The Lucky Star

by William T. Vollmann

  Meanwhile Hunter rushed triumphantly over to the lesbian’s.

  Neva, she said, I’m all yours. I broke up with Xenia and I’m feeling so free—

  Honey, are you okay? asked the lesbian.

  I feel fucking great! Should have done this months ago! Oh, Neva, Neva, Neva!

  Come in, said the lesbian.

  Hunter said: The reason I’ve been so sad was that I loved only you, but I had to pretend for Xenia. She’s so goddamned fragile. But you know how I found the strength? I realized I could do this for us.

  The lesbian held her hand.

  Oh, Neva, I’m so crazy about you! I can’t think of anything but . . . Fuck me now.

  The lesbian obliged.

  Then Hunter said: I’m moving in with you. And I want to marry you. Francine says we can celebrate at the bar. You remember Selene’s wedding? That’s where we met . . .

  Inhaling her entreaties, the lesbian held her for a long time, until the buzzer rang: my turn.

  6

  And then, said the retired policeman, when I was putting the cuffs on he kept whining: Officer, that’s not rape; I’m only ripping off a little pussy! The whole force was laughing all night.

  Ha ha, said Judy, who was curling her eyelashes.

  Do you have a date with Neva?

  Oh, I’m just going out to make a little money.

  With Al?

  How did you know?

  I always know. Well, brush your stinkin’ teeth when you’re done.

  I promise.

  And off she went to warm Neva’s bed. She hugged me as I was leaving.

  7

  Hunter went out into six-o’-clock on a Friday evening, where foreign tourist families caught the breeze in Union Square, as the cable car, so packed with riders that some of them leaned outward through the open doorways, rang its friendly yet authoritative bell and, flying its flags, clanked down the metal grooves of Powell Street to a place where a corner branch of a national bank pretended to be glamorous, a police car sirened its dangerously rapid way through traffic, and a longhaired young Brazilian woman came running up to someone, beaming, with her cell phone angled outward. Just as a murder may be classified by whether or not the victim’s pockets were turned out, so lives may as well be sorted based on the presence or absence of sadness. Hunter was a sad one, but on the curb a femme was hugging a chunky black-clad butch; they stood looking into each other’s eyes, then simultaneously stared down at their white-glowing phones. Weren’t they an inspiration? Hunter licked her lips, but Neva’s taste had been swallowed away. As for Xenia, Hunter now subscribed to the retired policeman’s line: That goddamned cunt couldn’t pass her polygraph.—Three yellow taxi cabs, a grey one and a white one underscored the red awnings and plate glass windows of the lingerie shop, and the wind blew cooler. Storey after yellow-bricked storey of the Chancellor Hotel punched a salient high into the indifferent sky. The angled fire escape ladder between each two balconies combined with them to make a Z. And those Zs went up, over and over into the cloudlessness. A middle-aged chestnut blonde in a floral-patterned knee-length skirt stopped on the corner, aimed her cell phone, and took a photo of that towering brickscape. A man in a grey-blue suit stood on a traffic island, leaning over a little woman and shaking his fist in her face. Then they both boarded the cable car. The amplified street prophet cried: No amount of good works that you can do can restore you to God. It says in First Corinthians . . .

  Fuck you, said Hunter.

  Hearing her, the prophet insisted: Oh, no, sister; we’re all valuable to God. He had you on His drawing board. The claims that Jesus made . . . Because if you look at all of Jesus’s teachings . . . because He said I am the Door. It was not Moses; it was My Father, and anyone who eats of his bread . . . I am the living bread . . . Eat of Me and you will live forever.

  But I don’t want to, said Hunter.

  8

  As soon as Sandra and the transwoman came into the Y Bar, Francine crooked her finger at them, which she had never done before, and as they prepared to take their accustomed stools before the center of the counter, she beckoned them to the end, which people sat at only because they were ignoramuses or because the place was otherwise full, because the smell of the toilets reached here; when they were safely out of earshot of everyone but me, Francine leaned forward to say in the lowest voice she could (whispering had always been beyond her): Hunter hanged herself this morning. I just got a call from her mother. Nobody else knows yet; the police were really nice and said they’d keep it quiet as long as they could.

  Sandra began weeping. She looked beautiful with her tearstained freckles and her big brown eyes and her long caramel-red hair. She kept choking: I’m sorry; I’m so, so sorry . . .

  Judy said: We need to find Neva right away.

  Find her? You know where she is, said Francine. Seeing somebody, as you would put it. They won’t like being interrupted. Better to call—

  I’m trying now, said Sandra. Oh. Her phone is off and her voicemail is full.

  Maybe it’s messages from Hunter—

  Or else Xenia found out and—

  Where is Xenia?

  She must be at work—

  What’s Neva going to do?

  You know how she takes on everything. We have to make sure she doesn’t blame herself—

  Francine had already poured each woman her usual. She wouldn’t take any money. Suddenly she rushed into the powder room, coming out pale, with bloodshot eyes.

