The Royal Family

| 212 |

Where the fuck did Domino go? the john shouted. She just disappeared out of here without a sound like some vampire…

She does that, Loreena sighed.

Why the fuck does she do that?

She’s a good kid, Loreena said, shuffling men’s dollars like cards.

What the fuck you mean, a good kid? She’s fucked-up! And you’re one fucked-up bitch. Come here and pour me another fucking drink.

You want ice or no ice?

Come here, I said. Come closer.

This is as far as I come, Loreena said. See this bar here? This is three feet wide. And that’s the longest three feet there is. That three feet makes the Great Wall of China look like one of Domino’s skinny old hair ribbons, because on my shift there’s no body contact with me. Do you get that, mister? — Well, look whose sweet face is here! What’s goin’ on, baby?

Hello, sweetheart, said Tyler, sitting down on a barstool.

What’ll it be today? Shot of tequila and a lemon?

Yeah, said Tyler. Buy you one?

How nice of you, said Loreena. She went and mixed herself something clear like watery nail polish that cost Tyler three dollars.

What’s that?

That’s called a cocksucker, said Loreena complacently.

Why’s that?

Oh, I dunno, said Loreena, clearing her throat.

Domino had just floated back in, so she said: Well, I know. It’s because they pour the Irish cream on top, so when you gulp it down you get cream all over your lips. Get it?

Don’t be gross, said Loreena with surprising primness. Anyway, some people call it a pussywhip.

I’d think a pussywhip would have tomato juice in it, said Tyler.

Can we get off this subject?

’Magine that, said the Queen in soft wonder from the doorway. Some topics make our little Loreena squeamish.

Oh, hello, Maj, said Loreena cautiously. What’ll you have? Rum and Coke?

Mm hm, said the Queen. She came and stood beside Tyler.

What’s up? said Tyler.

My blood pressure. Hey, Henry, can you gimme a little allowance to help support my girls?

Well, said Tyler, maybe I could afford three dollars. Here’s a three-dollar bill.

He slipped her a five.

That’ll work, Maj! cried Domino happily. You got yourself a rich old bastard! Hey, how about buying me a shot?

Shot of what?

Shot of my usual.

You look pale, Domino, said Tyler.

Yeah? Well, you look like you just hatched out of a rat’s ass. Oh, I, uh… excuse me…

And she ran out the back door again. Before it swung completely shut they heard her retching.

Get her a shot, Loreena, said the Queen wearily.

She shouldn’t be drinking in her condition, the barmaid said.

What, you think she’d ever keep it? That girl just got pure poison instead of milk in her tits. That’s my little girl. That’s my secret weapon.

Well, as long as she’s not going to keep it I guess I’m not responsible. Three dollars even, Henry.

Tyler remembered seeing Irene run for the toilet to vomit. She too had suffered miserably from morning sickness. He and John sat there listening to her throwing up and weeping. The bathroom door was open. Finally John got up and went to comfort his wife. Tyler sat swishing ice cubes around in his gin and tonic, listening to water running. Then John came leading Irene by the hand. Stroking her belly, he smiled ironically at his brother and murmured: We’re pregnant.

Domino glided back into the Wonderbar, pale and sweaty. Tyler wanted to whisper into her ear: Are we pregnant? but just then the other door gaped, and in came the owner, coked up or cracked up or methed up, manic and red-eyed. Seeing the Queen, he started yelling: No more napkins for you! Now get out, nigger!

That’s a shame, said the Queen. I was just fixin’ to blow my nose again.

Loreena came rushing busily up to her and slipped a dozen napkins into the Queen’s hand. — Don’t take it personally, Maj, but you’d better go, she whispered. Heavyset gets really out of control when he’s like this…

Buy you a drink, Heavyset? the Queen said loudly.

The owner stopped short, licking his lips foolishly. — Well, I didn’t know you were a paying customer, he said. Have you bought something already?

I was fixin’ to buy you a drink, Heavyset, since you love me so much. Henry, would you kindly buy this gentleman a drink?

What’ll you have, Heavyset? said Tyler wearily.

Oh, is this lady a friend of yours? said Heavyset. I’ll take a beer. I never turn down beer. Loreena! Bring me a beer!

That’ll be three dollars, sweetheart, said Loreena impassively.

And you can give her an extra napkin, Loreena. On the house.

Well, thank you, Heavyset, said the Queen. Now why don’t you just run along and let me transact a little business with Henry…

Heavyset, said Loreena quickly, do you want me to change the channel to the football game?

Hey, Heavyset, leave the Queen alone! shouted Domino. Come on over here an’—an’—what you always… shit, I feel so fucked up…

What about me? said Domino’s john. I was here first.

What about you? Go sit over there by the pool table and chill out for ten minutes and then you can… oh, I feel so sick…

You need to lie down, said Heavyset triumphantly. Come on in the back room and—

Henry, said the Queen, when you have no money, why you always comin’ in here every night?

Looking for you.

Lordy lordy day, said the Queen.

I want to be with you.

Well, don’t you just want to be with everybody that’s got a pussy? Henry, you don’t know what you want.

I want to live with you. The girls live with you. Lily lives with you—

Lily was living with us, and one day she walked out and didn’t come back for two years. She don’t even remember where she was at. I been keepin’ her clothes for her in a box…

I figured she’s—

I’m scared about Lily, the Queen said. Lily makes me scared. I can see her going down and down…

And Beatrice, too, he said.

Thank you for sayin’ that. Yes, and Beatrice, too. Anyway, Lily she like to stay by herself at the Lola Hotel, Room Twenny-Six—

But you weren’t sad when Sunflower died…

It was her time. You thinkin’ Queenie don’t have no strength nor knowledge? You thinkin’ Sunflower wasn’t ready?

Lily reminds me of Sunflower. More than my pretend Irene…

But Lily’s still Lily. She still got some Lily things to do. Sunflower was finished. She went beyond all that. When she passed away, Henry, she was already pure sunny happiness. Do you believe what I’m tellin’ you?

I don’t know, said Tyler. That’s the honest truth.

How can I condemn you for that? You don’t put on airs. You know you don’t understand. It’s all right, child, ’cause I never yet laid my hand on your eyes to make you see.

Are you going to do that to me?

You want it?

I trust in you to do what’s right for me, he said in a low voice, so that the other alcoholics wouldn’t hear.

She took his hand. They sat together for a while in that bar which was darker and shabbier than the snotty cleanliness of the Cinnabar on Ellis and Jones, whose bar’s wood-grain spread itself under a million coats of plastic while Diana Ross and the Supremes on the jukebox sang It hurts so bad—the Wonderbar was the best.

When the Queen went to the ladies’ room, he tore off a scrap of his soggy napkin and wrote on it AFRICA I LOVE YOU. Then he clenched it tight in his hand.

Domino had left her little silver purse on a barstool when she went back with Heavyset, whom she actually valued in a way because although in her years of growing older she had learned enough to avoid any barmaid’s eye so that the barmaid could not immediately sell her another three-dollar beer, still, that strategy could preserve a girl’s finances only so far, and when she inhabited the Wonderbar waiting and waiting for some trick to wander in, her expenses rose faster than cracksmoke because she really could not afford to alienate Loreena; but as long as she permitted Heavyset to bear her away to his little “office” whenever the fancy struck him, then afterward she could sit for as long as she liked beneath the nice mural of the girl with nipples like Hershey’s kisses; and maybe even shoot a little pool or watch football or hockey on the screen, saving up money and thirst until she was ready to drink the kind of classy bottled beer that made her spit thick. Now it was time to pay. Loreena would look out for her, she thought, but then she suddenly viciously distrusted Loreena and would have gone back for her purse; however, Heavyset, misconstruing her reluctance to be something less trivial than that, whispered in her ear that he had some crystal meth in his office, at which any other ideas which the blonde might have had went rushing up through the ceiling. So there lay her purse. Toilet paper, condoms, keys, lipstick, spermicide, a pocket mirror, change and three self-defensive razorblades had long since forced apart the zipper’s broken lips, so that the purse presented to the world a defiantly overt character not unlike that of its owner. Tyler worried about Domino sometimes when he saw that purse because its silveriness and inviting openness seemed to him to offer an invitation to evildoers, but doubtless Domino knew best. Picking it up by one safety-pinned strap, he slid it across the bar to Loreena, who was working the register, and asked her to keep it safe for the tipsy girl. Loreena nodded wordlessly and stuffed it behind the beer keg where only she could reach it. Returning to his spot, Tyler encountered Domino’s john, who’d dug both hands into the Queen’s shoulder, trying to date her. The Queen was smiling.

