The Royal Family (91 page)

They’re all right, man, the cab driver said. They’re doing the good thing to help the people. But Brady kind of a
character.
Like you know he made some allegation the Queen tried to
ex
him.
*
Well, that never come out positive. Police can’t find no wrongdoing on the part of the Queen.

You like the Queen, don’t you? said Tyler.

Well, sir, I never come right out and say that, but her girls help pay my rent, man, and like they’re always big tippers; they smile at me, you know . . .

Perfect praise from the mouths of babes, said Dan Smooth out of the side of his mouth.

Take a valium, Dan.

But police can’t find no wrongdoing on the part of the Queen, the cab driver repeated. Since then I lose my respect for Brady.

The light changed at last. The driver accelerated. They went to the Tenderloin.

Wait here, said Smooth when they got to the parking garage. He ran inside and came out with a dirty envelope. —All right, he said. Now let’s go to the Little Angels Foundation on Broadway. —I want to pick up some medication for Sapphire, he explained.

What’s in the envelope? said Tyler.

Smooth opened it. —Warnings about vigs, he said. The usual stuff.

In fact, I really don’t like that Brady all that much, the taxi driver said.

Yeah, we figured that out, said Tyler.

And how do you vote, Henry? said Smooth.

I’d vote for her, sure.

You erectile old understater, you. Well, you know already that she’s going to leave you, said Smooth. Consider yourself already left. I know I’ve said that to you before, but you clam up every time. So I’m going to keep hammering away. I’m going to force the little thighs of your soul apart until you answer me, Henry.

Why should she leave me?

People die, you stupid ass. Sisters-in-law, for instance. People get tired of people. People get sick. People run away.

So all you’re telling me is that nothing lasts forever.

Yeah.

What if I tried to become more like her?

You’re just becoming more like the rest of us, Henry. You’re turning into a sneaky, money-hungry bullshitter.

Whatever, said Tyler, getting out. He passed two vigilantes in the attire of Brady Boys. The first one was sweaty and out of breath. —We chased ’em a couple blocks and then they split up, so we split up, the vig was saying. I caught one guy . . .

Smooth leaped out of the taxi, giggling. Tyler looked into his eyes and said: Are you doing speed again?

If you’re doing crystal, you—literally, you . . . you . . . When you find a good thing and don’t know when you have it, that’s another thing people don’t understand.

Oh, for God’s sake.

For
Cain’s
sake, you mean.

From the doorway of the Jewel Hotel, Strawberry was drunkenly laughing: You get burned out. You get tired! and she gave the tall man a kick in the ass. The tall man snickered.

Afternoon, Justin, said Tyler.

Hey, boy, said the tall man. Where’s your faggoty car?

Don’t you remember how I drove it up your ass last night? Where’s Maj?

Upstairs in Strawberry’s room. She said you could wake her if you came by.

All right.

Hey, Smooth, what’s up? You look
doped
up.

If you ever do a three-way scene, don’t do it in Sac, laughed Smooth. That’s what I learned from
my
experience.

I don’t have time for your bullshit. Gotta make a run. Maj is in Room Twenny-Nine.

Strawberry led them upstairs to the lobby where they each paid five dollars to the unshaven clerk, and then Strawberry unlocked the door of number twenty-nine and laid her finger on her lips, pointing to the Queen snoring softly on the unmade bed as the TV said: See, these agents I guess you could call ’em of the Queen, they lie in wait for girls at the bus terminal. Runaways, innocent girls without much experience of the world. They love it there.

I expected that, said Smooth. That’s just how it was before, see. The Chosen People would show up and say, all right, open the gates of your city. If you let us in right now, you’ll be our slaves forever. If you don’t, we’re going to besiege you and then kill you all—well, kill all the men, I guess, rape all the women and children and sell them for slaves . . .

Dan, there’s nothing about raping children in there. That’s just your wishful thinking.

Well, sometimes I get carried away.

Mute the sound, would you, Dan? We already know the crap they’re going to say.

True enough, said Smooth. It’s not beautiful.

Should we wake up Maj?

You want my advice? My advice is no. Anyway, I’m getting jealous of you. You don’t help her be objective. She needs an easier person to be objective with—like me . . .

The Queen opened her eyes and said: We got to get everybody together now.

And so (excepting only Dan Smooth, whose presence was required in appellate court) they all assembled on a hot dark night in a room at the Lola Hotel on Leavenworth Street, Lily’s room actually, tomb of ignoble desperation transformed by her into a dreamy hive of noble madness where she could rest and get high behind locked doors, no longer seeking any solution but searching nonetheless for something which in Beatrice’s case would
have been God but for Lily comprised a flickering candle-flame to burn away the darkness inside her until the wax had melted and she had to go outside again to sell the hole between her legs which once had been a penis and which she now thought of as tissue neither male nor female, merely some orifice upon whose functioning, like that of her anus, the health of her body depended—no honey meant no money, and without money she’d be vomiting in the sink again. Heroin lit the way for her, and so did the Queen, but so also did what might as well be called self-improvement. Still at some remove from the innermost reaches of divinity where the Queen ceaselessly trod and where the crazy whore and Sunflower quite simply dwelled, Lily reflected in her eyes her glittering, glancing fishy friendships with the other women of the streets, who mostly despised her for her instability, in accordance with Darwin’s laws; and because the Queen did not speak of her very frequently, it was easy enough for them, egged on by pitiless Domino, to make fun of her stench and bleating voice, although they had to agree that she was inoffensive; she’d never fought anybody. Quite the contrary—there lived in Lily, as in Beatrice, Sunflower and the Queen herself, a longing to give of herself. In Sunflower’s case, the longing had been to give
everything
so that self would be exhausted, whereas the Queen and Beatrice were sweetly busy in their doings; as for Lily, what she dreaded most was disappointing others, which was why she had rendered allegiance to the Queen, of whose goodness and kindness she had no doubt; the Queen wanted to become her mother, and how could Lily have the heart to refuse? Having pledged herself, in one of her typical Lilyisms she continued to sleep apart from Maj whenever she could afford to do so because if she lay down too long among other people, their images sometimes began to dance around behind her eyes with increasing velocity until they became nightmares which spent themselves furiously inside her soul. Whenever a man paid her more than twenty dollars she always asked him: You want a picture of ugly old me? I can give you a photo of my ugly, ugly pussy if you want. I have one right here in the pocket of my . . . —She laughed until she cried whenever the man said no. When he said yes, she searched for the photograph but she was all out; she didn’t have any more.

