The Royal Family (36 page)

Many months later, on a sickeningly hot summer day on South Van Ness when the Queen and Domino were alone, the blonde said: I knew about it before it went down.

Mm hm, said the Queen.

You gonna drop a dime on me?

You make me so sad when you say that.

Well, Maj, are you planning on dropping a dime on me or not?

Lordy lordy day, the Queen muttered. You gotta trust . . .

But that was months ahead.

They got you brainwashed, dearie, the Queen had said to Domino on that first occasion. You’re a pretty, pretty girl. You just fell in with the wrong crowd. They just usin’ you for your body. You don’t have to suck nobody’s dick just to get your dope.

Who are you to tell me what I don’t have to do?

I’m a prostitute, the Queen told her. Same as you are. Well, a semi-retired prostitute. I’m busy now lookin’ after my girls. And I tell all my girls this: If you
want
to suck dick, go ahead. But they gotta pay you good money. If you
want
to get your dope, all rightie. But you have the right to buy the dope of your choice with your own money an’ not get gaffled, see what I’m sayin’?

Domino tried to stare her down, rubbing a new burn on the back of her arm. —You’re just a control freak, aren’t you? I bet you want to tie me up and fuck me and then turn me out.

Lordy lordy, sighed the Queen. Justin, find her pimp and bring him to me.

The tall man came an hour later. —He said he’s not goin’ anywhere. He said he gonna ex
*
his runaway blonde bitch. Domino, your pimp gonna
kill
you!

Oh, fuck off, the blonde said, trembling.

Domino, you want to stay with me? said the Queen. I can talk with him. I can persuade him to set you free. An’ if you don’t like it here, you can leave anytime. How about it, child?

Strawberry, still trying to soothe and befriend the blonde, laughed and said: Maj wanted me to move here a hundred years ago, but I was like, I wanna be independent. Now it’s just, I wanna be
home.

Well, that works for you maybe, Domino said. Me, I just want to be evil.

These girls, man! marveled Chocolate. These girls like Domino! I look at ’em and say
you stupid bitch.

You just want me to to be your slave, Domino said.

You know what? said the Queen, drawing Coptic crosses on the wall. I’ve treated you so good this past five minutes, Dom. I mean, you’ve got to be one of the best treated and best dressed slaves in my whole kingdom. You don’t even have your chains on today.

Domino, sensing that the Queen was making fun of her, clenched her fists and said: Well, bitch, why do
you
do it, then?

Why do I do what? Make people into my slaves? How about Strawberry here? Look her in the eye, Dom. You think Strawberry’s got slavey eyes?

Domino, feeling suddenly so ashamed and sad as to be almost breathless, grunted something, her head hanging down as she gazed dully at Beatrice’s feet.

Maj is waiting! shouted Chocolate, and this injunction revived the blonde’s raging suspicion and longing to be gone even though she had nowhere to go, so she shouted: You want my soul. Well, you can’t have it, ’cause it’s mine mine
mine.
And it’ll never come out.

You know, you’re a rude little thing, laughed the Queen, long-legged, barefooted; the silver necklace on her throat. —You don’t care about what I’m saying, right? You think Beatrice here’s my slave? You think I’m a she-devil? Is that what you think?

What do you
want?
the blonde wept. What do you
want
from me?

I want you to lemme
love
you an’ protect you. Go now, honey. You don’t know what you want and I got things to attend to. That pimp he try to hurt you, I’ll take care of it.

Domino’s arms were crossed. She kept saying: You’re lying. You’re lying. Are you lying to me?

The Queen turned away. Domino looked her coldly up and down and went out. A quarter of an hour later, she ran back screaming with the pimp behind her.

Look at her, said Strawberry. See her big black boyfriend standing right behind her? Not that I’m prejudiced. My main man is Justin. I suck black cock every night, so you don’t need to look at me like that. But when a big black man like that stands behind a hooker, well, sometimes the hooker’s in trouble. You know what they do? The boyfriend hides under the bed. Then while the girl’s taking care of the guy, the boyfriend’s goin’ through his pants, checkin’ out the wallet. That’s how a lot of girls end up dead. It’s like, damn, it’s like, get a
grip,
girl.

The Queen said: Domino, it don’t matter if you have a hundred pimps behind you. Keep your morals. Keep your scruples.

