The Royal Family (68 page)

The other man went to the window. —Somebody on the sidewalk, he said.

All right, the tall man said to the Dominican. Down on your belly. Greasy Spic hands behind your head. Close your eyes. I said close your eyes.

The Dominican closed his eyes.

Now say a prayer to Jesus. Go ahead, man.

The Dominican stuttered, but could not speak.

Now count real slowly to twenty, said the tall man. Then stand up.

The Dominican, waiting for the bullet or the knife, counted as slowly as he dared. When he’d uttered the ominous number twenty, he was still alive. Keeping his eyes tightly shut, he rose to his knees. Nothing. Unable to bear it anymore, he stood up, looked behind him, and found the door open and the two killers gone.

After paying the other gangster, the Queen and the tall man gave everything else to Domino: the Dominican’s Rolex watch, his diamond wedding ring (the tall man had broken the man’s finger getting it off), his wallet with six hundred dollars in cash, thirteen hundred dollars cash which the Dominican had hidden in the freezer (the tall man had broken the Dominican’s nose in the process of learning where
that
was), and his station wagon with the keys. Domino might have made a couple hundred dollars more had she sold the car to a certain fence she knew, but it pleased her far better to drive it out to Hunters Point and smash the windshield, slash the tires, sledgehammer the engine, pour gasoline all over the upholstery and torch it.

Stupid bitch, sighed Justin, but she hugged him tight and stuck her tongue in his mouth.

I asked the Dominican whether the Queen’s retribution had altered him, and he said: Well, those two niggers, they were some evil characters. They taught me to fear God. After I got over my resentment, I realized that I had done wrong. My face was all split up, and my finger is still crooked, as you see. Perhaps my nose is also not the same as it was when I was born; what do you think? You know, I was living the wrong kind of life at that time. I was in the habit of thinking that women were meat. And then, to find out that this Queen of the Whores wasn’t just a legend, but she really existed and had the organization to track me down and punish me for what I had done, well, it made me realize that there are women with balls.

Skeptical of his conversion, I inquired whether he still went to prostitutes, and, if so, whether he ever raped them. His face grew ugly then, and he told me to mind my own business.

Strawberry, Domino and Beatrice stood in the doorway of the bar smoking. Later, considerably after their days and nights together had ended, Domino would always remember a gleam of light on a heap of garbage bags, and Strawberry leaning up against the wall of the Wonderbar with a long, long cigarette in her hand, her arm around one of the regulars’ necks as she tried to wheedle five dollars out of him. She remembered Strawberry as being continually with men, touching men, holding men’s hands as if she liked it—no wonder Justin smacked her around! Strawberry had the marijuana giggles. A police car drove by and Strawberry ran inside in a panic, discovering Tyler, who, flush-faced, was gripping a beer in both hands like a praying mantis, leaning on the bar as he gazed at the Queen with a foolish smile. The Queen laughed
hah-
haaw! —When Strawberry came out, Beatrice was gone on a date (having gigglingly whispered in the blonde’s ear: That’s a good idea to hide it in my shoe. You gave me a good idea!) and Domino was speaking with the Queen about a private thing as Strawberry should have comprehended but could not because she was still paranoid, so she kept asking about the police car, worrying that it might not be entirely gone in search of other victims, until Domino
finally told her to shut up. Strawberry was hurt. She had wanted to tell Domino: Look! Maj’s got this skimpy little lace top on, like she’s planning to go to work tonight. You think she . . . ? Instead, there was nothing to do but turn her back to Domino and the Queen. The Queen sighed. When Domino had completed her sad worrying and confessing, she went up to slip her arm around Strawberry’s neck, but was angrily thrown off, and just then one of the girl’s regulars, who had not been seen for a long time, rolled up almost silently in his black pickup truck, and Strawberry, screeching with excitement, flew across the sidewalk and into the opening passenger door of the already moving vehicle which carried her off.

Domino shook her head wryly.

That girl got a
thin, thin
skin, said the Queen.

Domino didn’t say anything for a long time. Then, holding the Queen around the waist, she said quietly: Look at that black night sky. It’s going to rain again. I think it’s going to rain all night.

You don’t want to go out, the Queen said.

I never did.

Nobody made you, honey. Queen’s not gonna tell you no lies. Girl, you’re free. You don’t have to do
nothin.’

Some nights I have a bad feeling, Domino said.

What’s your fear, darlin’? C’mere. Come tell me.

Well, you remember, uh, that time I got raped?

The first time or the second time?

The first time. The second time wasn’t so bad. At least we punished that Spic and cashed in, thanks to you and Justin. At least he didn’t stick a gun up my ass . . .

So that’s your fear. Somebody’s gonna hurt you bad, maybe fuck you up and put you in the ground . . .

That’s right. And somehow I thought that once you came to us, Maj, then we’d all be saved. Don’t think I’m not grateful, but . . . Like everything would just work out on its own, and—

You can have all that if you want, said the Queen. You been there, Domino. You know what they call that place?

Crack heaven! laughed the blonde so sadly.

No. Don’t even joke about it.
Jail.
Jail’s the name of that place . . .

But it isn’t right. I’m tired of these shitty lousy streets. And all the men whose cocks I have to suck on . . .

Then don’t suck, the Queen said. Nobody can make you do what you don’t want to do. Even that man stuck his pistol up your ass, you could have said no. You could have died and not been tamed.

