The Royal Family

by William T. Vollmann

  When he said that, he smiled with self-adulation over his latest acquisition, a hairless wrinked dwarf lady who whispered: Donald Duck! Donald Duck! and the men who went in to her had to pretend to be Donald Duck to make her happy.

  Celia stood trailing her fingers along one of the railings which ran along one side of the administration room at Feminine Circus so that spectators such as herself could look down into all the various worlds, each of them as stuffy as a museum. To me, Feminine Circus was much the same as the SuperSaverStore where Irene used to go through heaps of cheap clothes for toddlers, trying to pick out Christmas presents for her cousins and her sister’s boy while John very slowly smelled a genuine cedarwood shoetree. (Tyler, hiding behind a chin-high mountain of Date Flakes, watched Irene picking out childrens’ books.) But to Celia this comparison would have rung entirely false. When she was thoroughly bored, she escaped into an echoing expectoration of dollar coins. Her own secret wish in playing the slots was always to get rid of this heavy burden of quarters which God had given her: when they came clattering out after she pushed the CASH CREDIT button, she felt pleased, even victorious; but once she’d gathered them into her fist she wondered what to do with them. In her pocket they made an uncomfortable bulge which resembled an erection. In the big plastic cup they weighed her down. When the machine ate them back again (“like a dog goggling his vomit,” says some medieval tract on apostasy), she felt relief.

  No, the house percentages are really quite small, Brady was explaining to her husband. For instance, if everyone in the world were to give me five minutes out of his life, I could live almost forever, and don’t tell me any of those people would miss that time.

  Retreating to the hotel room, Celia got underneath the bedcovers, turned on the television’s remote control, and wrote:

  protocol update

  prep memo to Heidi

  make John promise to do dishes 3 x/week

  make calendar for Ellen

  update for Jeff

  floaters to cover breaks

  order cannister mailers

  adopt puppy?

  dining room set

  I’m a slick girl, the TV said. You wanna get slick with me? Get Slick. Now available in pharmacies near you. Federal restrictions may apply.

  Celia’s mind wandered. She pretended that she and John were hiking up Coyote Peak to see Napa Valley with its multi-greened corrugations of vineyard, and it was cool and windy with blue and turquoise shadows on the facing mountains, as if the newlyweds had entered one of the buccolic scenes on the labels of Calistoga mineral water. A tiny woodpecker drummed for them, accompanied by the buzz of a little plane. It no longer embarrassed her to be spinning fantasies. Sometimes clutched by insomnia, Celia had long since grown accustomed to imagining herself to sleep. She felt very secure to be married, and the inevitable disappointment after the wedding ceremony was best dealt with by careful planning for their future together, and, whenever that temporarily failed, by mental movies of her own devising.

  She and John were supposed to meet Brady for lunch, but just as they arrived, Brady’s cell phone rang and Brady began a long conversation by saying: Those girls usually come by the pair, but maybe I can get you one on open stock.

  He put down the phone for a moment to lift his wineglass, and Celia heard the client say: Well, I like this shape here.

  Winking at Celia, Brady picked up the phone and said: These can be shipped. They’re very high quality.

  Finally he hung up. Tapping his finger against his glass, he said to John: You know, they say a good glass is very important when you drink good wine. You see the parallel?

  Excuse me, Mr. Brady, said Celia, clearing her throat. These girls you’re talking about are all virtual, right? I mean, nobody gets hurt, right?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, the man said boredly. These girls come in all versions.

  Gazing upward, Celia discovered chandeliers like flowers, crystal beehives, and transparent glass spiderwebs.

  Actually, Brady said to her, we’ll give your husband a very special price. And listen, John. I can give you the same price for the next five years. Celia, after lunch I need to borow your husband for a minute. I guarantee I’ll return him in better shape than I found him. Perfect balance.

  Celia stared miserably at the tablecloth.

  Come and see this one, John, Brady was saying. It is gorgeous. You’ll see the hipbones. They’re extremely elegant pieces. And extremely strong. And extremely elastic.

  I guess it all goes together, Celia said dully.

  From his shirt pocket, Brady removed the transparent cast or likeness of a human nipple as astoundingly beautiful as the crystal stopper of a thousand dollar glass decanter. The thing was a dodecahedron each of whose faces sent the light back in a different shade of blueness.

  No, John, said Celia. You don’t need another one.

  Brady laughed. —I’ll bet you two aren’t the first pair who’ve come to blows in a place like this. And in a dispute like this, the wife always wins. Know how I know, John? Because you brought your wife. It’s not about you and any of these so-called pieces. It’s about you and her.

