The Lucky Star

by William T. Vollmann

  I’ll let you in on my business, he said, well aware that hardly anything was sweeter to her than minding the business of others. Now look. I hate Neva—

  You do? I’m gonna tell her—ha, ha, ha!

  Go right ahead, bitch. Now, do you want to do business or not?

  Buy me a drink.

  They were at the Pink Apple, where fewer nosy Parkers would know them. The mistress of ceremonies was instructing the world: That’s how you make noise when people show you body parts.

  He got her a Peachy Keen. She made a face and said it wasn’t sweet enough; Francine made it better. He told her that her breath stank and she would soon lose her teeth like Xenia, so why didn’t she fuckin’ get healthy?—Like you, she said, laughing in his face.

  Now this is to your benefit, he said. I want Neva to leave my bitch alone. No Neva for Judy means more Neva for you, if you can swoop in.

  Swoop swoop, she laughed, baring her teeth and showing her claws.

  That’s beautiful, babe. Oh, you get me going, you sweet pterodactyl.

  Put it to me, she said.

  I love it when you talk dirty. Just break his nose or something. Then I’ll send one of my dudes by, to enlighten him that it was for Judy and he’d better fuckin’—

  Wow, Shantelle said. You do love your bitch! I’d give anything to be the bitch of somebody who loved me like that, but that ain’t gonna happen, ’cause—

  What about Neva? Don’t she take care of you?

  Oh, fuck you, said Shantelle.

  Well, do you want more of her or not?

  I’ll take what I can get, she said—subscribing to our collective belief that if we could simply boil up around Neva, we could carry her off (or, clinging, be carried by her) to wherever it was that we had once expected to go, and just because none of us had gotten there yet did not mean that there was no such place. (The mistress of ceremonies said: And that amazing performer who . . . )

  Perfect. So mess him up a bit and I’ll give you two hundred dollars cash money. He’s in Room 213 of the Ganesha Motel, paid up until Friday. It’s that dump on Mission and—

  I know.

  And he’s crazy about black pussy. Just knock on his door and he’ll let you right in. Here’s a hundred up front.

  In a dream, Shantelle turned the bill over and over. Then she started.—That’s Neva’s money, she said. I know by the date on it.

  So what if it is?

  Laughing a little, she said: I guess we’re all hangin’ on Neva’s sugar tit. But does she know about this?

  What the fuck do you think?

  Are you gonna tell her?

  No, he said. I promise.

  Watching her, he discovered that she must be less accomplished in violence than she pretended: he had never seen her so anxious!—But then she smiled, calming herself by remembering all the times she had shoplifted and burgled without getting caught. He folded up the printout into a three-by-three-inch square. Then he slid it into her hand, and it went to wherever the hundred-dollar bill had gone.

  38

  His best friend the security guard did not answer his call, which as usual went straight to voicemail, so he called Shantelle, but her voicemail was full. High and dry was how he felt, like an ice cube all alone in a shotglass. He crept and wobbled all the way to the Buddha Bar, where the lady who resembled Julie Andrews was coaching some young girl: Women make a lot of money out in Vegas cocktailing. I cocktailed one year. You’d cocktail and then you would dance or sing. I hated it. You were glorified cocktailing and then you would dance. But you could make good money. I only worked three days a week and I pulled in a pretty good wage. Most dancers know that the longevity of their careers is not going to be great . . . —What did the retired policeman care? So he made a date with Melba at Neon Mary’s. Until now she’d kept shyly calling him, convinced that he hated her, because on half the infrequent occasions he tried to check in, her phone was cut off for nonpayment, so that she never knew or believed that he had indeed tried to reach her. So they sat facing each other at a sticky wobbly table, while to his left a naked girl was bending over, wiggling her pale buttocks at the world in general, then seizing the catty pole, corkscrewing herself round and round, and Melba kept stumbling and stuttering over her words, sounding weary and old: where the fuck had her glory gone? The naked girl was hanging by an arm and a leg, upside down, whirling slowly down the pole, flexing her long tattooed legs with the same meaningless grace as a lobster wriggling its feelers; he showed Melba an old joke image he had on his phone, of her sucking his cock; but he had forgotten that she hated every photo of herself unless she had taken it. Once upon a time there had even been bright young Melba with blue light on her face, twirling round this very pole, with her hair brushing the floor. Well, fuck it. Another girl now climbed the pole, clamping herself around it, beginning to spin down, never looking at either of her three prospective clients in the front row, while he now deployed the black-and-white photo of the beautiful woman playing pool.

