The Lucky Star

by William T. Vollmann

  Oh, J. D., I can’t—

  You will, sooner or later, because when money talks, Judy listens. Now get out; get out, get out—

  9

  You like it? It’s got real spices in it. I heard that in the commercial.

  Thanks, Judy; that was so sweet of you.

  When I cook for J. D., he won’t even taste it. He takes his plate and scrapes it down the sink.

  Is he really good for you?

  Why can’t you try to understand him, Neva? He’s a sick old man who needs love—

  No, honey, I didn’t mean to upset you . . .

  Can’t you like him at least a little?

  I love him, said the lesbian.

  Neva, will you marry me?

  We’re already married.

  Please . . . !

  Come here. Come sit on my lap and give me a kiss . . .

  Tell me a story.

  Isn’t that Sandra’s job? By the way, I hear you came to see Catalina.

  Oh, she’s so nice! And Erin’s made it her job sometimes. I mean, she . . . Have you made love with Erin? I know you have. You have, right?

  I’ll make love with you, said the lesbian.

  10

  Since the retired policeman did not answer the door, the transwoman let herself in with the spare key. He was absent, not dead. Maybe he’d stormed back to Melba, who in late middle age retained the petrified grace of a flying horse on a tarnished Iberian coin. Actually he had met me by accident at Xenia’s occasional workplace, the Pink Apple, where we had both gone in order to stop thinking about Neva.—You don’t get a lot of honesty out of people most of the time, he told me. So let’s say you get a shooting and you have six witnesses. So that’s six different stories that you’re gonna get. You may find one of the witnesses is a girlfriend of the shooter. That’s gonna give you a slightly different story. Our job is to read people and to wade through the crap. A lot of the times when we’re doing interviews, we already know the answers to the questions that we’re asking.

  All right, I said, so what’s the answer?

  He laughed and slapped my shoulder.—I’ll tell you if and only if you state the question.

  Who or what is Neva? I said.

  Correct. Richard, you’ve got no get-up-and-go, but you almost could have had the mind of a cop.

  Coming from him, that was superlative. Like Judy, I felt so happy that a tear almost came. Clinking glasses with him, I said: The thing is, J. D., you don’t know the answer to that one.

  He flicked away air and said: I will. Meanwhile my job is to figure out if you are being honest or not.

  Who, me?

  All of you. You, Francine, Shantelle, Xenia, Samantha, Selene, Catalina, Al, Erin, Sandra and whoever else, Judy included. My job is to take bits of stories and fit them together to get the correct picture. Unfortunately, people don’t have a lot of problems stepping on each other. And a lot of people (I’m talking about you) don’t wanna be involved. You can have sixteen people who saw something, and only two will say, I saw it happen. And, Richard, you’re not one of those two.

  Sorry, I said.

  No, I get it, he said (I loved him even more when he was magnanimous). They worry about their safety. They have to live there. They’re worried about the shooter’s friends coming back for retaliation against them.

  Neva’s not a shooter, I said.

  Says you, he said. Maybe she is, or worse, and she’s scoped out the back window, and they’ve owned that house for twenty-five years and they’re just stuck.

  I rent by the week, I said.

  Stop interrupting me, he said. Renters or owners, you’re all fuckin’ stuck. You can’t get away from shit. I try not to think that everybody’s a liar. Unfortunately that’s not the way it tends to come out.

  Unaware how safe and happy he was, Judy scanned first Jojo’s Liquors, then the Cinnabar. She checked the Y Bar again. Almost panicking, she even clipclopped all the way up to the Buddha Bar—the boundary of his most heroic voyaging.

  A trim woman, wholesomely elegant, with short reddish hair—a sort of Julie Andrews type—was sitting at the counter. When she turned her head, the transwoman saw her face: young from a distance, maybe thirtyish; actually, fortyish. She was pretty.

  In a low voice the bartender asked her something, to which she replied: No, no, no, I auditioned in L.A.; but there was a New York show and I went on the road; I was in Detroit and Phoenix and Nashville . . .

