William Vollmann - The Royal Family

I’d like to spend about a hundred bucks on one of these, he said.

Links style or rope style?

Well, should she hang herself or just be locked up? he said. It’s up to you.

The woman pulled out the first gold chain that came to hand and said: This is probably a little more than a hundred dollars.

And how about that one?

It’s all by weight.

Well, ma’am, then would you mind weighing it for me and telling me how much it is?

The woman sighed heavily, slammed his choice down on the scale, and said: Eighty-three twenty-four.

I hope to see you again before then.

I beg your pardon?

It’s perfect.

The other one’s a hundred twelve.

Oh, I’m a cheapskate. I guess I’ll take the one that caught my eye.

Eighty-nine twenty.

Guess I’d better pay before the price goes up again.

That’s the tax , sir.

It certainly is.

What is your name? I need it for our receipt.

I prefer privacy, thanks, said Tyler.

Sir, you’ll have to give me a name.

Adolf Hitler, said Tyler.

The woman snatched up the gold chain and stalked off to the manager. The manager looked up from the telephone and shot Tyler a sly glance. Tyler gazed back at him serenely.

Returning, the woman wrote C A S H on the receipt.

Why, how did you know my name? said Tyler. I’m Johnny Cash’s third cousin once removed.

I’ll get you a box, said the woman.

She spread the gold chain out on the cotton and tried to stab it down with golden colored pins, which didn’t take. Tyler watched with friendly interest.

What are the pins made of? he inquired.

You can take it from me they’re not real gold, said the woman, giving up her attempt to skewer the chain. She would have been a poor lepidopterist.

Tyler slid his finger under the chain, enjoying the smoothness and cool weight of it, and then he thanked the woman, took the box, and went out.

He awoke with the taste of Irene’s cunt in his mouth.

And now it was Saturday evening near the Tenderloin, and the red lights chirred green and he rolled past the Opera House, accompanied by sparse lights. The greenish dome of City Hall reminded him of Dan Smooth’s head. Straight up through the timed lights on Gough Street was the way to salvation, toward the Bay and the Marin headlands, but he meant to go the other way, down to the grimy darkness where the Queen was. His heart exuded self-praise. Who was he tricking? He didn’t love her; he loved Irene. But he wanted to pay his respects. He wanted to be thanked. He wanted the Queen to know that he continually thought of her. For once, the eyes were not narrowed in his grey face. His confidence, his hope, needed only a couple of finishing touches. It never dawned on him that hanging about the Queen’s court might be as improper a thing for a man to do as joining Apache women at their card games. He’d sent word by way of the parking garage that he was coming, and Beatrice, who was wide, sunny and busy like Mission Street itself with all its palm trees and families, said that the tall man would be meeting him on Larkin and Golden Gate at nine-thirty sharp. He had the gold chain in his coat pocket. It was that which gave him his confidence. Like Celia, who at that very moment sat in an Afghan carpet shop on Polk Street purchasing a magnificent bundle of threads which she could not realistically afford, he believed that offerings of money, being more easily made, were more craftily practical than the other kind. It is written that when the Greeks made sacrifices to Zeus, they threw only entrails into the sacred fire, keeping the meat for themselves. Little wonder that Zeus did not always reciprocate with ready-wrapped treasures.

At the corner, a pert black girl with a hairdo like a giant paintbrush started stretching her arms and shoulders. — You call me, you come to me, she said.

I wish I could, said Tyler. But I have a date with the Queen.

The Queen! she cried in amazement. It won’t work. The conspiracy—

But just then the light changed. He waved and drove on, feeling very loyal. He hadn’t checked his answering machine all day.

The tall man was late. Tyler stood waiting in front of the Mitchell Brothers as if for the strip show, taking his time, until the man behind the window said: Do you want to go in or don’t you? and Tyler said: Well, give me a minute to make up my mind and he leaned there for another ten minutes until the man said: You can’t just stay here. You’ll have to go elsewhere to make your decision… and Tyler said: Now, you say that if I go in now it costs fifteen dollars but half an hour from now it’ll cost twenty-five? and the man said that’s right and Tyler leaned there for another ten minutes and then said: I’m trying to make up my mind whether I’d rather pay fifteen dollars or twenty-five dollars. Can I just wait here for half an hour? — It’s the same show, the man said. — Yes, said Tyler, but somehow I have the feeling that for twenty-five dollars I’ll get more.

So he wasted the man’s time until he saw Justin coming from the direction of the parking garage.

He raised his hat.

Hello, Henry, said the tall man.

Good evening, Justin, said Tyler. How are you and how’s the Queen?

Oh, shitty as always, said the tall man. More goddamned cops and vigs nosing around. Let’s get out of here.

You can’t just stay here, said the man behind the ticket window.

Okay, sir, said Tyler. We’ll be back for the hundred-dollar show.

The tall man led him down Leavenworth Street past a late-night soup restaurant through whose window Tyler glimpsed a slender Vietnamese girl with a rainbow ribbon in her hair; with a rag and window cleaner the girl was wiping each plexiglass-covered table to mirror-ness.

Hey, Justin.

What?

Where are you from, anyway?

I’m concrete. I’m a sidewalk. I come from all over.

When I’m with a woman I come all over, so that makes two of us.

You know what, Henry? You try to be funny, but you ain’t funny. You’re just a sad-assed honky sonofabitch.

Guess my ass would be pretty happy if you stuck your finger up it in the back seat of my faggoty car.

You’re too fuckin’ much. We turn left.

The voice in the first cell — a tremulous old male voice — was saying: When you want to touch her hair you put her hand on your head so she knows you’re not insulting her sacred place, and she smiles, oh, Jesus, that’s how you do it; and then when you eat her out she is, well, she is caressing your hair so, so softly.

Does he have an Oriental gal interrogating him? said the Queen. He’s talking about Oriental gals. He sounds like a nice guy.

Yeah, I think that one no problem, said a smiling Thai girl, sticking her head out from between the red curtains. He just like the girl too much! Very funny, very nice man! Him so good!

All right, let him out, said the Queen.

She kisses you of her own accord but with closed lips, the dreamy old voice went on.

Wait a minute, the Queen said. I don’t like the sound of that. You interrogate him some more.

Her wet, tight, thoroughly delicious cunt… the voice mumbled. I’m so sleepy, but… shaven up to the top, then a nice overhang of hair. Tell her I want to be her friend.

All right, called the Queen. Nothing wrong with any of that. He sounds a little confused, but his heart’s in the right place. Who reported him?

Smooth, said Justin.

Dan Smooth reported him? What’d he say?

Said he hurt a child.

Smooth doesn’t lie about stuff like that. Get to the bottom of it. Tell this guy he’s gotta come clean or I’m gonna cut his balls off and cook ’em and make him eat ’em.