William Vollmann - The Royal Family

Don’t think I haven’t thought about it, Tyler muttered.

You’ll never do it. She told you to travel, so you’ll travel. I’ll do it long before you.

You know as little as I do, said Tyler, how all this will end.

Through interviews with former friends, associates and intimates, [CENSORED] learned of numerous allegations that Smooth had had sexual relations with boys and girls younger than 16 years of age, including oral, vaginal and rectal penetration. These allegations would later arise in the Bureau’s affidavit in support of the search and arrest warrants.

He wandered into the public defender’s office on Seventh Street and waited behind the counter, staring at the wall inset with a window made of pigeonholes, some empty, some overstuffed with swollen folders. — What’s it on for tomorrow? Your case I mean, the receptionist was saying to a sad defendant. — Department Eighteen, the defendant said. — All right then. — The defendant cleared his throat. — You don’t have a message for me, do you? he asked so sadly. — No sir. And what can I do for you, sir?

I’m looking for a lady named Africa Johnston, Tyler said wearily. I was wondering if she… Oh, forget it.

He knew that the ringleaders of Domino’s crew didn’t go to the Wonderbar anymore after what had happened between the old Queen and Heavyset (oh, so you saw that tall nigger called Justin? the owner remarked to Tyler one afternoon. On account of what he did to me, there’s a warrant out for his arrest! and Tyler felt almost shocked at the vicious self-satisfaction which shone from Heavyset’s face), but one day he spied Domino, dressed from head to toe in glittering silver, drinking alone at the bar at the Naked Eye on Mason Street, on her face a strange, haughtily dreamy expression, as if she were so far lost now that she could barely find her way back to herself; while in the padded lounge-nooks behind her sat three or four of her prostitutes, solemn and anxious.

Well, she said drily.

How’s everything, Dom?

The streets belong to me, the blonde said pompously. She sighed and said: Only thing is, I don’t want ’em.

Well, what do you want?

Good pussy, drawled the blonde, and the other whores clapped their hands over their mouths and laughed.

Domino, he said, please, do you know where the Qu — I mean, where Africa is?

Fuck, that’s just her trick name, said Domino. How can I keep track of some other bitch’s trick names?

I love her. I’m looking for her. That’s all.

Yeah, well what do I care about your love? What good’s it do me?

If I got some money together would you—

A grand’ll work, laughed Domino (and the other whores giggled and whispered: Did you hear what she said to Henry?). Until then I don’t want you talking to me. I don’t want you even coming around.

If I’m going to scrape up a grand for you, I need some proof that what you’ll tell me is worthwhile.

I don’t give a fuck for proof! the blonde snarled. I don’t care if you come back or not.

You must have altered your money-loving ways then, he said. Or maybe you just don’t know anything.

Look, she said. I used to like you okay. You always treated me like an equal. Henry, listen to me. That bitch is dead. And I don’t want you ever, ever to mention her in front of me again. And I don’t want to ever see your face again. I can’t stand to even look at you.I…

Then she slammed her face into her hands and sat there, rocking and trembling, until he was safely gone.

In the upper Tenderloin, before the Aloha Spa (Oriental Massage & Sauna), with its painted green palm trees on yellow, he asked two cute black whores from Oakland: You know Africa?

Darkskinned? Oh, her! Used to be the Queen. Yeah, yeah!

She got killed?

She got killed.

Are you sure?

You mind standing away from the door? one of the whores said.

You mind standing a little closer to the door? Tyler said politely.

He half expected to get screamed at or punched, but the whore, whose sarcasm detector had a dead battery, obligingly moved closer to the door. He then felt impelled to honor his end of the bargain.

Yeah, the other whore said. That Maj you be talkin’ about, she got offed by a runaway car. You know, a hit-and-run. I saw the blood in the street…

Uh- uh, the first whore said. She got some kinda growth tumor in her eye and it formed into cancer. I saw it for myself.

When you take a street whore into your car, you actually carry two passengers — a woman and her addiction.

Excuse me, but I don’t really know you, the whore said. I don’t like your face. You make me nervous.

Well, I don’t know whether to take that as a compliment or not, Tyler said.

It ain’t no compliment, the whore said. You got an evil face. You look like an axe murderer.

All right, then, it’s not a compliment, he said. Where do we go from here? You want to get out of the car? I can let you off here.

In this rain? the whore said. I’m soaked and you want me to go back into the rain? Can’t you see how wet my pants are? And I swear I ain’t pissed my pants; it’s the rain.

It happens sometimes, said Tyler.

How much you gonna gimme?

Nothing. I’m doing the Queen a favor, is all. You just got of jail and I’m driving you home to her. That is, if you want to go home.

Ain’t no Queen no more. Don’t you know that?

I don’t believe it. Anyway, Domino’s the new Queen, didn’t you hear?

Oh, her, the whore sneered.

Who told you the Queen’s dead?

Everybody knows it.

Has anyone seen her dead?

Of course not, ’cause they burned her body. They destroyed the evidence. That’s what they always do.

So no one you know has actually seen her dead, Tyler pursued.

I think you ought to give me some money because it’s my first time, the whore said.

Your first time what?

My first time with you.

So that’s what you think, is it?

Yes it is.

Well, you can think whatever you want, said Tyler. He’d given up trying to ask her anything.

I’m tellin’ you, I’m broke, the girl said.

By now the car stank of her, the smell of unwashed flesh, dirty socks, excrement and wet clothes.

So you want me to drive you to Capp Street or not? he said.

You wanna drive me up to Market Street first so I can get me some french fries and a burger? I’m hungry.

I don’t have time right now, sweetheart, he said. But I’ll take you to Domino if you want.

You won’t buy me a burger? It won’t take but five seconds. We can go through the drive-through lane. Turn here. I said take a right here. You missed it. What’s your fucking problem? Now go back and make that turn. I tole you I’m hungry.

Tyler, glancing for a moment into her scared and angry eyes, understood that she had been recently raped.

That was about the time that he gave up trying to make his car payments. It was the anniversary of his mother’s death. He continued to make inquiries about the Queen, even though the weary silences and insistent avowals of others conspired to uproot the last feebly growing shoots of his hopes. Everybody acted as though he were forcing the issue. He thought to himself: Why shouldn’t it be forced? I’m just disappointed that Smooth is too much of a mess to follow this through… — He was already two months late on his rent, and just as the heads of old locomotives sometimes resemble praying mantis heads or the beaked helmets of robot angels, so his landlord’s face came in his dreams to assume a strangely metallic appearance because Tyler was afraid of him and hated himself, hence deserved to be a mantis’s prey and he could not hide from fate the way that John and Celia could when they attended foggy windy Sundays of street fairs less festive than commercial: booths selling, or trying to sell, robot T-shirts, custom-made wine corks, earrings which resembled fishing lures, elaborate bongs with carven faces inset with colored glass… But he was still chasing, still hunting. He showed everyone photographs of his Queen.