The Royal Family

by William T. Vollmann

  Stanley said: Mr. Mayor, I think we got another jerk. It’s a good thing you called me. I’m gonna be watching this one.

  Why? said Tyler. Is getting a piece of ass against your rules? You still haven’t told me your rules.

  A tiny bluish TV shone far away, illegally hooked into the grid. Ellen was bent over the fire hydrant, filling a jug and goose-stepping like a chicken, mumbling beneath the gracious palm trees that bordered the island.

  You stayin’ out of trouble, Henry? said the mayor.

  Yeah, I’m on a good ticket.

  No bullshit, but you just need to respect everybody else. I don’t care what else you do or where you come from.

  I know what he gonna do, said Stanley, giggling idiotically. He gonna get me a place. Gonna get me a piece of the rock.

  The mayor whirled round. —Stan, did you just snort something? You told me you weren’t going to use no more. You were trying to keep clean. I thought you were going to do it. Oh, you stupid fucking nigger.

  Nigger this and nigger that, Stanley chuckled, his pupils huge.

  Goddamn. When could you have done that? I thought I was watching you every second. Now what’s going to become of you? Don’t you remember that seizure you had, Stan?

  Stanley put his arm around the mayor’s neck. He whispered in his ear: I wanna get out of here, man. So bad.

  All right, Stan. Sit down, boy. Sit down and sleep it off. Yeah, I still have that tongue depressor here. Look how you chewed it last time when you seized up. I don’t know why I love you, you worthless nigger.

  The woman’s head continued to suspend itself from her box’s doorway, the hanging twitching blanket covering the rest of her.

  Tell Stan to get a job, Mr. Mayor, she called laughingly.

  Oh, Celeste, you know better than that, the mayor said, getting on his soapbox. Americans can’t get a motherfuckin’ job these days. When we try, they ask us: You speak Spanish? The Spics rule. An’ you know what the Jews say? They say: Take care of your own.

  Tyler unrolled his sleeping bag onto the concrete, enjoying the woman’s eyes upon him.

  Celeste emerged from her box, armed with mirror sunglasses, almost blonde, trying to look good, checking herself in a dagger-shard of mirror which she kept in her ripped and greasy purse. —You know what kind of job I like best? she whispered in Tyler’s ear.

  He smiled at her long cat-face trying to look good, her lipsticked face, her hair shining feebly in the wind, and said: Let me see. Oh, I know. A blow job.

  You wanna blow job? I can see you got a big dick.

  No, I’m married to Queen Africa.

  Oh, well that’s cool. I didn’t really want to do the blow job. What I wanted was the money.

  Can I go inside with you and we’ll talk about it?

  I got my girlfriend in there. Lemme see if it’s cool with her. I think she’s probably passed out or something . . .

  Celeste scampered back inside, wiggling her rear at him, and then rushed out again and said: Okay, come on, come on, come on, she’s cool with it. What you got for me?

  Nice place you have here, said Tyler as soon as he was in the humid stinking darkness. He heard the girlfriend’s unsteady snoring.

  Celeste groped for his penis. He put his arm around her and stroked her hair.

  You didn’t come in here for head or for pussy, did you?

  Nope.

  Are you one of them right-wing virgins?

  Nope.

  I like the Bible a lot, Celeste said shyly. I started out reading the New Testament, reading about Jesus. The thing is, I forget the chapter and the scripture and the verse, but I know it says: No man cometh to the Father except through Me. It doesn’t really matter which church I go to, ’cause I pray to Him twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. But don’t tell the mayor that. He’s an atheist.

  Okay. I won’t tell him.

  So, the woman said then, using the word with Germanic finality. What the fuck do you want?

  Did you ever hear tell of the Queen of the Whores?

  That’s just a stupid old story, like the King of the Road . . .

  No it isn’t, he said. And maybe the King of the Road is out there somewhere, too. You never can tell. But this one, she’s my Queen. I love her and I’m married to her and she’s in trouble so I want to help her. First I need to find her.

  Oh, baloney, said Celeste.

  Look, you have a mayor, don’t you?

