William Vollmann - The Royal Family

Let me guess. You’re about to tell me you don’t have any.

Splendid! cried Smooth, loudly enough for one of the drinkers to turn his head frowningly.

Oh, forget it, said Tyler.

We can’t forget it now, no matter how much we both may want to, rejoined the odious man. You’re anxious, I take it, about your actual survival. You’re pissing blood these days. Am I correct, Henry?

Tyler shrugged his shoulders despairingly.

Don’t think I don’t want to help you. We’re blood brothers, after all. Tell me we’re blood brothers, Henry.

We’re blood brothers, said Tyler dully, remembering the autobiography of a serial killer which he’d thumbed through some months ago: the murderer, since electrocuted in Florida, had always made his victims parrot at knifepoint some puerile affirmation of sexual or emotional need before he raped and eviscerated them. What a world! I don’t want to be in this world any longer, he thought to himself.

Henry, I can see you’re desperate. All the fight’s gone out of you.

Tyler smiled bitterly.

All the same, Smooth continued, you’re a lucky whore-hound. The Queen likes you; I know she does…

What’s on your agenda for the Queen and me? said Tyler, unable to keep the anxiety from his voice.

Number one: You came to me, not I to you. Number two: You begged me and bribed me to set you up with the Queen. True or false?

I’ve got to go to the hospital, said Tyler.

To visit Irene, I know. Let me come along, Henry.

Are you a sadist? asked Tyler in slow quiet wonder.

Anyhow, it’s not your job you’re worried about, said Smooth, gazing smilingly into his eyes. If I truly believed you cared about that, I would never have picked you up. It’s your sister-in-law’s rotten, stinking twat…

Nothing about Irene was rotten or ever could be, said Tyler steadily.

That’s what I like about you. Caught in an obsession — a delusion, really — and a very harmful, antisocial one, and the man will not give up! Hey, Loreena! This man fucked his own sister-in-law to death and now he—

Tyler leaped off his stool and was already cocking his arm for the punch when Smooth kicked him in the stomach. Tyler doubled over retching.

I’m a black belt, you know, Smooth whispered, his breath tickling Tyler’s ear. You had to be humbled. Now here. I’m putting three hundred dollars in your pocket. Don’t thank me. It’s not from me; it’s from the Queen…

He knew by then that it would never work out with the false Irene, but he knew also that he didn’t even have to tell her, that unless he physically assaulted her she would never regard him with all the bright-eyed watchful head-turns of a sick pigeon on the sidewalk, still strong and fearful at the very beginning of its death-struggle, because except physically the false Irene could not really be hurt anymore, so all he had to do was not see her and maybe not even tell the Queen that it hadn’t worked out because the Queen had tried to be good to him — he continued in awe of her, fearing to reject her gifts. Last time he’d seen her she’d stood naked against a concrete wall, supporting her little breasts with her hands while the other girls started drawing snakes on the wall, and he didn’t know what to make of it — were they playing or was it a ceremony or what? Dan Smooth would undoubtedly have told him the answer, but listening to Smooth left him almost exhausted.

A siren went by. Irene wiggled a loose black tooth and finally pulled it out. Her breath reeked of decay.

(But he recollected the time he came by dead Irene’s early one morning and knocked at the door for a long time until Irene woke up. John was away on business. When Tyler embraced her, her body likewise gave off a sour smell which shocked him.)

This black guy, this dope dealer put a gun in my mouth, the false Irene explained. Said that was the only way he could come. I started cussing him out and I got out of there, but not before he whacked me in the teeth with his gun, and this tooth here was funny ever since. I think it died a long time time ago, maybe right after he did that.

Here’s a tissue, he said. Why don’t you pack it in the hole until it stops bleeding — yeah, that’s good.

You’re a nice guy, Henry, she said dully. I wish I could be nicer. I don’t know why I can’t, but I just can’t.

He stroked her hair.

I used to wish I was dead, she said brightly, but one day I woke up and realized I was already dead, you know, where it counts, so why not relax and not make a big stink?

I know another dead Irene who—

But dead people do stink no matter what they ever meant to do… And now it’s easier… Hey, can you gimme five dollars? Just five. I’m not greedy. I’m not well; I need some medicine, you know what kind…

Sure, he said. Here you go.

Where do you get your money from anyway?

From business.

Oh, I’m sorry, baby. I didn’t mean to butt in. I didn’t know you had anything to hide. I mean, the Queen told me you’re in love with a dead girl and I’m supposed to be her, so I just kind of figured you’d…

Tyler said nothing. A fly landed on Irene’s filthy neck and she wearily brushed it away.

Can I tell you my real name? she said. My real name’s Consuelo.

He felt gratefulness and pain. She wanted to share something with him after all; she was freeing him from her; now she could not be Irene anymore; he had to admit that Irene would never be his or even be with him, and alone he would live on and on.

My husband took the fall for my brother, Consuelo said. My brother’s no good. He got caught by that three strikes law. Suspicion of robbery, they said. It was only suspicion. He’s doing three months. An’ some whore named Chokecherry, kind of a frightening name, well, she and he… So I started… doing… this …

She was crying.

Oh, God, she sobbed. I started doing this, but I was doing this before, and I was lying to you to make you feel sorry for me but you don’t care and I don’t want you to care, I don’t even… I’m just a piece of shit. What do I have to lie to you for? You’ve always been decent to me; you don’t judge me, but I—

So when does your husband get out, Consuelo?

Oh, it doesn’t feel right when you call me by my name; I should never have told you…

Driving down Nineteeth toward the Golden Gate, he reached the gas station at Pacheco and turned right, coming home amidst the whitish houses whose dormer windows bulged blindly like the eyes of dead frogs. The neighbor’s blue flashing light was on. The trees were snipped and sculpted alike from lawn to lawn — Italian cypresses and then bonsai’d trees. He had been with the false Irene too long now. He could scarcely fathom this place. He honestly could not understand why God had put him here in this cool clean zone while the false Irene and the Queen and all that crew had to live in filth. Or was it their choice? Or was it heredity, destiny, class conflict, inevitability? He was angry with everyone, even with the Queen.

He awoke with the taste of the real Irene’s cunt in his mouth.

After a week of mendacious coolness the heat had returned. Tyler’s car was at the local shop, Sacramento labor being a relative bargain, so he walked down to J Street where across from the palm-tree’d square once called Freedom Park by the Wobblies, then Plaza Park by the corporations which had transformed Sacramento from a hot slow farming town into a desperately ugly conglomeration of malls and industrial parks, then Wino Park by those who had eyes, then Cesar Chavez Park by those who, like Tyler, deify the dead, he found the pawn shop of his recollections, where he inspected gold chains, then strolled past the cigar shop to the next pawn shop whose gold chains were supposedly new, and in this abode of discounted joy the woman drew herself up behind the counter and said: Well, what is it?