William Vollmann - The Royal Family

He hung up, smacking fist in palm with savage triumph. He led the ranks of fighters now.

The senator came back. The mortician came back. (Babycakes Reed got a raise.) The successful dentist came back. So did the short lesbian with round glasses and long hair and the New York boy, stubbled and self-bared, who loved his toy company. At the Carnal Arcade the barker was shouting: You win, you win! and the New York boy’s boyfriend cried: You’re kickin’ butt! Keep it up! — (The impregnation tables were only marginally profitable, just a convenience for the customer.) One middle-aged woman afflicted with gargoylism was in high demand, as a result of her swollen lips. The lesbian took her. The lesbian loved every minute. The lesbian said: She’s as greenish and sweet as an Egyptian orange! — The junked-out salesman came back. Just last night, he’d gotten a hooker at the Nitecap. He drove with her all the way to Daly City. Then he found out she was a boy. He got so mad he smashed his own TV with an axe. So he was ready now for a close-and-kill at Feminine Circus; he wanted to kick those retard cunts around a little, teach ’em what buying and selling was all about. When he explained his needs, the customer support specialist took him to a hunched little cretin girl without breasts or body hair. At the state fair there’d been a blackheaded goat who whirled its ears and head around, splaying its legs, shitting, looking for escape; again and again the tail lifted, and green pellets like shot tumbled out into the hay. Before he was half through with her, the cretin was like that, squealing in sadness and terror—

Too withdrawn, the doctor said. A little reserpine. But not too much.

That’s good; that’s good, the doctor said.

No, the usual fee will be fine, the doctor said. I’m always glad to help. Really a very interesting operation you have here. Just think of the research!

Ah, there’s a transitional period, of course, the doctor said. But when they begin to appreciate the opportunity they have, to interact with other females in their own ability range…

Babycakes Reed wants another raise, said the slapper.

Give it to her.

In which sense, boss?

Give her the raise.

Wild-eyed, shock-haired, she glared at the successful dentist with window-shadows blocking apart her face like savage pigments, and snot-slugs hung from her nose like ivory ornaments, and pearls of drool streaked down her lower lip like jeweled labrets, and sperm trickled out of her ear like bone earrings of some fantastically meaningless shape; she was hugging a fuzzy toy python around her neck and it was like an exotic fur collar — perfect! he shouted; per- fect!

When the dentist came out, he walked just a bit more rollingly, like a man in bulky coveralls.

Sorry to bug you, boss, said the slapper, but Babycakes Reed wants royalties on the salaries of all her lookalikes.

Tell her we can’t do that.

She’s gonna be a pain in the ass about it, boss.

Give her a pain in the ass — no, better not. She’s high-profile. She might sue. See if you can dope her up and get her fired.

She’s wise to that one.

All right, send her in.

Thank you for seeing me, Mr. Brady, said Babycakes Reed. I know you must be busy.

Yeah.

I surely do it appreciate it, Mr. Brady.

Listen, Babycakes, we’ve given you what you asked for up to now, but if you keep being greedy I’m going to have to cut you loose.

Why, Mr. Brady!

Don’t you Mr. Brady me. Your shit is the same color as mine. I know that for a fact. I’ve got video cameras in all the restrooms.

Mr. Brady, I’m sorry to say that if you take that line with me I’ll be forced to employ a lawyer.

I’m sure you will, Baby. Now why don’t you get out of my office.

It was a week or so after that that the slapper told him about the real Queen of the Whores. Brady decided to hire her. Otherwise, he’d capture and lobotomize her; what a fine novelty fuck she’d make… That was why he’d hired Henry Tyler for what (to be honest) had also been a little slumming vacation. Later, he realized that moral crusades were good for business.

Across the street from Feminine Circus a Canadian consortium had just opened the Parthenon, so there was a press conference and the C.E.O. was saying: Tomorrow there’ll be close to a hundred and forty thousand people in this town who are going to say: What do you want to do today?

Get a whore, mumbled the newsman next to Tyler. Get a whore at Feminine Circus.

So it’s pretty good over there? said Tyler.

Fantastic, man. You get all your feelings out. And it’s not real, so there are no repercussions. You know what I did? I got me this virtual retard bitch and I—

The C.E.O. raised his voice. — And we’re hoping that they’ll say: Let’s check out the Parthenon.

The Sphinx and Robinson Crusoe’s were hoping the same thing — vainly, perhaps, because the Parthenon was going to serve more beer than any place in the world; but on the other hand the Luxor did possess the Sphinx, under whose hollow stuccoed whiteness you could park your car; everywhere was nowhere, and the vista outside was but another show. Bags of money wriggled in the neon sign below the Mirage (this was the owner’s wet dream, whereas the gambler’s wet dream had to do with the long brass bird-neck handle with the black ball on it, inviting you to pull it when you put your money in — thirty-five hundred of those in the MGM Grand). Money was water like those granularly frosted bathroom doors; money was puffs of fire shooting up at the edge of the long Strip that straightarrowed down past the Sands and Harrah’s to the luminescent pink breasts of Feminine Circus, where Tyler saw the cars on the roof of a tall wide garage; and as he watched, one car’s headlights come on, and it turned down into the chucklehole that led it to the Strip’s lights so separate from the Las Vegas skyline whose lights shimmered so quickly and crazily, unlike the steady white lights at the base of palm trees; then Tyler saw a huge coconut palm hung with skulls below Robinson Crusoe’s sign: the effect was all light, an ugly, disposable magic that glowed and sucked the desert’s soul. That was why he decided to go in the opposite direction.

All his cab drivers liked Las Vegas. The economy was good, and they could afford to buy homes there.

I’ve been blowing a ten-dollar roll of quarters a day, to see if Santa would give me something, but so far no good, the driver said.

You mind taking me downtown, just to see what things look like?

That’s all I do anyways, go round and round and round and round.

(Fremont Street was incredibly bright, Binion’s Horseshoe a blue block of wriggling lights.)

Now, the California here, they cater primarily to the Hawaiians, the cab driver said. But these are all locals’ casinos, that put a few rooms out just for tourists, but they’re more diverse, the service is better, the plays are looser, the covers are cheaper — only five bucks at Arizona Charlie’s. The big hotels? We usually stay clear of them.

Downtown, everything’s straight up instead of spread out, he went on a moment later. This here’s the railway station; that’s what formed downtown in the first place. Now they’re uprooting the whole railroad, putting it on the outskirts to develop this part. Right now they’re purifying the soil by cooking it to eight thousand degrees. They’re going thirty-forty feet deep.