that track over there? the man said. That goes north.

  Any chance of getting locked in?

  Take a loose pin and stick it in the boxcar door. I’ve got to head my way now.

  The man was gone.

  Tyler stood looking after him with admiration. The man had known who he was and what he was about. He was travelling but not searching. Tyler longed to be like him.

  Half-heartedly following the track that the man had pointed out, he finally found himself at the skeleton-roofed silver trestle bridge which invited him into the evening river-smell. A tagger who went by the monicker “T.F.” had painted said initials on every strut, and someone else had x’d them out with equal painstakingness, but the black x’s had run and faded after many rainstorms, while T.F.’s blue initials lived triumphantly on. A swastika grinned its crooked grin. Beneath his feet, the river was low and still and silver, bisected by the reflections of cloud trails. Bored, weary, lacking self-surprise, Tyler withdrew his keychain, which clasped the outer and inner keys to his former apartment in San Francisco, his old office key, a key whose provenance he’d forgotten, and the front and back door keys to his mother’s house, let them all roll out of his hand and watched them spread apart in the air like a fist opening, every key glittering white, loose upon the chain, dwindling until they met the water with a ridiculous little splash. The sun began to balefully glow, like the eyes of someone with a lethal secret; but its rays had not yet come to their summer strength, and so the air continued to get cool. A duck quacked, almost in an undertone. The bridge led him on and on. Tyler would not be riding any freight trains today; he was already considerably beyond the place that the tattooed man had pointed out to him.

  Halfway across the river, a diamond-shaped concrete platform, graffiti’d with stars, grids and more swastikas, looked out on the water. A man with a long, long beard was sitting on it. The man gazed into Tyler’s eyes and said: I’m lost.

  I know the feeling, said Tyler, walking on. Gnats and mosquitoes boiled about his arms.

  He came to the far side, and clambered down beneath the bridge where the air was heavy and chilly and a fanged face had been painted on the concrete. He heard a crackling noise. A man came out of the weeds hitching up his trousers and said to Tyler: You fishing?

  That describes it pretty well.

  Where’s your rod?

  Hidden away, said Tyler.

  Oh, I love them German browns, said the man. They’re not native fish, but they offer a helluva lot of fight. I go after ’em with anchovies or even rebels. Sometimes I pan for gold.

  Uh huh, said Tyler. So you’re looking, too.

  Are you a Christian? asked the man.

  Only Jesus knows the answer to that, Tyler replied.

  Yep, said the man. You can be walking down the road, pickin’ your nose, and it’s still okay to call on Jesus because He loves you; He hears you. You can just say, Jesus, I don’t need nothin’ but I love you.

  Is Jesus in all the waste places? Tyler asked.

  Friend, Jesus is everywhere.

  Even where Cain’s hiding?

  No question of it. That old murdering Cain he can’t run no more.

  And how about the Land of Canaan?

  I ain’t never been there, said the man. But Jesus has. He’s everywhere.

  And how about the idols? Tyler went on in a grating tone which startled even himself. —How about them, huh? And how about the Whore of Babylon? How about the Queen of the Whores? Has Jesus taken them all over, too?

  There’s always two voices whispering in every man’s head, the fisherman said. One’s Jesus’s voice. And the other—well, friend, you know who the other is. Which voice is whispering in your head right now, bro?

  The Queen. And Dan Smooth. And sometimes Irene—

  Friend, I’m going to pray over you right now. In just a minute. You have a cigarette?

  Where’s the best place to sleep around here? said Tyler.

  Just go up that path there and you’ll see plenty of hollows where those bushes are. They look impossible to get into, but if you lay down in there, you’ll find lots of good canopy so no rain can be botherin’ your head. Just la
y down there and give some thought to Jesus.

  Thanks, said Tyler. He felt a tightness in the back of his head, bone pressing urgently through along the arc where Dr. Jasper’s circular saw had gone to take out Dan Smooth’s brain. The orange sky’s image slowly dulled in the river.

  Well? the man said.

  Well what?

  You gonna listen to Jesus?

  Can’t get away from Jesus, that’s for sure, Tyler bitterly replied. Old Jesus has certainly won the victory.

