William Vollmann - The Royal Family

Domino flushed with pleasure. — Hey, Justin, thanks.

He slipped the balloon into her bra. — No charge, he said.

Justin, daddy, I really really appreciate this.

You owe me. Once I get my solid gold Cadillac you better wash my windshield with you pussy. Now let’s fade out of here.

Then it was sunset in the Mission district, with the Altamont Hotel, newly painted yellow, contributing as best it could to the luminescence of the evening whose grey sky glowed like a puddle of irridescent steel — gorgeous light, summer light. Chocolate was still on Eddy Street trying to peddle her tail. The false Irene lay in an alley off Sixth Street, retching in withdrawal sickness, praying for Tyler to come. The Queen sat in what used to be Lily’s room at the Lola Hotel on Leavenworth Street, teaching Sapphire how to tie her shoelaces, listening to the crazy whore’s stories, singing hymns with Beatrice, whose optimistically twinkling vaginal work had paid for the room and whose breasts now dangled, and last but not least passing out pinches of pure angel dust from a cardboard box which many many whores had grafitti’d for her. The crazy whore turned off the light, asking Beatrice: Is that your most favorite? and all the women knelt around their Queen who rose and stood naked, shining for them like a lamp. As for the tall man, he was feeling good because Strawberry had copped a prescription for his Mites-Off and then earned the Mites-Off, too, with a quick ass fuck in the back seat of a stretch limousine full of drunken Japanese businessmen on their way to the airport. Her sodomist’s colleagues had photographed the act many many times with their whizzing little Japanese cameras; Strawberry got a hundred dollars, which could have bought her a full gram and a quarter of pure China white. They let her off way down by Daly City where it was chilly and foggy; Strawberry stood hugging herself behind a eucalyptus tree, wondering how she would get back home as meanwhile blood and sperm trickled slowly out of her anus. Although Tyler lived not far away and had once offered to give her a ride whenever she needed it, she had no change to telephone him, saw no phone booth, and had forgotten his number. So she flagged down a taxi which was coming back from the airport. The driver refused to turn the meter on. He said to her: I believe in the Bible. Your time’s going to come. — At Sixteenth and Mission he charged her fifty-two dollars for what should have been a twenty-five-dollar ride. Strawberry didn’t care. She was so happy to be able to help her man that she flew into the Walgreens not even caring about the reddish-brown stain on the back of her dress, oh, that dress, that once-white emblem of a bride — Cain’s bride. They awarded her that Brady-shaped bottle of salvation, and without a prescription, either! The tall man stripped down inside his sleeping bag, which Strawberry had stolen for him weeks earlier from a German tourist, scratched, uncapped his joy, scratched again, rubbed himself from neck to ankles with the bitter white salvation which Strawberry had purchased, then proceeded to the laundromat and washed all his clothes except his coat, under which he was naked. For good measure he dressed himself in brand-new hand-me-downs which obedient Chocolate had obtained for him at San Francisco General Hospital, and now he was sitting tremendously at his ease in a room at the Crown Hotel, a hot dark stuffy room with television, a safe room which Strawberry had rented with the remainder of her sodomy fee.

I think you ought to stop scratching, Strawberry said. You might get an infection.

Listen, bitch. My business is my business.

Domino said: Strawberry, you’re still bleeding. You need to change that toilet paper.

It’s okay, you know, just a little bit sore. That always happens down there when I, uh—

How much did he give you?

Fifty dollars, Strawberry lied, knowing that Domino and Justin would both despise her if they knew that she had allowed the taxi driver to gaffle her like that.

Shit, the tall man said.

Shit what?

Why we all doin’ this? We could move on. We could be gettin’ what’s ours.

I know this guy who runs a meth lab, Strawberry said brightly, and he, uh, he really likes me. So maybe we could, uh—

We can’t let some goddamned trick be our boss, know what I’m sayin’? ’Cause that go against our pride.

The two women nodded, downcast, afraid of a rage from nowhere.

Tell you a story, the tall man said, as Strawberry lit her crack pipe. You wanna hear a story?

Always, Strawberry said, laying her hand gently on his.

The tall man was feeling majestic and wise. He believed that within his head and heart and soul was gathered a hoard of hard, gleaming jewels which it would cost him nothing to pass around. His eyes scuttled rapidly across their faces. He longed for admiration.

He said: All right, so once upon a time there was this homeless guy walkin’ down the streets with a bike, walkin’, walkin’…

Suddenly he realized that he was not at all certain what would happen in this story. He could not remember where the homeless man and the bicycle had come from. Had the homeless man been himself? He had hustled and lied for so long that he scarcely knew anymore what was true about himself. — Gimme a hit off that, bitch, he said to buy himself time to think. He took a long, sweet toot, feeling alert and happy as the two women gazed at him with puzzled attention.

Listen up, he said. I ain’t talkin’ just for the hell of it. You know what makes me feel so sad? I… Well, you got to understand this was a nice old Schwinn Varsity bike from maybe 1960 or 1970 that was maybe somethin’ rusty but it ran good. I’m telling you it ran like a dream. Took that guy everywhere. And as long as it stayed rusty and crappy it was safe and he was OK but he loved it so much that one day he painted it and then it got stolen, brother. It got ripped off. You hear what I’m telling you?

Yeah, so you lost your bike, sneered Domino, scratching her ear. Hey Strawberry, give me a hit off that.

Don’t make no difference if it was me or if it was not me, the tall man said. The thing is that it happened.

So what’s the point? Let’s move things along. Hey, Strawberry, I said I could use a hit.

Domino, I got everything I own in this plastic bag, and this plastic bag’s almost empty, and I’m tired.

So you’re not going to give me a hit. Is that what you’re saying?

Fuck your whinin’ ways, Dom. Don’t talk shit. I’m tryin’ to tell you somethin’…

I’m all ears, said the blonde, her self-protective words and thoughts resembling concertina wire rolled loosely around barbed wire above high concrete walls. — You’re telling me we’re supposed to hide what we’ve got and dress like junkyard dogs, right?

I’m tellin’ you, beware of golden aspirations. You already got the easy life, bitch, so—

So you’re afraid to aim higher than crappy old Maj. Well, fine. Why should I give a shit about you? But—

’ Scuse me, said Strawberry to Domino, and the tall man actually permitted her to interrupt him because he still for the life of him could not remember the punchline of his own story, and he was ashamed.

What? You finally going to let me have one teeny-weeny hit from your precious pipe? Just tell me what hoops I have to jump through.

Strawberry shook her head until her hair whirled. — You actually owe me a rock, hon.

I goddamned well do not!

From before you was in the joint. Remember? You shorted me that time with the fat trick, you know, that old white guy with the bad breath…

Do not insult me with your bullshit anymore, you fungus-encrusted old cunt!