  And that was the one with Sandrine Summers?

  Yeah, it’s the same show; they just took it outside.

  Mesmerized (even Neva vanished from her head), Judy sat down four stools away, wondering how to creep closer. Nothing terrible happened, so she inched over, leaving a stool between them. Then, blushing and sweating, she said: Could I, um, buy you a drink? I couldn’t help hearing . . .

  For once, her victim was kind.—Thank you, said the woman. What’s your name?

  Judy.

  I’m Helen. Are you at loose ends, Judy?

  Well, not exactly. I heard you mention Sandrine Summers, and I thought . . . Well, I need advice. You see, I want to perform in musicals, or maybe just dance.

  How old are you?

  Forty-nine.

  Well, you see, Judy, that’s a bit late to . . .

  But don’t you think I look young for my age?

  For your age, you look . . . I’ll need to go soon. I’m sorry.

  Helen, how did you get to be confident?

  Well, I was pretty shy, I think, as a kid. I certainly was not part of the popular crowd; you know, they have different crowds, and I just kind of got along with everyone. I didn’t have any really negative self-image. But when I started college, when I was a dancer they told me to lose weight. I think I was like nineteen. There were certainly girls in my year that had eating disorders. I was fairly, it was the first time I had to realize, I have to stop eating the way I did. Now, Judy—

  I know I need to lose thirty pounds, maybe forty.

  Well, then—

  Can I please please ask you one more thing?

  Of course, Judy, but then I really have to—

  Did you always know you were beautiful?

  Helen, wide-eyed, gently gesturing with long fingers, thin and graceful almost to frailty, perfect in her teeth, constantly making shapes with her hands, replied: I don’t think I saw it like that. In Vegas I didn’t really fit the mold; most of the girls had long hair; I had short hair; I had long legs; they like midriff.

  But when you were a little girl—oh, you must have been so cute!

  I danced as a kid and I had my social group really and my best friends used to do it, and I just continued. My teacher had gone to a performing arts college. I never saw it as being a beautiful woman. Being on the stage, Judy, well there’s a little bit of a mask. I was fairly confident in my ability to dance. I also did musicals. Judy, my advice is work on your confidence. And now I’d better go.

  Thank you for being so nice to me!

  Don’t mention it, said the retired dancer. Thanks for the drink. See you again, maybe.

  Gulping her own drink and paying cash, the transwoman hurried out, hoping to follow Helen home, but the retired dancer, perhaps sensing some such scheme, had vanished, so there was nothing to do but buy at least one more drink (a much cheaper one) at the Y Bar, daydreaming of becoming a green-and-blue serpent-peacock, which is to say a Las Vegas dancerette; her name would be up in lights, two longhaired nubile assistants would dress and undress her, and every night there would be clapping like the static on her dead grandmother’s radio.

  Then in a sudden sorrowing nauseating dread (she was too worthless to get angry), she realized that Helen had withheld the secret. So Judy slid down and down from her dreams.

  Next she remembered that the retired policeman
had gone missing, about which she was supposed to be worried. Feeling guilty and terrible and all the rest of it, she prayed: Please, God, let J. D. be alive. If he is, I swear I’ll spy on Neva, whatever he wants, just to . . . I’ll do anything.

  Running back to his place, she rang the buzzer. This time he answered.

  I was frantic, she whispered. I mean, I wondered if you were okay.

  He glared at her.

  J. D., did I do something wrong?

  Three fuckin’ guesses. And that’s why I dated Melba, who at least has a genuine working pussy. Do you hear me, bitch? Bitch, are you pissed off?

  How could I be? she whispered.

  Right answer. Good girl. Come in, then. Shut the door. You know where I want you. All right, bitch, now bend over and do your best Judy Garland.

  I guess I—ow, not so hard!

  Chuckling, he whipped her again.

  I guess I—I just like nice people—ow!

  So does Melba. Take it from the top, slut.