Tyler drained his drink and put the balled-up napkin in the Queen’s hand. He said to her: Maybe this will come in handy. — Then he went out.

Just as he reached the swinging doors, he heard Domino’s john say sneeringly: So what the fuck did that turkey give you, a get out of jail free card?

| 213 |

What the doctor sees on the other end of the speculum is your cervix, explained the woman in the blue jumpsuit who now was washing Domino with Betadyne. — Do you want to see?

Sure, grinned Domino, and the woman tilted a mirror until Domino could see the brown stain around her vulva through a hole in the plastic. The woman in the blue jumpsuit sounded the depth of the os to determine how far along she was.

You’ll feel a little pinch now, the woman in the blue jumpsuit said.

The needle entered the hole in the plastic and quivered like a mosquito. It twinkled and hummed. The efficient woman in blue stood over her, hands spread; the needle slid in slowly, deeper and deeper. Domino was enjoying the woman’s attentions, perhaps because the woman was so tense-faced, determined, probably quick to take offense. The blonde had already sized her up back in the waiting room where all the very quiet women kept watching each other out of the corners of their eyes and the woman in blue, placidly brushing back her hair, explained: And this is a canula. You notice that it is plastic and it is flexible. — The patients watched the ring on her hand move, all of them sitting cozy together. It was Domino’s pleasure not to offend her, for now. Moreover, she liked the stinging of the needle, which she pretended was a part of the woman in blue’s body, that the woman in blue was entering her lovingly, sexually and above all subserviently.

Now, the tinaculum clamps into your cervix to keep it in place, the woman in blue said.

Domino smiled slowly.

And then we dilate you like this with the flexible plastic canula. There may be a little cramp when that tube goes through. Are you okay?

Domino smiled and licked her lips. — Not really, she said. I got raped by a bad man named Henry Tyler. That’s why I’m here today. He’s a misogynist. He treated me just like I was a piece of meat. Does it look like meat to you down there between my legs?

I’m so sorry, the woman in blue whispered, flushing.

Domino glowed with pleasure.

The doctor turned on the machine, which hummed like a refrigerator, and Domino began to feel intense pain as very dark red bars of fluid came out. The doctor turned the canula around and around. There was a slurping sound. Something was red through translucency against his white gloved fingers.

Is there a cramping? the woman in blue said.

Please hold my hand, Domino said, her legs spread like wings. She wanted to drink the woman’s buttock-juice.

You see, your uterus clamps down when the fetal tissue is removed, the woman in blue explained, digging the canula in, around and around. Fluid ran out of Domino’s cunt.

Now we’re going in one more time to check, the doctor said.

Please don’t let go of my hand, said Domino, staring at the tiny implements. She suddenly felt a sensation as strange as seeing black shoe-heels percussing across a glass ceiling; she couldn’t remember where she’d seen that but she knew she had.

After he puts the speculum in, he’s going to rinse out your vagina with Betadyne, the woman in blue said, very efficient and tall. Later Domino, craving more of the lovely and very tiny novocaine injections, would vaguely remember a cotton ball, and the drip of Betadyne through the plastic hole.

Now put your hand on your tummy over the uterus to calm the cramp, the woman in blue said.

Would you do it, please? whispered Domino through half-closed eyes. Oh, it feels so good when you do it.

I think you may be in a little bit of trouble, the woman in blue said. I’m going to refer you to one of our counselors. She’ll be able to help you.

I want you to do it, said Domino with a sleepy, wicked, toothy grin, and savored the woman in blue’s long slow flush.

| 214 |

Domino’s first abortion had been much easier than that, at least in the spurious fashion which lent itself to sugarcoating in her recollections, so that she could complain about subsequent procedures, saying, in one of her typically obscene mixed metaphors: These assholes just want to fuck women up! They’re butchers! It’s a government plot to sterilize us to save money. And they call this a free country. Don’t even get me started, Maj… — It had been before Christmas, which to Domino was already becoming as irrelevant as all the other holidays because the only presents she’d ever received were those she’d stolen for herself, seizing them from life’s jaws and running somewhere deep and dirty to hide, to gloat. And yet in those days (she was seventeen) Christmas retained the power to disappoint her; in other words, it was not entirely irrelevant yet. The Christmas present one of the boys had given her grew brutishly in her belly. If she didn’t do something fast, it would quicken inside her and then she’d be a murderess. Moreover, she preferred not to be pregnant when she was at home. Not that she wanted to be home, either, but a former friend of hers now on the streets had informed her in weary exasperation that her sister was in jail and her father was dying of liver cancer, so Domino, burdened, hence affronted to her usual point of martyrdom, made up her mind to go back for the last time to see those losers, and it had truly been the last time. She’d dyed her hair brown because she was not yet a fulltime prostitute and it was an experiment of hers to learn whether men would defile her with fewer up-and-down stares of fishy-eyed lust if she denied her blondeness, but the results convinced her once and for all that she was doomed to that, at least until she became a hag, so she’d let blondeness creep back into the roots of her brown hair as she sat in the hotel room trying to be unconscious of that qualmish feeling in her uterus. She was supposed to arrive in Vacaville in three days. Her father would have erected the plastic tree if he were well enough, but there’d be nothing beneath it. (What dully studied comparisons come to mind? Did this hollow celebration of Christ’s birthday thus emblematize His empty tomb? Would seven-year-old Domino, instead of squatting bitterly by the tree in her pajamas all night, gnawing angrily at her blonde pigtail, have done better to gaze up at the ceiling in search of presents? By the time she was ten, she’d already sucked a boy off on a dare, and when his manna spewed into her mouth, she vomited. But her control improved over the years. Just as a soda jerk leans, scraping and twisting the tall stainless steel cup upon the rod, so Domino would waggle her lips and tongue about a man’s organ if she had to, although she rarely denied herself the pleasure of stopping halfway through to engage in negotiations of a deliberately aggressive nature, until the man had lost his erection. After a man had passed his mid-thirties he could not as a rule get hard and soft and hard in quick succession more than three or four times. It gave Domino more than a little satisfaction to leave her customer unfulfilled, frustrated, and [American male socialization being what it was] humiliated rather than angry at his failure — although this was a delicate game; every now and then she got a black eye. — Well, this won’t work, she would tell her customer brightly. I don’t know what your problem is. Maybe you just don’t like girls. As for me, I don’t have all night. If you want to try again sometime, pull up under my window and honk four times.) Her father had sounded surprised and glad when she’d telephoned him collect from the booth on Eddy Street. His surprise reproached her, and his gladness infuriated her. He said he’d meet her at the Greyhound station. — Yeah, that’ll work, the girl said curtly, breaking the connection. She was very conscious of her uterus. It just felt as if it were there. For a month now she’d persisted in hoping that that unsought sensation would vanish, but every morning it grew more present until it stood for already not merely a mass of tissue inside her but an inimical being whose purpose it was to weaken and confuse her, then drag her down. — You’re dead! laughed the blonde, punching herself in the stomach. She asked her aunt to send money. It was about a hundred and eighty dollars. Her aunt reminded her that they had mutually agreed that the previous time would be the last time, but Domino wept most fluently on the telephone, pleading that she’d made another mistake, that this emergency was the worst ever. A year or two later, she would have known enough to lie, using the magic word rape, which opened so many tear-ducts and money-ducts when carefully invoked. She was in the fifth week. A girlfriend came with her — not a friend, merely a girlfriend, a dumb bitch who wasn’t in the life,* because Domino supposed it would be prudent to have someone drive her back. The girlfriend, whose name she could no longer remember, had borne two babies, one when she was fifteen and the next when she was sixteen. Each time she’d refused to open her eyes when the doctor raised up the child before her, raised up the bloody little rabbit. What was the point? They were both carried away for adoption. She said to Domino: Does he love you? to which the blonde replied, rolling a joint: That’s the most asinine thing I’ve ever heard. — Her girlfriend, broodingly sensitive, lowered her eyes. Neither of them had ever gone to an abortion clinic before. The girlfriend was pro-life, but she was a friend, except of course that she wasn’t a friend because even then Domino had no friends.