  Yeah, he calls himself that.

  All right, so why can’t I have my Queen?

  What’s her name then?

  I already told you she’s Queen Africa.

  So she’s a nigger. Then what did you come to me for? Why don’t you live on that nigger island over there?

  She lost something magic and I’m trying to get it back for her, which I guess is another way of saying that I lost her.

  What did she lose then?

  A sapphire.

  I’ll put the word out. You have something to make it worth my while?

  Well, he said thoughtfully, I could give you five, but if I do that I might as well try out that pussy of yours.

  Deal.

  When he came out, the mayor said to him: See? Nobody touched your backpack.

  Thank you, said Tyler.

  We never had a victim in this lot, the mayor said. We call it the American place. Nobody can build here except your black and white Americans. That one over there, you have your Hispanics, and whatever you have over there, we have better over here. We might get into it against each other, but we don’t kill each other like they do.

  I get it, said Tyler wearily.

  He could see how it had to be. —At Coffee Camp, or even at Slab City, anyone who wanted to could have his bushy privacy; humanity hid away from itself; but under the freeway people couldn’t get away from each other like that; they had to deal with each other, to be citizens.

  It was almost evening now. The panhandlers were coming home. Stanley lay reading on a knitted quilt on a piece of foam rubber on a cement divider in the parking lot, next to his coffee can on its two bricks which smoked and smudged to keep the mosquitoes away, and the man beside him, tattooed, naked except for a pair of underpants, sweaty, went and crouched in his box of plywood and tarps, brick bricks on top to keep it dry; and the yellow lights glowed in the tiers beyond the great pillar—the brownskinned island and the white and black islands of separateness.

  The Cubans on the brownskinned island knew something about magic, Celeste had said. —And you think she’s sane? said Stanley in disgust when Tyler told him. —And yet I did hear the same story, Henry. I don’t go over there much. Everybody says they sacrifice stray cats and dogs on Thursdays. Maybe it’s true and maybe it isn’t.

  What day is it today?

  Monday. No, maybe it’s Saturday. I don’t know what the fuck day it is, guy. Now lemme read!

  Okay, said Tyler, stretching and yawning and wandering across this dismal concrete place, past the box in which Celeste and her girlfriend Pat were loudly making love, and he came to the Cuban island.

  The first Cuban he met said: I a good man. I never been in prison. Immigration don’t wanna give me my residence. Four months I wait for my permit, two and one-half year . . . I leave my work because I don’t like it anymore. Then my possibility is finished.

  What kind of work was it? yawned Tyler, narrowing his eyes with boredom. Hey, have you seen a small, black-skinned—

  In the field, some illegal job pick the fruit, you know. They pay me for one hour one dollar. By the river there is a lot of job they give you, but now with Haiti people come here, not so many job. A lot of people you see here no have the job. Many people here have paper but the problem is they have no job. Some mission come here with food. I think that’s the Baptist church. Right now I have the part-time work for the fields. I been here only one month. Before I was in my sister apartment and she change the apartment and they change their regulation so I can no stay with her no more. My s
ister is cry . . .

  Do those other people bug you?

  The white people, they always say the stupid thing about us, so we watch them. And the black people, three people have the knife cut them bad, but the people here is no knife like that. No knife, but no water, no medicine. And sometimes if you look for jobs the police arrest you.

  The man pointed, and Tyler saw a police car rolling slowly and silently by.

  I want a magic blue stone, Tyler said. You have any friends who can help me?

  Magic for what?

  For my Queen.

  You a faggot? I no like faggot job.

  No, she’s a woman.

  Holy Mother! And somebody annoy her for you?

  Yeah, said Tyler.

  Okay, I ask my friends about this blue stone. You look for me tomorrow? My name Manuel.

  I’m Henry.

  Good night.

  Good night.

  The city wants to cut our water off, the mayor was saying when Tyler came back to the white island. A hundred seventy-five thousand a year it’s costing the city taxpayers.

  Oh, get out of my face, muttered Celeste.

  Stanley was away, his quilt stretched out on the foam rubber pad, his science fiction book from the library opened and face-down.

