William Vollmann - The Royal Family

Justin felt grand.

But then they were hauling the unconscious drunk into a stretcher beside him, at which he became indignant and cried: This is my ambulance!

The crowd laughed: Heh, heh, heh!

Tyler was in the Uptown Bar on that same rainy Friday night when a wordless girl laid a white rose on his table and swung out through the doorway, gone now in the yellow dripping light, so after a long time he finished his beer and walked the block to Sixteenth where another girl stood; as wordlessly as the first, he offered her the flower, and she said in tones of almost scalding ferocity: Get away from me, bitch! — He said: I’m not a bitch and neither are you. — Fuck you, said the girl. Stop following me. — I’m not following you. I’m walking back to the Uptown, which means you’re following me. — You fuckin’ longhair! Who do you think I am? — I think you’re beautiful, darling. — Fuck you, the girl said. — His toes were wet in his shoes.

Feeling depressed and humiliated, and defiantly revelling in these sensations because they signified the Mark by which he now knew himself, he drove slowly up Van Ness, engaged his clicking right turn signal, then swung into the Tenderloin’s darkness where on the groundlevel storeys of squat brickwork skyscrapers the delis, corner markets, bars and pornographic bookstores smoldered in waves of unsettled light, and he glimpsed Strawberry running between cars, bent forward with her arms folded at her breasts; she had just heard about the tall man’s accident, about which Tyler did not yet know, and then he saw a parking spot in front of the glaring portico tricked out with plastic letters spelling VIDEO and 3 FILMS 3 HOURS XXX at which moment Domino’s ex-pimp threw a rock against his right headlight and ran away crazily screeching and redeyed, but Tyler was wearing his gun that night, so he only grimaced nervously and got out of the car, checking that all four doors were safely locked before he slouched among the slouching silhouettes on the littered, greasy, grimy sidewalk of Turk Street whose main luminescence came, it seemed, from the dark-parka’d pimps’ white trousers and the whitish-yellow line in the middle of the street and then the sad streetlight spewing downs showers of already infected photons, so he didn’t look back and he didn’t look into anyone’s face on his entire way to the Wonderbar, where the man on the next barstool said to him: Hey.

Hey what? said Tyler.

Bet you can’t tell me what snowmen got that snowwomen don’t got.

Tyler thought for a moment. — Snowballs, he said, slightly pleased with himself.

Shit, you’re a comedian! My hat’s off to you! But you’ll never get this one: What makes a snowman smile?

I give up, said Tyler.

When them snowblowers come round! Hoo! Heh-heh-heh-heh…

Tyler laughed and shook his head.

You’re pathetic, said Domino, who’d materialized behind him. You hang around in sleazy bars and think that stupid misoyginistic jokes about snowmen are funny. You need to get a life.

You and me both, said Tyler. Speaking of sleazy bars, what’s it like looking out through the sleazy bars of your prison cell?

Asshole! shouted the blonde, and Tyler chuckled and narrowed the eyes in his grey, grey face…

He felt weak with dread when he considered his future, so he did not consider it. What might and probably would happen imminently seeped into the present, poisoning it, but he denied the poison. His relationship with the Queen, as his connection to John and to Irene had been, was doomed. But hadn’t John and Irene’s marriage been literally doomed? Where was the sense of everything? And suddenly he felt such anguish that ideas vanished and to save himself he thrust his tongue up the Queen’s anus. But that didn’t save him, because now he believed; he had faith — not merely in her herself; he’d long since gained, lost and regained that; but also in her onrushing end. She would go away, like one of the tired old secretaries high-clicking down the granite steps of the Hall of Justice on Friday night, gone like the man in the skullcap who drank and drank until the eyes rolled back inside his head. And in terror Tyler held his Queen tightly enough to bruise her ribs, and he cried: What am I going to do?

Ah, said the Queen. You mean afterward, don’t you, baby?

Yeah.

They were inside a shed on Bryant Street whose outside read AUTO GLASS. Everybody else was out working that night, except for Sapphire, who made many strange faces each as white as the divider lines on pavement, her mincing movements striving to please the world, her long hair combed back by her Queen, plaited into a horse’s tail. Whenever Tyler gazed at her, he believed her to be expressing something terribly important which happened to be in an alien language. Buddha says that greed, anger and ignorance cause all human suffering. Sapphire possessed neither greed nor anger. As for her ignorance, that was either almost absolute or else entirely nonexistent. Perhaps she was Buddha. And upon Canaanites, as upon all others, Buddha has compassion. Was this what the retarded girl was expressing when, appearing between him and the Queen with the silent rapidity of one of those chrysanthemum spirits in snow-blue robes who rise from the central trapdoor of a Kabuki stage, she smiled on him, simultaneously shedding tears?

Allrightie, now, Sapphie, said the Queen. You’re a good girl. You’re our good girl. Now go over there an’ lie down. You got to dream now. You got to dream the dreams like I told you.

But Tyler could not cease gripping the Queen’s knees as he groaned over and over: What am I gonna do?

Well, I guess you just gonna have to deal, she replied a little drily.

Africa?

What? What is it now, child?

Can I go with you?

Where?

Wherever they’re going to put you, he stammered.

No.

You don’t want to talk about it. I’m sorry if I…

C’mere, baby. You not ready for this. You got some travelling ahead of you. Lots and lots. You really wanna know?

I guess not, he sobbed. Not yet—

Hi-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-! the ladies screamed at his mother when he opened the door.

Well, well, said Mrs. Tyler. What a surprise. How dear of you all.

And John’s even put birthday flowers on your wheelchair, said Mrs. Simms. How darling.

I’m Henry, not John, said Tyler.

Oh, I’m sorry, Henry. Where can we put our coats?

I’ll take them.

Where’s John?

He’ll be here directly, said Tyler. He wandered into the kitchen and poured himself a water glass full of whiskey, thinking that no matter what he did he would be considered corrupted and attainted like a homeless man or an unwashed prostitute and he therefore longed with all his soul to be away from here forever and in the arms of the Queen for as long as she lasted. His fantasies were as green and white as the bok choy for sale right around the corner from City Lights.

Henry? came his mother’s weak voice. Where’s Henry?

Tyler sipped at his drink.

Somebody go see where Henry is.

Scowling, Tyler upended his part-drunk glass into the sink. Then he took the birthday cake out of the refrigerator. It was one-thirty. John had promised to arrive promptly at two, so Tyler needed to be out of the house by then.

Henry?

Oh, hello, Mrs. Myers. I’m just lighting the candles for Mom. Would you mind getting everybody ready to sing “Happy Birthday”?

You’re such a good son, Henry. You and John both. John especially. It seems as if I’m always seeing John running up here with something for your mother…