  That’s actually one good thing about getting old, said Melba, cramming a wrinkled cigarette between her wrinkled lips; at least your memories may pick up cash value.

  He gave her a ten.

  Big spender, she pouted.

  He gave her a nickel, and she laughed. He grinned and pounded the table, thinking: Wait till I tell Judy! Well, well; but Judy must be putting out for the lesbian this very minute; how did they even do it? Tongues, thumbs and you know what; maybe even lowdown treatment.

  He snapped his finger. Sistina the barmaid refilled his triple Old Crow.

  What about me? asked Melba.

  All right, Sisty; bring her another vodka and cranberry.

  Once Sistina was out of earshot he said: Give.

  Who is she?

  You’d better fuckin’ tell me. That Strand bitch woman said, and I quote: She was someone I loved.

  Romantic, said Melba. Well, that might be Elizabeth Jackson. I never knew she was such a hottie, back in the day.

  You fucked her.

  Oh, no. She’s picky. For one thing, she’s a cougar. Goes after younger meat. I think at that time she did live in Vallejo or Martinez or someplace like that. There was this place called Jingle’s where . . . Never mind; you don’t know shit about Jingle’s. If she was doing Karen, she would have been at least four or five years older. These days the age difference is wider, from what I hear, but as you so clearly indicate, I’m old and out of touch.

  A new girl was whirling upside down so easily down the pole, her nipples the color of her hair, wiggling her buttocks for the silent young businessman in the front row, then loudly slapping her ass, slamming her high heels together. Melba said sadly: I used to do that for you.

  Back in the day, he said. Thanks, Mel.

  You’re never going to leave Judy, are you?

  He gulped the rest of his Old Crow and said: I never leave them. They always leave me.

  I tried and tried to come back to you.

  Yeah, he said.

  It was just past six-o’-clock in late May, when the streaks of light on the floor might still be mistaken for late afternoon sun—and indeed if any quitter were to descend the grubby black stairs just now, he would come into painfully bright sunshine. That was what happened to the retired policeman.

  39

  Put your leg on me, darling, the lesbian said, and began to masturbate so urgently that she climaxed within a minute, pretending that she was wearing a strap-on and had gone deep inside Victoria, or perhaps imagining she had become Judy, and Victoria was deep inside her and (speaking of Judy) beating her until she bled—how should I know? I’m making this up as best I can. Even in orgasm she was far away.

  What are you thinking? said Victoria. Are you sleepy? Why don’t you talk to me?

  Reminded that Victoria needed time and gentleness, the lesbian
made herself kiss her—back to business!—and right away could feel Victoria’s heart pound against hers.

  Victoria said: These are the words that come to me now: encouragement, power, gentle restraint.

  Yes, honey, said the lesbian.

  Victoria was getting high. Her eyeballs were larger than dimes. Neva’s breast became the horizon. Fuzzily she murmured: You can fuck me; we need to discuss . . .

  Okay, said the lesbian, holding her tight.

  My hands, my mouth on you, yes, let’s discuss. Let’s take a shower together. Because . . . I like it when you please yourself, and . . .

  Thank you, darling.

  I said you can please yourself and I can watch. Neva, the day you first touched my neck was oh, so erotic; that’s the energy I like.

  I love you, said the lesbian.

  Yours is the specific love through which I’m going to represent myself. It’s like someone saying I will follow Aphrodite, not Athena. But, Neva, who can Aphrodite follow? I don’t know because I’m so . . .

  The lesbian kissed her again and again. Then she brought them each a glass of water. Her cell phone began vibrating: Judy, no doubt.

  And I love hearing your echoes, Neva. Do you hear anything right now?