  Lying down, Tyler soon felt Celeste’s caressing hand on his neck. —You wanna come sleep with me and Pat tonight? she said.

  Sure, baby, he said. I’ll come in an hour or so, all right?

  That’d be really cool, she said. I like you. —She smelled of sweat and shit.

  Tyler slept. Sometimes he heard the voices of ghosts, but their wails quickly become as incomprehensible and tedious as the whistling you hear when you let the air out of someone’s tires. When he awoke, the Catholics had arrived at the whiteskinned island, some of whose members were now in a circle holding hands and praying; and the mayor was sitting in his armchair in the parking lot. It was almost dark. The mayor was passing a can of beer back and forth with Stanley. A white dog circled about, with bumps in his head. The bumps were ticks. —Yeah, he’s a street dog, Stanley muttered whenever he noticed. The dog was his.

  So how you feeling, Stan? said the mayor.

  I didn’t seize, did I?

  Not this time.

  You know how it is, Stanley said. It’s a day to day process. You get frustrated until you reach the breaking point, and then you go out and do something stupid.

  I know, the mayor said.

  First you lose your job, then you lose your wife, and then you’re here, Stanley said.

  And then you’re safe. Not much else can happen to you, except death or prison.

  If I’m so safe, how come I feel so punk?

  Because you’re coming down off your stupid chemical shit, said the mayor. Ellen gave me some more beer. Help yourself.

  The mayor, yawning, went to the hydrant to rub soap into his greying chest hairs while Ellen passed by with her bucket, and Stanley rubbed the back of his head and squished ticks on his dog. Tyler carried his gear into Pat and Celeste’s box. Inside, he felt a touch. The other woman said: What are you gonna do to me and Celeste tonight?

  He said: Well, first I’m going to put my hand between your legs and make you come. I’ll suck your tits, too, if you want. Then I’m going to suck Celeste’s tits and put my dick inside her. And I’ll do whatever else you want me to do to you.

  Will you kiss me? Pat said.

  Kiss me, too, said Celeste.

  He heard the resolute hissing of somebody’s Coleman lantern outside.

  Have you eaten? said Celeste.

  No, he said.

  You want some crackers? That’s all we got.

  I’ll kiss you both, he said sleepily.

  Celeste stuck her tongue in his mouth. He stroked her matted hair, thinking of the false Irene. He tried not to think about the dead Irene.

  He slept well with his arms around the two women, and dreamed of nothing that he could remember. In the morning he crawled out to get water and found himself now already an enfranchised dweller among the rows of plywood houses, all built a little differently, in one a long narrow slit as if for an archer and in another a real picture-window; and from the opposing island he saw a pair of eye-whites in a black man’s face watching him with cautious neutrality. He would have to go over there today and ask about the Queen’s sapphire. Smoke rose from improvised stoves. A black man, naked to the waist, hefted his water jug and sat down with it on the milk crate which constituted the stoop of his house.

  Ellen got arrested on a bench warrant last night, the mayor said.

  Is her house going to be safe? Tyler asked.

  There’s a lot of violence but we don’t have it here, said the mayor. This is white America right here.

  Oh, shut up, said Stanley.

  Celeste crawled out of that cardboard coffin yawning. —You want some crackers, honey? she said. As far as today, we don’t go hungry. The public’s been real nice to us. You want me to panhandle for you? You’re so nice. I’d do anything for you.

  Looks like you got yourself a live wife, said Stanley. More expensive than the dead kind.

  Celeste sat down on the curb beside Tyler and took his hand.

  How’s Pat doing? he said.

  Still snoring away! she chuckled. That girl must have been sleep-deprived all her life.

  Hey, Charley, said Stanley. I mean, Mr. Mayor, you demon. You still got that little twenty-two up your ass?

  So what if I do? said the mayor. That’s my business.

  The only thing to do about violence is take away all the guns, man. I truly believe that.

  Well, try and take my gun and you’re going to be one very dead nigger, said the mayor. Violence cannot be solved. You have to solve that one when you’re very young.

  I was shot by a police officer when I was fourteen and then I robbed twenty-two banks, Stanley said.