  Your words give me joy, friend, the man said. You know why? I used to have a family. Now I’m divorced. I’m an ex-con; I’m an ex-felon. All I have now is Jesus.

  Yeah, I know you do, said Tyler.

  You got a cigarette?

  I only smoke rock.

  You might be able to score something down the river there, where that smoke’s coming up through the trees . . .

  All right. Good to meet you, said Tyler, heading on into moist darkness scented with anise. The crickets sang. His mother had hated crickets. He remembered once coming home—it must have been in around 1970—and when they pulled into the driveway his mother screamed because the porch was black with crickets. She stayed in the car until he got a broom from the garage and swept then all away . . .

  | 533 |

  We call this place Coffee Camp because whenever you come by, we’ll give you coffee if we have it. If we don’t, we’ll boil some leaves, or dead cats, or whatever.

  Oh, shut up, said Dragonfly. To Tyler he said: That’s just Donald talking.

  I’m Donald, said Donald. What’s your name?

  Henry, said Tyler. Pleased to meet you.

  At Coffee Camp, at least you won’t go thirsty! cried Donald with black-toothed enthusiasm. You want me to boil some leaves or something?

  Shut up, Donald, said Dragonfly.

  That’s all right, Tyler said, seeing by their firelight a toilet paper roll on a stump, two bumpy foam mattresses, a lovingly potted weed not yet dead, some blankets, a half-full pack of cigarettes lying on the sand.

  He’s retarded, Dragonfly explained. He’s a moron. I kind of look after him. His Mama gave birth to him in an outhouse. By the time they dug him out of the shithole, he was half suffocated. They say it affected his brain.

  How often do you guys actually serve coffee around here? said Tyler, suddenly wanting some.

  Never. When we get coffee—which isn’t very often—we drink it right up. Why? You have some? Donald would sure be tickled.

  Don’t believe I do.

  You won’t go thirsty, Donald repeated.

  Sounds like a regular Java palace around here.

  No, stranger, said Donald. It’s not Java Camp. It’s only Coffee Camp.

  They sat in silence for a while. Just above Tyler’s head, the moon bulged and burned through the foliage. From across that river so beautifully cool with wrinkles of night came the greensmoke-smell of a campfire which resembled a quivering yellow diamond. Somewhere near or far, a flashlight swung at ankle height, swung through the crackling bushes. He heard a dog’s bark. Then the moon burst through the bushes, and the world was bright.

  My name’s Dragonfly, said Dragonfly. You looking for a place to camp? Not that I’m meaning to meddle or nothing.

  Yeah, in fact I am.

  You can sleep under that tree if you want.

  All right.

  Hey, Dragonfly, said Donald. What’s his name again?

  My name’s Henry, said Tyler.

  Henry, can I tell you something?

  Sure, Donald. You go right ahead.

  I just wanted to tell you that whenever we make coffee here at Coffee Camp, it feels just like Sunday. When the coffee starts to boil, Henry, well, I—I feel like I’m in church. I wanted to tell you that.

  Thanks for letting me know, said Tyler, unrolling his blanket.

  That’s all he talks about, Dragonfly explained. And you know the pisser? He don’t even like the taste of coffee!

  Across the river, he could hear his fellow souls breaking branches for their fire, with a noise like exploding firecrackers.

  What’s your name again? said Donald.

  Cain, said Tyler. Don’t you see the mark on my forehead? Now, Donald, I want you to listen to me. I’m running away, and I don’t want to talk to anybody anymore. Now let me sleep.

