The Lucky Star

by William T. Vollmann

  Almost Flagrante Delicto

  Wanting-to-know is an offspring of the desire for power, the striving for expansion, existence, sexuality, pleasure . . . Whatever presents itself as theoretical enlightenment . . . can never reach its alleged goals . . .

  PETER SLOTERDIJK, 1987

  Here, a barbed wire entanglement of various factors confronts the man who would hunt down a criminal.

  J. EDGAR HOOVER, ca. 1935

  1

  And the retired policeman turned over a photograph from what must have been the 1970s or early eighties: six young women in bluejeans sitting on the carpeted floor of an office, a row of potted plants on a window shelf. Farthest away was a certain longhaired girl by the French doors, one knee raised, the other folded on the floor with her fist clenched on it, her firm round breasts outlined beneath her flimsy shirt; she wore a gentle, neutral expression. Another darker-haired woman was on a beanbag cushion with her thighs comfortably spread, raising a single lens reflex camera and tenderly half-smiling out at us while a black Labrador retriever nuzzled her shoulder; she must have been taking this picture; she and all the others were reflected in the mirror. Third was the face of a curlyhaired roundfaced girl, very low, resting against the upper arm of the fourth, who was another longhaired young woman with lovely teeth who smiled most widely and sincerely, her eyes shining. Beside this latter and a trifle apart from her was most definitely Karen Strand, who remained so hauntingly unchanged in 2015; and then, most distinct from these others, sat a chunky, shorthaired butch in an embroidered shirt, smiling, but only at the dog, which she was stroking. He looked again and again at the photo. Most conspicuous was that lovely smile of the darker-haired woman, although he felt more attracted to the blonde by the French doors, who gazed so palely and watchfully from far away. On the reverse side a feminine hand had pencilled: Jen, Anne, Sunwomon, E-beth, Karen & Diane.

  The longhaired smiling woman near Karen was surely the beautiful woman who was playing pool in that photograph from Jingle’s: E-beth. So Elizabeth Jackson was definitely a person of interest.

  He looked back at the photo of Soy Fest 1968 (Jen & Judith’s engagement). Yup. Same Jen. Where was Judith here? Literally out of the picture. Good old Jen got around—the bitch.

  Laying down Soy Fest 1968, he picked up a color snapshot (dated 1995) of three chubby goddamn middle-aged dykes, the same Diane, Jen & Anne, sitting in a row of kitchen chairs while an unknown butch, apparently Rainbow, stood behind a tiny table with a blue-checked cloth; the table was set with apples, pastries, tea and paper plates. Fuck them all.

  He redeployed the snapshot of Waiting for E., Stanford ’74. Blind alley. Time to make Judy steal some more.

  At the Y Bar he now made nice with Neva, pretending to be under her so-called spell, regaling her with what was called important chickenshit in the cop shop.—I was the youngest to make sergeant, he informed her, and Judy, who had never heard this, glowed like a goddamn radioactive dildo, while even Francine looked impressed.

  Back then we had our own way of enforcing things, he explained, and Shantelle (who had been wishing she could afford to buy the lesbian long black leather pants like the celebrity Olivia Culpa wore) stopped doing her nails to listen. The deal was to be a cowboy and use your own imagination and keep the bad guys moving. We had a whole book of mug shots and cars, so we knew who the bad guys were. We knew what the rules were and they knew what the rules were. The idea was to keep them off their guard. If they were driving slowly in a shopping mall lot we would enforce the vagrancy laws against them; this was prevention more than apprehension.

  Seven dollars, said Francine. Actually, you know fuckin’ what, J. D.? This one’s on the house. Your stories are amazing.

  Thanks, baby, he said, watching the lesbian’s lip form in another of what he called her camouflage smiles.

  So, he continued, I saw these two guys in a red Chevy Viper 6, you know, the yuppie car of the day, and it didn’t look like they belonged in it. Back in the day, we used to say JDLR—

  Just don’t look right, the transwoman proudly interpreted.

