The Royal Family (59 page)

Beloved and miscast Tyler paid Irene out of next month’s rent money, then headed for a Mexican restaurant on Seventeenth and Mission which he hadn’t tried. Passing one skinny shrieking black Mr. AIDS, he entered a world of
carne asada
smells and trumpet music powerful enough to lift him into heaven, with Spanish or Mexican girls on the walls showing their breasts and flashing their rears. At the tables, men slowly crammed burritos into their jaws. Domino came in with her bag of laundry, clopp-clopping,
flashing her long, scarred legs; there was the eye-shaped bullet scar, there the motorcycle scar in he’d once rubbed the locator fluid. He waved, and she grinned at him, which was how he learned that she was now missing a tooth.

What news? he said.

Getting dinner to go, the whore replied with a yawn.

The meat cleaver chattered on the blood-hued cutting board.

Just getting started today, Domino?

Uh huh.

She pulled her dress away from her collarbone, and peered down into her bra, her lips moving. He realized that she was counting her money. When she had concluded this operation, she scanned the counter with a scowl, and, seeing that her burrito remained unfinished, which meant that the next two or three minutes would be wasted anyhow, poutingly came and sat beside him.

Just like old times, darling, he said. Just like you and me alone in that hotel with those wine coolers . . .

Do you hate me?

Hate you? God, no. But I’m afraid of you sometimes. You’re a pretty tough lady.

I know, she said with a happy little smile.

Her lips were moving again. Maybe she was still totaling up her money, or maybe she was praying.

Someday I’m gonna do this thing to you guys, she purred. To
all
of you guys.

And we’ll all be down on our knees?

That’s right, Henry. And you’ll all be missing something. You’ll all be bleeding.

It’s nothing personal, is it?

No. Not exactly. Where’s my fucking burrito? I’m
hungry.

Hey, it’s been five minutes and you still haven’t asked me if I’m a misogynist.

Do you think any of us were prepared for this? Do you think I was born to debase myself in front of men I don’t even know?

I don’t think it’s necessarily debasing.

How the fuck would
you
know?

How come the Queen doesn’t talk about being debased?

Don’t mention that name, said the girl automatically, snaking her face from side to side.

Well, let me ask you this, he said. If you’re debasing yourself, who’s making you do it?

It’s a job getting a job in this town, she shruggingly said.

Yeah, yeah.

I oughta cut you, she whispered.

You wouldn’t be the first, he chuckled. (As Irene used to say: He’s American, so he really likes to express his feelings. I’m not used to that.)

Look, Mr. Tyler or whatever your name is. Let’s get the ball rolling. I’m free and you’re free. Do you want a piece of ass? Frankly, I’d prefer to be making money instead of wasting time just chatting. I’ve got a little rock . . .

If I were to pay you, would you like me any better?

Naturally, baby. I might even love you.

For five whole minutes? he said with a wink. —There. You smiled. I actually got you to smile. You’re so pretty when you smile.

I am?

Why do you think you’re so sad? Speaking for myself, I—

Look, the blonde said. I’ve got my dates to take care of. I don’t need your shit. You and—and
her,
and Lily and Consuelo and Beatrice and Chocolate and Strawberry and Justin can all talk about me behind my back if you want. I don’t give a fuck.

Domino—

Look. You want to fuck me or not?

The Queen said—

Maj can pee up a rope.

Have you seen my Irene?

She started to rise, and he said: Domino, I’ll be your friend if you let me.

If you pay me, the whore said. That would work.

Honk four times, he said. Looks like your burrito’s ready.

Would you excuse me, please? said the false Irene. I don’t like anyone to see when I do this.

All night she kept him awake with her moaning in the bathroom. There’d be a long pause, then a deep, heartfelt animal noise that could have been either pain or sexual ecstasy; of course it was pain. Then from time to time came the emphatic sucking pop as she pulled the plunger out of the needle, trying to clear it. But she couldn’t. That shoe polish in the heroin—to hell with what it did to a girl’s veins; the important thing was that it gummed up her needle, and needles were not easy to come by . . . He heard her begin to weep.

