The Royal Family

by William T. Vollmann

  So you love her more than me. Well, that’s only natural. I love Pat more than you. Why’s that such a problem?

  Maybe what you call love is just the feeling of needing to be loved, and maybe what I call love is just—I don’t know what it is anymore.

  I don’t need you! she cried fiercely. I just love you!

  And why do you love me? said Tyler, walking beside her with his hands in his pockets. The concrete made his feet hurt.

  Celeste looked as if she were about to cry. But instead she made herself smile and said: Why do I love you? I told you right when I met you that I could see you had a big dick.

  | 584 |

  Tyler hopped a freight train—or, I should say, a series of freight trains—to get himself back to Sacramento because he might be able to collect his Supplemental Security Income benefits; and in Indianapolis he met on the rails none other than Missouri the hobo, who, being once again fresh out from detox, was filled with eloquent words for Tyler, whom he did not quite remember.

  Oh, I ain’t been able to get nothing, the old man whined. That’s why this country spits on its vets. The hippies were right back in the sixties. I tried to get a mental instability when I got out of Nam, but they just gave me what I call a drunk check. And I only got that for about seven or eight years. Now they go and cut me off. But I showed them. I blew my last SSI check in Reno playing slots . . . And then the Vietnamese, they get a billion dollars. I never met a decent Vietnamese. The only ones I met, they’re out there hustlin’ and sellin’ their mothers and their sisters. Dealin’ drugs.

  Tyler rubbed his eyes, longing for a drink.

  I can’t stand authority and I can’t stand the government, Missouri went on. I got a basic commonsense philosphy: Anything the government is for, I’m against.

  Sounds like a good political platform to me, said Tyler. Say, Missouri, would you happen to have a dollar on you? I could use a cold drink.

  Oh, no you don’t, Missouri said. Don’t you go and hit me up, too. I’m always getting robbed and rolled, especially by the cops. They hate doin’ anything with druggies, because them types got guns. But I’m a drunk, and drunks is easy pickings. There’s no such thing as an honest cop. You think about it. They go to a restaurant, so they get a free coffee. That’s graft, is what it is. The cops didn’t pay for it. That’s insurance. Restaurant knows if they don’t give way, cops just might not show up when they get robbed.

  Forget it, said Tyler. By the way, have you run across a small, slender black—

  And I’ll tell you something else, kid, said Missouri. There ain’t such a thing as a decent wetback, just as there ain’t such a thing as a decent cop.

  All right, Missouri. I’ll file that away under W. I’m going to crawl inside this grainer and sleep.

  Hey, where you headed? asked the old man.

  What’s the difference? laughed Tyler. Long as I’m rolling, I’m rolling.

  I heard that.

  Maybe Sacramento. Is Loaves and Fishes still open?

  That place? They never give you nothing. Why, the food’s only half cooked. And they tried to take control of my entire SSI check, back when I had SSI. Why, if I’d allowed them push me around that way, I wouldn’t even have had tobacco! But I always have tobacco, ’cause I buy a month ahead of time.

  Okay, Missouri, said Tyler. I feel rotten. I need to sleep. You taking this train?

  Damn right I am . . . You got any tobacco?

  See you in the yard in Omaha . . .

  And he crawled into the back of his grainer and refused to stick his head out, even though Missouri whined and pleaded.

  | 585 |

  When he got back to his former home eight days later, thirsty and stinking, Coffee Camp looked crowded, so he wandered through midtown and downtown, which didn’t seem to have grown, and crossed the I Street bridge to West Sacramento where it was cool by the river and the long swirly pillars of light slanted through the water. This was the last place he’d ever seen the Hundred Thousand Dollar Boxcar Queen. The water-smell of the dark black night flowed around the windy bridge where Tyler stood gazing at downtown. One skyscraper resembled a perfume bottle full of light. A long time ago, when he’d been a teenager in high school, he’d walked along this catwalk holding a girl’s hand. Here at the midpoint where it was bright they’d kissed. He looked down through the grating at water-darkness.

  Two men with a dog were coming down the bridge. The dog’s paws clicked upon the grating. One of the men said to Tyler: You want some doses?

