William Vollmann - The Royal Family

He heard the crackheads smashing bottles and screeching.

Far away, a figure crossed the shimmering gravel and broken glass with what seemed to be incredible slowness, finally reached the hole in the fence, and kept on moving. Tyler waited. His new companion was a drunk in possession of many tattoos and two little puppies. The man had a kindly, laughing face. Tyler liked him right away.

Drink? said the drunk, passing him a half-drunk quart of beer.

Thanks, said Tyler. He drank. The beer tasted cool and good.

My name’s Tyler, he said.

George, said the drunk. He took the beer back, gulped it down to nothing, and said: I’m not doin’ shit without my morning wakeup.

I get it, said Tyler.

You catching out?

Yep.

You’re gonna need lots of water. And fruit…

I’ve got two gallons.

For two or three days, if you’re careful, you can parley that into nothing.

Where are you from, George?

I grew up on a dairy farm and got sick of it. I don’t know how many tits passed through my hands.

A yellow locomotive flashed between the grainer cars and paused at their head. Tyler rose, ready to make his leap, but just then the yard bulls came in their white car. He sat back down again next to George. The hot morning shimmered above the gravel like a swarm of midges.

Not half bad, laughed George, up here on top of the world…

He felt that George was a good and sincere person, tranquil, beneficent, maybe even enlightened far beyond the false Irene — a drunken Buddha. He smiled.

The sun beat down upon their necks and shoulders and knees. It was not yet ten. He studied the cars: Golden West, Cotton King, Union Pacific, Southern Pacific. The yard bulls drove back and forth, their pale car standing out against the dark freight cars whose pale grafittit was comprised either of exaggeratedly outlined capital letters or else of hooky loopy scrawls. A concrete barrier read: STINKY BOBBY “97”.

George most regally pointed and said: You don’t wanna ride no flatbed. Them motherfuckers gonna bounce you right off.

Railroad men in white helmets came carrying shovels, marching wearily across the sky. The railroad bulls whizzed near.

Oh, he’s picking up his cell phone, said George. We’d better duck back through that fence.

The balloon magician being long gone, George and Tyler shared undisputed possession of their shade tree, waiting for the bulls to go away.

See, if it has two locomotives like that, or three, you’re gonna have a good run, said George. That car’s goin’ somewhere. Get on that car.

When the coast is clear, said Tyler.

A skinny bald man in a grey pickup drove right up to the hole in the fence and said: I’m looking for Seed. Skinny blonde girl who ran away from me. Man, am I fuckin’ pissed!

I’m looking for Africa myself, said Tyler. But if I see any blondes, I’ll send them your way.

Yeah, right. As if they’d come!

The bald man laughed grimly, put the pickup in reverse, and drove off.

Now across the embankment came a man in a loud shirt, holding a paper sack of beer. In the most lordly and self-satisfied way, he ambled up onto the coupling between two grainer cars and leaped on down. Just then George jumped up and yelled to the man: Get off them fuckin’ tracks! Police!

Then Tyler knew that GOD NEVER FAILS, as is written on Salvation Mountain.

Well, well, who do we have here on my railroad? the cop said, grinning.

George, Tyler, and the man in the Hawaiian shirt all loudly laughed.

Right, smirked the cop. Get your hands out of your pcokets, all of you. Put ’em where I can see ’em. Now all of you line up in front of me.

You have on the loudest shirt I ever saw, said the cop. My wife wouldn’t let me be caught dead wearing a shirt like that. I have grounds to bust you just for wearing that shirt.

The man in the Hawaiian shirt was quick to laugh at this joke.

Now what about you? said the cop to Tyler. Did you snitch on anybody?

No, officer, said Tyler.

Did you snitch on me, partner? he said to George.

George was silent.

Who snitched me off? said the cop. I have good hearing. I know one of you two did it. That’s against the law, folks. Who was it?

George hunched and grinned and said: Guilty.

What? smiled the cop, grinning like a shark, spreading squeaky clean terror. Tyler could almost see him as the high school football bully he might have recently been, kicking people to make his friends laugh, confident, always on the winning side.

So you snitched me off, teased the cop merrily. As long as you snitch me off and don’t tell on your buddies, you’re legal, right? Or did I get it wrong, you scum?

They all laughed hilariously.

The cop paced up and down.

What’s in the backpack? said the cop to Tyler.

Food and water, officer.

Any canned food?

Yes, officer.

Well, why don’t you try eating a can of sardines in front of me so that I can bust it across your face? the cop jested.

Tyler managed a smile.

And you, snitch, said the cop to George. Nice tattoos. What joint were you in?

San Quentin and Soledad, officer, said George ingratiatingly.

Hands on your head, snitch. You in the loud shirt, you ever been arrested?

Yes, officer.

For what?

Drunk and disorderly.

All right. I’m going to arrest you again. You were on the tracks. Or maybe I’ll just cite you. It all depends on my mood. As for you, snitch, I told you snitching off a cop is an offense — and he rattled off the number of the criminal code. — I sound just like a Bible, don’t I?

Sounds good to me, officer, everyone hastily agreed.

Now the cop caressed his pistol, which for some reason made Tyler think of old Missouri the Hobo talking about a weapon he’d seen once in his Nam days, called Puff the Magic Dragon: They could put a 40-millimeter round every couple of inches in the space of a fuckin’ football field in two minutes! — Tyler kept as still and quiet as he could.

All right, said the cop to Tyler. Get out of here. You other two, come on down to the car.

He returned to Coffee Camp at sunset, the river now molten gold and bearing the cool black reflection-shadows of bridge-pilings and trees, like tarnish or a char. He didn’t know anybody and didn’t want to. He hid himself under a bush and slept…

It’s not too late, the next preacher said.

Tyler grinned. He said: In my line of work—

Your line of work! That’s a good one, you dirty old bum!

… You try to establish what the relationship is with the person. If there’s any connection at all, you figure that’s biased. If it’s something like a police officer that happens by the scene, you don’t question it. If it’s a union guy, let’s see, a UPS driver sees a UPS guy get hurt, well, they’re both Teamsters, get it? It’s kind of like kissing cousins. You have to figure somebody like that’s biased. It’s like when Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 6.14, Do not be mismated with unbelievers. Unbelievers, they’re like non-union guys, see. They’re undercutting the Teamsters. Or when the guy that wrote Genesis kept putting down Cain. How did he know that Cain bumped off Abel? It says they were alone, so that scribbler wasn’t there. Now, I grant that in a civil case the preponderance of the evidence is enough, but we’re talking about damnation here! That’s a criminal case. Talk about preaching to the converted! That’s why no private detective can accept the Bible. It reeks of conflict of interest.

The preacher said: I pity you.

Tyler said: So do I.