The Royal Family (77 page)

There is a certain middle distance at which the island that one is approaching, not having grown larger for a long interval, continues not to grow larger; and yet somehow you can see that it is growing larger. This is how the girl with the octopus mind now felt.
She did not rage and tremble; she knew that next time she’d have him. Marshalling her reserves—well-plucked eyebrows, perfect ankles, dimples and fingernails and flashing blitzkrieg shoulders—she streaked on, following his tracks.

But once again he was out of reach of her weapons, having been conquered by another, an innocent girl who won him carelessly, almost unknowingly, simply by appearing before him like beautiful death. While the platoons of other hungry girls scoured the streets lipsticked in their reconnaissance cars, turning corners with rolled-down windows to catch unwary boys with the aching lure of a licked lip, the innocent girl mauled him with a look, holding her right hand in her left, cradling her head in her soft wave of hair, gazing at him with steady brown eyes. His will pleaded to turn away, to fatten on less dangerous prey, but a single lethal toss of her hair strangled him into silence. He could not even ransom himself from her; his best friend could not pull him home; she’d infiltrated his machine-gun nests of coldblooded charm, and a raking salvo of light from her eyebrows shattered them into stutters. Continuously firing gorgeousness upon him from her flared nostrils, she sprawled him down without even a smile. He spun as he tumbled, and his neck snapped back; his mouth gaped in a silent shriek. Then she hacked his heart to pieces.

Thoughts of her visited him all night, thickening like the echoes of her goodbye shouted from the window—her second goodbye, which came after the one by the stairs, when he’d embraced her without kissing her anymore and began to go downstairs and the innocent girl whispered to her cat: Say goodbye to him . . . —down the long stairs he sank to the door which he shut behind him knowing that she was at the top of the stairs watching him; he closed the door and made it sure, went down the outer stairs to the gate and closed it behind him like an astronaut leaving the airlock forever; and he began to walk into the grim loneliness of that street where a hungry man leaned into darkness watching him approach; he knew before he even passed the man that the man would stalk him for blocks; it was then that she called goodbye to him from the window. Tomorrow morning she was going away. The goodness and desperate impatience of her were being formed into some alloy as yet unknown. —(She’d told him that it was all over.)

In front of his door the girl with the octopus mind was waiting. But she could do nothing to him. He was armored against her with the ultimate armor of obliviousness.

The girl with the octopus mind, beautiful, sat in her empty bedroom with the white white walls emblazoning her shadow of need and sadness, and with all the loneliness of nakedness she knew that she was so far away from the army of other girls now that no one could help her on this last battlefield where the vultures already waited to dip their beaks in her decaying heart, and the octopus (which was really her anguish) glared inside her skull so desperately that her mind burst into throbbing flames and it stretched its suckers just as a child stretches his arms out as he begins to weep; then the child
throws back his head to let mouth and tongue gape to the heavens; now he’s prepared; in the same hopeless way, the octopus shot its tendrils out in all directions, locking them into rigid pain like a sea-creature dropped living into formaldehyde; the pale-eyed octopus was dying; the girl it was dying inside sat rocking herself and moaning and dialling to make his phone ring and ring, but nothing could drag him out of remembering one night when the innocent girl was in her pajamas.

Do you think it would be decent for me to go out like this? the innocent girl had said.

I think it would be decent for you to go out any way. You are so beautiful.

She laughed quickly. —Thank you, she said.

She never loved him. Unknowing and uncaring she whipped his heart as if it were a screaming horse. He went home aching. The phone rang, but he didn’t answer it.

After she’d flown clear, he sat overhauling his semi-obsolete love weapons, patching holes in his armor, stacking up cannister after cannister of glittering heartless love-bullets to bombard her with. Knowing he’d likely have time to fire only once, he brooded over what ammunition would be most likely to kill her heart instantly. His best friend shuddered to see him so; he thought to divert him with easier targets, unaware girls to strike and crush, but he remained alone, stricken and bleeding ceaselessly. Throwing up his hands, the best friend went out alone. That was his mistake. He wasn’t in his prime anymore. Laughing, he ploughed the enemy down, spearing and shooting all that he could get, but an adept girl finally slaughtered his heart. —We got the dogs so we wouldn’t have a kid, but we have two kids now, he said, kissing his wife’s face.

But the one who loved the innocent girl felt no more alone when his best friend was killed and stripped. He was already alone. So the girl with the octopus mind won him. She outraced him, then she outwaited him. She got him in the chest, and down he clanged and crashed. She danced over him as he lay there dead. Then she married him.

He never had to cook dinner for himself anymore. His wife did that, busy with her tentacles that were green like an Air King compressed air dispenser. His wife never ate anything that he cooked. If he washed the dishes his wife would go through every plate, until she found some microscopic spot; then she’d wash them all again. So he’d gotten out of the habit of doing the dishes, too. His wife was a professional woman, and when other professional women came over they’d be sure to make some pointed remark to him, such as: Boy, you sure are lucky to have a wife who does
everything
for you! I would
never
do all the cooking for my husband! He’d be
ashamed
if I did.

Had the octopus died after all? On their vacations her oiled knees remained first in firm alertness when she slept in her beach chair. Whenever he made what she considered a mistake, she found it out immediately and began screaming at him. No, the octopus was still there. It didn’t know how to be happy. It tried to bask inside her victorious skull, in exactly the same way that some girls sling their bodies back against locked arms, spread
palms when they sun themselves; but then it quickly began to squirm again, greedy and anxious . . .