  | 534 |

  When he awoke the next morning, an hour or so after dawn, it was already as hot as black, creosoted railroad gravel on a Sacramento summer’s day—windy over the green water, the steel bridge walkway trembling under his tread. It might have been the third anniversary of Irene’s suicide, but he was less than entirely certain; perhaps he was finished with dates. He saw a crew of homeless men sitting under a tree with their dog. He nodded, but they stared him down. Coming to the cagelike maze between railroad cars, he found no signs of any impending departure from Coffee Camp. His prospects remained unchanged, at least until he ended up on Dr. Jasper’s table, and he was hot and sweating. To further his education he swung himself up into the chest-high cave of an open railroad car, inside which a treasury of initials and dates had been scribbled, marked and carved upon hurtfully hot metal walls. The car was hollow and vast. He felt like a single grain of salt in an empty shaker. The question he had to decide consisted of two parts. The first was: Should I live or die? The second was: How should I live or die? He found himself unable to conclude anything. Seeking to flee the glary illumination thus cast upon his freedom, he boarded a passing memory-train, revisiting first his brother’s late wife, who admitted to being afraid of so many things; when she was young, Irene used to wear her hair in a bun until a neighborhood boy told her that if she did that, spiders could nest inside and in the night time they’d crawl down and eat her eyes. —I used to have all these ideas, she’d said to Tyler once—at which John, gazing good-humoredly up from his laptop, snickered: As if ideas would do you any good! —But Irene had been riding her own train. John would not be able to derail her self-sorrow so easily. —I used to want to accomplish all these things, but I never did anything, she went on. And now I know I’m never going to do anything. I’m just going to have a protected, boring life. Sometimes I feel disappointed, but I have to remember that God is protecting me from a lot of bad things. —Uh huh, Tyler had said, pitying her so well that for a moment his own life took on almost a royal luster: hidden (or not) in everyone’s mind, he’d become sure then, were the same two fears: fear of the unknown bad things, and fear that one’s known good things might be even worse than those. No one was free, he said to himself; but today as he sat in the boxcar by Coffee Camp, this truism, which sometimes soothed him into a beneficent smugness, merely increased his restless terror.

  In his pocket he had sixty-two dollars—more than most people at Coffee Camp possessed, perhaps, but once it was gone it was gone. Thus fear of the unknown. What he ought to do was lie low on a piece of cardboard and stretch his money out, but he couldn’t: fear of the known. The Queen, Smooth, his mother, and the two Irenes haunted him. —Well, that’s a natural part of getting older, he thought. Other people die first, and then their ghosts perch on your shoulders, like the cargo of steel rods on that open boxcar . . .

  Resolving to wander among the hollows until he found someone who could give him good advice (for his mind felt as empty and echoey as the car he sat in), he let himself down, and, hurriedly recrossing the bridge, reclaimed his blanket from Donald and Dragonfly’s camp. Neither of those two was anywhere in sight, so he wandered down the dirt road which ran through the weeds until he saw a bush shake. Squatting and bending, a human being emerged, rear end first, from a thicket, calling warning to his girlfriend still in the cave. Straightening and turning round, the man approached Tyler through the waist-high hissing grass.

  What do you want? the man said threateningly. You trying to spy on us?

  That’s just what my brother used to ask me, Tyler answered, turning his back on the man and beginning to walk away. But the man flew after him
and seized him by the shoulder, digging in with long sharp fingernails. Wordlessly, Tyler swung round and punched his face. The man went down, sinking in the grass.

  If you know what’s good for you, you’ll leave me alone, Tyler addressed him. I don’t take kindly to being grabbed from behind.

  The grass didn’t answer.

  Do you hear? Tyler said.

  The grass still didn’t answer.

  Just like John . . . he sighed again, and continued his search for a good adviser, turning off the road into higher grass which sometimes flattened into cardboard-paved hollows. It was early May, but already some blackberries were ripe. Hearing a tree’s creaking chuckle, he whirled round, but did not discover the man he had punched—nor, indeed, anyone. He followed a narrow trail which led him to a shopping cart filled with water jugs, a mattress whose blankets were thrown back, purses hanging on a tree branch, an open watercolor set. Nobody. The trail led him out of the trees, onto a field of immense girdered power towers, so he followed it back to a junction and chose another path which went beneath a fringe of dead branches to a very dark hollow, a weedy niche of pollen-fuzzed cardboard sheets hidden among the trees and plant-stalks. The trail dipped deeper, and brought him to a huge fire, beside which a squint-eyed and shirtless man who smelled like woodsmoke stood holding a can of beer. —What’s up, bro? the shirtless man said warily.