  Oh, so you don’t like guns because somebody shot you for doing wrong, said the mayor. My heart bleeds!

  Hey, Stanley, stuff your baloney, said Celeste with a cheery laugh. You never robbed no twenty-two banks! Maybe you took a quarter out of a pay phone one time with a piece of wire . . .

  I did so rob banks! cried Stanley, hurt.

  Celeste kissed Tyler’s ear and said quietly: Pat and I both love you, you know. Why don’t you forget about your Queen and stay with us? You’ll never have to lift a finger. We’ll do everything for you. We’ll panhandle for you day and night. We just want to have a decent man around the house.

  Inside his chest, Tyler felt a sad warm feeling. He squeezed her hand without saying anything.

  The first two houses in this parking lot went up on New Year’s, ’ninety-three, the mayor was saying. And we have one rule here, Henry. If you steal, we beat you up and take your house down. That’s the second time. Now, the first time . . .

  Yeah, you told me yesterday, Mr. Mayor. I’ll be good, said Tyler.

  They call me the Mayor. I’m always here.

  But, getting back to violence, said Stanley, I watched a man get shot in the head four times, right around here. That was back in ’ninety-four. And I thought to myself, I thought . . .

  What are you thinking, Henry? said Celeste.

  I’m not thinking much, he said. I’m dead inside.

  Why? What happened to you?

  Well, I loved my brother’s wife and she killed herself. Then I loved somebody just for having the same name she did, and that didn’t work too well. Then I loved my Queen, and she died. And my mother died, and I lost my job and my car and my house.

  My house got run over by a taxicab seven months after I moved in, Celeste said. That taxi came right through the wall and it went through the other wall. Can you believe it? And that’s how I ended up here. But I have to make the best out of it.

  How much does the mayor charge you?

  No, that’s my box. Mine and Pat’s. We used to live in a big wooden house, but the rent for that home was fifty a month, and
twenty-five per person with electricity, and I thought: Who needs this rat race? You know what I’m saying, Henry? Look at that box of ours. It may be cardboard, but it’s free. And it cannot be stolen.

  Tyler gripped her hand.

  Pat likes you, Celeste said pleadingly. And she never likes anybody. She loves you.

  I like her and I love you, he said.

  Why do you love me?

  Because we have the same sadness, I guess. Because neither of us will ever find what we’re looking for.

  And you don’t love Pat?

  Well, I don’t know her that well.

  Take a walk with me, Henry?

  Sure.

  Hand in hand, they followed those heavy white double freeway pillars which could go anywhere, even into the brown canal water at the edge of the Hispanic island where a woman pulled a bucket up and carried it back into the world, into the faint smell of excrement.

  What we had here once, said Celeste, there’s a big house with a pipe where we can hook us up. That’s what the mayor always talks about. So the county comes up and rips it down. Then they want to cut the water in the fire hydrant. The mayor’s right. Pretty soon we’re all going to have to move.

  Tyler waited.

  You’re not going to stay with me and Pat, are you?

  I don’t know, honey, he said. I just met you yesterday.

  I mean, stay for good.

  You might have fallen as far as you can fall, he said. You’re maintaining, like the addicts say. I have a feeling I’m going to keep falling and falling, he said.

  Well, would anything make you stay? Like, if you found that sapphire, or if you got convinced that it could never be found?

  I don’t know, he said again.

  Oh, cut the baloney, Henry. I want to know what’s going on inside your mind.

  Does Pat beat you?

  She hit me once. How did you know? She promised she’d never do it again.

  And has she?

  No. Yes. Twice. But I love her, so it’s okay. And I know she loves me.

  So you do follow the Bible, he said. Doesn’t it say that we’re supposed to love our cross?

  What are you trying to tell me, Henry? I’m not stupid.

  I love my cross, too.

  So when you said you loved me and Pat, was that just bullshit?

  No. But my Queen was the Queen of the Whores. I lived with her. I could feel myself changing. Now I’m like one of her girls, he said. Love comes pretty easy to me now, maybe too easy. Maybe it comes pretty easy to you, too.