Sacramento was chokingly hot that day—the Sierras were crawling with wildfires, said the radio, and coming down from the Pacific Coast Range into the Central Valley he had seen on the horizon a cloud of bluish-grey too pale to be smog; after Vacaville his throat began to get sore; that week, too, heat wave records shattered, or almost broke, or retained their majesty; record temperatures were exceeded every summer, it seemed, and yet it remained simply hot—a hundred and ten downtown today, the newspaper said, and a hundred and twelve five miles from there—vain precision! —but Sacramento most admirably continued with its business, its shopping, auto repair, driving, with its backyard weddings cool but not chilly beneath those evenings of rose bushes and midges as it got later and later, the businessmen yawning, waiting for the toast while their wives smiled vaguely and their children fidgeted, thinking about big slices of wedding cake, and strangers became friends at least until midnight, and sometimes longer; neighbors enjoyed seeing each other there because it meant that the world had not changed yet and therefore never would; neighbors would always be there; hence no one would die; and then it came time to cut the cake and throw rice, time then to go home, dreaming with raw throats, wake up hungover the next hot bright morning; Tyler had done this. His mother’s best friends, Mr. and Mrs. King down the street, were proud at last to announce the marriage of their daughter Lisa to a grim proud boy from out of town. Tyler liked the Kings very much. He would have attended the wedding, but he was afraid that if he stayed that long, the false Irene might disappear.

Per arrangement he went by Dan Smooth’s house to feed the cat and empty the litterbox. Dan Smooth was in Amsterdam in a hotel with young boys.

Yes, Sacramento was hot but San Francisco was cold and foggy that day with clouds crawling through the fog.

You don’t look well, his mother said weakly. Do you have any good news to tell me?

Well, Mom, I have a girlfriend.

You do? Oh, Henry, I’m so glad! Tell me all about her. Tell me where you met her. How long have you been seeing her? What’s her name?

He gazed at his mother with his eyes like welder’s goggled over his soul, dark and blank and almost opaque to protect him from what they might see, and he swallowed once and said: Irene.

See, for twenty they usually give you more. But there was only a couple guys out. Can’t trust all of ’em . . .

Okay, Irene, he said, sit down. You don’t look too steady on your feet. Where’d you cop?

Over by the Hotel Tony on Turk Street.

I thought you used the Mohawk.

It burned down, she said. Domino and I were even staying there at the time. We moved to the Royal Hotel. But now she . . . you know, with the Queen. So I . . . And the Royal Hotel, well, I can’t . . .

Oh, how’s that place? he asked, trying to be interested. She exhausted him.

Worse than the Mohawk, she said sourly.

That’s pretty bad.

Hey, I was wondering if you could lend me—

Irene?

What?

This morning I woke up feeling—

Here . . . she muttered to herself. The balloon . . . let me get that up . . .

Tyler sat down heavily.

Sagging, stinking, musing, sinking, swaying, trying so hard to put the needle back in her little purse but forgetting even as she’d begun the action what she was doing, she muttered: Earlier I bought one from this guy but it musta pooped out or something because I didn’t feel . . . Yeah, I’m just trying to put this stick away but I can’t find the little. . .

She kept leaning and swaying on the toilet seat. She tried to draw the plunger out but her fingers kept getting in each others’ way. Now the plunger was upraised like a masturbator’s face. Her body offered him a bitter smell, not sweet like a fat girl’s. Her spastic shoulders sent telegraph signals of need to someone other than him—maybe to the Queen, or maybe just to the ether. Her long hair hung down. Her belt buckle kept flapping and rattling because she’d first tried to shoot herself in the behind. She sat there on the toilet seat, and her scarred, stinking hand sought a fatty bloody friendly place within her private waterfall world of hair to insert the last millimeter of gladness; and she slumped and slumped. He stroked her neck and she kissed him and said: You’re so nice.

