William Vollmann - The Royal Family

You work for her?

You asking my business? said the tall man.

If you want to take me someplace, I’ve got a right to ask what you do. I’m not messing with anybody’s business. You can ask that chickie who brought you the envelope if I treated her wrong.

She went and told me you didn’t pay for her time, the tall man said.

Well, I gave her twenty, Tyler said. You can either believe me or not believe me.

Matter of fact, I believe you. And I’m gonna tell the Queen, too. That white bitch can lie on her own time. Now, I don’t have all night. You coming or not?

I’ll walk with you, Tyler said.

The tall man slipped the envelope called “EVIDENCE” under the windshield of an abandoned car, and began to walk rapidly down Capp Street, never looking back. Tyler followed as quickly as he could. At Eighteeth they turned south and continued all the way to the old mayonnaise factory at Harrison without speaking, and then the tall man said over his shoulder: You a cop?

Nope.

You a vig?

What’s that?

Vigilante.

Not me.

That’s good. We don’t have much use for vigs.

They kept walking, street to side-street, side-street to alley, and then suddenly they were in a tunnel that Tyler had never seen before, shiny-scaled like the Broadway tunnel upon whose walls crawled the ghosts of cars and the squiggly fire-lines of reflected tail-lights; but here there was no traffic, although from somewhere came the dull ocean-boom of many vehicles; no, it was stale air from many ducts, or maybe traffic from elsewhere coming through by conduction. The tunnel was narrow, and they went in single file, the tall man’s heels ahead of him clapping lightly down upon plates of textured metal, the ceiling rainbowed with all the colors of dirty gold. Far ahead of them, he saw a shaveheaded woman carrying a suitcase. She vanished into one of the square tomblike openings which had been so occasionally spaced into the yellow walls.

What about the octopus-minded of this world? They were wriggling their fingers, which were as thick and cold and white as the bars of a hospital bed. What about Tyler and Brady? Well, they were as confident (or unwary, perhaps) as the legs that marched, ran, trudged and danced across that spidery whirr of shade on the sidewalk where a maple’s leaf-souls shimmered and shook in the shadow of a breeze; the legs were darkened and eaten by it as it trembled; what if the sidewalk opened suddenly there like a rotten decomposing glacier? Three policemen walked through the shadow, and their navy blue unforms became darker. What if a world tore itself open right beneath their shiny shoes? Deep within, we might find people living according to the same cultural laws as that species of slavemaking ants called Formica (Polyerges) rufescens, about which Darwin wrote: This ant is absolutely dependent on its slaves; without their aid, the species would certainly become extinct in a single year. The males and fertile females do no work of any kind, and the workers or sterile females, though most energetic and courageous in capturing slaves, do no other work. They are incapable of making their own nests, or of feeding their own larvae. Down, down! A spider-girl’s chin pressed itself against the floor, eyeballs rolling. Tyler experienced the same feeling that he always had when after a long browse in the secret, cozy, and almost airy Poetry Room upstairs at City Lights where the window looked out on brick walls, a flat roof, and above everything a row of beautifully dancing laundry — he was almost in the sky, the world muffled and distant — he then passed the row of black and white Beatnik postcards and began to descend the long steep black-treaded stairs which pulled him down past clumps of newspapers and manifestoes, down, down, back into the world. When the old nest is found inconvenient, and they have to migrate, it is the slaves which determine the migration, and actually carry their masters in their jaws. So utterly helpless are the masters, that when Huber shut up thirty of them without a slave, but with plenty of the food they like best, and with their own larvae and pupae to stimulate them to work, they did nothing; they could not even feed themselves, and many perished of hunger. Huber then introduced a single slave (F. fusca), and she instantly set to work, fed and saved the survivors, made some cells and tended the larvae, and put all to rights. What could be more extraordinary than these well-ascertained facts?

What should I draw? said the Queen aloud. Something like a shark or a stingray. Nothing cute. My girls don’t like nothing too cute. What’s gonna make Domino happy? What’s gonna make Strawberry come? What’s gonna make Kitty some fresh money? — Magic marker in hand, she upstretched against the concrete wall behind the grating, straining upward in her high heels so that her fringed skirt danced, smiling a little as she drew. She did the charcoal-colored eyes as far above her head as she could reach. The fringes quivered against her buttocks. Her little feet silently slid upon the light-pocked concrete.

A woman with two shadows raised and lowered her arm with a strangely mechanical air. Her ankle-length white dress was as porcelain. She froze, turned, seeming to stand on a rotating platform rather than move herself. Her hand-edges chopped air like knives. She bent, bowing to one of her shadows, while the shadow behind bowed to her. Now she joined with her shadow, becoming a vast writhing mound.

What is it, Sapphire? asked the Queen.

The porcelain woman covered her face and giggled. Then she began to stammer: S-s-s-some-b-b-b-body…

Oh, somebody’s here, huh? What a good girl. Always looking out for your Queen. C’mere, baby. Queen’s gonna kiss your pussy…

L-l-l-uh…

Love you, too, Sapphire. Lemme kiss you. Quickly now. Can’t keep guests waiting.

The girl approached, shyly scuttling sideways, timidly entered the Queen’s arms. Sweat formed like milk on her porcelain face, and her pale legs began to writhe in the darkness.

Uh-uh-uh. Oh. Oh. Oh, oh, oh.

That’s a good girl. That’s my girl. You’ll always be Queen’s little girl. Now go let the man in.

An old, old face, he thought when he saw her; a face without any whites in the eyes anymore, a palish head upon a dark dress. Old, but maybe not so old — but a middle-aged black woman, just as Smooth had said. Older than in the photo — old, old!

What’s your name, please, ma’am? he said.

Africa, replied the woman with a faint smile. I’m the Queen.

She had a codeine girl’s sleepy froggy voice, her perfume and soft crackly sweater further manifestations of the same, a narcotic blood that dizzied with a sweet scent that was half a stench — well, maybe she actually smelled like smoked leather.

Take my cigarette, she said to Sapphire. And go make them be quiet.

The porcelain girl fled, her shining mouth pulsating with strings of mucus. Distant whispers ceased, and the silence crawled in his ears like sweat.

So there’s this guy who wants to do business, Tyler said. Mr. Brady’s his name. One of those losers with money. I don’t like him and I guess he doesn’t like me, because he fired me, but he’s been looking for you.

Are you the one who wrote me those letters? said the Queen.

Yes, ma’am.

And you beat up one of my girls, she said.

No, that was him. That wasn’t me.

But you set her up to get beaten up.

I have some responsibility for that, he admitted. I thought he was too dumb to know the difference. I didn’t know you were for real, and I thought she could fake it and he’d pay her and then she’d give me a kickback. I’m sorry. I looked for her after that, but I never saw her. If you can tell me where she is, I’d like to make amends. Financial amends.