The place was of a pale green color, with nothing in the halls, and two examination tables. Really it was a processing plant, Domino thought, always firm in her conviction that all authority and expertise on this earth functioned either to withhold good things from her, or else to carefully crank her into the latest meat-grinder; and when she discovered that somebody had left the toilet unflushed, her gorge rose in outrage—this was the sort of place to which they’d compelled her! — but on the other hand, she would soon think nothing of the Queen’s stinking lairs where cockroaches crawled on her at night and the whores’ used tampons had stiffened into rigid dark plumes as of ancient flint knives, so may we agree once and for all that such complaints on her part were almost pleasantries, which is to say that they reflected her normal intercourse with the world?

Everyone did everything together; it was one of those communist places. Everyone undressed together. There were lockers. It would be vacuum aspiration. Everyone woke up in the recovery room. An ocean of white bodies was what she thought (her mind being more pictorially descriptive in those days). No one looked pregnant. Most were with their girlfriends or with their mothers. Her girlfriend asked: Are you sure you want to go through with this, Sylvia? — Look, said Domino. Can’t you see that this is already difficult enough? — All the white bodies looked very young — soft bodies, pale and plump and well cared for. It had not been very long now since Domino had confessed to herself that she was a lesbian, so she was still ashamed to gaze openly upon all those pregnant breasts and pregnant cunts; for she and they were as strangers compressed naked in some elevator; they spoke in low voices when they spoke at all, trying in equal proportion not to look invasively at one another and not to acknowledge the unavoidable invasiveness of those others. The real reason that she was none too forward in getting her eyeful, a fact she afterward jealously regretted, was that her own body, hard and scrawny, already wore its first tattoo, its first abscesses, and that long white highway of a motorcycle wound which Tyler’s finger would trace in that Tenderloin hotel room twenty years hence. It wouldn’t be much longer before Domino adopted Tyler’s mode of self-protective skullduggery in the face of humiliations real or imagined, namely, defiance, but this first abortion happened long ago, when the girl, still almost a child, remained meek in her shame.

She had to pay up front, cash. Then they took her jewelry away. She owned one Apache tear, an old piece of lapis. It was an earring. She’d lost the other one two months earlier when she’d had to run away from a married man’s house. While the other women compliantly twisted off their rings and unhooked their bracelets, Domino scowled and hid the Apache tear in her fist. She wanted something to hold. The general anesthetic wafted her down into darkness. She never heard the ringing clatter when the charm struck the green tiles beneath the table on which she lay. A nurse smiled and picked it up for her while Domino dreamed of nothing, like a thread woven into a heavy rug of darkness.

They gave her a sheet of instructions: Don’t have sex or use tampons. Do you understand? they said. — Whatever, said Domino.

A young woman enshrouded in white blankets walked by, and Domino thought: I’d like to eat her. I’d like to at least see her naked. I’d like to… and then the woman in white was gone.

| 215 |

One for our records and one for the insurance company, said the receptionist.

I don’t have a goddamned insurance company, snarled Domino.

Thank you very much, the receptionist said in a quick, low voice.

The woman in the chair behind Domino inhabited a loose striped dress. She had bare, crossed ankles, a glimpse of red hair. She shifted her legs, kicked off her shoes, hid behind the newspaper. Seeing the domed belly supporting her newspaper, Domino conceived a shocking jealousy of that baby still inside it; she wanted a baby, too. But the Queen had made her do this. And Justin had held out on her and jacked her up too many times; if she’d been able to keep that money she could have raised a baby. It was Justin’s fault. And all the men who used her, and the men who refused to use her, and the whole rotten world with its trolleycar bells and sherry-colored sunset clouds over white-and-silver San Francisco…

| 216 |

A motif in Domino’s life: the clinic. One window looked out in the outer office. After that, there were no windows. How many times will a street-whore go to the clinic in her lifetime? How many diseases, babies, false alarms, abrasions, uterine traumas, inflamations, infestations, ill odors until death?

In Vienna I once wandered inside a medical museum filled not only with such endearing oddities as the porcelain model uterus which of all things most resembled a bat, but also with ghastly things the sight of which destroyed my dispassion. I looked upon the swollen face and oozing blind eyes of a gonorrheal infant, the red sores and breast lesions of a syphilitic mother — real tissue scalpeled out of the dead, now displayed in a manner calculated to induce dread. The museum’s staff did not want me to catch syphilis. Hence they spread an atmosphere of loathsomeness and fear. To be sure, much in the place was of historical interest as well — not least the old prostheses like robot hands of black metal — but then I encountered pickled feet with what looked like bugs growing out of them — surely just some tissue deformity — and bits of tiny bones floating in the formalin, greenly meat-fuzzed. Then came pale grey ovals of other meat floating in other jars. And in one room there dwelled a black-burnt, teeth-clenched skeleton…

Let’s say that a woman becomes pregnant, and the doctor sends her home with “information.” She learns that if she is thirty-five years old, she has one chance in three hundred and eighty-four in giving birth to a child afflicted with Down’s syndrome. At thirty-six, it will be one chance in three hundred and seven. At forty, it will be one chance in a hundred and twelve. Research bears all this out. (We see the cross-section of a vagina, sliced and brown. Inside a spherical paperweight, we find lumps of gristle studded with sores.) The fetus grows into danger. In the medical museum in Vienna we see a tiny white thing, half baby, half shrimp, floating in a jar of death. Another fetus grows into another sort of death. Eighty or a hundred years from conception, it will all be over. Perhaps forty years from now the fetus will have become a middle-aged hooker in black, with high heels and a run in her stocking, a tired woman burdened by a heavy black leather purse.

Her fourth time, the degradation was the nurse pumping her for dollars. Domino had to hide the degradation. She had to hide how she felt. No painting offended the plain white walls. There were no magazines in the waiting room. On her first visit to the place, the nurse held her hand. The second time the nurse was more businesslike. That was when the requests for a tip began worming their way into Domino’s sweaty ears. All she had was a twenty she’d stolen from an old barfly… The doctor had a round face. He was balding, professional, courteous in an old-fashioned way. He called her Miss. Domino liked that. He had no name. Domino had no name. The nurse had no name. — There, that’s it, the doctor said. If you bleed more than two days, give me a call. Later she would remember coming out into blue sky and old buildings — gracious props of God — and she remembered massaging her belly which had already begun to ache. In the middle of that night, when she was fucking a man for money, she hemorrhaged. The man drove her to the emergency room. Later they told her that she had almost died.

| 217 |

Things happen, Chocolate said. I got friends, they been trying to conceive a child for years and can’t do it and others get one right away. There must be a reason. You know what I’m saying, Dom? A divine reason.

