The Royal Family

by William T. Vollmann

  Tyler had a bad feeling about the man and the place, probably on account of the other man who had grabbed him. It seemed to him that he was among ogres. So he merely said: Will this trail take me on through to the river?

  Right on through, said the shirtless man, watching him carefully. Tyler now saw that the man’s left hand gripped the hilt of a long hunting knife which hung in a sheath at his belt.

  Is this all Coffee Camp? Tyler asked, sweeping his hand about.

  I never heard of no Coffee Camp.

  Last night I was staying with Donald and Dragonfly. That’s all they talked about.

  Never heard of them, either.

  Thanks for your time, sir, said Tyler as courteously as he could, sauntering up the trail, which now began to climb steeply up again toward the river. He ducked around a hollow tree studded with an immense burl like some fibroid tumor, and arrived on the ridge.

  A woman was singing. He listened, swallowing. Her song reminded him of the sadness which scaled his heart, like the islands of rust on a boxcar’s thickly crusted and peeling paint.

  He walked toward the song. In the blackberry brambles on the river bluff, he saw a black woman on a blanket, singing about her own Jesus as she gazed across the turquoise river at Sacramento. He listened. The song was wild and loving. He stood there until she had finished.

  I feel good listening to you, he said.

  No need to shine about it, the woman said, smiling at him. You got a good angel.

  My angel is dead, he replied.

  Maybe she is, but she’s still lovin’ you and helpin’ you.

  A train sang far away, calling to the sand, the dusty weeds, the purple flower-clusters, the tarps under trees, uttering its longings to the voices rising like smoke from those deep hollows.

  Do you hear that? the black woman said. That’s your angel callin’ you. She’s tellin’ you to come to her. You can’t stay around Coffee Camp no more. Coffee Camp’s just a waitin’ kind of place. You got to go to your angel.

  My angel’s name is Africa.

  I know it, the black woman said. Now go hop one of them trains. Do it now.

  I don’t know how, he said.

  You’re gonna love it, honey.

  Tyler sighed. —Well, maybe I ought to stay here and not find her, instead of going far away and not finding her. I honestly think she’s dead.

  You’re not old yet, the black woman said sternly. Go on! Africa’s crying for you!

  So what do you like the best about hopping freight trains?

  The noise. That rattling noise. And the way they have tracks everywhere. I remember when I was a little girl and saw my first train I got so excited. I asked my Mama: What’s that? And remember what I told you: Tracks go ‘most anywhere. Tracks even go to glory, maybe. Everytime I hop on one of them trains I think maybe this one will bring me to glory. I’m the Hundred Thousand Dollar Boxcar Queen!

  | 535 |

  He found an abandoned campsite, lay down on his face, and slowly chewed a mouthful of dirt because he knew that he would never stay a Canaanite if he didn’t degrade and martyrize himself like a whore telling her customer to use whatever hole he wanted. It made him sick. He wished that he had eaten dirt from Irene’s grave. Rolling onto a rotten sheet of cardboard which smelled like urine and unwashed feet, he fell asleep and all day dreamed gloomy dreams of his Queen. Later he suspected that he might have dreamed of Sapphire, too, but he wasn’t sure. He awoke heavy and sluggish. The thought that he had wasted another day of his life, instead of riding a boxcar in obedience to the black woman’s word, pained and shamed him. He wanted to go seek her out this very moment and beg her forgiveness. Struggling to his feet, he observed local conditions: a high full moon above the weeds of Coffee Camp, anise smell after a hundred-degree day. Silhouettes of moths visited the looming anise stalks.

  He went to the place where he’d seen the black woman, but in the darkness vaguely made out what seemed to be the silhouette of two figures sleeping in each other’s arms. He walked quietly away.

  A tall silhouette wavered on the bridge. It was Water Woman, whom Tyler would never get to know. Beyond her sat a circle of men with their backpacks and growling dog. They uttered quiet deep laughs, gazing at the sky. A barefoot man with his shoes in his hands led his dog across the bridge. Tyler listened to the clicking of the dog’s paws.

