The Royal Family

by William T. Vollmann

  Anybody got somethin’ to say, better say it, shrilled the Queen, the corners of her mouth twitching and grimacing like unquiet water in its tides.

  So I think we should find this Brady man, said Domino. And I want us to find this part of this Brady man, she added laughingly, wrenching her favorite dildo, Clitilda, from its altar beneath her armpit where it always stayed when it was not in the abandoned meatpacking plant in her striptease cage improvised from wire and stolen parking meters. (She had constructed it, with the tall man’s paid help, because it had always been Domino’s dream to strut on a stage and get applause and big money without even having a customer breathe on her, but she was too old now for that and too abscessed.)

  And do what? You heard me say we can’t ex him.

  Why not?

  C’mon, Dom. You was there in that Vietnamese restaurant with me an’ Henry an’ Danny Smooth when I opened the Book. You know why.

  Domino’s face turned scarlet with humiliation and rage, and she hung her head. Later, when the tall man tried to remember what Domino had said about Brady, he could not be certain that he’d really heard anything, because, after all, the blonde uttered such poisonous statements day and night that it was better not to listen. He was the only one who even attempted to remember.

  The thing about the Queen is she teaches you things, whispered Lily, whose legs were were blotchy and stringy like a mummy’s flesh. If you pay attention, Queen’s gonna show you how to—

  Because you wanted to be one step ahead of the police, right? demanded the crazy whore, stroking the TV’s withered wires which resembled dead branches. —I mean, you wanted to have a mutual slumber party. Isn’t that what you’re saying? But the police want to search for somebody who’s awake. So stay asleep, Maj. Don’t stay awake.

  Well, Mary, said Domino drily, I know that’s how you go through life.

  I doan want to qvarrer with anyone, whispered Yellow Bird, but the crazy whore, acknowledging this advice with an eloquent wave, leaned forward and said: Domino, you think of beauty as something skin deep. The first thing is, you’re jealous of the Queen for trying to go to sleep as soon as she hears about anything. Because you’re just somebody intelligent who’s had weapons used on you, so you want to use music on her but I’m completely innocent.

  Fuck off, you crazy bedbug.

  Gun up! cried the Queen. All of you pay this some mind. Get ready, now.

  Why don’t we just leave town? Strawberry said. Me and Chocolate, we were talkin’, and we thought maybe up in Fairbanks there’s a lot of action and the Vice cops won’t know us when we get there, so I thought maybe—

  You ever been to Alaska? the Queen inquired mildly.

  Well, I had an opportunity once and I should have taken it since I just pissed away my money anyhow.

  Lot of girls comin’ up missing even there, said Bernadette through parted lips and wise eyes. Some Canadian chick was tellin’ me they just wind up dead, so many girls now, shit, I dunno, seven, eight—

  The Queen leaned her weary head back against the wall and closed her eyes, on her lips a sad half-smile which almost broke everybody’s heart.

  What’s up, Maj, what’s up? cried the tall man.

  My blood pressure, she said.

  I prefer to give those sonsofbitches the slip, Domino opined then. Hell, I can always leave town. I don’t know about the rest of you sluts . . .

  And which town you fixin’ to go to?

  What the fuck’s the difference? Any town’ll work. Any town where men have cocks and wallets.

  And if they follow you there?

  Busted is busted, Maj. Excuse my French, but I’ve been there before.

  Fine, said the Queen. So Domino’s headed for Vallejo or Stockton or maybe Idaho Falls. Anybody else?

  Lily giggled in a panic, but finally managed to say: If somebody’s spying, and you take a radius of four blocks and cut that radius down, I discover that in that whole four block radius I can hear what they’re saying when they’re talking about me. For instance, this old lady said I was pretty. She came to check me out: You are pretty. I’m not sticking it in right now, she said, because it don’t have what it takes to stick it in you; I’m saying it was an incident of look and blah-blah-blah . . .

  You do this for a living? Domino sneered at her.

  Thank you, Lily, said the Queen. Anybody else have something to mention?

  Beatrice gave me these jeans, continued Lily with a horribly anxious smile, afraid that she had already said something bad or wrong. —I had to cut ’em up, though. I just get afraid somebody’s gonna cut me up . . .

  Oh, shut up, bitch, said Domino.

  Dom, you got to calm down tonight, said the Queen.

  Go fuck yourself, Maj.

  I mean it. We got a problem and we need to scope things out.

  When those vigs get a bug in their ass, they don’t quit, the tall man said at last. I reckon they’re gonna be gunning for us. Maybe I can knock a couple of their fuckin’ heads together . . .