Oh, fuck that, said Domino.

She hadn’t told the others when she got the abortion. It was nobody’s business but hers. Later on, though, she’d started feeling sorry for the dead baby. She got so she couldn’t stop thinking about it. The dead baby came swimming through her heart’s windows at night, making her heart’s cat hiss, spreading its unformed flipper-arms wide like a torpedo’s fins to explode inside her with dead and bloody grief; she bit her lip and the tendons stuck out in her neck like tree-roots; the dead baby sucked the blood from her heart and then tumbled down to the empty place inside her where it had died.

I know how you feel, Chocolate said while within the crack pipe, smoke like white San Francisco fog roiled into her mouth, then into Domino’s mouth, which was framed by white scars from the broken glass which had penetrated her body in numberless accidents.

You ever had an abortion? the blonde suddenly said in a low anxious voice.

Uh huh, said Chocolate. ’Course I did. We all gotta have those.

I feel a little strange, Domino said. You know. In my tummy.

Oh, everybody start to feel that. Never mind about that, Dom.

I just kind of sat there empty afterward, Chocolate. Know what I mean? I felt so bad. And this was my ninth time.

Uh huh. Hey, Dom, let’s go score some rock. I know a trick who—

Chocolate?

What?

What’s your real name?

Why the fuck you want to know?

Because.

Brenda.

Brenda, huh? Well, I guess Chocolate will work. Brenda’s some stupid twat’s name.

What the fuck you ask me for if you gonna insult me?

Then I woke up with a pinching cramp this morning, Chocolate, and I felt kind of scared…

You’re gonna bleed for a couple of days, Dom. Don’t have a heart attack. For Jesus sake. Stupid twat name she tells me. Dom, you anybody else I cut your face.

I feel, you know, neutral.

About callin’ me a twat?

About what I did. To my…

Well, you got to. I always felt neutral about it.

Always?

I felt, well, weird but okay. Even that first time I never told the daddy, and back then when I just turn sixteen I actually got a pretty goddamned good idea who that daddy might be…

Brenda? said the blonde, longing just then to be as jaunty as miniskirted Chocolate with her headphones on and her wrinkled fist jammed firmly against her hip and her lips parted in a heroin smile with darkness deep inside as she raised knee and showed leg.

What?

Brenda, my tummy hurts.

You gonna be fine, Dom. You want me to get the Queen?

Shit, no. What’s the use of bothering her? She never—

I don’t wanna hear you badmouth her, Dom. But if you wanna smoke some weed, that gonna take your cramps away, I guarantee…

Brenda? repeated the blonde, her eyes as slow and bleary as a car’s yellow eyes creeping down a hooker avenue.

Call me Chocolate. Brenda just some stupid twat name.

Brenda, my—

Lemme guess. Your tummy hurts.

Oh, fuck off.

Well, you did it. Nobody did it to you. You said you didn’t want no baby, so…

You think I’m trash? You think I’m not good enough to have a baby? Is that what you think?

Hey, honey, lots of women like us got other goals. We’re professional women. We never got any appropriate time until we make a time and that’s not how life works.

So you’re saying I should have kept my baby. You’re saying I’m a fucking murderess.

I’m saying I love you, Domino. Domino, you’re my sweetheart.

And you probably think I’ll burn in hell, don’t you, you Bible-thumping tattooed negroid bitch? I bet when you’re alone with the Queen you tell her, Domino’s just dirt. Domino’s scum. Admit it to me. Admit that you look down on me.

Domino…

Tell me you hate me. Tell me I’m trash, because I killed my baby.

Domino, you remember what the Queen said? She said, when you put out a thought in the universe, you gonna get something back. Girl, you better start taking responsibility for your thoughts.

Fuck off.

All right, Domino, that’s enough. Other people got problems, too.

Why, you selfish little nigger twat, don’t try to hide that hatred in your eyes. Now I know how you feel about me. You watch your back, girl, or some night you might wind up shanked. Some night you might wind up with a big old butcher knife wedged deep up your gonorrhea-infected snatch…

| 218 |

The falling out between Domino and Chocolate actually went back almost a year, to the night when Domino for pure goodness had gotten Chocolate a date (in other words, Domino saw the john first, but the john liked Chocolate’s looks better), so Chocolate agreed to let her have a third of the heroin. After the date, Chocolate wanted to wash the sperm out of her mouth with a bottle of some Thunderbird because she and Domino were standing right across the street from the liquor store on South Van Ness where at this very time of night a certain clerk might give Chocolate free booze in exchange for a little pussy because she’d managed to make him believe that she had no money — a demonstrably useful fiction to maintain, so she asked Domino if she would buy for her with the john’s twenty. In other words, Chocolate’s logic had just entirely contradicted itself, but never mind. — Sure, that’ll work, said Domino, clip-clopping into the liquor store on her silver high heels. As she was paying for the wine, a brawny black woman named Ada, of whom Domino was scared because she sold ass for Domino’s former pimp, brushed past Chocolate and asked for two dollars because she was hungry. Domino had already given Ada two dollars for food earlier that day, the Queen and Justin not being in sight to protect her. She didn’t have any more money for Ada, since the change from the twenty belonged to Chocolate. It wasn’t her money, and she told Ada so, but with a weak and sinking voice entirely uncharacteristic of her, because she felt in her soul that she was already dreaming a nightmare so terrible that self-defense must prove useless. — What do you mean it’s not your money? the black girl shouted. ’Course it’s your money! Don’t you be scammin’ me, bitch! — Through the liquor store window Domino could see Chocolate running away; she hoped to get the tall man, who was out trying to score a perfect baggie of white girl, but Chocolate, who kept scratching at her red eyes, trying to peel the swollen orange eyelids back and scrape out the infection that grew inside, unfortunately for Domino found herself presented on the very next block with a very attractive sexual offer which she owed it to herself not to refuse, being pretty broke, and once she accepted she got not only money, but also a deep needleful of pure China white heroin which blissfully sidelined her until late the following morning, so Domino remained most friendlessly alone as Ada pursued Domino all night, breaking up her dates. Whenever a car slowed, Ada scared the driver away. Wherever Domino went, even all the way to the Tenderloin’s red-streaked night where sparks came tumbling underneath the door of a welding shop like Fourth-of-July cigarette ash, the black girl was punching her and spitting on her. She fucked up Domino’s eye. Domino didn’t want to strike back because Ada was eight months pregnant and Domino would do major jail time if she killed her baby. She lost one of her high heels as she fled down the street, with Ada loping behind cursing. When she found Chocolate at last, it was dawn and Chocolate was lying grinning and mumbling in a doorway. Domino had been so frightened as to entirely forget her easy graceful old ways of intimidation; therefore she actually begged Chocolate for two dollars so Ada would leave her alone.

That’s giving in, Chocolate mumbled. You can’t give in to extortion.

Whatever, Domino said. Well, it’s not you giving in; it’s me. This all happened because of you. I can’t find the Queen. Won’t you help me?

No, said Chocolate, opening her eyes. You know why? Because you kept that money, bitch. What the fuck did you do with my money?

Then Ada was upon her, shouting: Guilty, guilty! and Domino was so afraid that she fell on her hands and knees literally pissing in her panties, and she felt the first blow on the back of her head, a hard bloody blow that cracked her skull, and she felt the second blow, and she heard Chocolate’s snoring and she heard her own screaming and then, thank God, the tall man was there, and it was Ada who was screaming. Domino never saw Ada again. She never talked to the tall man about what had happened, and the Queen when she heard made everyone, I mean everyone, promise never to speak of that night when Domino had lost the management of herself and become a dirty submissive little child. (Soumis, you know, that means submissive, said Dan Smooth mildly, looking up at Tyler from his French dictionary. A fille soumise is a prostitute under police control.)