  Sandra said: I really think we should go and be with Neva right now.

  Okay, said the transwoman.

  I stood up and said: I’ll go, too.

  Oh, you heard? said Sandra. Judy said nothing, but took my hand.

  Just then Shantelle came in.—Don’t tell her, Judy whispered in high excitement. Quick, let’s just go . . .

  So we did. When the elevator doors parted we saw the police, but they were merely handcuffing the wife-beater in Room 541. Catalina’s door was closed; likewise Victoria’s. The lesbian opened her door immediately. She too had been crying, but when Judy later reported that to the retired policeman, he opined, as would the straight man, that she had faked it. As soon as they came in, the two women embraced her, and she sagged between them, exploding with sobs. I stood wondering what to do. In the living room, sitting on the sofa, was Jayna the beautician, who by some coincidence also loved the lesbian, and had evidently offered up her service, for a white towel lay outspread beside her, bearing shears and a pile of the lesbian’s adorable hair. When the transwoman saw that, she unconsciously and helplessly inhaled. All she could think of now was how she might steal a handful of those precious strands.

  Jayna did not get up to greet us. On her face we visitors saw the look we knew so well from each other’s faces—the look of coitus interruptus.

  Neva, honey, how are you managing?

  I’m trying to be happy, because it’s what she wanted . . .

  What about Xenia?

  Not wishing to inflict myself on others, I sat down alone in the kitchenette with the light off. After awhile Neva came to me and touched my shoulder. I asked her to sit on my lap and she did. Jayna regarded me with jealous dislike. Meanwhile, Judy broke out a fifth of Old Crow from her purse and poured us each a shot. She said: Neva, maybe I’m out of line to ask this, but is it true that you and Hunter were getting married?

  That’s what she wanted, the lesbian repeated.

  But were you?

  No. That’s why she . . .

  Neva, baby, said Sandra, I love you so so much! And this was not your fault! I’ll be thinking about you all the time. If you need me to come over and—

  Same here, said Judy quickly.

  As it happens, said Jayna, I was already here.

  Then Shantelle came rushing in. She said: Did you hear that Hunter offed her
self? Her Mama had to break the bedroom door down but by then it was too late. And they said the bitch’s face swelled up like a, I dunno, a goddamn balloon, all ’cause Neva wouldn’t put out! Now that’s what I call a fuckin’ compliment. Neva, honey, we’re all of us gonna be dyin’ for you . . .

  The lesbian stood up. That was the first time I ever saw her flinch.

  Look at her! Shantelle gloated. Bitch can’t take the heat—

  Hoping to protect Neva, I approached the snakelike woman in that spirit of deferential, almost fawning discretion appropriate to our mutual business; impatiently she accompanied me to the bathroom, saying: Well, whadya want?

  I still could not imagine what I would say, but a half-seen idea, like a long school bus suddenly emerging into view of my corner window, and then melting into the fog, leaving behind a bright yellow impression of softened butter, finally inspired me thus: Shantelle, I’m jonesing bad—

  So fuckin’ what? Am I your bitch?

  I said the first thing that came into my head: Hey, I want to do what Hunter did, but I don’t want to suffer. Can you fix me up?

  With the cold-eyed caution of a middle manager who has never possessed a senior executive’s power, and therefore escaped many self-delusions, she said: Don’t bullshit me.

  Help me out and I’ll give you my turn.

  With her? Again? Can’t you get it up no more?

  My business is my business, I said.

  Then it sure ain’t mine, so fuck you. Anyhow, you had your turn yesterday.

  I traded with Al, so there’s one coming to me tomorrow.

  Fine. You always been straight with me. You want high-class China white or straight fentanyl?

  Logic time, I said. If I paid you for heroin you’d just give me fentanyl because once I croak I can’t complain, right?

  Shantelle laughed, hugged me and said: Oh, I just love you!

  Now look, I said. I want the good stuff. If it’s fifty times stronger than heroin, half a gram should be way more than enough. But let me buy a whole gram, just to—

  You’re ridiculous. A hundred micrograms is gonna be, like, Richard, good fuckin’ night. Ha, ha, ha! Good night, motherfucker!

  Are you sure?

  Yeah yeah yeah. Gimme the money.

  How much?

  Eighty dollars.

  By now Neva had composed herself, but I had to go through with it for the sake of consistency. I gave Shantelle four twenties—enough to kill four of us if the stuff was pure enough. She promised delivery tomorrow when the Y Bar opened. We understood each other. Then she got back into her usual groove, calling Neva that dumb little white girl, that skanky white bitch.—I can’t be her friend no more. She don’t respect herself . . .—When I left, she was sucking Neva’s earlobe and Jayna had smashed a coffee cup on the floor.

  Now I had no money for dinner. I went home and brushed my teeth over and over, so that the stinging clean flavor of Minty-Hinty toothpaste would trick me out of being hungry. Unfortunately, my gums kept bleeding, so the taste was foul, just like my life. I might have dated Francine, but she was on shift, and besides, what if we brought each other down?

