The Royal Family

| 158 |

What did that bitch wanna get noticed for? sneered Chocolate. I don’t wanna be noticed. I don’t want the police to see me all the time. So today when a black-and-white tried to overshadow me, I said, use your brain, girl. I started sneezin’. I said to the pigs: Now I got a cold and tryin’ to go home. — The tall man likewise scorned Domino’s carelessness, but when the Queen emitted her imperishable word, he angelically descended toward Eight-Fifty Bryant without question, treading concrete with silent lengthy steps. He was not in the least interested in what the blonde might have done. What principally occupied him, since his blood currently bore a sufficiently high level of speedball to keep him well, was a domestic question — namely, was Strawberry holding out on him? He hadn’t sniffed out any demonstrable lies, and yet whenever he lurked and guarded the morbid peroxide beauty which grew by night along Capp Street and South Van Ness, he seemed to see Strawberry leaping into strange men’s cars more often than she reached into her stinking brassiere to present him with the latest twenty or forty she’d made. His conscience directed him toward the gentle path of mere watchfulness, since he’d once knocked one of her teeth out for what transpired to be no cause; but his other conscience, the Old Testament one which he knew as well as the many lines of shadow on the soles of the Queen’s feet, demanded utter punishment for infractions of law. His agitation had become by virtue of its very habitude incapable of satisfaction. The Queen’s rule held his worst impulses in check, and thereby stained him, as it would any of us whose lusts and cruelties have been thwarted, with a resentment against the Queen, which his love of her allowed him to avoid acknowledging. Upon what object then could he vent himself? — Strawberry, of course. His love for her licensed him to hate her, while his lack of fear of her incited that hatred. Waking up beside her at eleven that morning in a crack-smoked room of the Topeka Hotel, he’d been seized by so powerful a loathing of her scars, her smelly flesh, and her greedy piglike snores that he almost punched her. Bad control, he told himself. But what if the bitch were holding out? The Queen said never mind. The Queen said that if Strawberry were hiding some cash then that would only be natural. This had merely confirmed him in his suspicions, which were as cruel as Strawberry’s silhouette against a brick wall whose every brick leaped sharply out in sun and shadow to prove itself more durably unfeeling than she. (When he expressed those, the Queen, squatting on a concrete block there in the old factory with her head between arms, stared into his eyes and sadly whispered: What am I supposed to be, though? How long do I gotta be perfect? You think nothing ever goes wrong for me?) In short, she’d insisted that he treat Strawberry as if she were innocent. — You know, Justin, Mr. Cortez the bail bondsman had once said, the first thing you learn when you visit the jail is they’re all innocent! — And he’d laughed his hard laugh. The tall man, as tall as one of the Golden Gate Bridge’s pillars, had heard all that before.

Beneath the Hall of Justice’s twin flags, laughing portfolio-carriers allowed themselves to be ushered through the metal detector, while defendants on bail huddled on the stairs, perimetered by their associated pacers and sitters. But outside and across the street the freedom lottery advertised itself in the boldest colors: KING BAIL BONDS, DE CORTEZ BAIL BONDS, neon handcuffs blinking and springing off a neon wrist. The Queen’s crowd used to go to Crown Bail Bonds because they’d take almost any collateral, sometimes even a mere signature, but one day a lady-in-waiting — Sunflower, in fact — had skipped bail, and by the time the bounty hunters settled things, bad feelings had also settled all around. So Mr. De Cortez, whom everybody called Mr. Cortez, had become the new favored tool.

Unfortunately, Mr. Cortez, who always cracked his knuckles and polished his glasses and cried out: Well, if it isn’t my old friend Justin! wasn’t there. A young lady whom the tall man had never seen before opened the door.

Yes? she said.

Wearily, the tall man took his finger off the buzzer and followed her in.

The individual’s name is Sylvia Fine, he said, standing.

Please sit down, sir. You’re making me nervous. Is that Sylvia with a “y”?

Yep.

Does she have any priors?

Yep.

Case number?

Just do your job, said the tall man. I’m so irritated about this.

Sir, I’m going to have to have the case number.

You see that green binder over there? Open that up. It’s three pages before the last page.

Oh, here she is. AKA “Domino.” And you said this is a drug possession case? Priors, priors… Yes, I should say she does.