That night almost killed Domino. It did something to her soul. It sealed her in a protective prison of rage.

Later the Queen sent for Chocolate and said: Why didn’t you help her? Domino’s your sister.

Oh, Maj, Chocolate whined, I know I fucked up, but she stole that twenty dollars from me. She never—

You givin’ me static, you evil little bitch? said the Queen. You go to Domino right now an’ say you’re sorry.

Please, Maj. I’m afraid of Domino now…

Don’t think Queenie can’t understand you. Don’t think you’re out of trouble, either. Now, what exactly do you propose to do for Domino? She got hurt. She got scared. She could have died.

I know, Maj. I said I’m sorry.

Go an’ say it to her. She suffers. She’s got a lot to suffer. She’s not like Sunflower was. She does it to herself. But this time you did it to her, too. You got to bear your cross now, baby. You know what your cross is gonna be? Domino’s always gonna hate you.

No, I—

That’s right. She’ll hate you. An’ you got to love her back, even though one day she gonna try an’ get you. Because it’s your fault. Okay?

Maj, I—

Did you hear me?

Okay, the whore whispered.

Then go an’ tell her. Now.

Chocolate did. And, as always, the Queen was correct. Domino never forgave her. After all, she never forgave anyone. And relations between those two must have been much worse, were it not for the fact that Domino, whose hair was gradually becoming as grey as Tyler’s face, could not bear to think of that night when she had been so helpless and so afraid of another human being…

| 219 |

Like most aggressors, Chocolate took revenge on the one she’d wronged. Several of the other prostitutes having overheard portions of her conversation with Domino about the metaphysics of feticide, Chocolate afterward claimed to have received the blonde’s confession that one of her babies had not been aborted before birth, which was why Domino, inexorably desperate, had strangled it, thrown it on a pile of newspapers and set it on fire. Of course this was a malicious lie. At worst, if Domino had ever engaged in any such acts, it would have been because she had miscarried, and her baby wasn’t breathing anyway.

| 220 |

Crossing the yellow-lit shop-fronts of Van Ness to the Tenderloin where leopardskin-assed girls were bending and leaning into pink Chevvys, black Dodges, silver Hyundais, Tyler found that so many were wearing white that night! They wore white, and they wore lipsticked smiles. They chewed gum. They put to shame the unrentable tongues of icecream-licking girls in the bright window of Rory’s Twisted Scoop on Fillmore Street, where the most prevalent form of prostitution was called “marriage” or “the relationship,” and the trick pad might be any one of the ugly houses of Ocean Beach. (This comparison, of course, was never meant to denigrate John and Celia, who often drove up to Saint Helena to look at houses. Those two weren’t really “in the market” yet, not having declared themselves to be in the market for each other, but John felt that one could never go too far when researching real estate, especially because the research gave them both such pleasure. In the window of the broker’s office he learned about a $750,000 estate on Palmer Drive, a “magificent stone castle” for $1.3 million, a “panorama” for $425,000.) And so Chocolate said to the man in the pickup truck: Darlin’, I’m much more expensive than gold. — The man said: That reminds me of a song I heard somewhere. — Well, sing it to someone else! laughed Chocolate. You fat-assed cheapskate sonofabitch! — Cunt! yelled the man, speeding off. — That was a good one, Choc! Domino said a little gloomily, wondering if her nose-hairs were showing. She had just smoked some bad crack, cut probably with speed, and she knew that after the good feeling (which presently tingled from her toes to her teeth) had gone away, she’d feel nauseous and headachey for a good three days — unless of course she smoked more crack. Chocolate started dancing and shoutingly recited a rap poem she’d conceived whose subject was crack. Sapphire laughed and clapped her feeble little hands.

A black-and-white pulled up. The passenger-side cop slowly rolled down his window. The whores waited.

Well, well, said the cop. I smell a little illegal activity going on here.

He smiled and got out of the squad car.

Peddling that AIDS-infected ass of yours again, Domino? he said.

The little Queen strode forward and said: Listen, officer, these girls are my kids. They love me. If you gotta say something to me, please be nice, ’cause they be my kids. How they supposed to feel when you start bad mouthin’ me? How I be feelin’ when you take one of my kids down?

All right, all right, said the officer soothingly.

Just say what you need to say and be nice, said the Queen. Otherwise, if you’re not nice, I won’t be nice, and then my tongue would be my sword, and you’d have to take me away.

All right, Maj, the cop said. Just keep ’em in line. I’ve had complaints, especially about Domino.

Why, what’s she done? said the Queen, stroking the girl’s long blonde hair.

Ripped off a few people, gaffled ’em I guess you’d call it. Next time I’m taking her in.

He got back into the squad car and slammed the door. The Queen waved.

Never mind, Domino, she said.

Domino said nothing.

All rightie now, said the Queen. Me an’ Henry, we want a little time alone now. We’re gonna fade right now. Domino, you gonna be okay?

Where you be? said the tall man.

Wonderbar.

Why you want to give a silver nickel to that racist piece of shit Heavyset? You losin’ it, Maj.

Imagine that, said the Queen.

Inside the Wonderbar, sweaty Nikolai, who stared at every kissing couple because he himself hadn’t kissed anyone in years, was asking: Will you be open on Christmas?

We’re always open except when we’re closed, Loreena the barmaid replied wearily.

What time will you be open?

Look, Loreena said. You know we’re always open unless we aren’t. I just said so. And we always have variable hours, so why do you even ask me?

But, Loreena, you just make it so nice for all of us regulars that—

Oh, dry up, asshole.

Nikolai’s mouth opened and he turned red and then his mouth closed again.

Tut-tut, Loreena, said the Queen. How you expect to make good money talkin’ like that?

Oh, hello, Maj. Hi, Henry. This is the shift from hell. And I can’t ever imagine any tips coming from that gentleman, unless he tipped over from being drunk — hah!

She went to the other end of the counter and started washing glasses.

Henry, said the Queen, I’m worried about Domino.

Tyler nodded sadly. — She’s a bad one, he said. I’m worried about what she might do.

Oh, Henry, how can you say that? She just want to be bad.

Maybe that kind’s more dangerous.

But who she gonna be dangerous to? She just make me so sad. I want to hold that little girl in my arms, an’ I know she want to come to me, but she can’t come to me no more.

And you don’t know why?

Oh, I know. I know her like I know my own child. That girl fixin’ to betray me. She want to betray her own Queen! And she might do it. But I’d love her even if she cut me up. ’Cause she’s my little baby, the Queen concluded, gazing at Tyler almost challengingly.

If this were a book I wouldn’t even read the rest of it, Tyler said. Christ and Judas is what it is.

She want to give herself, but she don’t know how. She want to love, but how can she love?

Tyler stared into his glass, hardly listening.

It’s up to her, the Queen was saying.

Yeah, he said listlessly, unable to think of anyone except the Queen and himself.

And I’m worried about you, too, Henry, she said.

Africa, I want to prove myself to you, he said.

Her fingers curled tightly around his hand.

He cleared his throat and said: Africa, I’m begging you to let me give myself to you tomorrow. Completely, I mean. I want to sacrifice myself to you. I–I’ve been so unhappy but also so excited…

Hush, said the Queen.

Africa, last night again I didn’t sleep more than an hour or two. I don’t understand my own feelings. I’m afraid but I want so much to be yours and submit to you and make you love me.

I already love you, she said.

I know that, but…

But what?

I just feel desperate. I don’t know why. I can’t imagine what the future will be. But I’ll be your good boy or your pretty little bitch or whatever you want me to be. You can even hurt me if I can just drink your spit or your piss or rub your menstrual blood all over my face or something… I need to please you, Africa. Africa, I need to give you a long orgasm and make you proud of me. Please help me.

| 221 |

No such thing as another Irene, huh? said the Queen.

