William Vollmann - The Royal Family

They don’t know how to train ’em anymore, the homeless man said. Beverly Sills, now, she was the last one who was really trained to sing.

Now Tyler saw that the phonograph was crank-operated. — It’s kind of fun, the man said.

Then it was midnight, and John and Celia were driving home. (Bowing his head and grimacing, his tie flying ahead of his chest, Mr. Rapp descended the steps.) John made a quip, and Celia pretended to be amused, although beneath her bright smile lurked an almost terrifying hostility. A black boy was getting handcuffed in a doorway, the back of his submissive neck shaved and sad. He stared into the wall, so that no one would see the shame upon his face.

Night. The clock had just disgorged that extra hour which it had swallowed in the spring. So now it got dark much earlier. Roland came running out of the office tower, his black shoes gleaming with goldness from all the riches of window-light that fell upon them, and followed the crosswalk between white lines, then ran into his wife’s car. On John’s floor the lights were very bright. Tyler was cold. A number 15 bus went by, displaying its cargo of standees as if it were a mobile aquarium. A man swung a square briefcase, leather-padded, which emitted palely poisonous gleams from its brass fittings. The man stepped into the street, and the gleams vanished.

Hello, Domino, said Tyler.

Look, said the blonde. I’ve got to go make money. Let’s move things along.

Same to you, darling. Where’s the Queen?

Downstairs. She’s interrogating again. Does that make you scared? You wanna get interrogated?

By you? With which mouth?

Laughing, she threw a mock punch at him and shouted: I love you, you old misogynist!

A misogynist is somebody who’s really good at eating pussy, right?

Oh, get lost. Always talking about pussy. You know what you and your brother have in common? You’re pussy-whipped pussy addicts.

So how is John these days?

Still hates you — ha-ha-ha! Hey, did you hear the one about the hooker with a glass eye? This one’s really rich. I forget who told it to me. Okay, so, there’s this hooker with a glass eye, see, and the john comes up to her and says he doesn’t have enough money to stick her, so she says: Never mind, honey, I’ll keep an eye out for you any time! Ha, ha, ha! Ain’t that rich? I heard that one in jail, from some girl named — oh, what the fuck’s her name?

Yeah, that’s a good one, all right.

And guess what else John said? I think John is really well connected.

Well, sure he is. He’s connected to you.

You pervert! He says, the whole entire Tenderloin’s gonna be sterilized. And then they’re gonna do Capp Street. And then it’ll all be over.

How does that make you feel?

Scared, she said frankly.

And what can he do about it?

With a choking, coughing laugh she said: I’m still bargaining for that. I… Anyhow, Maj keeps insisting it’s the end, so why even—

Well, at least we don’t have to repent of our sins, because we’re Canaanites. And John has his good side. I’m sure he’ll take care of you. And, you know, you and John have a lot in common, too. You’re both in business; you both like to get straight to the point…

But to what extent would John really take care of her? Having never slept with any Canaanites before, he had expected his affair with Domino to be easy and pleasant. (Henry Tyler had begun beclouded by a similar illusion regarding the false Irene.) The seduction of Celia had proceeded smoothly, just as soft round lights go on like excited robot breasts over those elevators in banks; and likewise the courtship of the true Irene — or so it all seemed in his recollection. But finding out how bitter and anxious Domino was made him anxious. Sour tyrant, rapacious thief, unwashed liar, she ruled him so rigorously that whenever he was away from her, as when he drove beneath blue clouds up the rainy hill to Washington Street, the degree of his submission amazed him, troubling his steadfastness toward all that he had previously believed.

She insisted, for instance, that John make love to her three or four times every night they were together. When he didn’t or couldn’t, she’d fly into a rage. And the sex also had to occur in a very particular and laborious way involving manual, oral and penile stimulation. But then she could assert the frequency of their intercourse as proof that she withheld nothing from him, that he was using her solely for his own pleasure.

That’ll work, she always said when he paid her, but somehow it never did.

From time to time, either wearied of her own imprecations or else (what was more likely) caught up in bitter brooding, she’d fall silent, so that for a moment or two his eyes could close. But just as he was about to be swallowed by sleep’s narrow gorge, terror would strike a shocking blow upon his breastbone: —sometimes it was her actual touch, grasping and pinching and slapping to prevent his escape into unconsciousness; sometimes it was strange words; often it was simply a presence which suddenly invaded him; his eyes would fly open; he’d emit a strangled groan, and see her still sitting at the foot of the bed, gazing at the wall, her long, greying hair flowing down her back. He waited for her to turn around and commence upon him again.

