William Vollmann - The Royal Family

Again he laughed.

A mesh gate gave onto the utility room, which was crusted with white flakes, as of battery acid residue. Pipes like metallic mushrooms clung in rows to the walls. Here a skinny old wino sat looking at him with intelligent eyes and finally said: Are you feeling hard and mean?

I beg your pardon? said Brady.

I said, are you feeling hard and mean?

I’m looking for the Queen, said Brady on impulse.

The man’s face opened and shone. — Her name’s Gloria, he said. She is the shining sea of Gloria Gloria Gloria.

What’s your name, sir? said Brady, amused.

Jimmy.

I thought her name was Vanna, said a wide-eyed moonfaced young fellow with glasses who kept wiping at his forehead. God, my balls hurt.

Get a job, son, said Brady. What are you two doing in there?

Getting drunk on his money, said old Jimmy with a laugh. He’s doin’ some article on me for the newspaper…

Well, I’ll leave you to it. Get emotionally compromised if you want. I don’t have time for your foolishness.

If a fool and his money are soon parted, then why am I a millionaire? cackled the old wino.

Brady shrugged and, ticket in hand, strode back to the bright wide realm of that parking garage where adjoining x’es and incandescent tubes like giant paperclips bounced cleanliness off polished tiles, the floor slippery as if from some secretion bubbling up from underneath. A spectacled man bowed inside his glass booth. An LED display brightened his window.

As pretty as Christmas! Brady shouted, knocking on the glass.

Gazing round, he saw that this was even truer than he had supposed, for murals of nature lived upon the walls. Did the Mitchell Brothers own this place, too, or was nature’s sentimentalization a fad in the Tenderloin? The cashier still had not responded to his signal.

He knocked again on the glass, harder, and the man frowned, pulled off a pair of earphones, and waited.

Where’s the Queen? shouted Brady into the glass.

Maybe the guy couldn’t speak English. Shifting his polymath gears, Brady bellowed:

Donday esta el Raino?

Irene had an accident with John’s car and asked Tyler to take the blame, because she was scared. It was not a bad accident, just a paint-scraper, a mirror-breaker. Tyler called John at work, told him that Irene had let him borrow the car while his was in the shop, and that he had scraped a power pole. He promised to pay the repair cost. John laughed tolerantly and the whole thing was no problem. That having been resolved, Tyler phoned Irene to give her a report.

Thank you, she said. I love you.

Love you, too, he said. What did you do the rest of the day?

I stayed in bed. I was depressed at having to ask you.

On Monday John had to go to Cleveland for a week for a business trip. Irene had said that she would come over on Wednesday to do their laundry because the washing machine in Tyler’s apartment was free, but Tuesday night she said that she wasn’t coming. Tyler had a terrible headache right then; he really wasn’t feeling well. So he didn’t try to argue with her. He just said: Well, honey, I’m sorry you’re not coming. I’ll see you next time.

But on Wednesday afternoon he discovered that he had been missing her all day, so he called her up. He was going to ask how she was, but by the time her telephone began to ring he’d decided that that was too forward, so when she answered on the third ring he just said: Hello, Irene. I was going to be driving through your neighborhood and I wondered if you needed me to bring anything.

Nothing that I can think of, said Irene so sweetly. But thank you for asking. How have you been?

OK, he said, already bored with the conversation. What are you doing right now?

Nothing. Watching TV.

He wanted to say: Well, why don’t you come over, then, sweetheart?

What’s the program about?

I guess it’s a thriller. I don’t know what it is. Somebody is killing somebody.

Oh, he said. That sounds good. Well, I’ll let you get back to it.

What was wrong with him? He felt so peculiar and perplexed. As soon as he hung up he wanted to call Irene back again and he knew that he couldn’t. He actually lifted the receiver and depressed the numbered white studs, desperate to tell her: I just wanted to hear your voice. — But he left the last digit unpushed, and after a moment sighed and put the phone back to bed. — You know, I had this dream, he wanted to say to her. You and I were walking in a cornfield, and you had on this beautiful long white dress and you were holding my hand and smiling at me. And then you… — He had not had any dream of the kind. He could scarcely understand his own emotions, his almost invincible desire to invent this absurd lie. Irene would have been silent, he supposed, and then he would have gone on: You… I made you happy… — He waited a week, and then invited her out for lunch. She said she was depressed and didn’t have the energy to leave the house; would tomorrow be all right? He was busy tomorrow, but the next day she picked him up at home, since she was out in her car anyway doing errands, and they went to one of the Korean barbecue places on Geary Street. He asked her if she wanted a beer, and she hesitated and agreed. He ordered one apiece.

So how are you doing? he said finally.

Oh, you know how it is, she said. Her eyes were red and swollen.

Do you feel the baby yet?

I feel something. I don’t know if it’s the baby or not.

You look so sad, he said. What’s wrong, honey? Please tell me what the matter is.

You know what the matter is, said Irene. That’s all I ever talk about. I’m sorry…

There was a black cat on the window-seat, basking — a creature of great elegance and self-assurance which presently began to purr in the soft low buzz of an electric razor. Irene smiled at it and made kissing sounds, but it ignored her.

Did you have pets when you were a kid? said Tyler.

Irene nodded, her glass at her lips. The waitress had begun to unload the usual immense appetizer tray of kimchees white and red, pickled fish, dried fish, seaweed soup, miso paste. Irene set her glass down, took her chopsticks from the paper envelope, and began to grate them back and forth against each other in case there might be splinters. The cat went on purring.

And how’s work for you? asked Irene.

Slow. Still looking for someone who doesn’t want to be found. You had cats, you said?

She nodded again, listlessly. Then she took her chopstick wrapper and began twisting it, teeth sinking ruthlessly into her lower lip as she stared aimlessly about, spurious, objectless copy of some fighting-girl on speed who rushed back and forth along Valencia Street, looking for the two girls she had beaten because she lusted to beat them again. Irene, of course, was not the fighting kind.

John and I always had dogs, Tyler said. Sheep dogs, border collies, you know…

How’s Mugsy?

I don’t know. I didn’t ask Mom…

I always had bad luck with cats and I love them so much, said Irene. In Korea we had one cat, and when he was hardly more than a baby he went out one night and I guess he must have found some poison. Maybe rat poison. He came into the house real early in the morning, throwing up blood and this horrible yellow stuff, and he was in convulsions. I guess he came home because he thought we could save him. With cats and dogs, one of the most amazing things about them is the way they get to trust you. You can do anything to them, even if it hurts, because they know you love them and are trying to do the best thing for them. And that cat — I said he was our cat, but really he was my cat; he loved me the best, and I loved him — well, Henry, he kept looking into my eyes. He was rolling around on the rug and screaming and whenever he caught his breath he kept looking into my face ’cause he believed in me. He was sure I could do something. I took him to the vet before school. I was actually a little late for school. And I was nervous about that, ’cause I’d never been late before. I wasn’t a good girl in school that day. I kept crying and praying. And I just ran home. I asked my grandmother if the vet had been able to fix my cat, and she said, no, they couldn’t fix him. Because the intestines were all torn. The vet buried him.