What the fuck do you care about priors? Mr. Cortez he don’t talk down to me like this. You shouldn’t even be keepin’ that information. Long as you got the collateral, baby, what the fuck’s the difference if the bitch got priors?

And your name?

Justin Soames, the tall man said, already taking a California identification card from somewhere inside his shirt.

No, we don’t need that yet, Mr. Soames. You don’t have to get ahead of yourself. Will you please sit down? This is going to take a few minutes.

How many counts she got?

Sir, I—

How much this gonna cost?

Well, if you’ll kindly be seated, sir, I’ll just call Room 201 and find out.

I’ll be back in fifteen minutes, said the tall man. He walked out, strolling that freedom strip, which was all bail bonds establishments with the exception of the auto glass place, the mecca for concrete hardeners and a couple of delis, and in the parking lot by the Inn Justice he smoked a rock, feeling an almost intolerable bitterness. In his imagination he raped the woman (who at that moment was gossiping about him on the phone, saying: There are those you have to chase. Over the years you get to know…), and then he slowly sawed her head off. He knocked the rest of Strawberry’s teeth out. He blew up the Hall of Justice with its blank whitestone walls and whitestone steps on which unfortunates were sitting or standing, waiting for their own funerals or for some metaphor thereof, guarded by the triple mailbox and the police cars slowly cruising round and round. He won a million dollars in the lottery. He went fishing in the Gulf of Mexico. These pleasure-strategems relaxed him slightly, so that he was able to smile at his reflection in a massage parlor’s silvered window, with a hooded brilliance equal to Domino’s whenever that lady recollected the time when, aged thirteen, she’d helped her sister’s boyfriend torch the Catholic high school.

A white boy wandered uneasily by. The tall man said: You lookin’? You lookin’?

Maybe. What do you have?

China white. One eight G.*

Dime?†

Uh huh.

Sure, I, uh…

Suddenly the boy ran off.

Boo! the tall man laughed, making a monster face.

A dragon made of cloud reared above the swiggling Victorian dormer windowfronts. He glared at it for half an hour.

Ms. Fine appears to have no permanent address, the woman said. You understand that we have to be very careful when transients are involved. Usually we don’t even deal with them. They’re too great a risk.

The tall man, still standing, clenched the edge of the desk.

Moreover, she has a number of nonappearances.

Yeah, well, you gonna get collateral, so it’s no skin off your nose.

In some counties they fine you for nonappearance.

What about this one?

Mr. Soames, I’m trying to break her out for you. But you need to cooperate. The big powers, they don’t usually issue bail to you until you show that you write carefully. You’ve got to get property, deeds of trust and so on. Because an original bond is like a check. And so I have to write this up very carefully.

And if she don’t appear—

If you fail to appear, there’s an immediate bench warrant. We have no control over that. We get a forfeiture notice, and we notify the indemnifier — that’s you. And then—

Yeah, lady. I heard all that before.

Now I’m ready to see your identification, the woman said. Is this your current address?

Sure.

Mr. Soames, I’ll need verification. I have to protect myself, you know.

From li’l ole me? chuckled the tall man, towering over her, stinking of anger and hatred.

If somebody just takes off, we’d be responsible to the court, Mr. Soames. So in that case we get somebody to track the defendant down….

How much is the fucking bail, lady?

Mr. Soames, every once in a while I get somebody who raises my flag. You’re one of those people.

You fucking ho bitch. I ought to cut you up, said the tall man, exiting. He went to Norris’s, where a friend of his had once gotten sprung in those long-ago days before he’d even heard of the Queen. Mr. Norris gave him a cup of coffee and found out without any fuss that Domino’s bail had been set at fifty-five thousand five hundred dollars, which he was able to reduce to twenty-five thousand after three phone calls to the judge.

Fuckin’ ho bitch always costin’, said the tall man, who was now in a very ugly mood.

Well, it’s Friday, Mr. Norris consoled him. On Friday, everything that could go wrong, goes wrong.

I’m sick of that bitch.

Yeah, Justin, I understand.

Do you really?

Well, for somebody who has a lot of money, twenty-five thousand dollars for bail isn’t that big a deal. He can just put it on his credit card. For somebody living day to day, ten dollars is a lot of money.

Damn right.

See, I told you I understood.

The tall man grimaced.

And how’s her life?

Look, Mr. Norris. You ain’t her shrink, so don’t be her shrink.