  Nobody in this room cares about me, Domino said. You’re all just going to abandon me when Brady drops his dime. And, Maj, you’ve changed. All you care about’s that bastard over there. And what’s that bastard got to do with anything?

  Henry here’s my main man.

  Tyler cleared his throat and said: Hey, I’m on your side, Domino. We just need to figure—

  Will you shut the fuck up?

  Opening one eye, Sapphire clutched the hem of the Queen’s skirt and began to whimper.

  Sure, honey, Tyler said with a bitter and sophomoric grin.

  The Queen parted her lips slowly to let the cracksmoke out and said: Now listen up. If something happens to me, part of me gonna go inside Sapphire. Not every part, but the love part, yeah, the soul part. So please please please take care of her.

  What the fuck’s that supposed to mean? shouted Domino. What does that idiot slut have that I don’t have?

  Anxious Bernadette combed back her hair over and over, swaying back and forth as if she were listening to rap music through her headphones as she usually did when she was waiting to get dated at Sixteenth and Capp because that shut life out, and now she was pretending that if she rocked her body she could shut out what was happening here, but she could not, and her liquid eyes stared sidelong at Domino, whom she pitied and of whom she was afraid.

  Dom, you ever made love with Sapphire?

  I—

  Answer the question, bitch! cried the tall man, who stank of fear and rage.

  I—Justin, I—no.

  Allrightie then, said the Queen. Saph, wake up, little sweetie. Open that eye up again. Now the other one. That’s right. That’s right. Are you my honey? Are you my good girl? Saph, go over there an’ suck Domino’s pussy. Gotta teach her something. Don’t be afraid. She won’t hurt you.

  No! screamed Domino. Not with all of you looking! You fuckers!

  Sorry, bitch, but tonight I just don’t have no more patience, hissed the Queen, staring into Domino’s eyes. This can’t always be just about you.

  And, rising, she strode over to the blonde and breathed once into her face. From where he sat, Tyler could see only the back of Domino’s head, but the Queen’s features were plain to him now: flat, steep, hard and blank like one of those high Tenderloin brickfronts studded with dark curtained windows whose lurking inmates could see out and not be seen, brickfronts painted with the names of long bankrupted businesses, walls dropping remorselessly down to steel gratings and dull parking meters and then dark and dirty streets. The Queen was slender, but so were the old Tenderloin skyscrapers seen from a long way off; and he felt that she was already so far away from him and everyone, and perhaps her immense isolation had simply been hidden all this while by everyone’s longing to be taken care of without questions or reservations, and now what if she were actually evil?

  (Irene had always been afraid of the devil. She couldn’t bear to watch a thirty-second television commercial for a horror movie, in
case there might be something satanic. She was godfearing, yes, but she feared the devil even more, and in her last moments of life what if she’d fallen into a maze of horror, believing that now she’d killed herself the devil would have her in his claws forever? What if the Queen were really the devil, and Tyler now had crossed the demarcation which made him irrevocably hers to sadistically or simply implacably torment as she was about to torment Domino?)

  Now you can’t move, can you? Justin, take her into the bathroom an’ take her pants down an’ lay her down in that bathtub. That’s right. Sapphire, you go in an’ do your thing. Close the door. I said close the door.

  They sat in silence listening until Domino began to moan. She moaned until she screamed. Sapphire was a drug like no other, intense-acting almost to fatality, who gave such deep gratification with her purring, licking mouth that Domino despite herself and the fact that she was being raped could not forbear to feel for at least one instant absolutely and unequivocally loved. Then at last she understood why the idiot girl was called Sapphire.

  You all get it now? said the Queen. Maybe Sapphire’s the one he’s really after. You gotta all take care of Sapphire . . .

  | 345 |

  After a long time Sapphire crept out on her hands and knees, licking her lips and mewling. The tall man got up and closed the door. Then they heard Domino sobbing inside. They heard her buckle her belt, and then the door slammed open and Domino came out, scarlet in the face with her lower lip trembling, and she did not look at the Queen who regarded her with expressionless sorrow, if such a thing is possible, but unlocked the deadbolt and then the other lock and stumbled into the hall and down the stairs.

  Close the door, Lily, the Queen said. This here’s your house. You don’t wanna leave your house open to strangers.

  Giggling in terror, Lily shut the door and locked it.