  Celia was silent, so Brady patted her arm and said: You should give a Christmas present to your husband.

  He’s already very spoiled.

  So spoil him a little more.

  Do whatever you want, John. I don’t feel so well. I’m going to lie down . . .

  The air conditioning was as cold as a cretin’s hand.

  | 593 |

  You have been summoned, Domino said pompously, lolling back on her purple-sequined wrists. All the girls, come and kneel around the Queen . . . Where’s my ashtray?

  Here, ma’am. Yes, ma’am.

  Oh, brother, said John. This is lame.

  Beatrice, I want you right now to go get the bitch. You are not in any trouble. Just go an’ get her.

  That’s not Beatrice, John said to himself.

  The Queen lay very still, lolling around on her swollen, abscessed legs, scratching at the purple sequins.

  Now, Chocolate! she laughed. Chocolate, you little bitch! Come here. Siddown. On your butt.

  The other girl was hanging her head in the corner with her hand held out and her other hand on her thighs.

  That’s not Chocolate either, John realized.

  I just brushed my hair, Domino was saying, smashing a beer bottle on the stage. Y’all are crazy. I want you to beat the bitch up. Take this, little motherfucker, and beat her up! I’m not playing. Awright. Now this is what we’re gonna do.

  The whores were sitting in the corner at stage left, pouting and quickly wiping their lips before their cigarettes.

  An’ every guilty woman, I want their pussies sewn shut, Domino mumbled. An’ all the men—everyone—I want them all brought to me. —You know who you are? You’re the first to have your pussy sewn shut. Do you want your teeth knocked out, too? How’d you like it if I took this cigarette and put it right out between your eyes? Oh, didn’t it hurt enough for you to scream? Well, let’s try it again, you little slut. Get out of my sight. Don’t drink that beer. It’s got that tramp’s lipstick all over it. Come ’ere, Sapphire little one. I’m gonna give you one chance.

  The little one quickly put the Queen’s shoes on, and Justin tied them.

  The Queen’s belly was sagging.

  You’ll never be number one shotgun under me, she said. You’ll never be a shot-caller anymore.

  The tall man was smiling vaguely under the long matted hair as he started taking the collar off, holding the chain, and the lady-in-waiting bowing double . . .

  Sapphire tried to cling to her ankle. —Let go of me, said the Queen.

  That’s not Justin, said John. That’s not Sapphire.

  (He was right. Domino had sold the real Sapphire to Brady long ago for five hundred dollars cash. Sapphire had lasted for months. She’d been one of Brady’s star moneymakers.)

  I want you to beat this bitch into oblivion, Domino was saying
. Someone in the audience gasped, and she quickly said: Don’t worry, baby. It’s all virtual.

  Somebody booed her. Pretending not to hear, she said to the ersatz Justin: I want you to bring her back when she has one breath left. Just one breath.

  This is pathetic, John thought. This is embarrassing. This is Feminine Circus.

  When he and Celia got back to San Francisco, he went straight to the Wonderbar and almost shyly asked the barmaid, whom he didn’t recognize, how business was, at which she froze in suspicion and fear, saying: We got no business here! and shouted something in Spanish, at which the solitary whore, fat, old and miniskirted, sent a hateful glance John’s way and went out. John never saw Domino again.

  | SOURCES |

  All Biblical citations are from The New Oxford Annotated Bible with the Apocrypha, expanded edition (rev. standard), ed. Herbert G. May and Bruce M. Metzger (New York: Oxford University Press, 1973), although I have sometimes archaized certain passages.

  BOOK I:–THE REDUCTION METHOD

  Bacon epigraph—Sir Francis Bacon, Advancement of Learning, Novum Organum, New Atlantis (Chicago: Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc., Great Books of the Western World, vol. 30), p. 107 (Novum Organum [1620], Book I, paragraph VI).

  BOOK II:–IRENE

  Dostoyevsky epigraph—Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Idiot, trans. Constance Garnett (New York: Bantam, 1981 repr. of 1958 ed.; orig. Russian ed. 1869), p. 299.

  Extract from Irène’s Cunt—Lous Aragon, Irène’s Cunt, trans. Alexis Lykiard (London: Velvet Books / Creation Books, 1996), p. 65.

  BOOK III:–VISITS AND VISITATIONS

  Police manual epigraph—Wayne W. Bennett and Kären M. Hess, Criminal Investigation, 3rd ed. (San Francisco: West Publishing Co., 1991), p. 298.