  Your heart—

  I guess I hear the words as you must have spoken them. They’re all the colors. I need to go down on you, because . . . because I’m so in love with you, journeying back through my mind to . . . Substitute you for me and me for you and all human problems vanish. So in love, Neva!

  Knowing what the other woman now wanted, the lesbian strapped on her harness and opened Victoria’s legs. Victoria said: Neva, I was born to love you.

  And they loved each other, but several nights later Victoria remembered another of those questions which she’d never asked Neva.

  40

  . . . And this time I could not get enough of gently kneading the lesbian’s breasts hour after hour while she lay with her head on my shoulder, dreamily moaning. When I tried to specify any quality of the pleasure she was giving me, the investigation did not so much as fail (since failure never got a foothold in these séances our crew had with the lesbian) as carry me into rosy hazy caverns of dream; but it seems to me now that when I was playing with her sweet soft breasts, stroking and squeezing them as carefully as a trained retriever dog fits his mouth around the fresh-killed game bird to bring it intact to the hunter, the pleasure most definitely did not originate in my fingers themselves, although I certainly felt it there; rather, it came out of her, passing into me like a tingling warmth; my hands merely completed the circuit; I could almost see it rising up out of my darling, the loving light of life itself, faithfully and effortlessly emitted for me by the woman whom I loved more than anyone. As to what this pleasure consisted of, I can hardly tell you. It was simultaneously warm and cool, drowsy yet rich in movement-impulsions; to repeat, I could not get enough of rubbing my hands over Neva! Sometimes she would murmur to me, it never mattered what, or she might stroke my hair while I fulfilled my sudden craving to lick her pussy, or I’d find her white teeth coming closer and closer because without even knowing it I had been lured toward her smiling mouth; we would kiss with a long sweet flickering of tongues even as my hands slid up and down her back while she held me trustfully. And this pleasure was complete in itself, obviating any need of narrow labor toward some climax; it was perfect, utterly fulfilling and therefore subjectively eternal. Having spent many nights with prostitutes, I was long since accustomed to watching the clock, to see how my joys were draining away; but ten minutes of clasping Neva in my arms passed as slowly as forty with another woman, so that after four or five hours with her I felt as if I had received half a week’s worth; and leaving the Hotel Reddy, a calm happy alertness kept me company for a long while. To be sure, each time I came down from that got a little worse, until I began to see why my heroin addict friends referred to what they did as getting well.

  41

  Wow, I’m standing next to fucking Neva! said Anna, who was gorgeous despite being a thirty-five-year-old addict; she kept calling her friends the most beautifully perfect individuals on earth, then quarrelling with them.

  She told the lesbian that what she wanted was to be squeezed into a piece of meat, then fucked and fucked, violently, because she was a masochist; she used to seek out fat old men to be her lovers because they desired her so much, but then she met a beautiful thin young sadist with green eyes who used to sit on her face with his testicles covering her nose so that she was choking for breath as he climaxed into her mouth, but he left her because she was evil, he said.—The only person she loved was her little brother, who had said that if she ever killed herself it would destroy him; that was when she realized that the definition of loving someone was overcoming one’s longing to kill oneself, and living drearily on for that person’s sake.

  It’s like that for you, Neva, isn’t it? I see it in your face.

  Well, I love everyone—

  That’s ’cause you’re lying to yourself. You’re so sad, you’re worse off than me!

  The lesbian embraced her.

  Say it! Say you’re the worst off.

  I’m the worst off.

  No. You don’t mean it; it’s just a goddamn echo . . .—and Neva could not help remembering how Victoria had also murmured about echoes. To calm herself she commenced that voicelesss song: E-beth, Reba, Belle and Lucia, Judy and Shantelle . . . Meanwhile, to make her laugh (everything seemed to be happening too quickly), Anna told her about the time she was in Berlin and really really needed heroin, so she rushed off to the K-damm in her nightgown and pretended to be French to sound more sexy. And to make her happy, the lesbian laughed.

