William Vollmann - The Royal Family

In his pocket he had sixty-two dollars — more than most people at Coffee Camp possessed, perhaps, but once it was gone it was gone. Thus fear of the unknown. What he ought to do was lie low on a piece of cardboard and stretch his money out, but he couldn’t: fear of the known. The Queen, Smooth, his mother, and the two Irenes haunted him. — Well, that’s a natural part of getting older, he thought. Other people die first, and then their ghosts perch on your shoulders, like the cargo of steel rods on that open boxcar…

Resolving to wander among the hollows until he found someone who could give him good advice (for his mind felt as empty and echoey as the car he sat in), he let himself down, and, hurriedly recrossing the bridge, reclaimed his blanket from Donald and Dragonfly’s camp. Neither of those two was anywhere in sight, so he wandered down the dirt road which ran through the weeds until he saw a bush shake. Squatting and bending, a human being emerged, rear end first, from a thicket, calling warning to his girlfriend still in the cave. Straightening and turning round, the man approached Tyler through the waist-high hissing grass.

What do you want? the man said threateningly. You trying to spy on us?

That’s just what my brother used to ask me, Tyler answered, turning his back on the man and beginning to walk away. But the man flew after him and seized him by the shoulder, digging in with long sharp fingernails. Wordlessly, Tyler swung round and punched his face. The man went down, sinking in the grass.

If you know what’s good for you, you’ll leave me alone, Tyler addressed him. I don’t take kindly to being grabbed from behind.

The grass didn’t answer.

Do you hear? Tyler said.

The grass still didn’t answer.

Just like John… he sighed again, and continued his search for a good adviser, turning off the road into higher grass which sometimes flattened into cardboard-paved hollows. It was early May, but already some blackberries were ripe. Hearing a tree’s creaking chuckle, he whirled round, but did not discover the man he had punched — nor, indeed, anyone. He followed a narrow trail which led him to a shopping cart filled with water jugs, a mattress whose blankets were thrown back, purses hanging on a tree branch, an open watercolor set. Nobody. The trail led him out of the trees, onto a field of immense girdered power towers, so he followed it back to a junction and chose another path which went beneath a fringe of dead branches to a very dark hollow, a weedy niche of pollen-fuzzed cardboard sheets hidden among the trees and plant-stalks. The trail dipped deeper, and brought him to a huge fire, beside which a squint-eyed and shirtless man who smelled like woodsmoke stood holding a can of beer. — What’s up, bro? the shirtless man said warily.

Tyler had a bad feeling about the man and the place, probably on account of the other man who had grabbed him. It seemed to him that he was among ogres. So he merely said: Will this trail take me on through to the river?

Right on through, said the shirtless man, watching him carefully. Tyler now saw that the man’s left hand gripped the hilt of a long hunting knife which hung in a sheath at his belt.

Is this all Coffee Camp? Tyler asked, sweeping his hand about.

I never heard of no Coffee Camp.

Last night I was staying with Donald and Dragonfly. That’s all they talked about.

Never heard of them, either.

Thanks for your time, sir, said Tyler as courteously as he could, sauntering up the trail, which now began to climb steeply up again toward the river. He ducked around a hollow tree studded with an immense burl like some fibroid tumor, and arrived on the ridge.

A woman was singing. He listened, swallowing. Her song reminded him of the sadness which scaled his heart, like the islands of rust on a boxcar’s thickly crusted and peeling paint.

He walked toward the song. In the blackberry brambles on the river bluff, he saw a black woman on a blanket, singing about her own Jesus as she gazed across the turquoise river at Sacramento. He listened. The song was wild and loving. He stood there until she had finished.

I feel good listening to you, he said.

No need to shine about it, the woman said, smiling at him. You got a good angel.

My angel is dead, he replied.

Maybe she is, but she’s still lovin’ you and helpin’ you.

A train sang far away, calling to the sand, the dusty weeds, the purple flower-clusters, the tarps under trees, uttering its longings to the voices rising like smoke from those deep hollows.

Do you hear that? the black woman said. That’s your angel callin’ you. She’s tellin’ you to come to her. You can’t stay around Coffee Camp no more. Coffee Camp’s just a waitin’ kind of place. You got to go to your angel.

My angel’s name is Africa.

I know it, the black woman said. Now go hop one of them trains. Do it now.

I don’t know how, he said.

You’re gonna love it, honey.

Tyler sighed. — Well, maybe I ought to stay here and not find her, instead of going far away and not finding her. I honestly think she’s dead.

You’re not old yet, the black woman said sternly. Go on! Africa’s crying for you!

So what do you like the best about hopping freight trains?

The noise. That rattling noise. And the way they have tracks everywhere. I remember when I was a little girl and saw my first train I got so excited. I asked my Mama: What’s that? And remember what I told you: Tracks go ‘most anywhere. Tracks even go to glory, maybe. Everytime I hop on one of them trains I think maybe this one will bring me to glory. I’m the Hundred Thousand Dollar Boxcar Queen!

He found an abandoned campsite, lay down on his face, and slowly chewed a mouthful of dirt because he knew that he would never stay a Canaanite if he didn’t degrade and martyrize himself like a whore telling her customer to use whatever hole he wanted. It made him sick. He wished that he had eaten dirt from Irene’s grave. Rolling onto a rotten sheet of cardboard which smelled like urine and unwashed feet, he fell asleep and all day dreamed gloomy dreams of his Queen. Later he suspected that he might have dreamed of Sapphire, too, but he wasn’t sure. He awoke heavy and sluggish. The thought that he had wasted another day of his life, instead of riding a boxcar in obedience to the black woman’s word, pained and shamed him. He wanted to go seek her out this very moment and beg her forgiveness. Struggling to his feet, he observed local conditions: a high full moon above the weeds of Coffee Camp, anise smell after a hundred-degree day. Silhouettes of moths visited the looming anise stalks.

He went to the place where he’d seen the black woman, but in the darkness vaguely made out what seemed to be the silhouette of two figures sleeping in each other’s arms. He walked quietly away.

A tall silhouette wavered on the bridge. It was Water Woman, whom Tyler would never get to know. Beyond her sat a circle of men with their backpacks and growling dog. They uttered quiet deep laughs, gazing at the sky. A barefoot man with his shoes in his hands led his dog across the bridge. Tyler listened to the clicking of the dog’s paws.

And now memories came down like horses, neighing against the gates of his mind. He remembered how he had once been alone with Irene in her car, driving across the Bay Bridge, and he patted her thigh. He could not help himself. She went on driving.

He stroked Irene’s hair. His hand was between her legs.

You like that? she said.

Yes, darling, he said thickly.

He was stroking her cunt now.

You like to touch that? she said, gazing at him without expression.

Very much.

She went on driving. (No, that wasn’t Irene, it was the Cambodian girl — what was her name?