  Good job, Judy. But don’t interrupt Daddy, or I’ll spank you. Well, and then I got a call on fraudulent use of a credit card, but what happened was the bellhop from the Sleepytime Motel in Daly City remembered someone leaving in a red Chevy Viper, so I went in and got security; we keyed it open, and it’s up against the wall, asshole!

  Shantelle’s mouth opened. She said: J. D., how could you not be scared when you busted in there?

  I was nuts. I’m still nuts. So I liked it. You really act; you don’t have time to think. You know, there’s real fear, too, but action overcomes any real sense of fear.

  This one’s on you, said Francine. Seven dollars.

  Actually, said the lesbian, let me buy him a drink.—Out came a hundred-dollar bill.

  Looking her up and down, he said: And then of course I’ve got to have an airtight case.

  2

  A twentyish man with hair pomaded just so sat down at the bar and waited.

  What can I get you? asked Francine.

  Actually, he replied, I do think I would be willing to try a margarita with one and a half limes muddled in and, let’s see, exactly two fingers of Porfirio Díaz añejo tequila.

  We don’t carry that brand.

  Well, what do you carry?

  Sir, our tequila’s all on this shelf right in front of you, so you figure out what you want while I help my other customers. Xenia, you ready for a refill?

  Yeah. And I’m buying for Hunter.

  Where is she? She complains when her ice melts.

  She just texted me; she’s right around the corner. I want to be a good girlfriend and—

  Fine. I’ll put her ice in a cup and she can add it herself. Ten dollars.

  Excuse me, said the pomaded man.

  All right, sir, do you know what you want?

  I do want to reach out to you, said the man, just to let you know that your customer service is not what I expect, you know, when I go out.

  So sorry, said Francine, gritting her teeth.

  And I’m going to send out a negative review of you and your establishment on metrodrinky.com. Are you familiar with metrodrinky.com? Because it’s a very, very—

  Fuck you, said Francine, and all the rest of us cheered.

  Stunned and pale, the young man got to his feet and ran out, looking over his shoulder as if he expected us to assault him. Francine said: Hey everybody, thanks for having my back. How about a round on the house?

  And then Hunter came in, surprised and delighted to find her fresh-made double Slambang awaiting her, while Judy came out of the bathroom grinning and stinking like vomit.

  3

  Behind the cash register at the Y Bar leaned that seldom remarked glassed and framed four-by-six-inch color snapshot of two darkhaired women in bluejeans leaning in against each other and resting their arms on a blonde in a broadbrimmed hat who was smiling, holding each one’s hand. After the blonde, the brunette on the right looked happiest, and then the brunette on the left, with hard Appalachian features, holding tight to the other two, but not really smiling, almost desperate.

  Although she had altered her appearance since then, the retired policeman recognized the brunette as Francine—who at Shantelle’s request now increased the volume of the television, because it was declaiming: Police say they are investigating an assault on two transgender women by four men who had been harassing them because of their gender identity. The video went viral on www.hatecrimesxxx.com and shows the women being threatened and insulted for about three minutes, until a man kicked at one of the women. When her friend tried to defend her, she was attacked by other men, beaten and stripped naked.

  Turning to Judy, Shantelle (trying to smile in the mirror so that she would look like the celebrity Lupita Nyong’o, although no mat
ter what she did, Shantelle’s smile didn’t look nice) raised her glass and said: Hey, bitch, ain’t that your fantasy?

  Show some respect, said Francine.

  People on the bus made no effort to stop the assault. Instead, many cheered and took videos on their phones. The women told reporters that the incident had led them to move out of state.

  Shantelle said: I can’t help but feel like one of them T-girls was instigating the fight. I ain’t saying those dudes had any right to fuckin’ touch her, but I for one wouldn’t never be screaming in the faces of a group of males who outnumber me on a bus at night—

  Sure you would, said Francine, and she was so right that we all laughed. That was how we put that latest hate crime behind us.