Her armpits had the dry earth smell of catacombs. Her flesh was dark and soft like smoked leather.

| 222 |

Don’t ever hurt me, the Queen said. Are you gonna hurt me?

| 223 |

The Queen, a little uncertain, stood, slowly raised her arms, but her elbows were still against her sides in some reflex of shyness or self-protectiveness. She leaned back against the sink. He kissed her cunt for the first time. Now her arms went back, long and dark and shiny against the sink’s steel lip. He danced around her and his shoulders swayed. Her little breasts were free now. He was gently slapping them with his left hand as she had told him to do. She stood upright, let go of the sink, and brought her scarred hands toward him with the same sweet uncertainty.

His face slowly sank between her legs, and she placed her hands upon the crown of his head in a benediction.

He heard a crackling sound between her legs.

Right now her face is so beautiful up close, said Smooth through the suddenly open door. Tell you what. Get up close to her.

Tyler froze.

Go on now, Danny boy, the Queen said. Don’t be disrespecting us or Queen’ll have to get mad. Queen’ll get little bit pissed off. Now beat it, Danny.

The doorway contracted.

Never mind, sighed the Queen, her knees drawn up, her swaying dark knees…

Her breasts began slowly rising, then bouncing.

| 224 |

All night there were squeakings of busy feet in the hall outside, feet which every now and then would pause outside his door; rising from her and going to the peephole he’d see three or four desperate faces waiting and hoping; but they didn’t dare to disturb the Queen; or maybe they were simply too honorable even in their need to do so.

Finally she took his hand and they went out together into the hallway where all the whores were waiting; they raised torches to their Queen’s new happiness, clanking shards of metal and glass; then the tall man smashed a cracked mirror on the concrete floor, while they all shouted.

| 225 |

The crazy whore congratulated him with a squeak, saying: And sometimes in our lives we’re gonna have our moments, our intimate time, like a ferris wheel up on top of the world.

| 226 |

As soon as his tongue had touched her clitoris, his mouth and throat began to throb with a burning salty reek, her slippery juices etching themselves upon his palate like lye, salty and fishy and rank almost like that very healthy seafood soup which Korean women drink during pregnancy; if he could have convinced himself that it was health instead of death he was drinking, he might have been happier. Later he would swish and swill and gargle mouthwash; he’d put spicy hot sauce on his catfish dinner; but once his tastebuds had cleansed themselves, her taste came back. It was even on his fingers now, although he’d never touched her cunt except with his tongue. When he sucked her, he breathed only through his mouth. His tongue quickly found itself swimming in that rank, salty stuff. Suddenly he realized that he was drinking other men’s semen.

| 227 |

Around three in the morning they were awakened by a woman’s sobs.

I heard a female voice in your room! Strawberry was shouting.

You did not, he heard the tall man reply.

Are you fucking around on me again, Justin? Strawberry screamed, horrible and raw. Are you? Are you?

There’s shit in your voice, said the tall man contemptuously. I don’t like your shit, so wipe your fucking verbal ass.

Hysterical sobs were silenced by the tall man’s terrifying roar, which made the wall vibrate.

Oh, leave ’em to it, grunted the Queen. They’re always goin’ on.

| 228 |

But you’ve gotta deny me to strangers, she whispered, her nipples round and flat right then like the scarab beetles of ancient Nubia.

All right, said Tyler.

I love you, too, baby. Okay, I got to go take care of my girls.

| 229 |

All the whores gossiped about Tyler’s visits, which titillated them and allowed them to express natural human malice about their benefactress, but which simultaneously undressed them down to queasiness, because no matter what they might insinuate, they disliked their Queen to be love-greedy, hence imperfect. And yet nobody said anything against Tyler, except perhaps Domino, whose views remained less than clear. He never asked anything of them, and he occasionally made them happy. After he departed, the Queen would sometimes sing strange songs in her cigarette-smoke voice, songs of happiness even though they sounded sad, and to see her other than as sadly, eternally giving frightened them. (Another thing I think is that he’s here and he’s coming to get her but I don’t mean me but something still has to be done, explained the crazy whore. Then she wondered: Is this the kind of thing the Queen does, or is it one of those other things that she’s resisted all along?) They did not know what would become of her and themselves. Of course they knew that nothing in life endures much longer than a piece of colored paper, and yet their own continuing ease of circumstances invited them to believe that this night-by-night life they lived beside her would continue, just as in Sacramento the cool days of spring go on and on as if the hot blast of summer will never come. They watched Tyler far more carefully than he knew, and found him consistent in his doings and impulses, which reassured them somewhat. Gradually they gave up worrying whether he might be an undercover cop. The real reason for his visits, infatuation, was both simpler and more plausible. They all had johns who idolized them and whom they used, despising those men’s love because it was not and could not be founded on any knowledge of them. It was as if the men’s own hearts bewitched them, tricking them into faith in a whore’s voice or hair or smell. How could the whores bank on that? What if somebody blonder or wetter or slenderer appeared beneath these worshipers’ pillows? Therefore the whores wisely discounted and then unwisely condemned the men who loved them thus. And so they ridiculed Tyler, while hoping that their Queen and they themselves might benefit from whatever he might have to give, and he surely had something; every man possessed some treasure, skill or key which could be made use of.

I love you so much it hurts me, Strawberry heard him say (and she promptly repeated this to all the others). Sometimes when I look at you or talk to you I get all choked up—

The Queen smiled at him.

He swallowed and said: Often at night I dream that I’m kissing you, you know, between your legs… You’re so gentle and kind and good, I…

Tilting her head, she slid her middle finger into her mouth and began sucking it, sliding it in and out between her lips.

A lot of the time I — well, I don’t even think about you sexually. I just wish I could help you and make you happy, because, uh, I—

C’mere, said the Queen. Sit down or kneel down, I don’t care which. Close your eyes.

And she took her glistening brown finger from her mouth and on his forehead traced in saliva the secret Mark of Cain, which is the symbol of infinity.

| 230 |

He could see night by night how her heart opened to him, like one of those tightly wadded crumples of paper which falls into water and slowly swells, loosens, blossoms into a paper rose — even though it’s all unreal and underwater…

| 231 |

All night he lay in the Queen’s arms, sometimes sleeping, dreaming good dreams or bad. The bad dreams did not frighten him. It seemed that for the first time in many years he was able to stare down his own monsters. There they were; maybe someday he could even kill them. He clutched the Queen more tightly, until she groaned in her sleep. Wondering how she would change him, feeling already changed, he rode the long night into dawn. Clothed in calmness, he resolved to seclude himself no longer in fantasies, but to be grateful for all he had, and act usefully and respectfully.