Now you’ve pissed away an opportunity, Domino, and I don’t like that, Smooth was saying. An opportunity, you see, to save our Queen.

God save the Queen.

I’ll talk with him myself.

Whatever.

Does he turn you on?

Excuse me?

Does he make your pussy wet? Does his presence kind of loosen up your insides?

I’ll give you fifteen minutes in there and that’s it. My business is my business.

Oh, so you’re worried I might steal him away?

Smooth, John’s not going to give you the time of day.

Hmm, the pedophile said. If I tell him what color your insides are, maybe I’ll get his interest.

Fuck you.

You don’t like me, do you? Smooth whined. I’ve done you so many favors, I’ve put in good words for you, and now it comes out that you have a heart of brass.

I don’t have time, the blonde contemptuously replied, and she went her ass-wiggling, heel-clacking way down Jones Street.

Smooth entered the Wonderbar, where John was sitting, anxiously and morosely staring at his watch. — Hi there, he said. I’m a friend of a friend. May I buy you a beer?

A friend of which friend? said John.

Let’s spell it backward, John, because that’s more fun. Spelled backward, her name is Onimod. I’ll bet that’s in the Bible somewhere, don’t you think? If not, maybe it’s one of those monsters in the Book of Mormon, which is one of my favorite books because some Mormons are polygamous.

What do you want?

I’m here to help you out. Well, actually I’m here to help Domino out, but isn’t that sort of the same thing? I mean, you’re in love, so I understand.

I’ve met insects like you before, said John. What’s your name, fellow? I like to know the name of the fellow who’s bothering me.

Strangely enough, Smooth, ordinarily more invincible in his defiance than Henry Tyler himself, felt daunted by John’s abrasive confidence. Perhaps he should have stuck to his subject, although I myself, as a believer in the Queen and her prophecies, remain sure that his actions would have come to nothing in any event. Instead, Smooth made the mistake of trying in the face of this strong current of hostile contempt to swim at an angle, as it were, but because he was a little drunk and because he was limited and damaged like anybody else, the only topic of small talk he could conceive of just then was children, a category which his obsessions had long polished into the same fascinating legitimacy as Celia’s mind had done with stoneware dishes. Sincerely seeking to entertain John, in order to ingratiate himself and then buy the favor of the Queen’s safety, Smooth began to relate a tale he’d heard not long since when he and Tyler were at the Inn Justice bar on Bryant Street, drinking with a quasi-colleague from the public defender’s office. The public defender said: So this one cop goes into a massage parlor in the Tenderloin, and he fancies a prostitute, I forget whether the chick was Laotian or Thai or Vietnamese; anyhow, he snatched her right out of there. This is kidnapping, right? This is no five- or ten-year case. This is a life case. All right. So he drags her out, actually starts doing her in front of some tourists, then thinks better of it and drags her somewhere else, then makes her orally copulate him. Now here comes the interesting part. The evidence, well — you’ll like this, Smooth — there was semen all over the place, because I guess she didn’t want to swallow, so she, well, anyhow, they found the guy’s semen on her. Did a DNA match. It was definitely his. Now here comes the cha-cha-cha. Guy said for his defense: No way in the world I’m gonna make anybody in the world orally copulate me, because my father used to force me to watch my sister orally copulate him when I was a kid! And the sister, who’s also a cop, takes her place on the witness stand and confirms it. This is like, well, it’s talk show justice! The cop did get convicted, but he only got six years. If it had been one of our clients… Kind of a unique defense, don’t you think? — Smooth chortled and chortled, thinking about the cop’s defense made absurd by the semen itself but rendered somehow amazingly believable by the sister’s tears; and he was trying to explain this to John, who cut him short, saying: You sure know how to be a sleazy asshole. I’ll say that much for you. I don’t care whether you’re a friend of Domino’s or not. Get out of here. — And he balled up his fists, which even the tall man had never done to Smooth, and Smooth left the Wonderbar in apprehensive haste, he couldn’t have said exactly why…