  And now memories came down like horses, neighing against the gates of his mind. He remembered how he had once been alone with Irene in her car, driving across the Bay Bridge, and he patted her thigh. He could not help himself. She went on driving.

  He stroked Irene’s hair. His hand was between her legs.

  You like that? she said.

  Yes, darling, he said thickly.

  He was stroking her cunt now.

  You like to touch that? she said, gazing at him without expression.

  Very much.

  She went on driving. (No, that wasn’t Irene, it was the Cambodian girl—what was her name?

  He remembered Irene’s eyes, Irene’s dark, made-up eyes, almost sickeningly beautiful, certainly hurtfully so, while fireworks pounded like his heart.

  He remembered the Queen’s dark, scarred little face. He remembered going fishing with John up near Placerville when he was a boy. He remembered the moving stream of heads in Chinatown, heads like boulders in a stream.

  Suddenly he felt that his position in the world was absolutely intolerable. He could not remain at Coffee Camp for another instant. He could scarcely bear to remain himself.

  A new campfire, which appeared to be just above the shoreline, swelled into hemisphericality like a rising second moon. Twin fires made a tunnel of light beneath a tree.

  Now he realized that he had left his blanket somewhere, but he could not for the life of him recall the place—probably Donald and Dragonfly’s camp, but he felt an inexplicable revulsion against going there . . .

  From under the other bridge, the railroad bridge, women’s husky voices and radio music ascended through the grating. Over the river, the pale full moon left a trail of shimmering greenish wrinkles. A train blared in the night, its utterance hollowing and decreasing in pitch, like metallic fluid being poured out of an immense metal jug.

  I missed my train again, he thought to himself in agony.

  He walked across the railroad bridge, leaving Coffee Camp, he hoped forever.

  | 536 |

  A steamy hissing from the almond factory accompanied him on his journey into darkness. He entered the train tunnel and heard a spooky laugh, and then footfalls running echoingly away. The twin track-ribbons were dull grey, leading him deeper into the trap. A crunch of broken glass around the railroad pillars exemplified the brittleness of the night.

  | 537 |

  A man stood in the center of the tunnel, barring his way. Tyler said to the man: I’m hungry.

  Silently, the man reached inside his jacket and pulled out a dirty crust of bread. He broke off a hunk and put it into Tyler’s hand.

  Thank you, brother, said Tyler.

  The man laughed. His laugh echoed. He stepped aside, and Tyler went on.

  At sunrise he was walking between two very long trains whose boxcars blanketed most of the world with immense shadow-blocks interrupted by narrow ribbons of light.

  | 538 |

  I’m hungry, Tyler said to a man.

  The man said: My name is Peter. What’s your name?

  Henry.

  Come in, Henry, said the man, and I’ll give you the most nourishing food there is.

  He led Tyler into a room where there was nothing but a table, two chairs and a Bible.

  I wouldn’t mind a glass of water, Tyler said.

  First things first, said Peter. Have you been saved?

  Depends on whom you talk to. Would you have anything to eat?

  The essence of Christ is forgiveness, Peter said. Christianity is the only religion which forgives. I can testify to that, because God has forgiven me. When Jesus forgives us,
he buries our sins so deep and so far that we remember them but we feel no pain. I’m saying that to you personally, Henry.

  I guess you are, said Tyler, shifting in his chair. I mean, I appreciate that.

  The Bible does not leave any room for speculation, Peter went on earnestly, and Tyler nodded with a glum face and said: I wish it did.

  Any questions so far? asked Peter.

  What’s your position on Catholics? asked Tyler, just to say something.

  We’ve got a wonderful woman, a Catholic woman, on our board of directors. She received Christ as her Lord but she still lives within the Catholic church.

  Suddenly Tyler rose to his feet and said: I have something to say to Jesus.

  Peter cocked his head, a little disconcerted. —And what might that be?