  “Light and darkness, life and death . . .” —James M. Robinson, gen. ed., The Nag Hammadi Library in English, 3rd. rev. ed., trans. and introduced by the members of the Coptic Gnostic Library Project of the Institute for Antiquity and Christianity, Claremont, California (San Francisco: Harper-SanFrancisco, 1990), p. 142 (The Gospel of Philip, II, 3, 14–20).

  BOOK IV:–BILLABLE HOURS

  Sulfuric acid epigraph—H. Clark Metcalfe, John E. Williams, Joseph F. Castka, Modern Chemistry (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1970), p. 258.

  BOOK V:–THE MARK OF CAIN

  Gnostic Scriptures epigraph—Robinson, p. 249 (Dialogue of the Savior).

  Darwin on Formica (Polyerges) rufescens—Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection and The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex (Chicago: Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc., Great Books of the Western World, no. 49, 1952), p. 2125 (Origin).

  BOOK VI:–LADIES OF THE QUEEN

  Psistratus and Athena epigraph—[attributed to Aristotle or one of his students], The Athenian Constitution, trans. P.J. Rhodes (New York: Penguin, 1984), pp. 56–57.

  BOOK VIII:–SUNFLOWER

  Romantic reaction epigraph—Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, ed. & trans. Quentin Hoare and Goeffrey Nowell Smith (New York: International Publishers, 1981), p. 296.

  BOOK X:–AN ESSAY ON BAIL

  Bail for rape, kidnapping, etc.—Misdemeanor-Felony Bail Schedule in the Municipal Court of the City and County of San Francisco, State of California (effective date: August 15, 1997).

  Extracts from and references to the California penal code—West’s California Codes, 1997 Compact Edition (Saint Paul, Minn.: West Publishing Co., 1997), p. 70 (ch. 3, sec. 207).

  Memorandum from the public defender’s office re: police reports and perjury—Memo to all deputies, from Grace Suarez, Office of the Public Defender, Research Unit, dated 16 July 1991, re: McLaughlin v. Riverside # 6: Assembling the Class Action.

  BOOK XI:–“EASIER THAN YOU MIGHT EVER DREAM” (CONTINUED)

  Witches’ curse epigraph—Pierre de Lancre (d. 1630), quoted in Kurt Seligmann, Magic, Supernaturalism and Religion (New York: Pantheon Books, 1948), p. 180 (“The Witch”).

  BOOK XIII:–“BUSINESS COMES FIRST”

  Midas epigraph—Nathaniel Hawthorne, Tales and Sketches (New York: Library of America, 1982), p. 1199 (“The Golden Touch,” in A Wonder-Book for Girls and Boys, 1851).

  BOOK XVI:–THE QUEEN OF LAS VEGAS

  Gnostic Scriptures epigraph—Robinson, p. 138 (The Gospel of Thomas, V, 5, II, 2, 114.20–25).

  BOOK XVII:–BUYING THEIR DREAM HOUSE

  Epigraph on circumcision—Mary Jane Sherfey, M.D., The Nature and Evolution of Female Sexuality (New York: Vintage, 1973), p. 87.

  BOOK XIX:–A MEDITATION ON THE STOCK MARKET

  Gnostic Scriptures epigraph—Robinson, p. 284 (The Apocalypse of Adam, V, 5, 15–20).

  BOOK XXIII:–JUSTIN

  Book of Mormon epigraph—The Book of Mormon: An Account Written by the Hand of Mormon Upon Plates Taken from the Plates of Nephi, trans. Joseph Smith, Jun. (Salt Lake City, Utah: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1986 corr. ed; “first English edition published in 1830”), p. 383 (Hel. 6.27).

  BOOK XXV:–THE TRUTH

  Buddha epigraph—The Teaching of Buddha (Tokyo: Bukkyo Dendo Kyokai [Buddhist Promoting Foundation], 127th rev. ed., 1980), p. 108 (“Dharma,” ch. 2, “The Theory of Mind-only and the Real State of Things,” pt. III, “Real State of Things”).

  BOOK XXX:–LITTLE BABY BIRDS

  Buddha epigraph—The Teaching of Buddha, p. 66 (“Buddha,” ch. 3, “The Form of Buddha and His Virtues,” pt. III, “Buddha’s Virtue”).

  BOOK XXXI:–FILIAL DUTIES

  Bible extract on Abraham: Genesis 20.1

  Bible extract on the unburied dead: Jeremiah 16.4

  Buddha extract: “Things do not come and go . . .”—The Teaching of Buddha, p. 106 (“Dharma,” ch. 2, “The Theory of Mind-only and the Real State of Things,” pt. II, “The Theory of Mind-Only”).