Let go of me, the pimp said very quietly. His eyes were as yellow as the sign for the Broadway Manor Motel.

You think this is funny, don’t you? said the Queen.

I’m gonna get you, the pimp said.

Raising her head high on her slender neck, the Queen gazed wide-eyed into his face with a small smile and said: Why? Haven’t I treated you right? Fuck this. Get up on your feet, pig.

You want me to ex him? said the tall man. This nigger’s an asshole. I’d love to ex this nigger out.

Knock out one of his teeth first, the Queen said. Just one.

What the
fuck!
screamed the pimp. In spite of Strawberry’s characterization, he was actually a slender little man, vicious and alert like a snake.

You really want me to smack him in his teeth, huh?

You wanna lose teeth or you wanna be a good little boy? said the Queen. Justin, don’t take his tooth out just yet. Looks like he’s fixin’ to say something.

I know you, bitch! the pimp yelled. I’m gonna do for you!

All rightie, said the Queen.

This is
bullshit!

It is that. I know that, said Domino ecstatically, mincing in with a cigarette, shaking the match with her wrist back and forth so graceful, always kneeling.

Sweetie, be cool now, okay? said the Queen. Lemme speak with this gentleman.

Domino sank slowly down, whispering to herself.

Sapphire, go an’ hug her, said the Queen. Go an’ give Domino a big kiss. Don’t be afraid. Go now.

This is between you an’ me now, bitch, the pimp said.

Excuse me, said the Queen. You talkin’ to me?

I’m gonna be on your black ass. I’m gonna hunt you down. I’m gonna get you.

He’s a nasty one, said Strawberry. Justin, you oughta just ex him.

I don’ wanna be too talky now, the Queen mused aloud. We put him out on a crucifix, okay, in the middle of Ellis. Really just take him to the prom. This is out of our area.

That’s rich, laughed the tall man, twisting the cord another turn tighter. The pimp began to cough.

Yes, said the Queen, looking down, smoking, shaking, moving. Feels like your eyes gonna pop out, don’t it, mister? Feels like that blood’s just gonna explode right inside your ugly old head, now, don’t it? Well, you know what? It could happen.

Burn his eyes out! screamed Domino. He raped me! He addicted me!

I dunno—ssssh! said the Queen.

The pimp had begun to strangle now, and that was what Domino saw in her mind later whenever she thought about her sister’s crime. He was snarling, purring, and choking all it once. It was horrible.

There’s a lot of things I can do to him, the Queen said. But really what I wanna do is scare him. What you think, Justin? Should we put out one of his eyes? Or the tooth? Where should we start? How can we get him to listen?

Shit, why you askin’ me? Just make up your goddamned mind. I’m sick of this motherfucker.

Get out, said the Queen. Get out and never come back.

The tall man let go. The pimp got out.

Now, dearie, said the Queen. You wanna stay or you wanna go? Whatever you want, that’s cool here with us. You wanna talk with Strawberry or . . . ?

Are you that out of whack? Domino screamed. Are you that ignorant? Haven’t you
figured out that the more you help these bitches the more you’ll just be encouraging them to make some dumb illusion and crawl inside it until it’s too late while you go about your own cruel life refusing to do the one thing that they
long
to have you do?

And what would that be? said the Queen, faintly smiling.

The blonde burst into tears.

Okay, honeypie, said the Queen. All rightie. Never mind. You can stay . . .

There wasn’t a month before I come in here I wasn’t beatin’ up somebody, said Chocolate soothingly. Don’t even know what the heck I was doin’ it for. You wanna stay? Why don’t you stay?

Sobbing, Domino nodded

But later, when they were alone, the tall man said to the Queen: I don’t like her. Lemme check her out.

Papa, comprehending, sentient, and somehow tame, was still handsome. His bushy eyebrows were what had helped him accumulate the woman-memories which now protected his back. He owned the Liberty Bar on Eddy Street. There was something about him which struck the tall man as gently naked, some secret part of him whose inability to hide itself provoked tenderness, as when a woman’s T-shirt rides up her back when she bends over her pool cue. —Well, I’m a new man! a drunk was telling him. A new man, I said! He took my wife, my money,
and
my girlfriend.

Papa nodded sadly.

Can’t you just talk to her? the drunk pleaded.

I don’t want to get involved, said Papa.