You know, Justin, in this job what I like to do is make a difference. I like to think I can help somebody else, see ’em turn their life around.

Fine, so lemme call you Jesus. Me, I got the Mark of Cain.

The other part is when you watch people’s lives just dwindle away. You watch ’em throw their life away. And it’s sad, but that’s the business we’re in.

You philosopher, said the tall man, transforming the word into an obscenity. He counted out Mr. Norris’s ten percent: ten twenties, five tens, a fifty, and twenty-two hundreds. The collateral, which Mr. Norris kept on what might be called a permanent loan, consisted of a television, two VCRs, title and registration to an old red Ford pickup truck, a mink coat and an album of rare stamps. Every item had been stolen. Mr. Norris knew this hoard to be worth much less than the tall man believed, but as long he believed it, he’d stay honest. Thus ran Mr. Norris’s theory, which was not only philosophical but also empirically scientific in the best sense.

Very good, Justin, he said. Now let me just walk over to Room 201 with the information sheet and this receipt. I think we’ll have your friend for you within the hour.

Fine, said the tall man. Break her loose.

| 159 |

When the Queen bailed her out of jail, the blonde felt herself suddenly invulnerable. (How could Dom get popped out of jail so quick? marveled Strawberry. I mean, they caught her with crack right on her body. I heard they found a baggy inside her pussy.) The Queen had protected all Domino’s clothes for her, hiding them in some recess darker and grimier than all the secondhand furniture for sale on Mission Street’s sidewalks, and so every last beautifully silver garment had been saved. Domino knelt. She smiled somberly, thin-lipped and glowing-eyed, with all the grey freshly dyed out of her long blonde hair, and suddenly the Queen saw in her the same immense and speechless patience which she always marked in Beatrice; as if Domino were saying to her just then: My life is mine; I own it; I acknowledge it; I will live it out to the bitter end and do whatever I have to do to keep on being me, and if doing those things becomes sometimes bitter or hellish I will still be me at any cost; I’ll never disappear into Nirvana as Sunflower did… — Whereas Beatrice represented softly giving endurance, Domino possessed many plans which were square-angled like late afternoon shadows on Capp Street. Already she could see herself marching into the Wonderbar where Loreena the barmaid would cry: Hey, kid! and Domino would flash her bright red, sneering, crooked smile. She would never be afraid, no, never. She slipped around her Queen’s neck a wilted red ribbon which under cover of amplified Spanish-language paeans to Jesus she’d stolen from a pharmacy on Valencia Street. The Queen kissed her lips, and she stuck her tongue up the Queen’s mouth, as happy as she’d ever be. The Queen granted her some fresh hot spit, whose psychochemicals made her pleasantly drunk. Then Domino shinnied into her best silver high heels, turned a trick (and here we ought to remind the reader without any sarcasm whatsoever that Domino could ride her tricks as agilely as a stewardess can brace herself against the ceiling of a small plane, defying turbulence, carrying drinks which tremble in the plastic cups — in other words, Domino knew exactly how to move and how far to go, being perfect at what she did), and in her sexy cat’s-eye sunglasses she lolled naked on the strange man’s couch with a toothy grin and clenched fists, thinking: Well, even in my thirties I still have something they want — I’m still in business! — I still get paid! (but the blonde suddenly shuddered as she shoved away a memory of double dating with the late Sunflower, a memory neither particularly familiar nor fiendish of two men’s penises straining at their faces as she knelt beside the other whore in the back of a flatbed truck, saying over her shoulder: You wanna suck that, Sun? — Okay, said Sunflower dully, scratching her goosepimpled thighs). At least the strange man paid well — which is to say, Domino gaffled him good and proper. Almost drunk with joy, she spent the money on “white girl” cocaine and a rum and Coke at the Wonderbar, coolly watching the way Loreena’s face widened when she smiled, as if Loreena were an interesting creature which Domino could vivisect whenever and wherever she chose. She turned another trick on Mission and Fifteenth, which act she later would not remember because this time the money was not so good, and after that, paranoid about what our televisions like to name “a police presence,” took the bus to Larkin and Eddy, where Vietnamese restaurants presented to the world their blue and red awnings. Inside the nearest one, Vietnamese guys in caps whose brims sometimes projected forward like bills, sometimes backward like ducktails, raised their beer-glasses and turned the place blue with cigarette-smoke. A cellular phone rang; the waiter brought more Budweiser all around.