  Tyler sat very still, feeling sick to his stomach. He could hardly bear to wrest himself from his illusion that the Queen was perfect. But he had seen for himself just how she could be. He could hardly believe it. Her face had altered yet again. It was rounder and older, with glowing globules of radiance dribbling from her mouth and eyes in a strange wormy blur which obscured her from him and all humanity as if she were some waxen golem melting into something squat, ruthless and terrible. He knew that Domino must be sitting on the street somewhere nearby, bent forward, weeping, herself likewise blurred body and soul in the night whose fog was as thick with sadness as wool or old sackcloth, and garish signs announced 99¢ so that she’d know what she and the world were worth, and globes and globules of streetlight, Queenlight attacked her like biting insects.

  But no! She was his Queen! Small and slender, she sat there on the edge of Lily’s mattress gazing at him steadily through her dark and wide-open eyes, the wool cap pulled down all around the top of her skull and her parka buttoned up to her neck and her mouth pouted outward and tight in a calm sad challenge to those who would not know her or understand her, and tears of light ran down her cheeks.

  Henry, you’re so quiet now, she said. What you thinkin’ about all this?

  What do I think about what?

  Whatever.

  Well, the issue of the vigs, I don’t know what to say about that. I—well, what should I think? We’re all waiting for you to tell us how to react. And what you did to Domino just now, well, I guess it seems a little cruel, to me at least. I don’t get it. But I want to believe it’s another test like the false Irene you gave me, because you love Domino, I know you do, and I . . .

  Even you, Henry, she said, slowly shaking her head. Even you.

  Look, Henry, said the tall man. She a leader or not?

  She is.

  Okay. Well, how can she be a leader if she don’t make herself known, eh? And wasn’t Domino tryin’ to obstruct her again?

  Maj, I believe in you, he said. And I’m going to keep trying to believe.

  And what about what we all came here for? said Chocolate. We gonna let Domino just put her hand on us and derail everything? I mean, what we s’posed to do? What did we decide?

  L-luh-luh, replied Sapphire.

  | 346 |

  At five o’clock the next morning Sapphire was out on South Van Ness trying in her inarticulate slobbering way to get a trick so that her sisters would be proud of her because their caresses resembled all the murals on Capp Street whose bright colors comforted Beatrice; so, trusting in the world with all the luminosity of her rotting consciousness, Sapphire crawled and squatted, underwearless, past two blindeyed strutting cops, until she spied in the deep-staired doorway of an old Victorian a bare foot, bluish-white, jerk suddenly out from beneath a blanket, twitch violently, and stiffen. Sapphire looked both ways, just as the Queen had taught her. Inside the dead man’s pocket she found, in addition to three dollars which she hid inside her shoe, as she had seen Beatrice do, a much-handled letter from overseas which said: Dearest husband, to day I’m very happy to get your letter and the Bible from you thank’s for giving me every thing and sad when I never heard from you now about you come to me again. Do you still love me. You don’t know how my heart painful every day waiting for you never have hope now. I know you are so busy than before and maybe my love doesn’t mean for you any more. I don’t know what to do with my life. I’m so lonely and missing you some night I dream about you. Like I walk in the darkness no job no money and you don’t love me like before may be I can have my way finish my life soon. Without you how my life can be. You are my nice husband. To night I can’t sleep so much think about you. I know I no good enough for you I who have nothing you have everything life with someone you love more than me. If I didn’t heard from you and then I know what to do with my life may be kill myself because I always make you trouble. Love my husband to much. P.S. the Bible from you I promiss alway read. Sapphire, who could not read, took this letter to the Queen.

  And you’re sure he’s dead and not passed out? said the Queen.

  L-luh-luh-uh . . . said Sapphire.

  All right, baby. Poor gal. She probably waited and waited for an answer. Maybe she’s still waiting. Justin! Justin!

  What? said the tall man.

  We’re gonna write this girl, and tell her that the man she loved is dead. Can you take care of it?

  All right, Maj, but you gotta gimme the money for an envelope and stamp. I don’t have no stamp money for somebody I don’t even know.

  Sapphire, did he have any money on him?

  Obediently, the palsied girl displayed the three dollars.

  Okay, baby, you gimme a dollar—no, no, give it to Justin over there, that’s right. What a good girl. Come kiss Mama. Okay, now put that two dollars away. Or do you want Mama to keep it for you? You do? Okay. I’m gonna remember. Anytime you want it, you just come ask for it. Well, Justin, you done yet?

  Done? What the fuck am I s’posed to say?

  Say your man passed away. Say he died in no pain.

  How do you know he died in no pain, Maj?

  ’Cause I know. And even if I didn’t know, the whole point is to make her feel good, don’t you see? So just write it.

  Maj?

  What?

  How you spell dead?

  How do you think you spell it? Just write it and stop bothering me. Anyway, it’s more polite to say passed away.