  Groaning, the retired policeman got up. Judy hastened to take his hand. They went slowly home to Empire Residences, where he lay down and said: Judy, I told you you’re going to be my eyes and ears. And you’ve done a damn good job with those photos. Do you know what flagrante delicto means?

  No, J. D., I never took Latin.

  It means something like busted in the middle of the act. You know that story Shantelle likes to drop about the time she saw a pair of earrings at the jewelry counter at Gracey’s Emporium and couldn’t help but take ’em?

  The transwoman nodded, fascinated.

  Well, she either took ’em or she didn’t. We don’t know. But if we’d seen her take ’em, that would be flagrante delicto. You get it now?

  She nodded again.

  So the plan is, we want to catch your little Karen in flagrante delicto. And I think she’s got something to do with credit card fraud, he explained.

  Oh, J. D., you’re so smart!

  . . . Then his penis exploded again and again into her mouth like a machine gun.

  The Lucky Star

  But I’ve always said that I was born under a Lucky Star, somewhere Over the Rainbow.

  JUDY GARLAND, 1940

  A woman’s natural quality is to attract, and having attracted, to enchain.

  MRS. H. R. HAWEIS, 1878

  1

  Next Xenia got to have the lesbian again; and if Xenia’s story could be as joyful as she longed it to be, it would be safely enclosed within the rarely fortunate case of a woman who is instructed by Truth Herself . . . and through the agency of another woman!—since like best follows like.

  The rich complexity of the lesbian’s wonderfully sweaty hair expanded beneath Xenia’s fingertips, until it almost seemed that she was recognizing and loving each dark brown strand for its own self. Stroking the lesbian’s creamy biceps was like sliding over an endless perfect surface, roaming frictionlessly over an impossible smoothness. With sudden greedy anxiety she wondered what part of this body she might be missing. She needed to adore all of her. The best place therefore would be her anus. Whispering to the other woman to please roll over, she first laid down her head on those soft buttocks, then began gripping and kneading them in a fury of pleasure. Now she pulled them apart, and there was the little round hole with its halo of pink. Hungrily she plumped her mouth against it and began to lick, round and round and round. It tasted sweet, bitter and very clean. After awhile the lesbian began moaning softly. This stimulated the worshipper all the more, and before she knew it she was breathing fast and begging the lesbian: Pee in my mouth, oh, please . . .

  Are you sure?

  Oh, yes, Neva, because that’s what you did for Judy.

  She told you that?

  No, Shantelle did. Please, honey, that’s what I need right now from you . . .

  And so the lesbian found herself squatting an inch above Xenia’s mouth, slowly, lovingly giving her first a few almost tasteless droplets and then the entire warm stream that tasted faintly like tea and somehow conveyed to Xenia (her eyes were closed, to keep them from getting wet) a silvery impression; it actually tasted like silver, which is to say quiet, lovely, glowingly metallic, not luminous in and of itself but reflective of the light of her who was giving it.

  Neva, do you love me the most?

  I love everyone the most.

  What about Judy?

  The same.

  But I’m smarter, and I don’t whine and I do not stink.

  Why talk about Judy behind her back?

  But what is it about her? The way you’re being, it’s hurtful to me. Neva, I’m a human being, and I deserve to be loved right.

  The thing is—

  You are so insensitive! Don’t you get it? I’m offering you everything, and you—oh, fuck you . . . Neva, don’t forget how fucked up I am. I’m lonely! Please help me all the time.

  I’ll think of you all the time, but I won’t be there all the time. Honey, try your best . . .

  2

  When Xenia was home, trying to force herself to spend the whole goddamn night with whiny Hunter, all the time thinking back on the things that she and Neva had done, it began to seem that if she had not been in that condition of magic rapture, the lesbian’s pussy would have tasted stronger than it did, for there had been much sweating and pissing without showering; moreover its various grooves, platforms, ridges, cavities and zones would have been more distinct; another woman might have demanded: focus on my clit!, and it was not that there was no clit, but somehow the pussy had become greater and more mysterious and at the same time more one entity, a kind of sweet-tasting fiery jelly whose awareness was far greater than Xenia’s and whose ability to receive Xenia’s love was both endless and perceptible; it waxed hot and liquid, trembled internally and coerced them both into uttering stroboscopic moans. Remembering how I always told my penis: pay attention to the cunt!, Xenia wondered whether the lesbian could somehow become nothing less than pure cunt, loving and excited and receptive without individuality, and yet utterly conscious; that was what Xenia wanted to be, in order to escape her future of loss.