My wife have boyfriend! That’s why I come here and I drink big!

Sew her pussy shut!

They were all laughing, all red in the face.

Me, I have two wives — one here, one in Vietnam. So I tell everyone I’m single!

Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!

Aaaaaaah! they chorused, clinking glasses.

What a bunch of lousy fucking misogynists, Domino muttered. She stood waiting patiently outside the window for a good ten minutes, but her Vietnamese regular never kept his appointment. She reached inside her heart and tore her happiness into shreds which she then released from her bloody-fingernailed fists like confetti and twisted under both heels.

Half a block away, bright blonde girls all in a row were going into the black cop van. Suddenly there were no more girls.

| 160 |

Beatrice likewise expressed affectionate joy at Domino’s return, congratulating and kissing her in a way that aroused the blonde; she always desired Beatrice even though she was fat and she stank. So for a moment she actually believed that Beatrice cared for her, and kissed her in return. When they were cheek to cheek, the Mexican girl whispered: I got a surprise for you. I doan use los drogas no more.

Why’s that? said the blonde, not really listening as she slid her finger slowly down into Beatrice’s underpants.

I was talking to God, and God said: Beatrice, doan use los drogas no more. And I said: Thank you, God. Thank you for thinking about me.

Whatever, said Domino. Hey, you want a hit off my crack pipe?

Okay, said Beatrice with a happy guilty smile.

Domino’s hand on her vulva felt as scorching as one of those dark boxcars sitting in the hot California sun. Beatrice was simultaneusly aroused and afraid. Understanding very well what the blonde intended, she wished that she could have run away to her Mama the Queen, but she respected Mama too greatly to disturb her. It was late afternoon. The fire escapes of the Tenderloin shone in the sun like charbroiled bones. They went to the abandoned ball bearing factory and made love, Domino giving it to her really hard with a dildo until Beatrice screamed with pain, pain flashing in and out of her in a rhythm like the quaking of a bar’s double doors in Mexicali to let in a blast of white-hot sunlight and flashes of car-hoods upon the fat whores inside, may they rest in peace, who are busy shrieking with laughter, peering over each other’s shoulders and slapping each other’s palms, bright and burning pain expertly applied which ended as soon as it began, pain which Beatrice could not comprehend, and so — a blessed strategem, as priests might say — she did not attempt to comprehend it, putting on that same absent look in her eyes that she displayed when she leaned up against a storefront for hours, waiting and waiting to sell her pussy but already high, already well, so she was already gone and whatever bad thing was supposed to happen to her that night could safely happen because she was dead enough to roll with any punch. Although she dared not pray to the Virgin anymore, because in her state that might be blasphemy, the Virgin still sometimes came into her heart and gave her advice, and one time she warned Beatrice always to please and placate, in case something happened to the Queen. This was only another job — certainly not as bad as being raped. Sometimes she even felt pleasure, when Domino refrained from doing it too hard. But today the blonde was very needy; she’d been in prison too long; she couldn’t control herself. Beatrice merely prayed to God (Whom even a damned soul such as herself could always pray to) to protect her from getting a hemorrhage. Then it was over. Domino climaxed with loud and ringing cries. She embraced Beatrice, kissed her many times, and gave her more crack. The pain was all ended now. Hard, yet bright of mood and somehow sincere, as she could still be at many an odd moment, she said to her: I love your box, hon. You’ve got such a fine, fine little box, such a hot little box… — Beatrice felt intensely safe and happy in Domino’s arms.

| 161 |

Don’t you think I’m to die for? said Domino, who felt so high-spirited that she was almost crazed.

Sure, said the john.

You don’t have to die for me. I’ll just kill you — ha, ha, ha!

