The Royal Family (132 page)

Tyler stopped listening. He longed for the moment when all the muffled underwater voices would cease, and his creditor would sit down next to him again in the front row, drooping his wrists between his thighs, gazing lovingly into space. Or maybe they’d meet in the corridor and go out afterward for a drink at the Wonderbar. His creditor wanted to help him; his creditor would save him—

Past the body-piercing shop Haight Street begins to steepen, and at Baker commences the plateau called Upper Haight, with Buena Vista Park a slanted wall of green on the left, bearing its loungers, panhandlers, sleepers, tourists, map-readers, and bus-watchers; here it was on an afternoon of sweetness infused with the perfectly pitched almost painful bugling of bus brakes and the smell of just-cut grass that Tyler, paying homage to a compulsion he could not control, went into the bead store and bought some pewter and bone beads. An hour swirled by like the new Queen slowly unwinding the chain from her wrist as the latest bitch in trouble knelt, not daring to gaze upon her tattooed glitter-frescoes. He sat on the grass and strung unhappiness on a piece of silver wire.

A boy with long blond hair and eyes whose lids resembled Tyler’s tattered leather wallet sat beside him and said: Where are you staying?

Capp Street.

Oh.
Oh.

And what are
you
about? sighed Tyler, stringing beads.

Meeting
you!
—and with this the boy thrust out his hand and left it hanging weirdly in midair until Tyler took it. It felt like white bread soaked in milk.

I like how your hand feels, said the boy yearningly.

Well, glad you enjoyed it, said Tyler. You have anything to tell me before I go?

You’re going? You’re going?

Yep.

Where?

To pick up some prostitutes.

Boys or girls?

Girls.

Girls!
said the boy, stunned.

See you, said Tyler, but the boy didn’t answer.

Nodding at the blonde stubble-headed girl whose skull was tattooed or dyed with sky-blue stars, at the cat-quick skinny runaways who giggled and then suddenly spilled out shrill obscenities like blowfishes puffing themselves menacingly against some threat; bowing to black girls whose dreadlocks were chased in gold—not as many tie-dyed people as ten or twenty years ago; the thing now seemed to be short hair and T-shirts—Tyler strolled, playing with his beads.

At Shrader Street he noticed two Brady’s Boys excitedly pacing, one saying to the other: See that guy in the trenchcoat? He’s a pickpocket. He used to work for the Queen. Let’s bust his ass! —Sutro Tower’s red and white backbone rose headlessly above the Victorian houses, its hollow vertebrae blue with sky. At the end of Haight Street, Golden Gate Park drew its green line against the evil world. More people stationed themselves on the grass than he remembered, cigarette smoke rising at a slow slant between coughing and spitting heads and greasy little backpacks and ball caps pointed backward. They shared cartons of french fries. Sometimes a man would stride across the grass, his shirt opened to the tanned or tainted flesh, and another shirt tied around his waist, and pigeons would flock around his head. In a year or so, just as Strawberry had prophesied on that day when the tall man came home from the hospital, our local government would build a fence here to keep them out. A boy in a cap, a hooded sweatshirt and tall rubber rainboots which came up to his knees struggled in the hot sun, dragging his pack behind him; sighing, he threw it down and lay on it. A girl dressed in blue denim from head to toe wandered past him, sipping from a paper cup.

Why don’t you sleep in the park? said the hooded boy to the girl.

Tried that once but it’s too cold.

It’s not so bad. Anyone can do it.

Tyler listened, strangely excited and encouraged, he didn’t know why.

It’s a secret, the boy went on. The manager he don’t know I sleep here.

What time does he get there?

Eight o’clock. I hear the first bus, and then the second bus, and then I know I gotta be awake and out of here.

On a bench, three Brady’s Boys were looking at a tourist map, one of them laughingly reciting: There’s
scum
on the streets! We got right on our side! —But the second Brady’s Boy, who was older, sadly shook his head and said: It’s called rapport, guys. You don’t want treat ’em like crap. You wanna
develop
’em.