| 232 |

Sparkles of sweat like mica upon a naked back, the Queen’s back, swelled into silvery droplets fragrant with cocaine and sadness; he drank them. Sometimes he felt the two of them to be not fully human, reaching, screaming. Legs up in the air, almost stridulated like crickets’, heads dipping down to genitals and back again, carried Tyler along, sometimes irresistibly, sometimes merely mechanically, so that whenever he went out from the Queen, covered with her odor, and began to think again, he’d say to himself: Our legs were not me. My legs were not me. My tongue and hands and penis were not me. So where was I? — Then he understood that he had been not only literally but also spiritually inside his Queen. He’d been hers. He’d lost himself to her. He’d been nowhere and everywhere. Walking past a no-name sashimi restaurant on Geary Street, he peered in the window and saw Japanese childrens’ skinny faces getting even thinner when they sucked at drinking-straws. This proved not that ingestion created hollowness, but only that one had to hollow oneself out in order to ingest. Legs went up, his or hers he could no longer tell, because sensation crackled through all of them with electric velocity. Were the dark hands or the pale hands his? When he was inside her cunt, there was no cunt anymore, and no cock, the hole being filled, the protuberance hidden; as it said in the Bible, they were one flesh. Her cunt was his. Where did she end? Lost in the cave of enlightenment, he had to grabble his way without that ambiguously useful perceptual eye known as consciousness; later he couldn’t remember what had happened to him, what he and the Queen had done; an hour or a night, it felt the same. Her eyes became the smoky barlight and slow headlights as smooth on the wet streets as lubricated condoms. (No condom, no problem! laughed Dan Smooth.) Where does anything end? Beneath a street-whore’s come-on of easy love lies a manipulative need, beneath which again waits a real ache for love. One night he was wandering upper Jones Street around Clay or Washington, rainy and almost silent, with only the cables humming and a distant car soughing like wind, and he could not remember who he was. Then he said: I believe in my Queen. I love my Queen. — The next thing he could remember, he was in the Mission district, which shone so brightly on a Saturday noon beneath a pastel sky. Was the Queen wise? How could he doubt it? The Queen of Spades, the black queen, the death-queen, the scary card, the wisest card in the deck, always turned up in whatever hand he got dealt — she loved him; she was his angel — sentimental slush! A piss-soaked bra lay in front of the Thor Hotel. He did the proper thing. He picked it up and carried it next to his heart as an offering to the Queen. He had no nightmares about Irene anymore.

| 233 |

The Queen would not be happy about this, Smooth whispered gleefully.

The video showed rainbow milk.

So that’s the Queen doing it with Henry, huh? said Domino with a brutal laugh. Too fuckin’ much!

They sat giggling at the strange, lurid bodies, strange movements as of grasses bowing in the wind, the man bowing and praying between the woman’s buttocks, leaning forward, leaning back. The couple’s arms became bloody amoebic pseudopods, hands flying out from their bodies, then rushing inwards to clutch at flesh once more.

That’s how you get a different effect, Smooth explained. You can do all kinds of stuff by that…

Domino’s mouth opened. She was fascinated by the seething bloody flashes.

Puddles of blue milk oozed together. Blue animals struggled with one another. Crumpled aluminum foil was moving and oozing up and down, the woman’s legs limp and sweaty on the man’s shoulders.

Now for Domino at least the footage began to grow tiresome, and she yawned and scratched at the long motorcycle scar on her leg while on Smooth’s television set two pairs of legs folded and knelt, revealing buttocks, rainbow crystals, flashing blue lines, stains on microscope slides, ice-maps. Two shapes approached each other and pulled away, bowing and weaving like water-plants. Green milk and heartbeats, blue milk running down breasts, holes and fissures swimming like X-ray fishes, all these entities imbued the pair’s sexual act with preciousness, just as in the Tenderloin after dusk every passing car momentarily transforms the pavement into a mirror of gold.

We’re all animals, you know… Smooth was saying thickly.

What do you want me to do now, blow you?

Smooth made a face. — You’re too old for me, Domino. You’ve grown cunt-hairs. Just sit there and entertain yourself.

But you’re going to take care of me, right? You’re going to pay me something…?

Only if you’ll listen to me talk about glistening assholes.

Talk about yourself then, said Domino, bored.

What kind of asshole do you have, sweetykins?

Oh, the shitty kind I guess. Don’t ya remember?

I have a really good feeling about this now, said Smooth. And there he goes. See how happy he’s making her? I almost want to cry. Maybe we should never have done this, Domino, but I always wanted to watch him with Maj. I was their matchmaker, you know. I brought them together. I love Maj. I love Henry…

I love money. When will you pay me?

Closeup. Closeup. Weird that the shape of those little lips makes such a difference, Smooth said.

Are you a misogynist? said Domino, whose voice sometimes contained the cool jingle of cablecar bells.

A misogynist? Sure.

I thought so. And you attack little kids…

Naughty, naughty! chuckled Smooth. I do not attack them. They attack me. They…

He was remembering how when his next-door neighbor’s child was nine she still wanted to ride on his neck, so he lifted her up onto his shoulders and she clamped her hot thighs around him. Later he was carrying her through the grass with her pressed up against him front to front, her arms around his neck, her legs around his waist, and his folded arms against his stomach to make a seat for her. He couldn’t resist. He opened his arms and slid one hand under each of her buttocks. Saying nothing, the child clung to him more tightly, so he slid his right hand up under that pretty pink dress and began to rub her vulva, whose lips he could feel much more distinctly than a grown woman’s, because there was no hair. The child began to writhe in his arms, gripping him more and more tightly. She uttered strange cries like those of the retarded girl Sapphire. Then she sighed happily and laid her burning head upon his shoulder. That had been the best moment of Dan Smooth’s life.

I keep quiet about what I do, usually, he said to the blonde. You understand me, I think. You know that I…

It’s very isolating, Domino agreed. You know, I was very sexual as a girl and couldn’t talk about it.

Now this one is not so obvious, said Smooth. Watch how she moves around. I don’t know how to describe how she moves. It’s like eating chocolate while admiring stained glass windows in some fabulous church, you know, some… Now watch this. Watch how she kind of hops around.

The video continued with one long white leg up, and a strange crow, a diver, an astronaut, a black pelican’s beak darting in and out between white cliffs.

In silence, Domino and Dan Smooth listened to the Queen’s husky moans: Ohh, oh, oh, ohhh, oaah, aoh, uh, oh, oh, uh, uh, I’m coming, I’m o-o-o-oh, uh, uh, uh, uh!

Wow, said Domino with her crooked little smile. I was never able to make her come like that. When she comes she comes.

Yeah, sighed Smooth.

And lookit him coming. There he goes. Hah! There he goes! Lookit his face. That stupid fuck. I always hated that guy. Now he’s smiling. He thinks he’s really something, since he’s had our Queen.

Ah, so you’re jealous. Me too. Watch his hips now. So much of this, it’s hard to know what is esentially male and what’s conditioned.

That stupid fuck! she shouted.

Domino, I want you to shut up now.

| 234 |

Domino’s eyesockets were like twin bites taken out of an apple core which had been forgotten on the grimy dresser of some whore hotel and so oxidized dark brown.

People think I always push them away, she said. It’s not that I like to push them away. But so many times they just become something untrue. They cheat me once, and then I can’t forgive. I never forgive.

And what’d she do to you? said Kitty, applying lipstick.

Oh, nothing. I’m becoming more and more alienated.

Where are you gonna try tonight?

Ellis is too hot. Maybe in front of the Wonderbar. Why, you wanna double date?

No, I got a regular I gotta meet. But seriously now, Dom, you gotta…

Don’t start bullshitting me.

Aw, why don’t you make up? How can you not be friends with the Queen?

I just don’t want to.

You trust me?

I trust you, Kittypie.

Then listen to me. I’m tellin’ you for your own fuckin’ good. Get along with the Queen.

I don’t love her anymore.

Ooh, that’s cold. You think she don’t know? Besides, what could you do to her? Get her raped and gaffled? Shit, Domino, she’s got the power.

Black Pam stuck her head in and said: Kitty, don’t talk to her, don’t talk to her; she be bad.

Now why is that? laughed Kitty.

She’ll rob you.

Ooh. How’ll she do that?

I don’t know, said Pam.

I was fixin’ to learn, said Kitty, and Domino laughed so hard she almost puked.

What — how to rob people? said stupid Pam.

That’s right, Domino cut in. Now get out of here, bitch, and don’t snitch or else I’ll cut your little nigger pussy out.

Pam squeaked, and ran away.

Don’t worry, said Kitty. I’ll be watchin’ her.

Stupid little fraidy-cat bitch, laughed Domino.

Remember what I said, whispered Kitty. Queen’s got the power.

| 235 |

By some bit of synchronicity I once met up with the fellow who had stolen three hundred and sixty dollars from me two weeks before. He was so charming that for an instant I couldn’t believe in his indisputable guilt. He’d had his film stolen since. — I’m so glad I met you, he said. You’ll help me! — This he said with the absent-mindedness of the truly ruthless.

