The Royal Family

by William T. Vollmann

  He went to visit Waldo, but authority had banished the autistic man, leaving his hulks and his nosecone useless in the sand. —In Phoenix you know what they done awhile back? another hobo said to him. Passed an ordnance that garbage is city property. So if you gotta eat, if you open a dumpster, they can bust you for stealing.

  He went to Slab City. The angry man and his mother were still there. —Once you get here, it’s hard to get back out, the angry man said. It’s like a hole. —The shy woman was out collecting cans. I hate Irene!

  So many of us are sure we’ll always be wherever we are; but Tyler knew better because he traveled a little more than Irene. And in his life Tyler had not had very good luck in finding and keeping people. I hate Irene! So one day he blew in to Miami, wanting to see if Celeste still lived under the freeway, because she had said to him: I hate all those women that get a new husband every week. The guys here respect me like a sister, because I don’t do that. But Ellen has a new husband every week. And worse yet, her kids have a new Daddy every week. When her baby cries, she blows crack smoke in its mouth until he gets quiet. Sometimes I want to take a bullwhip to her! —Celeste had wanted to be unchanging, and he had wanted to believe her, so he imagined that nothing would change, but of course Freewayville was gone. The city fathers had razed it and then fenced it. Their justice was as cruel and useless as that painted water on Salvation Mountain.

  A couple of miles northeast of the freeway, almost within sight of a homeless shelter, the mayor’s black friend Stanley and some other men were lying on mattresses on the sidewalk.

  City cut that fire hydrant off, Stanley said. Then they moved us out and up to that shelter. So we were allowed to stay there only two months. Now we don’t know what to do. I guess everybody figured they’d help us get a job. Only by the time we got to that shelter there weren’t no jobs. So here we are, out on the Slab. We call this place the Slab, Henry.

  Those words of Stanley’s detonated a terrifying flash of comprehension within Tyler’s brain. The Slab and Slab City were both equivalent places with equivalent names: they both derived from the slabs on which Dr. Jasper performed his autopsies.

  You ever find that broad you was lookin’ for? asked Stanley.

  I never did.

  How long you keep lookin’ for her?

  Oh, what’s the difference, Tyler muttered. I hate Irene anyway. And the Queen, I can hardly remember her as she really was. I don’t believe. I don’t love. I’m just lost. How long’s it been for you, Stan?

  Since what?

  Since everything went bad.

  I been homeless since 1987, so it’s been exactly ten years now. It comes from using crack cocaine. And it sucks out here. Too much fightin’.

  Well, let’s see, it’s been three years for me now, Tyler said.

  Congratulations, sucker. Where you been?

  Fell asleep on a grainer car last year and woke up in Dubuque.

  Aw, Henry, you was always the wise-ass.

  Stanley, he said, sitting himself comfortably down, are we ever going to get out of this?

  Out of what? To do what and go where, for what reason?

  Look. You remember what you thought the first night you slept out in the street?

  Stanley laughed bitterly. —That I wouldn’t be out there too long. And now look at me. I’m all scarred from gettin’ in these fights. Happens every time I get drunk. When I drink, I win some, I lose some. Don’t matter one way or the other. Last fight, some fool took my crack stem and wouldn’t give it back. But crack’s still good to me . . . And now I’m finally gettin’ to like being homeless. Best thing is, people gimme money sometimes for nothin’ . . .

  He yawned, stretched, rolled over so that he was lying on his suitcase. —I went up to North Carolina to work, he said. Spent three months cutting cabbages for $4.75 an hour. It was too much work for me. I swiped this knife here, which I use for self-defense.

  You’d better sharpen that blade, Stan. Hey, what happened to the mayor?

  Who?

  Charles. That white guy.

  Him, laughed Stanley. We got rid of him. Showed him he couldn’t hack it.

  Where is he now?

  He might still be in jail. Weapons charges, plus assault on an officer, plus battery. I think he had a death wish. He’s an arrogant, arrogant asshole. If your personality don’t fit his stereotype of somebody supposed to be how he wants you, then you just can’t get along with him.

  And Celeste?

  She left town, Henry. There was some trouble over her.

  What kind of trouble?

  You sure you want to hear about it?

  Shoot.

  Well, this guy named Ivan—I don’t think you met him—she let him shack up with her after you left. Her girlfriend Pat had just died of cirrhosis, and she was pretty lonely. You shouldn’t hold it against her, Henry, the shacking up, I mean, ’cause you didn’t stay with her . . .

  No complaints on my end. Go on.

  And this asshole named Lightning Bug had the hots for her, too. So one night when Ivan got sleepin’ right here on the Slab, about two mattresses down from me, Lightning Bug got him a gas can and poured gas on Ivan and burned him up. So Ivan woke up runnin’ around with fire on him like a stunt man. You shoulda seen him, Henry. It was just like the movies. Well, he screamed and screamed, just like a fuckin’ human torch. Then the firemen come and give him morphine. Lightning Bug got no right to do that. If he got some disagreement with Ivan, he coulda broke his leg with a pipe or somethin’ . . .