In a hotel room, the john slowly masturbated, then ejaculated onto her face. Domino went to the sink and washed herself off. Within five minutes she’d convinced herself that it hadn’t happened, and her exhilaration returned.

| 162 |

Around the corner from the O’Farrell Theater (“THE PLACE TO GO IN SAN FRANCISCO”), there was Domino, so luminously blonde, stopping traffic in her sweatshirt and shorts, turning her head, slowly gazing over her shoulder at the passing cars all the way along Larkin to the Ambika Hotel where my friend Mayumi got threatened while distributing free food, and then the Nitecape and the Dong Baek Korean restaurant, all the way to the 501 Club on Jones, the Hong Kong oriental massage place, the Columbia Hotel, the parking garage on Mason, the Irish Horse, the Virginia Hotel — she could see everything, and it all belonged to her. She pulled down her shorts so that the entire world could see pussy-fur, then screamed: I’m the best!

| 163 |

Loreena was only three hours into her shift at the Wonderbar when Domino came in with Lily, and two johns clung to them like tourists hanging onto a cable car’s sides. — You’re buying, Loreena heard one john say to the other john. You’re the high roller.

Usual? said Loreena to the johns to make them feel special. (She often got tips that way.) The johns had been in yesterday, and each of them had ordered a shot of tequila straight up.

Yeah, the one who was paying said. That usual.

And I know what these ladies want, said Loreena with a neutral smile.

From the corner, an old drunk in a cowboy hat cried: None of that street tramp trash for me. Hey! Hey! I’m talkin’ to you all. Go by the Four-Star or the Mitchell Brothers to get girls with real class. Spit in my eye if you can’t. None of this T.L. trash. None of this Capp Street trash.

Be quiet, Alfie, said Loreena. Let Domino and Lily do their thing.

Well, so what do you think? Domino was saying to her prey. You going to do it or not? If you’re not going to do it, I don’t have all night.

I’ll have to ask the boss, the john who wasn’t paying replied.

Loreena was pouring Domino her rum and Coke when Domino said sharply: Hey! You shorted me on that!

What do you mean? said Loreena. I gave you two shots instead of one. And two shots are only two dollars when one shot is a dollar seventy-five. And if Heavyset were here, he wouldn’t let me go past the line. A shot’s a shot, he’d say. But I filled it right up to the top.

Fuck the owner, said Domino. You shorted me.

Look, Domino, said Loreena. I don’t like it when you start getting sniffy with me. Now watch this.

She took a glass, crammed it full of ice, and poured two shots of bourbon in.

Were you watching, sweetie? she said. Did you get that? See, it’s not even as high as what I gave you. Satisfied?

It should be a quarter-inch higher, Domino insisted.

Fuck you! said Loreena, pouring the demonstration glass down the sink while Domino slowly licked her lips.

Thank you, too, Loreena, said Domino with a bright smile.

She gulped her drink down.

So, she said to her john (a man with his glasses on his forehead, a grey suit like a beetle-shell over his paunch), your time’s about up. I have to attend a memorial service for a very close friend who died and I’m trying to raise the money to go. Can you help me out?

Loreena started laughing. Domino glared at her.

Let me go talk to the boss, the john said.

He tapped the other john’s shoulder, and they went into the corner, where they whispered and calculated.

He’s hooked, said Loreena.

Don’t tell me my business, snarled Domino.

It’s my business, too, sweetie. I’ve been watching you put the moves on for years. I never guess wrong about you. You’ll see.

Pour me another shot, said Domino.

Who’s paying? said Loreena.

Put it on their tab.

Well, then let’s make it a double, laughed Loreena, pouring right up to the top of the glass.

That’s more like it, said Domino. Why’d you have to short me the first time?

He said it’s OK with him, her john reported.

All right, let’s go, said Domino, rising. As soon as Loreena had slid the drink across the counter it was aloft and then its contents were down her throat. Truth to tell, Domino had some kind of white fungus on her tonsils, and she drank to kill the pain. Lily had told her once that you didn’t have to worry about AIDS until the white fungus began growing on the roof of your mouth. Then you had problems, Lily said.

Hey, I didn’t order that drink, the boss accused.

Loreena put her hands on her hips. — Well, somebody’s paying for it, mister, and I have a feeling that’s going to be you.

The boss swore and and plunked three dollars down. Loreena would have thanked him, but just then a pimp came in and began to bang on the bar with his fist, shouting: I want an orange juice right now!

Go fuck yourself! said Loreena with a happy laugh.

Meanwhile, in the back seat, the john insisted on holding Domino’s hand while the boss drove and told dirty jokes to Lily. Domino let her john do what he wanted while she stared out the window. She saw Beatrice standing on the corner, holding a soda as she gazed up at the brickwork of the Goodness Tenderloin Center. Domino didn’t wave.