  Buddha extract: “. . . the mind that creates its surroundings . . .”—The Teaching of Buddha, p. 98 (loc. cit.)

  BOOK XXXII:–THE FALL OF CANAAN

  Buddha epigraph—The Teaching of Buddha, p. 376 (“The Way of Practice,” ch. 2, “The Way of Practical Attainment,” pt. IV, “Sacred Aphorisms”).

  Bible extract: “Why has the LORD pronounced all this great evil against us?”—Jeremiah 16.10–11.

  BOOK XXXIV:–DAN SMOOTH

  Gnostic Scriptures epigraph—Robinson, p. 342 (The Paraphrase of Shem, VII, 1, 10–15).

  | ACKNOWLEDGMENTS |

  I want to thank the following people and institutions for their assistance in this project:

  Noah Richler of BBC Radio paid for the auditions of several Tenderloin whore-queens and tall men. At the San Francisco Public Defender’s office, Ron Albers, Matt Gonzalez, Daro Inouye (who makes a cameo appearance as a friend of my entirely imaginary Henry Tyler) kindly answered many questions about bail and other legal-ethical matters. So did Al Graf and Geri Compana of Al Graf Bail Bonds in San Francisco and Roger Adair of Ace Bail Bonds in Sacramento. I would also like to thank the supervisory deputy D.A. in Sacramento, Albert Locher, for his time and trouble. Chuck Pfister in San Francisco and John Walsh and David McBride in Sacramento taught me a few fundamentals of private investigative procedure and gave me loads of local color.

  Laurie Berkman, Debbie Trevellini, Jeanine Bray, an anonymous employee of Planned Parenthood (all of San Francisco), Shauna Heckert of the Feminist Women’s Health Center (Sacramento), Regina Lorenzo and her friend Bill (New York City), and other women who wish to be unnamed gave me useful information on abortion clinics.

  Ruth Ellis and her colleague Teddy at the Sacramento Room of the Sacramento Public Library allowed me to see some old photographs of the Sacramento region which added to the train context.

  Mr. Jacob Dickinson of Los Angeles discussed chip design and security as it related to the RoboGraphix chapter.

  Paul Wilner at the San Francisco Examiner got me access to the chief medical examiner’s office, whose staff I would like to thank. Most of the notes I t
ook there wound up in my long essay on violence, Rising Up and Rising Down, of which Paul published a smidgeon (not to mention the Geary Street and financial district chapters of this book). However, more than enough descriptions remained to be inlaid into the tale of Dan Smooth’s demise. Dr. Jasper, Connie, and the autopsy doctor do not represent any particular real-life individuals.

  Jonathon Keats of San Francisco Magazine was kind enough to publish a small excerpt from the beginning of this novel. He also encouraged, then rejected, the “Essay on Bail.”

  Jean Stein and Deborah Treisman, both then of Grand Street, published other snippets of this novel and sent me delicious cold cash. My thanks and friendship will always go to those two most nurturing Muses.

  Vanessa Renwick protected, comforted and cherished me when a certain street prostitute and I were treated in a degrading fashion.

  Against his better judgment, Paul Slovak at Viking permitted me to refrain from cutting the book by one-third. Paul, I want to thank you for having stood by me for so long. (As for me, I was a good boy, too. Since I refused the page cut, I took a royalty cut instead.)

  Mike Pulley and Lizzy Kate Gray hopped freights with me (Lizzy’s maiden voyage took her all the way from Sacramento to West Sacramento. Mike’s took him as far as Marysville before the heat got to him.) Mike got me access to the new Sacramento coroner’s facility, which proved good for many of Dan Smooth’s finer moments. He also drove me around and kept me company while I took note on Sacramento and San Francisco street scenes. Mr. Kent Lacin listened patiently to my half-baked theories on Buddhism and drug addiction. William Linne discussed Gnostic Scriptures with me in and out of various Tenderloin bars. My old friend Ben Pax has chatted with me about Christian spiritual issues many times over the years. Some of our conversations meandered into the text, or at least stained it. Mr. Chuck Stevens and I met several nice Tenderloin prostitutes together. Mr. David Golden kept me cheerful company on a few nighttime Tenderloin strolls, and allowed me to use his car in place of a photographic tripod. Heaven the barmaid deserves a book of her own. Peter at City Lights bookstore has done me many kindnesses.