  She promised to meet Anna at the Cinnabar upon completing her obligation of drinking with Erin and Sandra, who as it happened both arrived on time despite Sandra’s extra-long mermaid dream; but because Francine had a headache and chills, I won’t say from what cause, the drinks took a long time to come, after which the lesbian had to reassure Shantelle, who snarled: Neva, don’t pretend you give a fuck about me . . . !—while Anna kept storming in, ever more angry and unbelieving. On her third appearance, the faded postcard of the breast with pink spectacles balanced on it tumbled off the topmost shelf of bottles, and Shantelle informed Anna: You’re outed, bitch. That makes you a motherfuckin’ jinx.—You be nice, said Francine.—Since Anna would not trust and believe, the lesbian walked home alone, for a novelty and a relief. She sat at the kitchen table and listened to a voicemail from Samantha, who sounded lonely and junked out: I’m sorry but I’m starting to understand . . . I . . . I’m just worried about things that I’ve mentioned, and it’s hard seeing you and leaving you; it messes with my heart. I wish we were deeper in each other’s lives. It’s hard for me to admit to myself that this is how it is.

  Staring into the mirror, she thought: I cannot believe how and who I am.

  Then her phone rang; it was Shantelle.

  42

  By then the transwoman began to feel very old and ugly and wrinkled, so she did what her mother always used to do on sad days, which was first to get some money—accomplished in the daughter’s case by dropping by the Y Bar, bringing home a German and turning an easy trick (otherwise she would have stolen from Neva’s wallet)—and then to spend that money on a facial, which Judy found to be best accomplished at the beauty parlor on Larkin Street where Vietnamese Suzette always treated her lovingly and gave her a good hard scalp massage, scratching away with long magenta fingernails, after which it came time for the anti-ageing treatment and the concealer, which almost hid the black eye and bruises.—Oh, what a lady! cried Suzette, clapping her hands. Beautiful lady!—That was what our Judy needed to hear! It was what Egyptian embalmers and that crowd referred to as the formula for coming forth by day. So Judy came forth. She felt less beautiful than in Neva’s arms, but pretty enough, maybe.

/>   Longing to present herself, she ran to the Hotel Reddy and rang the buzzer, but the lesbian did not answer.

  So she rang Room 545. Catalina buzzed her in. Judy ran upstairs getting her tear glands in working order. By the time she reached the third floor she was weeping exuberantly. In a little girl voice she said: I’m super lonesome for Neva!

  Catalina laughed at her. She said: You know she’s busy fucking! That’s what she does.

  And you’re not jealous?

  Not jealous, no more. Anyway, what’s it to you? Aren’t you a goddamn prostitute?

  Neva’s my number one, sobbed Judy. And now I know she’s your number one, and—

  Everybody else’s. I’ll bet you even J. D.’s doing her. So get over it. My first girlfriend, when I was maybe twenty, twenty-one, me and her weren’t doing so good because she started talking to her ex again and I was not okay with that. They just wanted to be friends, but I was not okay with it. So at that time we were done for awhile and I moved up here and then she wanted to come visit me, so we were together, and then she found someone and I found Carmen and Neva, so who cares, Judy? You hear me? Who cares? Now go downstairs and fuck somebody else. That’ll cheer you up. Why does Neva have to rescue the whole world? Make it easy on her. I’m trying to be nice, because Carmen told me to, but you get on my nerves. Bye-bye now.

  So the transwoman went to the Y Bar, trolling for sympathy. Erin sat alone, drinking a fizzy water. Judy said: Will you please please please be nice to me?

  Erin thought about it. She was a thorough young lady who sincerely considered our propositions.—Okay, she said.

  How do I look?

  Well, your bruises are almost gone . . .

  Tell me I’m pretty.

  You’re pretty.

  Do you mean it? Tell me a story about—

  I knew it!

  Will you will you will you? About when you were little? Oh, please, Erin!

  All right. Well, I think when I was really young I first started, but it didn’t become a habit until I was between twelve or fifteen and I masturbated a lot. This girl and I had sex pretty often. Then I had a lover that liked to be choked and done in the ass. I liked being with him. He was very skinny and feminine. He was one of the ones I wanted to marry and have kids with. I have too much feeling for him to see him anymore. It would just make me sad. That’s it, Judy. The end.