  Tyler took a deep breath. He gazed upward at the bare light bulb. Then he shouted:

  Let my people go!

  | 539 |

  On the concrete embankment, chin-bone of the night, an immense whitish menacing face winked its painted eye.

  | 540 |

  I’m hungry, he said.

  Then get a job, the woman said.

  | 541 |

  I can boil some leaves for you if you want, said Donald. I’d be happy to do it. Because this is Coffee Camp.

  Little white speedboats and jet-skis played upon the river, sometimes wiping out and making big waves. He heard the laughter of the unhomeless. Fat oiled legs clenched small boats.

  I need to get out of here, he said.

  Dragonfly likes to say that, too, said Donald. What did you say your name was?

  A pair of knees and a cap passed along the riverbank, enthroning themselves upon a sofa statioined amidst concrete. Donald’s voice was as brassy as a train horn. It was early afternoon. Gazing around, Tyler seemed to see a beer bottle in the crotch of every tree. He listened to the ringing clinking of the signal on the trestle bridge, and despaired.

  | 542 |

  You have to be careful, Jose said. Sometimes it go fast and sometimes it go slow. When it go fast, dem wheel can chop off your arm or leg just like that. Can kill you. Dat’s why I ride my bike. I ride my bike down to San Diego no problem.

  How long does that take?

  One or two week. Sometimes one or two month. I don’t care. My wife is dead. Nobody to hurry up for no more . . .

  You must meet bad people from time to time, said Tyler.

  Laughing grimly, Jose flashed a serrated kitchen knife and said: Die is OK. But I tell them, cut de throat is a bad way to die. You cut your finger with a knife by mistake, and you feel that pain right away for fifteen minute. I think just see the knife, start the pain. And when I cut your throat, you got mebbe two long, long minutes, man . . .

  | 543 |

  Here’s how I know where to git off, Riley the tramp explained. I git on in Roseville shitfaced drunk, and when that wine wears off, I know I’m in Reno.

  Uh huh, said Tyler.

  Jist do zackly like I tole you. An’ be sure you jump off before you get to the yard.

  Even if it’s moving?

  Well, no. You wanna lose a leg? Wait till it stops. Dead stops.

  | 544 |

  Slipping onto a boxcar, he waited for hours, but it never moved.

  | 545 |

  Then finally came the night when the yellow eyes of the train’s face came boring along the embankment so that the trestle burst into radiant light; and from among the squatting backpackers silhouetted at trackside Tyler ran, seized the first ladder of a boxcar, not the dangerous second one, and pulled himself up, threw himself in, and clackety-clacked triumphant into the darkness.

  | 546 |

  Trains and trains and trains: he wanted to ride them all! Long blue cloud-lines shot across the salmon-colored sky, stretching on like railroad tracks. Riley the tramp, hunched and grizzled, would be proud of him yet. See Tyler at seven on a June evening with the Sierras faint and bleached-blue on the horizon, at his ease in an open boxcar which was creeping into the yard at Roseville, probably seen but ignored by the benign and brawny driver whose arm he could see hanging out of the locomotive window. The train slowed. He threw his bedroll out and leaped, not wanting to meet any yard bulls because he’d been warned that Roseville was a hot yard, but his precautions were about as availing as superstitions because everything was already very open and exposed there among the slow trains. Long black cylinder cars of liquefied petroleum gas moved slowly forward and back, their rusty wheels turning slowly enough for him to count the revolutions. He wanted to climb between the cars so that he could get to the edge of the yard and run, but didn’t dare. Suddenly there came a tremendous slamming boom, and the cars stopped, then eased backward again, creaking. The whole horizon was train. When the cars were still, he rushed between them, arriving just in time to hide behind an oak tree before the bull in the blue uniform came motor-scootering by . . .