  Africa’s my drug, he replied.

  The men walked on, with ugly sneering laughs.

  He thought to himself: Is there no place anymore, not one, not the smallest darkest hiding place for me?

  | 586 |

  He longed to know whether he had failed or whether he was already there. Had he continued steadfast enough? Was the Queen proud of him? Most important of all, was he becoming a better person, or had he merely laid himself waste?

  He knew what John would saty. And Dan Smooth would not have praised him, ever. But in his living dream, when slumberous Africa comforted him in her arms, and Irene opened her womb to him, the world’s shadow-figures amused him only, unable to touch him either for good or harm. In a sense, he lived now like Buddha himself—or Cain, wandering, free of all attatchments except his own adorable charms. And so . . . And so. . .

  But why did he feel so radically isolated from her, the only one of the two he really loved, the one who . . .

  The two men came back. They set their dog on him.

  | 587 |

  Once upon a time there lived a man named Henry Tyler whose enemy was Jesus. This may seem peculiar, since that Name’s purity remains as white as the naked-scratched steel on railroad tracks; besides, Jesus loves and is loved by losers-of-everything, in whose ranks Tyler had long since been enrolled, but because he was a Canaanite, which is to say idol-worshiper and lover of an overthrown goddess, he held Jesus blameable for his loss, no matter that the Israelites, not Jesus, were the ones who swarmed down upon Canaan—no matter that the Canaanites held their own even in Jesus’s own time; no matter that Jesus healed a Canaanite woman’s daughter of some demoniacal sickness (not, however, without first feeding her a helping of scorn). Down on the gravel, looking at the railroad spikes which had worked themselves into varying degrees of looseness on those long rusty double journey-blades, Tyler wanted to run away from Jesus, but wherever he went, he saw Jesus’s name chalked up on walls and trestle-bridges. For him, JESUS equalled DEATH. Whenever Jesus was signified to him, he said: Oh, please, don’t let it be true. —Whom was he begging? Not Jesus, for certain. Did he believe in God? The vanished Queen of Darkness couldn’t help him. He believed in her—and maybe only in her. He knew that she couldn’t help him, and so when he whispered or muttered please don’t he was entreating only as a child does, hopeless and fearful, but still thinking that some miracle may come, if only the need becomes desperate enough or can be expressed movingly enough. We stop being children when we stop believing that we can move the immovable or ride all trains grey, green, brown and blue. A week after my latest AIDS test, with another week to go before learning whether the verdict is doom or the usual qualified anxiety, I wake up with a sore throat, aching and feverish. Wouldn’t it be too much of a coincidence, if it were really AIDS? It must be the flu. But of course, waiting for life or death never stops being stressful, and stress lowers resistance, so that the AIDS virus which already lurks in my blood now laughingly proclaims its existence. And Irene is pregnant. What if she and the baby were doomed, too? I can’t eat anything. I can’t sleep. I can’t wake up; I know I’m not awake because how could this horror be so real? Oh, please, don’t let it be true. I want to die because I’m afraid to live, but unfortunately I’m also afraid to die. Who will help me? The people who live are the ones I’ve injured. How can I go to them? And Jesus? That quickwitted, intolerant, impatient, sarcastic disputant, who told a bereaved man: Leave the dead to bury the
dead, who scourged the moneychangers in the temple, who quizzed and commanded those he met, who refused to see his own mother because he had no mother anymore, no earthly family, no kin at all except those who believed as he did, how can I face him? I’m not quite dead, but I want to bury myself. I don’t want to be flogged out of my sordid niche; I don’t dare to be questioned or answered. Please love me; help me. I love without doctrine. Can’t you? I’ve loved righteous and evildoing women alike. I feel sick and afraid, and my throat hurts. Oh, Jesus, come to my aid. Help me. Help me. But I’m afraid of your help. I’m afraid that you might gaze into my eyes and then burst out like Domino: Why am I so ashamed of your life? I don’t dare to examine my life anymore. Don’t examine me. Maybe I didn’t wash myself clean enough for you. I’m so ashamed. Don’t seek to know me. I cannot ever be unknowable like you in your majestic incomprehensibility; I am all too knowable; I have grimy secrets to hide. I am human. I am wicked. I am a bad boy. Now my father, who is DEATH, comes to punish me. He comes as stately as a train rolling rustily over a rust-brown river. Jesus, I know you could persuade him not to drag me away this time. I know you could defend me from him. But I dare not appeal to you, because self-revelation is worse than death. I’d rather die miserably alone; I’ll shoot myself in a tall field of grass; I’ll go to the edge of town on one of these cloudy or rainy purple days which mark the last season of my life, and with my pistol in a paper bag I’ll walk until I can’t see the highway anymore. I’ll lie down in the mud. Quickly now, before I get cold! I’m already shivering. Raise the heavy gun. My hands shake. I’m cold; I waited too long. The grass hisses over my head. Now I’m wet to the skin. I’ve lived too long. I’m breaking promises even at the very end. I lie on my back in a muddy puddle. I bring the gun down against my forehead. I will escape revelation. I will sneak sordidly out of life because I haven’t the courage to see or be my own shame.