Sighing, Tyler clattered his beads.

The pink form said in English and Spanish:

—NOTICE TO DEFENDANT—
YOU ARE BEING SUED BY PLAINTIFF

To protect your rights, you must appear in court on the trial date shown . . .

Let’s see, there was his small claims case number: 97SC08089 . . .

It was some bank in South Dakota this time. His other credit card company used them.

DEFAULT ON A REVOLVING CHARGE ACCOUNT DATED 22/20/93

A.
_x__
I have asked defendant to pay this money but it has not been paid.

Maybe I’ll challenge the venue, he muttered to himself. Bastards.

Oh, the hell with it. I’ll just default.

For a moment, he imagined himself in court, looking into his debtor’s eyes. Then he said to himself: Hell, I don’t care what they think.

One of the first indications that a person is becoming an addict is that he loses interest in others. A love-addict masks this symptom by virtue of the addiction itself, which
is
others.

He still had his computer, on whose monitor sailed a pretty screen saver depicting the outer planets. Accessing Webscape Crawler, he grimaced at the familiar connecting noise and ran a nationwide credit check on himself.

Oh, fuck, he said. This really is not too good.

Hardened in his defiance, like any sinner destined for hell, which must be as hot as the Greyhound station in Marysville on a July day, Tyler had long since walled his pallid heart away from embarassment, so that when Irene was still alive he’d tortured her with endless declarations of that submission which really is not submission at all since it insists on being accepted; he’d yielded himself to what he believed was Irene, but in reality was nothing but his own terrible passion which drove him day after day to telephone Irene and leave such messages as: Irene, I wanted to tell you how happy I was to hear your voice on the answering machine last night because you know that I love you so much; I’m passionate about you, Irene; Irene, I wish I could be the ground you walked on. Irene, I’m yours. I belong to you. —Did he know or care that John could call in from work at any time and by pressing two keys of the touchtone phone play back every recorded message? Once when he and John and Irene were all staying at Mrs. Tyler’s house in Sacramento, Irene and John had gone home a day early due to a crisis at John’s office, and the lovesick man stayed on with his mother, then left a message for Irene (who was out buying oranges, halibut and long green beans in Chinatown) that he had slept last night between the sheets she’d slept in and on her pillow found two long, beautiful strands of her black hair which he would keep forever; he felt happy uttering these words for the record, or at any rate relieved; but as soon as he’d hung up, sadness welled up through his chest, flooding and drowning his heart, rising into his throat so that he almost choked and then burst out of his eyes in very painful tears; rising still higher, it flooded his skull, sinking into his brain to make him almost drunk; he stared at the telephone, licking his lips, craving to take the receiver into his hand and dial Irene’s number again (it hadn’t even been five minutes). He didn’t call her for the rest of the day. That night at seven and then at eight and at nine he glanced at the phone but it did not ring. When he went to bed he brought the telephone close, just in case, but she never called. The next day he was so sad and anxious he felt almost crazy. He wanted to dial her but said aloud: Don’t you have any shame?

(Oh, he was entirely capable of shame. One windy afternoon when John, Irene, Tyler, the dog and Mrs. Tyler drove across the Golden Gate Bridge for a stroll on Stinson Beach, Irene had walked alone, looking squat and disheveled as she sand-trudged with her head down, her hair messed up, her legs braced apart, a bulky sweater further widening her; and John was chatting quite cheerfully with his mother while Tyler tried to be
good but never quite succeeded in dragging himself into the breeze-snatched conversation (which had to be shouted, almost, against the sea-roar), so he gradually allowed air currents to guide him closer to the dark wet sand-edge and found Irene beside him. He stroked her hair. She neither smiled, nor spoke, nor moved away. For a good quarter-hour they walked side by side, he feeling dull and almost angry at Irene, who possibly felt the same; on the way back, uphill through the windy dunes, John had dropped behind to throw sticks into the ocean for the dog, and Mrs. Tyler gasped to Irene: I’m not so young anymore; you’re so strong; and she grasped her daughter-in-law’s shoulder. —Oh, come on, said Irene, shrugging her off, and marched ahead alone. Tyler hung his head, humiliated by Irene’s rudeness to his mother.)

