William Vollmann - The Royal Family

What’s it to you? You’re not here to see me anyway. You’re here to eat out Maj’s pussy. Why would you care?

My car’s parked by the Wonderbar, he said. You want a ride to the hospital?

Thank you, the blonde said. I know you mean well. It’s too late. Everything’s too late.

Tyler narrowed his eyes and asked: Are you bleeding?

Oh, fuck off.

Your whole face is swollen. But wait a second, Dom. Those are old bruises.

She stepped beneath a streetlight so that he could see her better, muttering: No, uh, I—

Look at you! he cried, shocked. You’ve got a black eye and a split lip. And your tooth… Those aren’t from today, either. What happened to you?

Stuff, said the blonde wearily.

You okay? he asked again and again.

Who do you think you are, the Queen? You’re not my mother. You’re just a prick like everybody else.

Irritated and hurt, Tyler walked away, peering into the obsidian darknesses of parked cars. The tall man smirked.

Chocolate was pouring out a line of detergent at the back door of the Wonderbar when he got back. Literacy is a disease, she mumbled

You want a ride? Tyler said.

She never answered. She was getting cracked up and paranoid.

Finally he had to leave. — Thanks for the ride, she said bitterly.

What had happened was this. Have you ever seen one of those antique jigsaw puzzles whose pieces are held together by a springloaded frame? Depress a lever, and everything flies apart. The royal family was a family no longer, and its members associated merely out of vestigial habit. They had every practical reason to continue honoring their kinship; but such sensible behavior as that would hardly be human.

The first outright cleavage had been precipitated (one could almost say perpetrated) by insects. Just as when, peering beneath the twin freeway bridges at Mission and Duboce into the grimy shade, you can spy Mission Street palmy and picturesque beyond, so when the tall man steel-shuttered his eyelids and went to sleep his perceptions carried him past his grief into strangely happy dreams. But when he awoke he was already scratching. His ankles wore chains of whitish bites which his fingernails quickly turned red. He went about his business that day and tried not to think about it, but at night he couldn’t sleep, and in the morning the desperately itching welts were on his buttocks and elbows and behind his knees. Again he went about his business, scratching. His sisters were clamoring for their medicine, but all he did was cop a dime bag for Strawberry. Surely the Queen took note of his discomfort, but she said nothing. In the old days one pass of her magic hands across his body would have relieved his misery entirely. The next day the welts reached his wrists, which he scratched until they bled, and then they began to blossom on his belly below the navel. He entered the Rolley’s supermarket on Geary Street and approached the pharmacist’s counter. Beside him stood one other customer, an old Chinese, who was being unenthusiastically waited on by a bored white girl. Behind the glass Justin could see two other pharmacy employees drinking coffee. Finally a Filipino-looking lady came out and asked him what he wanted.

I got scabies, the tall man said. See them red bumps on my hands? I have ’em all over my body now. They be gettin’ worse and they itch like hell. I want you to sell me some Mites-Off cream.

Have you tried anything else? the woman said.

Slabbered that calamine lotion on ’em, which didn’t do no good.

You’ll have to see a doctor, the woman said. Calamine is the strongest thing we can sell you over the counter. Maybe you have a virus.

Look, lady, I’m aware what scabies is, said Justin. Know who you’re talkin’ to? You’re talkin’ to the scabies expert .

I’m sorry, the woman said. Mites-Off is by prescription only. You’ll have to go to the doctor first.

I go to some doctor they gonna make me wait a couple of days and pay ’em sixty dollars, said the tall man, trying to keep his temper. I know you can find some way round that.

There’s a free clinic on Eddy Street, the woman said, looking him up and down. Why don’t you go there? The wait’s only half an hour.

You see that snail slime down there? said Justin. You want to really fuck with somebody, you take ’em and make ’em lick it.

The woman turned her back on him and returned behind the glass to her colleagues. The tall man could see the Mites-Off bottle behind the counter and he almost could have reached it, but then the Chinese would have opened his mouth in amazement, and the other pharmacist would have called Security and he would have been caught before he could run very far. The tall man departed, scratching.

He had been to the free clinic several times before. It was always closed. He stalked over there and it was closed again.

He scored three dime bags for the girls, scratching. Without him what would those sad bitches do?

Down under O’Farrell and Leavenworth’s walls which were so white and sunny under the cloudless sky he met by prearrangement his sisters who came heel-clacking by: Chocolate, Strawberry and Domino. (The false Irene was sitting in a doorway sniffling. He wasn’t about to support that bitch.) First he saw them silhouetted like the shoulders of beer bottles in a bar cooler whose windowpane was white with condensation. They stopped. They smiled at him, and he scratched himself in a rage.

You lookin’ like a fierce O.G. full of stories, Chocolate tried to compliment him. Strawberry fired off a jealous glare at her, and he grinned a little, scratching.

What you got for me? he said shortly, scanning the cars for vigs. You get me some fresh money, bitch?

Why you talkin’ that way to me, Justin? I be your trueblue homegirl.

Quit playin’ them games, Choc. You know who his homegirl is. Leave my man alone.

Only Domino still hadn’t said anything. She stared into the tall man’s eyes, licking her lips with that chemical craving which he knew so well and which stupid-ass johns so often mistook for sexual desire. At Strawberry’s interjection she grimaced, then began looking up and down the street out of habit as she combed her hair.

Strawberry, you be lookin’ a mess. What the fuck’s wrong with you?

Oh, I, uh, I need to make some money. Hey, you seen Maj? I wanted to ask her—

No, I ain’t seen her. Just get on with it.

He sat down regally upon the topmost step of a dark doorway, and his love and fellatrice rushed up to him, kissing his knees as he slipped the balloon into her hand. — Now go do your thing, he said, scratching. Show some willpower. Go maintain yourself. Next.

Chocolate flew upstairs for her own private audience, whispering: Justin, you lookin’ so good to me… and the way she said good made the tall man’s penis harder than superclass rock cocaine, but he replied: Don’t you feel even a little bit ashamed, to be cock-stealin’ from your own sister? Ain’t you a snaky skanky bitch! Now, gimme gimme. I paid out good money for that dime bag.

Please, Justin, jus’ carry me one more time. I feel so sick. I don’t feel right. I swear I’m gonna make it up to you. Swear I’ll do anything.

Don’t make no difference. If you tell you do anything you gonna do anything regardless. ’Cause I be your connection, bitch. You so scandalous. Now break bread.

Maj said—

Don’t make no difference.

Last came Domino, who, knowing the score, crawled up to him with a ten dollar bill in her hand. He always gave her quality stuff, and she for her part, although he’d offended and threatened her many times, never tried to deceive him anymore. The tall man liked Domino at that moment. She paid her way. She never disrespected him. If she weren’t such a royally vicious pain-in-the-ass bitch, he might have taken her on. Strawberry for her part had become a pretty spiritless bitch. Sooner or later he’d have to fight somebody over her, and he didn’t know that she was worth it. Why should he always have to keep her protected? Domino might be a psychotic old broad, but at least she kept herself together whenever trouble came. Still, he pitied Strawberry, who for all her faults was loyal. Wishing to avoid further trouble between her and Domino, and flattering himself that he could have Strawberry, Domino, and Chocolate, too, in any combination and at any time of the day or night, he smiled patronizingly into the blonde’s face, making certain that she understood what a favor he was doing her, and then he said: You got sense. More sense than a whole lot of niggers I know.