  The next day Shantelle was only half an hour late. She had the stuff: a fingernail’s worth of powder in a wrinkled plastic bag. She said: Remember me in your will!

  I tried to think of a comeback; I wanted to delight her with some cleverly obscene bequest, but my comedy generator was burned out, probably because I had lost tonight’s turn with Neva.

  When are you gonna do it? she asked. Lemme be there; I wanna watch. And J. D.’s gonna love it; you know how that fucker is.

  I said: It might just be insurance.

  In fact the fentanyl went to a different purpose, because the next time I was with Neva I told her all about it, to remind her how much I loved her. We were sitting in her kitchenette. She knew I was hungry, so she had made us tomato soup with crackers crumbled on top. When I finished, she laid her hand on mine and said: Please give your stuff to me.

  And right away I felt pleasure and relief. Of course it was Neva that I had bought the poison for!—Back in the days when I still read literature, and sometimes even by mistake great literature, the rule used to be that if a gun appears in Acts II or III, it had better go off in Act V. Hence I now promised myself never to be surprised if and when she did it.

  9

  She gave Xenia an extra turn, of course. That lady, grieving for Hunter, raging at her and of course blaming herself, followed the path of self-sufficiency; in other words, she tried to hide her feelings. Bearing patiently the smell of her old age, the lesbian serviced her until she was ready to weep and be held.

  Next she called Francine to check on the latter’s liver biopsy: clean. Then she fucked Shantelle for two hours (that would have been my turn); and because this woman was enjoying her so much, growing so elated that the lesbian refused to be cruel and explain who she was, it might have been the best ever: Shantelle’s orgasmic cries resembled the screams of a mother who has just been presented with her daughter’s corpse at the morgue.—Dutiful Neva!—She felt a light and peaceful emptiness, as if she had secretly purged her stomach of every meal she had eaten for many days; she felt dizzy and her ears were ringing, and she felt safely cut off from everything.

  10

  She attended Hunter’s funeral. Again she became the transwoman’s psychotherapist, first for forty-five minutes on the phone, then for a half-hour emergency hug-and-suck. After that it was time to service the straight man. Twisting Neva’s breast as earnestly as Natalie Wood tuning both knobs of her squarish blue television set, Xenia penetrated her from behind with a double dildo. Bracing herself wearily on her hands and knees, she managed not to be overwhelmed by Xenia’s panting. (How they loved each other!) Then she gave Sandra just what she needed; she even made time for Samantha, Selene and me, not to mention Victoria—who had no anxiety about anything now, because lying in the lesbian’s arms took that away. By then Neva felt pretty tired, I can tell you! As soon as she had fulfilled these obligations, and gotten rid of us, she sat on the edge of her fresh-made bed, rocking back and forth.

  Neva’s Surprise

  I hope . . . that other girls who read Joan’s bitter story will learn the folly of entering into a Lesbian relationship.

  LIFE ROMANCES magazine, 1953

  1

  All right, said the retired policeman, scratching his belly. So start with what you do remember.

  I was supposed to meet her at Ladykiller’s—

  Why not the Y Bar?

  I don’t know. Anyway, as you know, I usually came to her place—

  So what did she say?

  She texted, to say that—

  Show me.

  I can’t. I was so upset when she stood me up that I wasn’t paying attention, and my phone fell into the toilet.

  Frank, you sure are a pathetic bitch. Well, when was the last time you saw her?

  At her place.

  And how did she act then? asked her lover, beginning to enjoy himself.

  Wonderful. Same as ever.

  And if she’d had something on her mind, would you have noticed?

  Of course. Neva and I are soul mates.

  Judy, you’re a piece of work. Can you remember one goddamned thing she said?

  She said she loved me.

  So what else is new? I give up. I can’t fuckin’ help you. End of investigation. Neva’s tired of you and everybody else. She’s seducing new people. Bring me a beer. But first, watch this! I’m calling your fuckin’ phone, and even though you tried to trick me and put it on vibrate, I can see your stupid purse move! Why’d you lie to me, Frank?

  Because—because she—

  Answer me right now, you faggot sonofabitch!

  Please, please don’t! Now I’m so afraid . . .

  Good. The
n give.

  Neva promised to move in with me. She gave up her place yesterday. Her roller bag’s in my—

  And what about me?

  I . . . I don’t know.

  So that’s how it is. True love. You lied to me and now she lied to you. Ain’t that poetic justice?

  Oh, God, oh God! I’m so sorry but I just couldn’t—

  He slapped her lightly on the cheek. She dared not even cringe. He slapped her again. Then he said: Now, Frank, what’s the main difference between you lying to me and Karen lying to you? Which is worse? How long’ve we been together? Answer me. Better yet, answer your stinkin’ phone. Looks like you’re in luck, boy! Must be Karen. Your shitty old purse is vibrating like mad. Go ahead, Frank. Answer it right here in front of me.