Her shirt had a stinking brown stain. —Oh, see, that’s where I muscle. But I didn’t have no tissue. So it bled from the needle. Lemme take a leak . . .

Slowly, slowly, with the needlehead she stirred what was in the bottlecap.

He went out and lay down. From the bathroom came the sound of moaning.

I try to be a nice person, she told him later. My Daddy always said I was his favorite daughter. After my mother died of cancer he got it in his prostate gland and he told nobody but me. I promised not to tell anybody, and I didn’t. So he died. Then my sister, aged thirty-four, got cancer of the stomach. She bled to death. That’s a hell of a way to die.

And now who do you have?

Nobody.

Not me? he asked, hating himself.

Oh, that’s different. You’ll always be my special customer—I mean my special friend . . .

No girlfriends?

Oh, it used to be different. Six years ago, we’d look out for each other. Now the world has changed.

What about the Queen?

She may be my Queen, but how much can she do? I’m still an addict, aren’t I? My shit still stinks, and money doesn’t grow on trees. I’m not sayin’ she . . . Queen’s so nice to me, actually. She feeds me an’ . . . I’m tryin’ to remember if I ever . . . Oh, where’s the goddamned vein? Goddammit, goddammit, goddamn my goddamned body, oh, Henry, it hurts—
it hurts!
Ow! Oh, that’s better. And Domino ripped me off, but I forgive her, ’cause she had a need. You know what I’m saying? One night she was real sick, so I loaned her eighteen to get well. Now she ignores me. I saw her today, out making money in a polka-dot dress . . .

She had fallen asleep on the toilet seat now, with piss running down her thighs.

Oops, said Irene. See what I did? I messed up the point, so I’ll have to break it off. I won’t do it here.

Her head sagged until her hair touched the floor

Okay, where’s my top? she said, sitting on the toilet, stinking, scarred, and naked.

You got any tissue? she said. Lemme put this here for a few minutes.

You got any more money? she said.

You tryin’ to jack me up? she said.

No, he said, almost stifling in sadness and boredom.

You’re a detective, so that means you’re
cop,
she suddenly pronounced, sitting up wide-eyed and stinking on the toilet seat.

Glad you have it figured out, he said listlessly.

Well, ain’t I right?

Not really. Cops and everybody pretty much turn a blind eye to what we do. Anyhow, I—

Would you please please please be quiet for a minute? she said. I need to think. I think maybe I dropped a little chunk of rock somewhere in this bathroom, but maybe it wasn’t here . . .

He remembered being alone with the true Irene once when she had started yawning, getting distant: Yes, I’m tired, she admitted. —But when others came out, Irene, smiling and gracious, said to everyone: No, I’m not tired.

Just after dark on the first Friday night in July he sat in his car with the window rolled down and a pad on his knee, watching the neon lights squirming uneasily in and out of brightness along the borders of the sign for the Jade Galore Jewelry Co.; a bank sign glowed cold steadfast, and red ideograms gripped the windowpanes of the Tong Kee Restaurant like athletic crabs. Irene was out dating. Between the Tong Kee and the Dick Troi Hair Salon, a tall alley, full of sky, lured his attention by means of a succession of awnings. Between him and the alley, the flank of a car or van frequently occluded itself, or the heads of tourists, or Chinese mothers carrying their babies; but these flickers passed as quickly as they came, leaving the alley for Tyler. An Asian cop labored up the sidewalk, chewing gum, his pistol and baton dragging down his Sam Browne belt. The cop looked at his watch and entered the Tong Kee Restaurant. Small white lights shone uselessly in the alley. A Chinese woman passed quickly smiling, arms folded across her tiny breasts. The fishes swiggled their tails and flippers most languidly behind the window of the Tong Kee. A stooped old lady, clutching many plastic bags, stopped in front of the alley for a long time. Tyler sighed, doodled on his pad.