  I guess I just like nice people and when someone has a lot of nice friends I’m sure to get along with them.

  That’s right. Now suck my dick again, bitch. Out of principle. Like that. Actually I didn’t see Melba. Keep it up. By the way, I got a tax refund. I said keep going. Almost three hundred dollars. So if you want to . . . That’s enough. Oh, what’s the fucking difference? Turn on the history channel.

  After the program was over (should we have H-bombed North Korea in 1953?), he pinched her cheek until her purring snores ended in one loud snort, and she opened her eyes. He laughed at her.

  Sorry, she whispered. It was really interesting; I only . . .

  Ready for the quiz?

  Where’s Korea anyway? Somewhere in Asia. Oh, I’m so stupid; I know I’m gonna flunk—

  First question. If it’s not for personal advantage, why’s she doing it?

  Who are you talking about?

  He punched her in the stomach, not hard enough to hurt; it was merely a surprise. At the same time he clapped his hand over her mouth. Then he started pulling her hair. Her muffled cries saturated his hand with hot breath and saliva. He felt curious: Since he was pressuring her so hard about Neva, would she bite his hand? But no hint of that—good old Judy!

  Now, he said, if I take my hand away, will you be calm and quiet?

  Wide-eyed, she nodded three times.—You’re almost pretty right now, he informed her. All right. Up goes my hand. Keep your word! That’s my bitch. So. She doesn’t pay you, and you’re not paying her, so why’s she doing it?

  I would pay if she—

  Why’s she doing it, Frank?

  That’s not for me to know.

  The Goddess moves in mysterious ways, huh? Really, Frank? You don’t even go to church.

  Maybe there’s something dark that she—

  At least you’re trying. If you’re correct, she’s not a fraud, just a freak.

  This isn’t right, to backstab Neva!

  What the fuck are you talking about? I’ve seen how you steal her panties and hoard her snotty nosewipes! You’re doing it, Frank. So stop the hypocrisy and try for results. Work with me on this. Listen: If she’s in pain she needs help. Don’t you want to help her?

  Help Neva? Sure. But I don’t—

  Hundred-dollar bills.

  That’s right; she always—

  Why?

  I tried to look inside her wallet, but she—

  You’d give your crummy life for her, right?

  But, J. D., do you really think she needs help?

  Could be. And that’s why we snoop. Do you read me, Sherlock?

  Chain of Command

  What is known as “G” or “government heat,” is in reality a smoking-out process.

  COURTNEY RYLEY COOPER, 1935

  How then ought ye to guard yourselves?—By regarding her tears and her smiles as enemies, her stooping form, her hanging arms, and her disentangled hair as toils designed to entrap man’s heart.

  BUDDHA, date unknown

  1

  M elba had drummed her tattooed fingers on the restaurant table, her withered hair hanging over her face as she bestowed on him an exact repor about her rent, until her dear little cell phone (less magenta than Hunter’s) tinkled and she spoke an address, most likely to some buyer or seller of coal tar heroin, after which the phone tinkled again and she ducked her head, muttering into it that she was on her way. Finally she said: Sure I knew her, but that was before she was Neva. She used to be Karen. Karen Strand. And she . . . Yeah. I guess we were friends. But she turned out to be just another heartless bitch. Actually I never met her; I . . . Maybe I wanted to pull your chain. Ha, ha, what a broken little chain you have, J. D.! And it don’t even flush no more! Not for me, it don’t. Actually I asked Baby, because she keeps up with all the bars, and she . . . Hey, do you wanna see another picture of me in the blue wig? See, this was before I evicted that sonofabitch Dino who kept stealing from me. The first time I caught him, I said, we won’t say no more about it. Just don’t fucking do it again. The fifth time, he had to go bye-bye. And what really hurts me is that I did so much for Dino. I fucking supported him for three years, and he ripped me off! But he did use to do my makeup. He kept me company after you left me. We had fun together. I used to dress him up as a little girl. And we used to come back from thrift stores together with all kinds of cool shit. So in this picture, no, that’s not the right picture, but it’s, oh, yeah, that was the last time my ex ever let my son stay overnight, and I painted his face gold and he painted my face silver and that’s . . .