His hand lifted the receiver; he overruled his hand. At six that evening the tension within him locked him almost breathless, so he dialled Irene’s number and got a busy signal. He felt a sickening illicit thrill, as if he had heard her micturating behind a closed door. She was
there
at that moment. (No matter that it might have been John.) Irene was talking to someone. Could it be Jesus? Had she been just then guaranteed a ticket to Heaven? Slightly eased, he was able to resist phoning her for another two hours. At 8:01, he called and Irene answered. She said that she was busy. She was very nice to him. She chatted with him for nearly fifteen minutes, after the third or fourth of which he felt his desperation begin to ebb. For the remaining ten minutes he felt amazed and thankful to be his old self. Irene had saved him. He told her this, at which she laughed lightly and said: I never knew I was so powerful! —He babbled: Now I know how my heroin junkie friends feel when they fix. They call it getting well. You’re my drug, Irene. You’re my best, best drug. —That was how he spoke to her. She laughed and seemed to like it (although really she might have felt uncomfortable; she might have even hated him). She said it always calmed her to talk to him. That night he won a victory against himself: he insisted that he need not tell her anymore that he loved her. If he had, she would merely have woodenly replied
thank you.
He left the conversation gracefully, feeling not exactly happy, but immensely relieved. Five or ten minutes after he was alone again, with the darkness outside, the tension began to return. He almost panicked. It was a sickness. He remembered how when he’d been learning to swim, aged eight or nine, they’d told him to tread water and he was all right until suddenly the water didn’t hold him up anymore and he was going under, drowning, not knowing why. Now with Irene he was terrified by what was happening to him. Above all he was terrified of his own evil.

The next day he called her answering machine and said: Irene, last night I had a fever and a sore throat and I, uh, I dreamed that I was sucking your breasts, which were full of very hot, sweet, thick, whitish-yellow, sweet milk that glowed in the dark and tasted like vanilla. In my dream, your milk soothed my throat. I woke up and my sore throat was better.

He hesitated, then went smoothly on: The other news is that I can either come in on Friday and take you out for lunch, or I can wait until Saturday and meet you at any time you wish. Please call me and let me know.

Irene did not return that call.

The next day he called her answering machine and said: Irene, please forgive me. I’m sorry. I’ll try to control my feelings better. I’ll try not to call you every day anymore. I won’t call you unless you call me. I’m just calling now because I didn’t hear from you about lunch. If you feel uncomfortable around me now, I won’t bother you anymore, I swear, Irene. Just let me know your plans. I’m sorry I’ve been so stupid. I haven’t felt like
this since I was sixteen. I feel so idotic and angry at myself and so miserable. I don’t know why this had to happen. Don’t stop being my friend.

Irene had not returned that call, either.

There was a Cambodian girl he knew who looked a little like Irene.

He put his hand on her thigh. All day she let him hold her hand; she’d held his hand back; she’d snuggled up into his arms. He began to stroke her thigh. He stroked her hair.

You like to touch my hair? she said.

Your hair is so soft, he said.

(She had to stay home to care for her parents. Her sister she didn’t trust so much.)

Now his hand was right between her legs, and he was rubbing her mons veneris which he could feel through the polyester slacks which were getting damp there. Imperceptibly she opened her thighs a little more. He stroked, and they never looked at one another.

You like to touch that? she finally said.

So much, he said.

She put her hand on his hand and drew her fingers across his as he masturbated her.

A moment later she moaned. That animal happiness of hers thrilled him.