  Then why don’t you write it if you’re so all-fired polite?

  Well. What’s got into you today?

  Just thinkin’ about what you said last night is enough to make anybody feel sour. And when Domino comes flyin’ back here with her claws out, who the hell’s gonna have to deal with it?

  | 347 |

  Look, the tall man said. You think if the Queen orders me to punch concrete and I break my hand, Queen’s gonna pay for it?

  She—

  Damn right she will, Domino. She’s the good Queen. And you’re no fuckin’ good. You understand?

  Oh, go to hell.

  And you know what else? They may drink her spit, but they all go
tta kiss my ass, said Justin with satisfaction. I’m the shot-caller around here. And I’m tellin’ you right now, bitch, to go in there and get down on your knees and ’pologize. Know why? ’Cause you was at fault. You wrecked that meeting last night out of your meanness. Maj had to shut youup. . .

  I didn’t wreck anything, cocksucker, so don’t you tell me—

  Maj wanna beat up on you, you better let her. ’Cause you just a little fool. Just a little honky fool.

  | 348 |

  What passed between Domino and the Queen nobody else knew, but when the tall man, pacing anxiously outside, reentered the tunnel at the Queen’s summons, he found the two women holding hands as they sometimes used to do, although the Queen’s face was expressionless and Domino’s wore a look of strain. (Sure, said the Queen, sometimes Domino and me, we get on each other’s nerves, but we stick together, don’t we, Dom? We help each other.)

  Once the blonde learned that for her grief was precisely the same as rage, she thought that she would craze and break suddenly, but didn’t, and because she could not let the poisoned feelings out, there was an ache in her chest, a throbbing at the back of her neck, as they sought to expend themselves by wrecking her body a little, making headaches and ulcers and sleeplessness so that the next morning, sick-faced, she’d get up with her swollen pounding heart the only vital force she had, drearily raging through the day. As she contemplated the Queen, something burned even hotter in her chest and she clenched her teeth. And yet she appeared to love her more than ever, and whenever she could ran fingers and tongue across the Queen’s chocolate stomach with all its grooves and wrinkles and adipose sandbars. There were some, such as the tall man, who said that she had merely donned the mask of goodness out of necessity, and was biding her time to betray the Queen and everyone else to the vigs, and perhaps by the mask of goodness they imagined something akin to Sapphire’s face when the Queen or Beatrice had washed her and combed her hair and trimmed it so that when she gazed straight at somebody with her inhuman eyes and parted her lips as if she would speak there might sometimes be for an instant an esoteric illusion of recognition and mutuality before the saliva began wandering from between her kissable lips. Could it be that neither Sapphire, nor Domino, nor the Queen were human? What were they, then? What were they? —But Domino was orphaned, so she must have been human. Isn’t that what being human means? And if she was an orphan, wouldn’t she seek affection’s pristine balm between the breasts of her dear Queen who’d loved her even as she’d raped her, unless of course the Queen didn’t love her? But this issue, which left Tyler almost anguished to contemplate, actually meant less to the blonde because throughout her life she could hardly continue her signatures of belief for longer than a double-flourish, and so the flickering of interpretation between love and no love had grown so habitual to her that the most ambiguous or even antagonistic act could never be proof, just as the best and most tenderest kindness of anyone could soothe her suspicions only briefly before the hairs started up again on the back of her neck and her gaunt soul growled. The pimp from whom the Queen had saved her had beaten, burned and tortured her, and yet because every week or two he’d grapple her head between his immense cruel hands and whisper that he loved her, she couldn’t fix her heart’s compass needle eternally to hatred; she couldn’t believe or disbelieve in anything, but wandered lost even when she was flat on her back and another man and then another was between her legs, urgently raping her dry womb in exchange for cash, whereas when the Queen raped her that night in Lily’s room it gave her pleasure because Sapphire was a true treasure even asleep on the pillow and now that the Queen had revealed her powers many of the other girls, including shy Beatrice, led her aside to groom her and feed her, then use her as they would use any other drug, so that wherever the Queen and Sapphire stayed, nights were punctuated by screams of pleasure as loud as gunshots. They screamed as if they were being murdered and maybe they were. And Domino cast Beatrice aside and came to Sapphire. What if she’d come back to the Queen, then, simply because she was addictive and addicted, and so she needed the retarded girl more than she hated her Queen? What license did the Queen give her to have intercourse with Sapphire? Hadn’t the Queen in effect sold Sapphire down the river by revealing her inborn skill to those who as a result could never again refrain from using her? Or was that revelation just the necessity-worship of a loving mother, so that Sapphire would be preserved once the Queen was gone?