Sometimes she shivered with rage at the thought that she’d won a man who was worthless. She preferred his former best friend. (His former best friend had been working for many years as a medical technician when one day he started reading one of those inspirational books that remind you to live each day to the fullest, to remember that today is the first day of the rest of your life, and above all to be sure that you were doing exactly what you wanted to do. Reading this tract, he suddenly yelled aloud: I know what I want! I want to be a used car salesman! —So he did that, and became very happy. When nothing was going on, he’d just say they were jerking off, not really coming; a sale was an orgasm. Now for the encarnadine prize!) But the octopus-minded one knew with all her tentacles that her own husband was no good. Then she’d begin to set him tasks again. One day she decided that it was his job to vacuum. On Monday, he went down to the super’s to borrow the vacuum but the super said that it had been stolen. His wife said: Well then, we’ll have to get a cleaning lady, won’t we?

No, he said weakly, I can’t afford it.

You spend your money on pretty things, said she. You can spend your money on this.

No, no, he said.

Then you can borrow it from Bertha.

But I don’t feel comfortable with Bertha. I’ll vacuum but can you borrow it?

No.

Okay. Then I’ll do it.

On Tuesday Bertha wasn’t there. He called three times. On Wednesday it was the same. His wife was going to dinner at Bertha’s. He had spoken to Bertha on the phone and it was understood that he would pick up the vacuum. He went down when he was sure that dinner would be over and it had just started. Theodore was sitting at the head of the table, carving the turkey, and his wife was there and Bertha was just bringing in the brussels sprouts from the kitchen.

Oh, you have to stay! said Bertha.

I—I . . . he said, becoming tongue-tied with shame.

Sit down, beamed the octopus, glowering with pure hatred.

No, I just wanted to borrow the vacuum . . .

Can’t it wait until after dinner? snarled Theodore. I mean, we’re eating.

I’m sorry, he said. I didn’t mean to—

No, no, no, give him the vacuum, said Bertha anxiously.

Everyone stared at him over their ruined dinner. Bertha rushed into the bedroom and got the vacuum. Doing this she awakened the baby, who began to cry.

Oh, Theodore, said Bertha. There’s something wrong with the vacuum. Can you fix it?

Theodore leaped up in a rage, knocking over the ruined dinner . . .

She had begun to accord her career the attention which it deserved. She was an engineer for a nationwide company which manufactured super-cold smart refrigerators. If she
distinguished herself, they’d give her a promotion and they could move back to the west coast. She had a number of competitors for the position, but she knifed them square in the belly; she slit their livers open; she made their guts see the light of day! Her octopus quivered and listened perpetually; it was impossible to surprise her. Those who tried staggered back gushing blood, and their fate was the same as that of the amateurs whom she herself surprised. She drove them all down to death. Catnapping from year to year, tossing restlessly in that murderous marriage bed, she seized the spoils and gathered grander weapons, until at last she won the triumph; he didn’t care. Now they were all set to move into their dream house.

They fought about where and when and how, and the next thing they fought about was the printer stand. He suddenly realized that she had moved it into the hall to be trashed. She’d gone somewhere when he noticed. He went outside, and there it was. He brought it back inside. It was his; he was using it and it would be good to have when they got to their dream house. It was ugly and lightweight and practically indestructible. As far as he was concerned it would be fine forever. No doubt she hated it for its looks. But they wouldn’t have any money for awhile. The dream house, as dream houses will, had cost more than expected, and once the closing costs were tacked on . . . If he allowed her to throw it out, he wouldn’t have any ugly chair when they got there. She’d be working, and wouldn’t be available. He wouldn’t have money; he’d just given her his life savings for the down payment on the dream house. So he thought he was entitled to the ugly chair. That was why he brought it back in. When she returned from wherever she’d been, he saw the hatred and anger leap into her eyes.

What’s this? she said.

I brought it back.

Where are you going to put it?

I don’t know. Where do you suggest? he said wearily. (All evening he’d been following her suggestions.)

Out, she said flatly. We’re not taking it.

Look, he said. I don’t have to justify everything I take. You went and put it out without consulting me. It’s mine, and—

No, it’s not yours. We found it together, in the garbage. I tell you, we’re not taking it! You just want to get the moving costs up. You don’t care. It’s not your money anymore. The costs keep going up with every stupid thing you try to save—

I’m not getting rid of it, he said then. (He’d hardly ever noticed it before.)

Now she started screeching at him. He bore it as patiently as he could, for as long as he could. His stomach began to ache. Then he told her to stop. That pleased her. Now that she’d gotten a rise out of him, she could abuse him in earnest.

He was sitting at his desk. She was standing by the table, yelling.

Please stop now, he said.

You sonofabitch, she said. You fucking sonofabitch.

She went on like that for a while.

I’m asking you for the last time to stop, he said.

Now a crisis was approaching. That was what she longed for. She refined the cruelty of her insults as she increased their volume. He did everything he could not to hear, but he heard just the same.

I’m almost at the breaking point, he said. Please stop, or I’ll push you out the door.

You
leave, you fucking sonofabitch.

He could actually push her out, but that would only make a public scene, and anyway he didn’t want to be brutal. He just wanted her to stop. There was no use talking to her and she wasn’t going to shut up. He couldn’t bear it. He could leave himself, but he was very tired and had nowhere to go. Now that his money was gone, he couldn’t stay in a hotel. She was going on and on, and he snapped. On his desk, ready to hand, was a textbook of hers. He looked at it. He was very angry now, and could barely control himself.