Can’t you
all
at least check to see if she . . .

No, no, I gotta take her side, Papa said. I’ve known her longer than I’ve known you. I can’t get involved.

Papa, I swear to God, if you don’t talk to her I’m going to kill myself tonight.

All right, son, I’ll talk to her. Come back tomorrow.

Weary blue, those eyes of Papa’s, innocent in a way that could never be made knowing; sentient, I said, but no freer for that, no freedom like that of a bad moral actor . . .

What can I do for you? he said to the tall man.

You know a blonde bitch named Domino?

Oh, don’t tell me.

You know her? said the tall man, his words greasy, cool and inimical, like the white-painted rivets on the tunnel wall by the Greyhound station. Of course he knew already that Papa knew her. He knew quite a bit about other souls’ attachments and alliances. And what he knew about Papa, that very tenderness-provoking part of him, why, that was what excited the tall man’s contempt.

Sure I know her. She used to go by Judith. Then she was Sylvia. She doesn’t come around here much anymore.

Another shot, please, said the tall man.

Still no ice?

No.

Two and a quarter.

Here’s two.

Two and a quarter.

The tall man slid his sunglasses up his smooth brown skull and said: You tryin’ to rip me off?

I don’t care how big and black you are, Papa said. Anyway, aren’t you asking me for a favor? You want information or not? You owe me a quarter.

Matter of fact, Queen pays two dollars in here.

You want to hear about Domino or not?

Go ahead.

Thank
you. Now you don’t owe me a quarter anymore.

Yeah, buy yourself a Cadillac.

All right. Well, Judith was a good friend of the owner. On SSI
*
, you know, like all those girls. And every month she’d run up a tab with me, you know: Papa, gimme a beer; I’ll pay you when my check comes; this is all I have right now. —She’s a
girl,
you know, so what can you do?

Break her jaw’s what I would do.

And every month she did it like this. Every goddamned month. And one month when she owed me four hundred dollars she didn’t come back.

Bitch really screwed it to you, huh? Papa, you’re too much. You got a fuckin’ bleedin’ heart.

Sometimes I see her on the street but she just sticks out her tongue at me. Well, that’s life. We never know what’s going to happen, much less why. Even your best friend can lie. Even your best friend can cheat. —Look, Papa went on, showing the tall man a Styrofoam cup which had been kissed by lipstick, but the tall man rose without finishing his drink and went back to the Queen to report that Domino was a cheat, a thief and a liar.

That don’t make no difference, said the Queen. Justin, you gotta try an’ care for her, too. . .

Even those who hated Domino admitted to respecting and even to feeling awed by her crazy violence, which in the street world meant bravery, honor, worthiness. Those who lived with her were haunted by her; her soul oppressed theirs with its weight and bitter-reeking shadows, and yet they also took pride in her. In her time she’d smashed furniture and heads. It was best to avoid her wherever possible; second best to give her whatever she wanted. Domino herself sensed the limitlessness of her own acts. Deep inside her skull, she hunched and squatted, dull-eyed, scared runaway whose only hope lay in setting her presence alight to give this planet of enemies pause; they said that Domino had a “rep,” that she had “heart.” By this they really meant that Domino was dangerous. The whore from Albuquerque who’d tried to gaffle her out of a dime bag of weed, where was she now? Domino had broken a lamp over her head. And Akoub the Muslim pimp, who’d raped her, wasn’t it Domino who’d set on fire not his hotel room, which proved too difficult to reach, but the entire hotel itself? No matter that what had actually
happened was that Domino had raged into the lobby with a can of gasoline which she’d begun pouring on the lobby carpet while everybody screamed and ran and then the blonde pulled a book of safety matches out of her bra, struck one and it didn’t light, struck a second which also failed her, swore, glared fiery-eyed in all directions, and fled. And the night that a man in a fancy car insulted her, hadn’t it been Domino who’d thrown one of her high heels right through his windshield? No matter that the high heel had really been a hunk of brick; indeed, wasn’t brick more ferocious still, if less expressive, less stylish? Everything she did got magnified. She had no pity and showed no fear. She was magnificent. She was as much a part of the other night people as their own tears. Cursing and scrutinizing her, they stood aside to let her follow her own path. They said: Domino went that way. They said: Watch out for Domino. They said: That Domino is one coldhearted bitch.