  Well, I see where Lightning Bug got his name,

  Firebug more like!

  So what happened to him?

  We hopin’ he get life, Stanley said, and Tyler suddenly realized how, ghetto style, he sometimes left out inessential verbs now, as if any extra effort were too much. —Before the man come, Stanley went on, Lightning Bug run away, but then he come into the shelter where we eatin’ an everyone started shoutin’ right there at the dinner table: Murderer, murderer! He of course said he didn’t know that Ivan had died. Well, Henry, I lay right here watchin’ it! I couldn’t put his flames out! It took about ten minutes for him to burn up! Well, they arrested the bastard. When Celeste heard about it, she cried a long time. Then she left town. She mentioned your name more than once. I dunno if she was going to look for you or what . . .

  Tyler said nothing. He remembered how Celeste had said to him: I was like holding in there for the past couple of years, but then I guess I got tired. I had to let go. And then I ended up here. I could feel myself going, but I was just so tired I didn’t care anymore . . .

  He thought to himself: And now how tired must she be? I hate Irene!

  Hey, guy, said another black man. What’s your name?

  Tyler, said Tyler. Everybody calls me Henry. How’s the food down here?

  Not bad. Pretty decent cooking at that shelter. A little bit of red tape before and after is all.

  What the hell, said Tyler.

  I been on the Slab here about a year, the other black man went on. I was under that freeway, too, but I never met you. But it’s good to remember old times, ain’t it, bro?

  Sure, said Tyler dully.

  I remember unity, the man said. But it was segregated type unity. It was all about those cliques, man. And when they closed us down, it was all political. They came in early one morning with paddy wagons and got us all out, drove us to the shelter. They let us take what we could carry. Then they burned down the shacks. By noon everything was gone. A lot of people, you know, if you bring ’em straight up off the street like that, they gonna rebel. Ellen was there at the time. She rebelled. They dragged her off screaming.

  The man couldn’t stop talking about it. He had to tell the story again. —They told us to vacate, he said. They held us up on trespassing charges. Couldn’t go back. They let us take some of our stuff, our blankets . . .

  How were you feeling? Tyler asked, wanting to understand.

  Empty inside. Angry, ’cause I did
n’t understand why. We’re not harmin’ anyone; we’re not burglarizin’ . . .

  Tyler nodded, sitting there on the sidewalk.

  I didn’t go to jail, said the black man, strangely desperate to continue his story. Went to an abandoned building on Ninth and Fourth. The city would come in and roust us out for a day on misdemeanor charges, then back we’d go. We called it the round robin.

  All right, brothers, Tyler suddenly cried, filled with the same meaningless but searing urgency which had rushed him out of Coffee Camp and which sometimes drew him back to Coffee Camp, which had locked him into being the Queen’s slave and into loving Irene and hating Irene and fucking the false Irene and making love to Celeste, so what’s to live for?

  Moneyman! they replied laughing, and Stanley explained: When Moneyman come around, he come in his station wagon. Everybody be here, he get a handout from Moneyman. Moneyman hand out the dollar bills like candy, then he go.

  Tyler looked at him. —How’s the habit, Stanley?

  When you set a time to stop, to stop smokin’ crack, to get up off the Slab, then you settin’ yourself up for a relapse. Recognize the Power that’s greater than you, Henry. Trust Him. That’s the only thing you can count on.

  Tyler watched as he counted his quarters, stood up painfully, and went off to buy crack.

  | 589 |

  He awoke with the taste of Irene’s cunt in his mouth. I hate Irene! I hate Irene! I hate Irene! I hate Irene! I hate Irene! I hate Irene! I hate Irene!

  | 590 |

  I like the slow, nice, quiet life, Waldo had said. No adventures, no drama. It is the last spot on earth.—And he’d spread his hands, there in his underwear.

  * * *

  •BOOK XXXVI •

  * * *

  The Royal Family

  •

  * * *

  And the Lord put a mark on Cain, lest any who came upon him should kill him.

  GENESIS 4.15

  * * *

  •

  | 591 |

  Hal Lipset died, said Celia.

  What’s that? John irritably returned, checking international exchange. The Thai baht, the Korean won and the Malaysian ringgit were still low. Already foreseeing the day months ahead when the Chronicle would read Stocks Lose 207 Points on Asian Jitters, he decided to devolatilize, which is to say coagulate, certain investments.

  You know, that guy that bugged the martini olive.

  Uh huh. And whatever Greenspan does is going to hurt. I can see that coming. Good thing your mutual fund is—

  John, are you listening?

