William Vollmann - The Royal Family

Look. I’m not a bad person. I’m not ungrateful. I just need a chance to better myself, and if you can’t understand that, then go fuck yourself.

Smooth grinned. He loved the blonde. He’d seen her cry silently at romantic movies, her lower lip trembling as she wiped her eyes with her forefinger; then she sat straight up with her jaw clenched, obviously hoping that no one had seen. At disaster movies she wrung her hands, her mouth wide open while the movie heroine wept over her dead lover.

May I tell him who’s calling, please? said the receptionist.

Oh, he knows me, said Tyler, with a wink at the Queen. She gazed back sadly.

Sir, you’ll have to give me your name and the place you’re calling from, said the receptionist. Otherwise I can’t put you through.

Tell him it’s his brother, Tyler said wearily.

And where are you calling from?

Could you please tell him that his brother is on the line?

And your name, sir?

Henry, said Tyler, defeated.

Just a moment.

He leaned against the wall, waiting. The Queen stroked his cheek.

Sir, he says to tell you that he’s busy right now. Is there any message?

He was silent for a moment, smelling the humiliation which soiled him like vomit. — Tell him I’ll call again later, he said.

He hung up slowly.

No go, huh? said the Queen.

No go.

Don’t be sad, baby. It’s gonna take some time. That’s all.

He said: It’s the same as when I visit Irene at the cemetery. I know that I can never ever reach her, not ever again.

Gun up now. C’mere. C’mere. He’ll phone you tonight. I know it.

You want me to talk to him? said Smooth. The Queen told me—

Oh, forget it. After all, he’s my own brother.

They stood and waited.

You see, Henry, we both believe her. We both take her on faith.

Yeah.

She said tonight, so—

But I still don’t get quite what you’re doing here.

Maj wants you to try harder with me, Henry. Maj wants us to be bosom buddies.

Yeah, well, go be bosom buddies with Domino. Sometimes you’re just so much work…

You mean when you’re depressed.

Yeah.

You mean when you’re horny for Coreen.

Irene.

Got your goat, didn’t I? Ha, ha! Works every time! You know there’s no malice in me, don’t you, Henry? You know I’m not all evil and envious like you.

Oh, leave me alone.

Nice million-dollar white man place you got here.

Don’t you ever do anything but play with people?

But this isn’t about playing, Henry. This is really quite serious, you see. This is about saving our Queen. Because if your brother can convince Brady to lay off, for Domino’s sake—

I told you it won’t work.

How do you know that?

Because I know John and I know Brady, all right?

Then let me try. Put me on the line when it rings. I mean, what the heck. You don’t care what John thinks, now, do you, Henry?

Tyler clenched his fists.

I’ve got you coming and going, don’t I? Just the same way Domino’s got your brother. I’ve got you by the balls. And you know what, Henry? I’m one of those perverts who sometimes likes to squeeze…

Even Maj said it wouldn’t work.

No she did not. She said we could try if we liked. I think it makes her happy, that we’re trying to save her…

Good, said Tyler abruptly.

You mind if I get personal? Smooth whispered. You mind if I tell you about my niece?

You already told me.

I’ll tell you how it was.

You already told me how it was.

Since we have time to kill, I’ll tell you how it was, said Smooth. You know how those Asians love giving really nice fruit for presents? Go over to your Chinese friend’s house for dinner, and for dessert there’ll be lots of perfect pears — you know, high quality, the succulent kind.

Yeah, I know.

Well, of course you know, Henry. You were with an Asian girl. Your brother’s girl.

Oh, go to hell.

And sometimes they have these little tangerines. You peel the skin off, and then there are juicy little wedges — well, segments I suppose you’d call them. And this girl, when I pulled her little underpants down…

The phone rang.

So you’re dirtying this part of my life, too, said John. Tell me something. Have you fucked her? Have you fucked her?

Who? sneered Tyler. Domino — or Irene?

Sitting near him on the kitchen floor, Dan Smooth contorted himself in a thousand silent grimaces of laughter, wriggling and twitching, shivering and twitching, rolling his eyes and bulging out his cheeks, so that Tyler, repulsed and terrified, was reminded once again that he was Dan Smooth with his illictness and his defiance. He was treating John the way that Smooth always treated him, the way he loathed to be treated.

I’m sorry, John, he said into the telephone. No, I never slept with Domino. And I won’t. I’m her friend, John, that’s all. And, you know, she’s to be pitied because—

How dare you say that to me? shouted John.

I think she wants to be a part of your world. She wishes that she could be your kind of person, and dress like you, eat like you, live like you. I mean, I don’t know what your relationship is, but—

What do you want?

Has Domino ever told you about our little family down here?

Oh, so you finally found a family for yourself, did you? Old Hank got religion. As for your own—

Brady’s Boys are putting Domino at risk, John. And they’re threatening a very good woman who’s helped Domino a lot and who—

A whore, you mean, said John. A filthy whore.

That’s right.

Oh, I see it now. And you’re plugging this whore and you know better than to ask me for any favors, so you—

She’s been good to Domino, John.

She’s good to her. Does she fuck her? Is this some—

Do you really want to know?

Fine. So you want me to call up Brady and say exactly what?

(This is all so dreary! whispered Dan Smooth in delight. Tyler felt unspeakably nauseated.)

I don’t know what you should say. Brady’s pretty hard to appeal to, as I recall. But if you…

I could set Domino up. I’d be happy to give her a start. Anytime she wants to get out of that sleazy world of yours I can—

John, she can’t. She won’t. That’s what she is. That’s—

Don’t you dare tell me who she is.

She—

I said don’t you dare tell me who she is. Anyhow, continued John with his usual shrewdness, you don’t care about helping Domino, do you? You want to take the heat off that filthy whore you’re plugging.

Let me ask you something. How do you feel about a man who on the one hand hires you to write contracts for his whorehouse and on the other—

So you’re saying he’s a hypocrite. Well, what about you? You know what I mean, Hank. Jonas Brady is an amazing man. Jonas Brady is maybe even a great man, and I will not have you—

Seeing Smooth making frantic backpedalling signals there on the kitchen floor, Tyler swallowed his bile and said: Can I ask you to think about it? Talk to Domino—

Don’t tell us what to talk about.

Well, will you please at least think about it?

John hung up.

That was when Tyler called himself aside and explained to himself what his self admitted — namely, that Irene and John’s marriage had never been as hellish as he for his own convenience had pretended. He remembered one Fourth of July in San Francisco when housetops flickered in and out of fog as if on lightning-fire, and then the occasional green and blue flower of fireworks blossomed over the city, then cast down seeds and embers into the white darkness while Irene lay under a blanket on the sofa next to her husband, watching romantic thriller-videos which accompanied themselves with soft piano music, and she slowly got paler and sleepier until her eyes closed and her long pale fingers gripped the cushion while John frowned at the video, half-bored but unwilling to turn it off before he’d learned how the story turned out — and maybe, just maybe, he’d wished to avoid disturbing his dreaming wife. Fireworks pounded like Tyler’s heart.