William Vollmann - The Royal Family

What time does he get there?

Eight o’clock. I hear the first bus, and then the second bus, and then I know I gotta be awake and out of here.

On a bench, three Brady’s Boys were looking at a tourist map, one of them laughingly reciting: There’s scum on the streets! We got right on our side! — But the second Brady’s Boy, who was older, sadly shook his head and said: It’s called rapport, guys. You don’t want treat ’em like crap. You wanna develop ’em.

Sighing, Tyler clattered his beads.

The pink form said in English and Spanish:

— NOTICE TO DEFENDANT—

YOU ARE BEING SUED BY PLAINTIFF

To protect your rights, you must appear in court on the trial date shown…

Let’s see, there was his small claims case number: 97SC08089…

It was some bank in South Dakota this time. His other credit card company used them.

DEFAULT ON A REVOLVING CHARGE ACCOUNT DATED 22/20/93

A. _x__I have asked defendant to pay this money but it has not been paid.

Maybe I’ll challenge the venue, he muttered to himself. Bastards.

Oh, the hell with it. I’ll just default.

For a moment, he imagined himself in court, looking into his debtor’s eyes. Then he said to himself: Hell, I don’t care what they think.

One of the first indications that a person is becoming an addict is that he loses interest in others. A love-addict masks this symptom by virtue of the addiction itself, which is others.

He still had his computer, on whose monitor sailed a pretty screen saver depicting the outer planets. Accessing Webscape Crawler, he grimaced at the familiar connecting noise and ran a nationwide credit check on himself.

Oh, fuck, he said. This really is not too good.

Hardened in his defiance, like any sinner destined for hell, which must be as hot as the Greyhound station in Marysville on a July day, Tyler had long since walled his pallid heart away from embarassment, so that when Irene was still alive he’d tortured her with endless declarations of that submission which really is not submission at all since it insists on being accepted; he’d yielded himself to what he believed was Irene, but in reality was nothing but his own terrible passion which drove him day after day to telephone Irene and leave such messages as: Irene, I wanted to tell you how happy I was to hear your voice on the answering machine last night because you know that I love you so much; I’m passionate about you, Irene; Irene, I wish I could be the ground you walked on. Irene, I’m yours. I belong to you. — Did he know or care that John could call in from work at any time and by pressing two keys of the touchtone phone play back every recorded message? Once when he and John and Irene were all staying at Mrs. Tyler’s house in Sacramento, Irene and John had gone home a day early due to a crisis at John’s office, and the lovesick man stayed on with his mother, then left a message for Irene (who was out buying oranges, halibut and long green beans in Chinatown) that he had slept last night between the sheets she’d slept in and on her pillow found two long, beautiful strands of her black hair which he would keep forever; he felt happy uttering these words for the record, or at any rate relieved; but as soon as he’d hung up, sadness welled up through his chest, flooding and drowning his heart, rising into his throat so that he almost choked and then burst out of his eyes in very painful tears; rising still higher, it flooded his skull, sinking into his brain to make him almost drunk; he stared at the telephone, licking his lips, craving to take the receiver into his hand and dial Irene’s number again (it hadn’t even been five minutes). He didn’t call her for the rest of the day. That night at seven and then at eight and at nine he glanced at the phone but it did not ring. When he went to bed he brought the telephone close, just in case, but she never called. The next day he was so sad and anxious he felt almost crazy. He wanted to dial her but said aloud: Don’t you have any shame?

(Oh, he was entirely capable of shame. One windy afternoon when John, Irene, Tyler, the dog and Mrs. Tyler drove across the Golden Gate Bridge for a stroll on Stinson Beach, Irene had walked alone, looking squat and disheveled as she sand-trudged with her head down, her hair messed up, her legs braced apart, a bulky sweater further widening her; and John was chatting quite cheerfully with his mother while Tyler tried to be good but never quite succeeded in dragging himself into the breeze-snatched conversation (which had to be shouted, almost, against the sea-roar), so he gradually allowed air currents to guide him closer to the dark wet sand-edge and found Irene beside him. He stroked her hair. She neither smiled, nor spoke, nor moved away. For a good quarter-hour they walked side by side, he feeling dull and almost angry at Irene, who possibly felt the same; on the way back, uphill through the windy dunes, John had dropped behind to throw sticks into the ocean for the dog, and Mrs. Tyler gasped to Irene: I’m not so young anymore; you’re so strong; and she grasped her daughter-in-law’s shoulder. — Oh, come on, said Irene, shrugging her off, and marched ahead alone. Tyler hung his head, humiliated by Irene’s rudeness to his mother.)

His hand lifted the receiver; he overruled his hand. At six that evening the tension within him locked him almost breathless, so he dialled Irene’s number and got a busy signal. He felt a sickening illicit thrill, as if he had heard her micturating behind a closed door. She was there at that moment. (No matter that it might have been John.) Irene was talking to someone. Could it be Jesus? Had she been just then guaranteed a ticket to Heaven? Slightly eased, he was able to resist phoning her for another two hours. At 8:01, he called and Irene answered. She said that she was busy. She was very nice to him. She chatted with him for nearly fifteen minutes, after the third or fourth of which he felt his desperation begin to ebb. For the remaining ten minutes he felt amazed and thankful to be his old self. Irene had saved him. He told her this, at which she laughed lightly and said: I never knew I was so powerful! — He babbled: Now I know how my heroin junkie friends feel when they fix. They call it getting well. You’re my drug, Irene. You’re my best, best drug. — That was how he spoke to her. She laughed and seemed to like it (although really she might have felt uncomfortable; she might have even hated him). She said it always calmed her to talk to him. That night he won a victory against himself: he insisted that he need not tell her anymore that he loved her. If he had, she would merely have woodenly replied thank you. He left the conversation gracefully, feeling not exactly happy, but immensely relieved. Five or ten minutes after he was alone again, with the darkness outside, the tension began to return. He almost panicked. It was a sickness. He remembered how when he’d been learning to swim, aged eight or nine, they’d told him to tread water and he was all right until suddenly the water didn’t hold him up anymore and he was going under, drowning, not knowing why. Now with Irene he was terrified by what was happening to him. Above all he was terrified of his own evil.

The next day he called her answering machine and said: Irene, last night I had a fever and a sore throat and I, uh, I dreamed that I was sucking your breasts, which were full of very hot, sweet, thick, whitish-yellow, sweet milk that glowed in the dark and tasted like vanilla. In my dream, your milk soothed my throat. I woke up and my sore throat was better.

He hesitated, then went smoothly on: The other news is that I can either come in on Friday and take you out for lunch, or I can wait until Saturday and meet you at any time you wish. Please call me and let me know.