  What’s Baby’s number?

  Here it is. See, it may not look like it but I’m organized.

  The retired policeman gave her forty dollars for old times’ sake and she fed it to her little red purse with barely a thank you.—And then that lady wanted to tell me about my paintings, she said, because they were so dark, she kept saying I’d been molested or something . . .

  On the money, doll!

  So fucking what.

  Melba, you and I go way back. Remember when my dick used to get hard?

  You’re talking early Cretaceous, when the first dinosaurs . . . Anyway, you never put it in.

  Judy doesn’t know that.

  Yeah. When you talk about Judy your voice gets different. I’m not stupid. I get it that you—

  That I what?

  Melba kept shrugging her shoulders and playing with her purse. She wore a thin black buckled collar around her wrinkled throat. When she tilted her head, squinting down at her laptop, she looked young and beautiful; then she decomposed again.

  Once upon a time he used to date them both, a fact of which he continually reminded the transwoman, in order to keep her on the queer and narrow, although, no matter what he told her, pussy had never been his flavor of the month.

  Once upon a Cretaceous time, right when Nancy Kerrigan was on track to win the Olympic gold medal in Norway, should have won it and even would have but for one-tenth of a point’s difference between her and the Ukrainian dazzler Oksana Baiul, our Judy, whose career sometimes as we know paralleled Nancy Kerrigan’s and who looked awfully well put together on that night, drew asymptotically close to taking first place in the retired policeman’s blow job competition until Melba did something unexpected with her tongue. The two contestants were aware neither of the contest nor of the outcome. He felt entertained. Nowadays he was so far gone that squeezing his own dick made him tired.

  He said: I know you had it rough when you were a kid. So did Judy.

  Judy? Well, some kids are so cruel, like you’re a pansy and not a man. They ought to teach kids that instead of covering things up, you, I mean, you could know that things are fluid . . .

  And Melba’s head began to sink, like a stripper slowly descending the dark stage-steps after she has gat
hered her clothes. Oh, yes; he could almost see her, silver-blonde and tawny, wriggling off her shawl and pretending to play with the straps of her panties. Once upon a Precambrian or Mesozoic time his favorite stripper had been Melba, sitting on the stage with her long legs spread, grinning and leaning forward to flirt with the businessmen who stared up her thighs, longing for a little bit of slit, then clitterclattering over to him, with that hot hurt hungry look in her eyes.

  2

  And you’re sure that the lez used to be called Karen Strand?

  No doubt, replied Baby, whose affect inspired the retired policeman into spectacular indifference.

  He said: Why are you sure?

  For one thing, I went to the Y Bar and asked her. So pay me my twenty bucks.

  Groaning, he got out his wallet and counted out four fives, to make it more impressive. She counted them all over again. The poor old bitch must’ve had bad experiences, he thought. And look at her touch up her lipstick, as if that could possibly . . . Life is fuckin’ sad.—Having thought that, he liked her better.

  And she answered straight up, said Baby.

  Then she must be lying.

  See, here’s a picture of her on my phone. I took it to show you, and she didn’t care. She didn’t even ask me why the fuck did I want to know. So then I reached out to a girl I went to school with, and she confirmed it.

  What do you mean confirmed?

  I mean she trotted out the name Karen Strand all by her lonesome. Recognized her straight off. And she and I go way back—

  What’s her name?

  Latoya. She’s like my big sister. She’s—

  Fuck that.

  What do you mean?

  I don’t care what sisters do to each other. Just stay on track, because—

  You have a migraine, right? That’s what makes you mean.

  Heartburn. Jesus Christ, it hurts—

  Well, she’s sitting right there behind the pool rack in case you want to give her something. The one in red.

  Bring her over here.

  For another twenty.

  Fuck you, he said, limping over to Latoya’s table.