So was it a close friend who died? the john ventured.

Oh, actually it’s a barbeque, said Domino with a yawn. For a lady with a pet potbellied pig.

Ten minutes later he was trying to pull her down on the floor of the boss’s place, while in the bedroom where the boss and Lily were, the bed creaked loudly and briefly.

How much are you going to pay me? said Domino.

You said twenty dollars, the john said.

That’s just to prime my pump. How much you got?

The john turned his pockets inside out and excreted thirty.

All right, said Domino. Now, what do you want me to do?

Just lie in my arms for a minute, the john said.

Oh, so you’re one of those, said Domino.

What’s that mean?

Domino, bored, got down on her side and lay rigid while the man touched her breasts.

That just tickles, she said after awhile. Cut it out.

Lifting her skirt, the john discovered the same motorcycle scar which had impressed Tyler, and then a new tattoo of two linked female symbols.

Oh, are you bi? he said.

Yep, said Domino. Get on with it.

Can I eat you out? he said.

Mm hm, said Domino, not listening.

He opened her legs and started to lower his face and she said: Oh, no, I don’t do that.

Oh, okay, the john said.

Well, thank you for being such a gentleman, said Domino. This was fun. I’ve got to go.

She stood up and walked out, leaving Lily in the now silent bedroom. What did she care about that bitch?

| 164 |

Domino rolled a condom onto the customer’s penis with her tongue, started to suck him, took her face away for a moment, winked and said: This is the worst chewing gum I ever tasted.

The man laughed so hard he lost his erection.

That’s it then, said Domino. You’re done.

Just a minute, said the man. Together they stared at his flaccid penis, as if it might actually rescue the two of them from each other, but nothing happened.

Better luck next time, said Domino. Thanks for being such a gentleman.

She rose so that her skirt fell back down to her knees, slipped on her high heels, and strode triumphantly out while the man sat holding his penis in disbelief. Domino was in a hurry now. She did not spare much consideration for the impressionist lampshade-light in the brick windows of Chinatown, nor for the red diamonds on the whitewalled apartments above the Golden City Restaurant and Market. Once very very long ago she’d been a go-go dancer shouting to keep the job she was late for, shouting until the phone booth reeked of her perfume; she’d lost that job and lost the next. In a quarter-hour she was back home among the Tenderloin’s laughing and mumbling whores in the rain, the high-priced whores who sported satin umbrellas and shimmering boots, and whose faces were as blank and shiny as new Coca Cola cans. A blonde in a white skirt and a black umbrella offered each car a little-girl wave.

I used to look as good as that, said Domino, looking the young blonde up and down.

What are you staring at? sneered the young blonde. You’re nothing. You’re just an old sack of trash!

Domino then felt the same sensation as her late companion, the man with the flaccid penis. But she did not herself withdraw into flaccidity. Snatching up a broken beer bottle from the sidewalk, she rushed the girl and brought the club down on her forehead hard enough to shatter glass anew. The girl fell down bleeding and screaming. Domino, knowing better than to tempt the squat square rainy black buttocks of police cars, slipped off her high heels and ran down to Turk Street. Then, reshod, she approached the parking lot on Golden Gate where the tall man man lorded it over the shadows.

She whistled four times, and he lobbed her a dime bag.

That’ll work, chucked the blonde, paying him.

Gimme five for Maj’s retirement fund, said the tall man.

For hers or for yours? said Domino disdainfully. How do I know what crap you’re up to?

You got some mouth, said the tall man. You be lucky you’re in good with Maj. Otherwise I might just have to beat your whitebread ass.

Oh la-la, sneered Domino. Don’t think I haven’t figured out who’s gaffling everybody else. And someday I’m going to do something about it.

Now who’s gettin’ accused? said the tall man watchfully. You got the guts to accuse me to my face? Or you accusin’ Maj behind her back as usual?

Fuck you, Justin. Hey, keep an eye out for a sec, would you? I need to pee.

She squatted down between two cars and began to make water, which struck the asphalt with a sizzling noise. Many things are more convenient without underwear.

Hey! she said indignantly. You’re not supposed to watch me, you pervert!

The tall man chuckled. Certain things I like to look at. Not so much what you be doin’ there, but the part of you you be doin’ it from.

Wiping herself on her skirt, Domino rose, not really angry at all. — Hey, you know that guy Henry? The one who keeps hanging around the Queen? He likes that stuff. He’s into golden showers.