The wall in her room said
LETITIA ROSA 10-20-96
. Letitia Rosa was Lily’s real name.

The wall also said:

Rule Numero Uno: Don’t use God’s name in vain.

Do—always Respect everyone and speak with a pleasant tone of voice.

Don’t bring anyone in unless you let me know first and I okay it.

What occurs in 26 stays between the present party. Our Business—stays our Business—no exceptions.

When I say go, time to go! No potting around.

3 chances—3 times are 86ed from 26.

Break bread—no nasties.

No money, no honey.

Pay before you stay.

Some bucks before you fuck.

No tight ass so tight it squeaks when you walk, you cheap something for nothing busters.

Money’s made for us and you to spend.

You show love and fairness you get the same and most of the time even better my friend. Good people deserve great service.

Love’s 3 Ms—

My Mom

My Money

My Man

Don’t play the player cuz the player don’t pay.

Sex is evil all is sin sin is forgiven so sex is sin.

Suck me fuck me make me bleed kinky sex is all I need.

Jealousy has no set conspirator so beware of the coy steps of happiness for deep within the heart lays the truth of their interactions which you see by looking past the lost in despair. Smile and you’ll always get trapped cuz demons are here.

Well, we got a problem, said the Queen.

Her children remained so tensely silent in that room that all could hear the click of a cigarette lighter in the hall. Lily, proud of her hospitality yet shy, sat on the toilet seat peeping through the doorway.

Anybody here not know what it is?

And the royal family huddled together unspeaking as if they were incapable of uttering language or even of comprehending what their old, old Queen was intimating as she sat there on the edge of Lily’s mattress with Sapphire on the carpet kneeling down between her legs, head in the Queen’s lap, sleeping.

Allrightie. I s’pose you all heard Henry’s story.

Beatrice cleared her throat and said: I doan know. Because we have something inside and they doan want us to . . .

Her words died as they left her mouth. The lightbulb buzzed tremblingly.

The Queen said: We can’t none of us make these vigs go away. They’re onto us and they wanna get us. They see that Mark of Cain glowin’ in the dark on our forehead, so we can’t even run, ’cause if we do we just make a movin’ light. I’m pretty sure they’ll get us. And that Brady man, the one that beat up Francine so bad that time she ain’t never come back to us, he wanna be playin’ a double game. He wanna have his whorehouse over there an’ he wanna bust us over here. It ain’t reasonable, so we can’t reason with him.

An’ we can’t ex him, the Queen went on. We can’t do nothin’. ’Cause my power’s just about used up. That’s what the Bible says. An’ the Enemy never lies in His book. It’s all true an’ all cruel. So.

She cleared her throat and said: I love you all. An’ maybe some of you all gonna get your reward real real soon.

Lily’s skirts rustled in terror. Lily was remembering the death of Sunflower. Gazing at Lily, Kitty wrung her hands. But Tyler feared nothing. He was thinking of what Irene used to call “bow envelopes,” envelopes white or red, containing cash, which on New Year’s Day the old relatives presented to the younger ones, who then had to bow down to them in love and respect. Whether his reward would prove to be love, enlightenment, freedom or death, he knew that he would kneel to his Queen and render thanks.

Anybody got somethin’ to say, better say it, shrilled the Queen, the corners of her mouth twitching and grimacing like unquiet water in its tides.

So I think we should find this Brady man, said Domino. And I want us to find this
part
of this Brady man, she added laughingly, wrenching her favorite dildo, Clitilda, from its altar beneath her armpit where it always stayed when it was not in the abandoned meatpacking plant in her striptease cage improvised from wire and stolen parking meters. (She had constructed it, with the tall man’s paid help, because it had always been Domino’s dream to strut on a stage and get applause and big money without even having a customer breathe on her, but she was too old now for that and too abscessed.)

And do what? You heard me say we can’t ex him.

Why not?

C’mon, Dom. You was there in that Vietnamese restaurant with me an’ Henry an’ Danny Smooth when I opened the Book. You know why.

Domino’s face turned scarlet with humiliation and rage, and she hung her head. Later, when the tall man tried to remember what Domino had said about Brady, he could not be certain that he’d really heard anything, because, after all, the blonde uttered such poisonous statements day and night that it was better not to listen. He was the only one who even attempted to remember.

The thing about the Queen is she teaches you things, whispered Lily, whose legs were were blotchy and stringy like a mummy’s flesh. If you pay attention, Queen’s gonna show you how to—

Because you wanted to be one step ahead of the police, right? demanded the crazy whore, stroking the TV’s withered wires which resembled dead branches. —I mean, you wanted to have a mutual slumber party. Isn’t that what you’re saying? But the police want to search for somebody who’s awake. So stay asleep, Maj. Don’t stay awake.