  But Henry Tyler was not that kind of coward. The smoldering red sun of judgment already hung over his left shoulder. He had faced it; he had participated in his trial and heard the sentence. He’d eaten his portion of scorn. Now Jesus inscribed seductions before him everywhere; why didn’t Tyler want to be reconciled? But Tyler did not want to. He was too proud. He wanted to be honorably damned. Oh, please, don’t let it be true. But if it’s true, then don’t ever presume to believe you can extort my full soul as the price for rendering it untrue. A piece of my soul I’ll sell you, by all means; like other prostitutes I’ve been amputating meaty hunks of myself for all comers ever since the Vice Squad shut Eden down. I can be numb; I can lose most of myself, but inside my spinal column lives a shy sad caddisworm who’s not for sale.

  The three eyes of a locomotive came glaring down the track. Tyler wanted to run away from Jesus. But instead of escape he met only the stale diesel breath and diesel wind of a train which wasn’t going to stop, the engineer high up in his sunshine-hued locomotive peering out the window, and then the train rumbled past with double- and triple-tiered loads of cars bound for Stockton or Los Angeles.

  Beside him on the gravel sat a middle-aged hobo whose sad-hound eyes watched the train vanish, then blinked, watered, blinked again with bloodshot patience.

  Where are you bound? said Tyler.

  I finally just quit worrying about all that crap, all those things to do, said the hobo. I don’t even care anymore whether I get on a train or not.

  Tyler said: I want to go someplace far away from Jesus.

  The hobo pointed in the direction of the faintly whistling train. He said: It’s sixty-four miles to Gold Run. I been there. It’s six hundred and ninety miles to Terminus, Utah . . .

  Trusting in him, struggling to see some hidden lesson in what he’d already seen, Tyler saw how the tracks tapered and curved into a vanishing point—a point beyond God, yet much nearer than Terminus. Indeed, the vanishing point did not look very far away. Might it not be possible that faith could get him there?

  That was south. He turned and gazed north, in the direction that the train had come. Long before the horizon, conveniently marked for him by the developer Benvenuti’s so-called Renaissance building and by the pallid, blue-windowed library high-rise, he saw another vanishing point.

  He went behind a bush, so that the hobo couldn’t see him, and kneeling down on the tarry gravel he prayed to the Queen: I know you’re dead, so you’re too far away and too busy to come back to me, but please can’t you send me an angel to show me how to get to the vanishing point?

  Then he stood up. He had faith. His knees hurt from the gravel. His shoulders ached from carrying a duffel bag full of heavy ripe fruit, a blanket and clothes, and most of all, water (sixty-four pounds per cubic foot) across bridges and freeway overpasses in the hot sun. He walked around the bush and found a girl sleeping on his bedroll. It was his dead sister-in-law. He took off his coat and quietly draped it over her legs.

  She ain’t moved none while you were gone, said the hobo. She just been catchin’ up on her shuteye. She sure is a purty little peach.

  Yes she is, said Tyler.

  I used to be married one time, the hobo said. But then I died.

  Is everybody dead around here? said Tyler.

  I don’t know about you, said the hobo.