  Hunter was staring at her sadly, so Xenia fed them each two opioids.

  3

  Having patched up their latest contretemps, they set Neva aside and decided on a Saturday outing in Tiburon. (Judy, who was looking distinctly more slender, gave them plastic-wrapped flowers, and Hunter said: Awww!) Xenia was in the back seat of Hunter’s car, with Hunter’s brother’s big white dog drooling on her wrist and breathing moist foul breath in her face. The smell became less tolerable. Meanwhile, Hunter was in the front passenger seat, chatting with her brother and sucking on a hot-cinnamon-flavored gumball, whose sickening artificial sweetness rose out on Hunter’s breath and diffused through the entire car. Xenia rolled down her window.—Would you mind? said Hunter’s brother. We can’t hear a thing.—Xenia rolled the window back up. The nauseating odors made her stomach ache sharply. She pushed the dog’s head away from her. Regarding her mildly, the dog strained against her hand. She was sweating with nausea. Cool drops sprang out on her forehead and ran into her eyes. A migraine’s rhythmic assaults inside her head increased her misery, but not as much as the hot flash or whatever it was that drenched her hair and neck and glued her blouse to her back, her pants to her thighs—so that she suddenly understood that she must be in withdrawal, but for what?

  She was jonesing for the lesbian.

  Oh, she loved so much to lie there drinking in the lesbian’s caresses; wherever she was touched, that part of her began to sing! She could hardly wait to get away from Hunter—

  4

  Once upon a time she had temporarily inhabited the tall narrow golden glow of the Best Hotel. Once she had had a wife, and twice a husband. She’d once cohabited with a lady who’d purchased tits in Mexicali and whose cock retained its original powers; the lady then seduced a rich jet pilot, elevating Xenia into free loneliness. Now she had Neva.—She washed her face, then lay down awhile in her darling’s arms. But what if their date were to come to an end? Was she wasting her eternity? Sitting up and groping round for her strap-on so that she could penetr
ate the lesbian, she suddenly felt dizzy and almost nauseous. The pleasure was nearly too much. The light seemed to be flickering, which made the shadows pulse. The stripes on the sheets began flashing so overwhelmingly that vomit rose into her mouth, and she swallowed it down, not wishing to disgrace herself there in the lesbian’s bed. She closed her eyes.—The lesbian said: What’s wrong, honey?—Oozing back down beside her where everything was so soft and perfect and only good things could happen, Xenia said: I don’t want to; it’s too cold up there so far away from you . . .—and burst into tears. Comfortingly the lesbian held and began deeply kissing her so that their tongues whirled round and round in each other’s mouths. Xenia was screaming with pleasure, but the lesbian’s tongue kept the sound from coming out, and the pleasure was heightened for being thus restrained, controlled by her. Now the lesbian, knowing what she wanted, lay down on top of her with all her weight and gripped her wrists. She said: Xenia, you’re my prisoner and I can do to you whatever I want to. And what I want to do is kiss you and kiss you, oh, yes, honey, to kiss you . . . and gripped Xenia’s tongue between her teeth, all the while rubbing their nipples together, and almost at once Xenia began convulsing in an orgasm so unbearably perfect that she wished to die from it.

  And later, possibly because she was still coming down from the experience, the scent of Neva’s concentrated urine in the unflushed toilet was wildly exciting to her, as if she were a stag and Neva a pissing doe in estrus.

  But afterward (because only gods and goddesses need not pay for their pleasures) the food tasted sickeningly greasy and salty, although it was only stir-fried vegetables with no salt in it.