  Oh, him, said John, bored. Back in 1965, right? Just a demo for the Senate. A life of twenty minutes and a range of twenty feet. I’m going to be home late tonight. Rapp’s at his wit’s end with that stupid Pannel file, so I have to clean up his mess—

  How do you remember all that stuff? said Celia in astonishment.

  What stuff? That’s my job. Some people have to work.

  No, I mean like all that stuff about Lipset’s olive.

  Mom brought me up well, I guess. Which reminds me. We need to shoot up to Sacramento to clean the headstone of Mom’s grave.

  What about Irene’s grave?

  What about it? Are you jealous?

  Yes.

  John laughed. Connoisseur of restaurants, he preferred to memorialize Irene not only with the occasional angry and fugitive visit to Forest Lawn, but also with a drive to Western Avenue for a long lunch at Cho Sun Galbi, which had been Irene’s favorite establishment when she still lived at home. The gleaming aluminum plates and equally gleaming fume-hoods in the middle of the plasticized granite tables gave him a sense of satisfaction. He missed Koreatown a little. It gave him a sense almost of gaiety to imagine bringing Irene’s successor, Celia, to Cho Sun Galbi where, admiring the mellow beer-colored shadow of his drinking glass, he’d offer her kimchee as red as blood, and allow her to help herself from small white porcelain bowls of bean sprouts, sugar-dried fish. Laughing, talking loud, he’d regain his pleasures. Irene with her suicide had poisoned this place; so be it. Celia would impart new associations. Afterwards, in some pleasant hotel room, he’d get to enjoy Celia’s white legs like chopsticks flashing in a bowl of red kimchee.

  John?

  What is it now, Ceel?

  John, how come you don’t like people to know you’re smart?

  Oh, for God’s sake. Just for once, can’t we leave me out of this? One goddamned time. That’s all I ask . . . Fidelity made me five hundred dollars last week, but I think I’m going to lose it. You need to get your financial shit together, too, kiddo. How many times do I need to keep telling you? My goddamned broker’s just sitting on his fat ass. I call him my broker because he’s making me broke. Ripping me off, driving me straight to the poorhouse . . .

  John?

  Yeah, I know my tie’s not straight. I’m sick of this tie anyway . . .

  John, do you ever worry about your brother?

  John slammed the newspaper down. —And just what does Hank have to do with anything?

  I don’t know. I guess that bugged martini olive reminded me of him.

  Look, said John. He’s my brother that I don’t talk about. Period. Okay?

  Do you think he knows how to bug olives?

  Now you’re trying to goad me, John said.

  Maybe he’s got this whole apartment bugged and he’s listening to us right now.

  Wouldn’t put it past him, John laughed. Except that he’s probably sleeping it off in some doorway. I can’t believe that piece of work is my blood relative.

  John?

  What? I’ve got to go.

  John, I’m pregnant.

  From me or from a bugged olive?

  You know, John, I had a talk with Irene once. Before she died.

  Well, when else would it have been? Unless you believe in ouijah boards.

  And she told me you said the same thing to her. She said you never trusted her. But you were in the wrong, John. She was always faithful to you. And you really shouldn’t say such hurtful things—

  Oh, balls, said John. Whose side are you on—mine or Irene’s? Well, congratulations. What’s it going to be, marriage or an abortion? Let me know, but not right now, because I have to go. Can you straighten this tie for me?

  Did you just propose to me, John?

  Whatever. All right, so you won’t straighten my tie. I’m going. Make sure you double-lock when you go to work . . .

  Let’s get married, John.

  All right already. Twist the knife! Do we have to go on and on about it? No, cinch up the knot. Is it still crooked right here? Oh, Jesus, I’m late. I’m really late. You and your bugged olives . . .

  | 592 |

  They honeymooned in Hawaii, and then on a blue-grey Sunday John wanted to fly to Las Vegas to wrap up some Feminine Circus business with Brady (who in prison would resemble some old grey tree shooting up like the skeleton of a fabled pike, leaning each year farther against empty air). In the stretch limo which Brady had sent, the tulip-shaped glasses gleamed like rubies behind the long long windows, and the crystal decanters in their mirror-backed cases wore gold. John grinned and laid his hand on the back of his wife’s wrist.

  Celia was in the bathroom, having just begun her first marital quarrel, during which she’d sighed: I guess I’m just saying that I think there’s room for you to open your arms to more people than just yourself, and John, who’d heard it all before, was sitting on the bed removing his suits and her dresses from the garment bag when the phone rang. —What’s up? he said.

  Brady, said the telephone.

  Afternoon, Mr. Brady, said John. What’s the good word?

  Say, Johnny boy—you mind if I call you Johnny?

  Had anyone else been so presumptuous. John would have been filled with wrath. As it was, he was thrilled.

  Downstairs, John and Brady shook hands. Brady was explaining: We want to make sure we always give the customer what he wants, where, when and how he wants i
t, at a low price and with no complications afterward. No complications may be the most important thing. That requires tact, foresight, and above all innovation on our part.