Me, I’m just into gold, said the tall man.

You’re just a big black jerk, laughed Domino. Here’s ten dollars for your retirement fund.

She turned her back on him and went out toward the ticket booth. She lit up a cigarette. A man was approaching. She said to him tentatively: Hey, you wanna…?

The man gazed at her intensely. Then he got into his truck and drove away.

| 165 |

Domino breezed into the Wonderbar, drunk and high, determined to get drunker. An old john whom she dated once or twice a month sat down beside her. — Aha, the old bastard’s horny again! she thought gleefully, showing him leg. I’m the best!

The john said: You, uh, I, uh-uh-uh-uh—

Gimme a twirl! laughed the drunken blonde. Why do you think li’l girls like to twirl? Not just to see their skirts fly up, though that’ll work for some. The real reason is, it makes you high. But I did just wash my underwear. Wanna see?

I… well, I, yes.

Then I’ll give you a twirl! Ha, ha, ha!

You’re so — I mean to say, Domino, you, uh, you’re beautiful.

Black belt, leather, lace, why don’t you SIT on my — face! See I’m a poet. I wish I could dance on the bar, but — and suddenly the blonde burst into tears — Loreena won’t let me. I know her. I just know…

| 166 |

Well, said the Canadian doctor, joke goes like this: Guy’s trying to call Canada, and the operator says: Sorry, sir, that’s an imaginary number. Please multiply by the square root of minus one and try again. Well, it’s just a mathematics joke. I can’t make any excuses for it. It’s not me who’s the lawyer; it’s my wife.

Domino smiled well-manneredly. — Hey, you got five dollars?

Absently, the doctor reached into his wallet and counted out five ones. Domino saw a hundred dollar bill in there and her heart pounded.

So where did you say you were from? Domino said.

The doctor looked at her. — I’m from Canada. Have you been listening to anything I said?

Sure, Professsor. You were talking about your wife. So you wanna kind of like unzip, and then maybe we can relax? I’m real tight down there, you know what I mean?

Listen, said the doctor. I changed my mind. I wanted somebody who could pretend a little better than you could.

Oh, well, aren’t we hurt! sneered Domino. Just because I don’t understand all your mathematics shit, you can’t get hard! You have it in for me because I never had the opportunity you had? You have something against girls that never had the chance to get a good education, that never even got a decent pair of shoes?

Those sneakers of yours look just fine to me, said the doctor. Or don’t they count?

Domino reached into her purse and pulled out a razor-knife. — All right, don’t play games with me, she said. I want your wallet.

| 167 |

They call some people shot-callers, said the tall man. They’re the ones that call the shots. If you gotta get well and I wanna sell you some powder for a higher price and you say no, don’t mean no nevermind, ’cause you gotta have that powder, see. I call the shot.

How many women shot-callers you know? said Domino.

A few. And they be so cold.

How about me?

You certainly be cold enough. Might as well call you the Ice Bitch. But that’s not all there is to it. You got to show some sense. Why be mean when you can accomplish the same thing by coaxin’?

I don’t give a fuck about coaxing, laughed Domino.

That’s what I’m saying. Oh, what’s the use?

Shit, if I was the Queen I’d get good for all the girls, get a nice escort service, hundred dollar dates for even the girls that didn’t deserve it, even the ugly girls, even the mean, stupid bitches, even the assholes that ripped me off and gaffled me and jacked me up, and they wouldn’t have to pay nothin’. Not a fuckin’ thing. Justin. I’d be so good to them they wouldn’t know what hit ’em. I was in an escort service for a number of years. Being the Queen is easier than you might ever dream. And I sure as hell wouldn’t… wouldn’t… what the fuck was I talking about? Jeez, my head hurts.

It hurts from doing what you call thinking, said Justin. Now leave me in peace. I’m gonna roll myself some of this greenbud. Thank the Lord you’re allergic to that. Otherwise you’d be hitting me up and threatening…

I wouldn’t make ’em stay in this dump, either, Domino muttered. I wouldn’t want ’em with me, anyhow. Better to get myself a nice big old house like I used to have before my mother lost her mind, and I want a kitty, a nice white kitty cat. And all the rest of you, I’d keep you at arm’s length, I tell you. You goddamned backstabbers…