  Well, how would I know?

  Do you cast a shadder? said the hobo. They say that’s the most reliable test. Stand up an’ walk around. Well, heaven’s all clouded over. Can’t really tell. I ain’t cast no shadder ever since I got good and dead and buried.

  They’re phasing out this yard, Tyler said. I used to see so many trains here. Now it’s going to be new houses, and where that trestle bridge is down there, that’s going to be a mall.

  That’s why we’re here, the hobo said. We all been phased out. ’Course I don’t know about you.

  You already said that.

  Well, look. You got a mirror, son? Breathe on the mirror. If it don’t turn misty, then you’re dead. It’s that simple.

  Now why would I have a mirror? asked Tyler reasonably. Do I look like the type who shaves? I gave up shaving when I became homeless.

  All right. See if you can hold your breath forever. Just stop breathing. If you can do that, you know you’re dead.

  You don’t know what you’re talking about, said Tyler in disgust. You’re telling me you’re dead, but you’ve been sitting here breathing all this time. What’s more, brother, you have wicked bad breath.

  I do? said the hobo in amazement. I guess I ain’t brushed my teeth in a week or two. My wife used to nag me about that, but I don’t hold it against her. Out of all the woman I’ve known, she was the one who . . . You know, her mind . . .

  You talk as if she’s the one who’s dead.

  She might as well be. Don’t you know that the dead grieve for the living? Don’t you know nothin’?

  From the coupling between two tanker cars a young man appeared, leaping down onto the tracks. Tyler waved. The young man swerved toward them, coming rapidly, alertly along the splintered, splitting ties whose stamped dates proclaimed them to be less than fifteen years old. How quickly everything goes! Strips had rusted off the verde-grising rails. The hobo looked him over, then cracked open a hip flask of Wild Turkey in a paper bag and gulped. Tyler watched the young man stony-eyed, not sure yet whether he was friend or foe. He was still far away, but now they could hear the young man’s rapid footsteps on the gravel. Irene’s eyelids trembled open. Tyler ran to her and held her hand. —It’s okay, honey, he said. Don’t be afraid.

  Irene smiled and gripped his fingers tight. Her dark, made-up eyes were sickeningly beautiful. He felt as intimate with her as with his Queen, with whom he had shared so much pain.

  Anyone been bothering you? said the young man.

  So far, so good, said Tyler. What’ve you been up to?

  Just checking out some pieces, the young man said.

  Over the same coupling now emerged a black-uniformed railroad bull, with another bull coming briskly around from the rear of that stri
ng of cars. —Hold it! they called.

  The young man lowered his head and began to walk away.

  Stop right there! called the first railroad bull.

  The young man ran.

  The railroad bulls chased him but couldn’t catch him. So they gave up and came slowly gravel-crunching back to Tyler, the hobo and Irene.

  Did he say anything to you? said the first bull.

  Just asked if anybody were bothering us, said Tyler.

  And what did you say?

  I said nope, said Tyler.

  He must’ve been doing something wrong, to be running away like that, the bull said smugly.

  You got that right, officer, Tyler said.

  What do you mean? cried Irene. Is it wrong to run away from a man with a gun?

  Nobody said anyting.

  Well, said the first bull, upon whose silver badge the sun sparkled with an ominous splendor, what are you all doing here?

  We love trains, said Tyler. We’re train buffs, officer. We’re just trying to figure them all out.

  What do you mean, figure them out?

  Well, like you see that car over there? That says Burlington Northern. And right next to it, there’s a Southern Pacific car. And it’s so strange to think that two railroad cars from so far apart would end up coupled like that. It’s almost like magic. In fact, it’s almost divine. I for one never could have predicted it. I mean, can you explain how that could have happened?

  Explanations aren’t exactly my job, said the bull with a sly smile.

  You see what I mean? said Tyler enthusiastically. And then there’s the matter of that train that just blew through here without stopping. It was loaded full of brand new automobiles! And we wondered where it was going. I was thinking maybe Stockton or maybe Los Angeles. But both of those places already have so much traffic that they almost don’t need any more cars. So it’s quite a mystery. There’s so much to think about.