  Thanks to the benevolence of the city council, the Home Start shelter disallowed single men from sleeping there, so a drunk warned, and Tyler had neither means nor inclination to bring a whore along to be his wife, so he trudged directly to the park and napped uneasily until dawn, attacked by mosquitoes from the river. With relief he returned to the edge of the yard, an inch on the legal side of the NO TRESPASSING sign, watching the trains. Immense shadow-blocks craned across the embankment, carving up his world. —Jist wait in the shade, Riley the tramp had advised him. Wait by the liquor store. —That was easy, because right now it was all shade. Under the Crystal Dairy trucks lay old clothes and empty sardine tins; his predecessors had taken their shade where they could find it. Blue-overalled trackmen rollstepped in the distance, speaking into walkie-talkies. Everybody said that trainhopping was more likely to get punished now that Union Pacific had bought Southern Pacific.

  A freight train lay still and ready, with three locomotives on it. That meant it was going somewhere. Looking both ways, he spied no spies, and ran to the open boxcar. He threw himself in, insured his life with the spikenail, crawled into the back, and met a migrant worker who smiled at him gravely. He offered the man a drink of water. The man smiled, and gave him a fresh ripe peach.

  The boxcar jerked. The train began to move.

  | 547 |

  Well, looky here, laughed the railroad dick. All right, fellas. You might as well come out now.

  His heart overwhelmed him with booming echoes as of dark boxcars.

  Come back here now, said the railroad dick.

  The train slid away, leaving him and the Mexican alone on the gravel with the railroad dick. It was almost night. At the back of the receding train blinked a red eye. That was FREDdy, the Fucking Rear End Device. A tramp had said that it was called that because it had stolen three railwaymen’s jobs. FREDdy flashed triumphantly in the twilight. Two more parasites, two more evildoers had fallen into the hands of the righteous.

  You first, said the railroad dick. What’s your name?

  Tyler, said Tyler.

  What’s your excuse?

  I’m homeless.

  Yeah, you could pass for homeless. That’s against the law. Don’t get upwind of me. I could cite you. I should cite you. Now get out.

  Thanks, said Tyler, as sincerely as he could. He started walking away.

  Now you, said the railroad dick to the Mexican. We don’t call you wetbacks no more. Call you scratchbacks from duckin’ under the border fence. Call you gravelknees. Is that right? Hey, fella, are you a scratchback?

  The Mexican smiled and nodded three times quickly.

  Okay. That’s the spirit. Now beat it, and don’t let me catch you riding my train again.

  When Tyler and the Mexican were out of sight, the railroad dick radioed the locomotive and told the driver that his two unwanted pasengers were gone.

  What were they this time? asked the driver, bored.

  Usual. One drunk and one Spic.

  Used to be just them hobos, the driver ruminated. Pleasant people. Sometimes you just gotta throw r
ocks at ’em. And them migrant workers, them scratchbacks. But now I keep seeing the gangs. They use my train for transportation. They got guns. What am I supposed to do against a gun?

  Carry a gun, laughed the railroad dick.

  | 548 |

  Well, see, those people are kinda leery, unless you have the look, the tattooed man said.

  So you’re saying I don’t have it, said Tyler. Ain’t that a shame.

  That’s what I’m saying. Now, that Mexican there, he has it, but who cares? He’s just a Mexican. As for you, they gotta be careful. Maybe somebody could justify how you look, but they don’t trust you.

  Who doesn’t trust me, partner? You?

  The Mexican waved and began to walk away. Tyler waved back, a little sadly.

  What are you about? asked the tattooed man.

  Riding the rails, I guess, said Tyler. How come I need to justify my existence to you?

  The tattooed man smiled weakly and resentfully, his gaze like some cold yellow light at the end of a long trestle bridge, and Tyler sighed.

  All right, he said.

  What are you about? asked the tattooed man again, standing in his way like a sentinel in some ancient myth.

  Looking for somebody I know I’ll never find, said Tyler. Getting away from people who know me.

  Amen to that, said the tattooed man; and Tyler felt that he had answered correctly and could move on. —So which way goes east? he said.

  As far as how to go, said the tattooed man, carefuly spying him out, they got certain routes. There’s certain places they got to catch you, but normally they let you do it. I more or less quit doing it after my last stretch in jail. I don’t really enjoy dogging it that much. Where you from?