That’s bullshit.

Domino, I tell you this.
Listen
to me, Domino. Domino, you gonna outlive me. I know it. You got nothin’ to fear. Domino, someday you gonna be Queen after me. And I swear to you, nobody ever gonna rape you again. I know that. You believe?

I—

You believe me, honey, or you don’t believe?

I believe . . .

Good. Then go out there and make us all some fresh money. Or do you want me to get that other man who hurt you? You know I can find him. I found the Dominican,
didn’t I? I mean,
Henry
and I found him. But I know
you
so well, honey. Just gonna make you angrier and angrier to see him. Well, maybe he’s dead. Hold my hand.

I—

Close your eyes and hold my hand. That’s a good girl. Now what do you see? You see his face?

It’s so dark, Maj . . .

All rightie, now. I got a glimpse of him. Kind of a glimpse, anyways. Man got those droopy eyes and the long moustache, I seen that man. Squeeze my hand.

I
do not
want to see that bastard.

You see, Domino? You tellin’ me now yourself you don’t wanna see that guy. How can I please you? How can I help you? Now, sweetie, you gotta put up or shut up. Squeeze my hand.

No—

Last time I’m gonna ask you. Squeeze my hand. Okay. Good. Somethin’s glowin’ just like that wool cap on top of Justin’s head. Now we’re past that. And here’s those seein’-eye demons. Now we’re in the darkness. His name is Ray. He’s doin’ time up in Pelican Bay. I can see him up there. Can you see him?

Domino pulled her hand away. —Oh, this is all bullshit! she shouted, and ran away crying.

•

And the Lord said to Joshua, “Do not fear or be dismayed; take all the fighting men with you and arise, go up to Ai; see, I have given into your hand the king of Ai, and his people, his city, and his land; and you shall do to Ai and its king as you did to Jericho and its king . . .”

 

J
OSHUA
8.1–2

•

As autumn came on, the police sweeps of Capp Street almost ceased, but in the Tenderloin everyone frenziedly told and retold rumors, of which the most extreme and exaggerated were forwarded to the Queen’s parking garage, of approaching calamities for which no remedy existed except patience. Of course this ill wind increased in force only gradually, like Beatrice, who sucked men off as slowly as her Papa used to fill his wheelbarrow with dirt and stones. On Irene’s birthday (August ninth) it was scarcely a fetid breeze. But by late September it could not be denied. It was up to the Queen to interpret the keening and take steps to protect her family. As for the queenless others, they lay low, mumbling evil prophecies from the innermost wrinkles of their gaunt souls. The great street organism braced itself, expecting some nervous shock. (Imagine, if you will, some suspicious streetwalker holding herself rigid in the headlights of oncoming cars, her hands twisted nervously behind her back as if they concealed frightening weapons.) Meanwhile there was a minor construction boom of new multinational hotels and upscale restaurants, the kind that John and Celia liked; these establishments chipped away at the Tenderloin, like roads, camps and waystations penetrating into virgin forest. The inevitable result, since street life, like any other kind, determinedly struggled to survive, was that as certain blocks were “cleansed” to resemble the wide, skylit stalls of the mul-titiered parking garage at Saveco, the remainder became more concentrated, thick and rank and wiry like underbrush now teeming with animals which have fled an oncoming forest fire. When the Queen was questioned about the meaning of this strange feeling which made the whores’ short hairs prickle on their necks, she replied only to wait and see. She continued to expand her operation, as if she could go on supplying protection to everybody forever, maybe because she believed it or maybe because it was too late for her to stop or maybe because she thought it the upright thing to do, like the moral calculus of a man who cannot swim but dives into deep water in hopes of saving a drowning child. And so, in this whimsical world of ours where pickled intestinal worms may resemble high-quality ginseng roots, the Chinese prostitute Yellow Bird, whom careerism required to drink the colored water which her customers believed to be alcohol, decided to leave the bar in North Beach where she had sipped away at her hopes for months now, because she’d heard of the Queen. —China was better under Chairman Mao, she told the tall man. In that time, no money-money-money. Not do bad thing for money so cruel to the customer. My madam she cursing and screaming if I drink too slow. —Indifferent to Mao’s merits, the tall man led her past a dusty window with a red grating whose bars and squares resembled I Ching ideograms, then up tall narrow grey stairs ascending toward a single immensely powerful light. That light became her Queen. Her heart became as quiet as Chinatown on a rainy midnight.

My name it mean like Yellow Bird, she was explaining to Beatrice over her glass of
colored water, while the tall man stood just beyond the doorway swivelling his head from side to side. I wanna be free like other yellow birds but my life is no good.

A Chinese was yelling.

What’s he saying?

He say some bargain with bartender. He want make qvarrer. Every night I see him. Sometimes he go with two girls. —Very ugly, she added venomously.

Beatrice was sorry for her. She wanted to bring this new girl to the Queen.

Today I go to my friend’s place to get some money, Yellow Bird said. I keep some money in her place for my mother. Just in Chinatown I go
vin-
dow shopping.

A few days later Beatrice saw Yellow Bird on the street and Yellow Bird said: Because I qvarrer wiv the boss. I buy a new suit, and she say new suit not from me, but from customer. I say no, and she swear at me. Then I say I don’t want to work here anymore. Then she want to give me another chance, and she say she love me, but I say
no.
Bar is no good for me. Now I try to find another job.