Yes, very nice to see you again, I said politely. He shook himself, beginning to realize that I just might be cool toward his problems.

Domino’s ego was a similarly expensive jewel. Although she well understood the expedient consequences of her actions, she remained so precious to herself that no efforts of others on her behalf, voluntary, coaxed, or coerced, could ever strike her as excessive. In every crisis, Domino assumed that aid would arrive. Her attitude was complicated by an increasingly justified mistrust of the aid-givers. The man who robbed me could still believe that he needed but to exhibit his difficulties for me to solve them for him, no questions asked. But Domino was experientially speaking several million years old. She’d reached her millionth birthday when she was a fifteen-year-old runaway coughing, blowing her nose and leaning up against the wall of the San Bernardino bus station (her corn-yellow hair was richer back then). She shivered and her thighs trembled in the pink tights. What to do? A security guard with a T-shaped night stick came to move her on. But Domino had nowhere to go. She was stupid enough to plead. The man took her into the women’s toilet and made her blow him. That bought her an ass-pinch and an hour of peace. Then his shift ended, and her bus of salvation hadn’t come, and the next guard called the police. What was there to learn from this?

Domino believed as strongly as ever in her right to freedom, cash, drugs and happiness. But she had long since been forced to acknowledge the entirely mistaken attitude of the withholders and nay-sayers who swarmed about. What to do then? What indeed, but lie, trick, cajole, deceive, compel, intimidate…

She was a good person exactly as often as she could afford to be. What she thought of as standing up for herself might sometimes appear to others as bullying; for her it represented the exercise of a sacred moral principle. As for friendliness, she showed her goodwill whenever she could. By keeping track of all the favors she did, she not only honed their edges, so to speak, into glittering utility — for what favor, once forgotten, gets returned? — but also verified her own goodness. And when necessity struck, as it so often did, then she laid friendship aside, and proceeded by the most direct route to manage whatever needed to be managed. If someone took offense, that was unfortunate, but to Domino’s way of thinking, almost everyone was either a declared or an undeclared enemy anyhow. Domino thus was one of the most reasonable women in the world. Her moral calculus was honest, practical and consistent.

| 236 |

And now at last the time had come for Domino to appear in superior court, face to face (as she thought) with her pasty-faced ex-regular out of whose glove compartment the pistol had fallen and under whose passenger seat the cops had found that baggie of methamphetamine. — Gun up, Dom, said the Queen. I’ll be prayin’ over you. You want me to be in court? Or can I send Henry? — Oh, what the fuck’s the difference? said the blonde. If you even have to ask, that means you don’t want to be there for me… — C’mere, whispered the sad Queen, but Domino would not. — All rightie, then, Henry and I will both come. Beatrice can watch over Sapphire…

Just to make her feel good, the Queen said in Tyler’s ear, and he nodded. A Mr. Munif had requested his professional services for an infidelity case, but it would have conflicted with Domino’s court date, so he turned the job down.

The public defender had warned the blonde that her exposure was four years of potential jail time. He tried to explain how all the counts added up but she didn’t even bother to listen. Brisk and enterprising, she only wanted to know what she could do now. She could have pled guilty and gotten probation except that she had already violated probation and parole and everything else long since.

You haven’t been showing up, have you? the public defender said.

No, not everytime, Domino replied wearily.

That’s too bad, Ms. Fine. You know what MTR means?

No.

It means motion to revoke. They want to MTR your probation. It’s a real shame. You know, Ms. Fine, if you’re smokin’ crack and you test dirty, they don’t really give a shit as long as you show up for probation. Ms. Fine—

What?

Mind if I call you Sylvia?

I don’t give a fuck.

Look, Sylvia, parole is a totally different matter. With parole, you screw up, you go straight to the pen.

Cut to the chase, pal. I hate this.

I—

I hate it, I hate it, I hate it!

You can do up to four violations of probation, so you can do four times as much prison time as in your original sentence, so—

Look, said Domino. Spare me all the motherfuckin’ math. Just tell me what I’m looking at.

Well, as I said, your exposure is four years, but we still might be able to suspend your sentence if we can get the guy who was with you in the car to cop a guilty plea to drug and weapons possession, so if you…

Domino stopped listening.

First, everyone who was anyone had to sit through one of those assembly line arraignments of women in bright orange jumpsuits on which was stencilled SAN FRANCISCO CO PRISONER. They sat with their backs to the spectators. Tyler scanned the backs of their heads, and found a brunette head, two blackhaired heads, a blonde, head and a greyish-blonde head on a long stately neck. The greyish-blonde might have been Domino. But Domino was beside him. Shall we be more specific? Because the first row of seats on each side of the courtroom had been blocked off with yellow tape which read POLICE LINE DO NOT CROSS, the two well-wishers sat in the second row with the Queen in the corner holding Tyler’s hand, her head against the wall. Domino sat on his right, swallowing over and over, squeezing his hand.

You doing okay? Tyler whispered into her ear.

Don’t touch me, said the blonde.

If that door doesn’t close and lock, the bailiff was saying, just take ’em to a different office.

Then the voice of justice cried: Remain seated. Come to order. Department Twenty-Two is now in session.

In terror, Domino squeezed his hand.

On the stage of justice where all the dramatic actors played their parts, as conspicuous as the yellow teeth amidst a Haight Street tramps’ white stubble, the judge sat down, and a longhaired young lady, a whisperer, bent over flirting with a lawyer while a walkie-talkie crackled. Handcuff-rings swung in the small of a bailiff’s back.

Your honor, it strikes me that on count two there’s a procedural error, the public defender said.

Tyler barely listened. A moment later the public defender was saying: Your honor, I believe that there are waivers of appearance on all three defendants.

Three defendants! Tyler thought. But there were half a dozen women there. Then he realized that justice was not always slow anymore, that several mini-trials were in progress.

Ms. Kaye, the judge was saying, you ask that your conviction be set aside. But you haven’t been paying restitution.

I been paying in monthly installments, the black prisoner said.

Well, when you want a favor done by the court, you’d better pay what you owe. Motion denied without prejudice.

Yeah, gimme a call, someone’s lawyer was whispering.

The Queen kept shaking her head. Her lips moved silently.

Looks like you’ve got a diversionary felony, misdemeanor loitering, the judge was saying to the next defendant. Tyler held the Queen’s hand.

Finally it came Domino’s turn. The voice of justice said: On the sentencing calendar, line thirty-seven is Sylvia Fine.

Clearing her throat, the blonde rose and approached her punishment. Before, no one knew her from a spectator. Now she was the accused.

Can you see her? Tyler whispered, and the Queen nodded dully.

Ms. Fine, said the judge, you’re charged with one count of resisting arrest, one count of prostitution, one count of possessing an illegal weapon, and one count of possessing a controlled substance. However, there’s now been a conviction on the illegal weapon and on the drug charges, so those have been dropped. Do you have the money to appoint your own attorney?

No, said Domino angrily.

Sylvia Fine. Is that your real name?

Yes.

I see you have a pretty long list of priors. Two felony assault convictions among others. Ms. Fine, since you have two strikes against you, your next petty theft may be worth life in prison. Better knock it off.

Domino was silent.

Ms. Fine, how do you plead to all these charges?

Not guilty, your honor. I never resisted arrest.

We’re down to one count of prostitution and one count of resisting arrest. If you wish to plead guilty, the court will recommend the work project for thirty days. Otherwise, you’re looking at a year in jail. Do you wish to plead guilty?

Yes.

How do you plead, Ms. Fine?

Not guilty, said Domino with a twisted smile.

I thought you wanted to plead guilty.

Okay, whatever. Guilty.

I’ll go ahead and sentence you. Probation denied. You’re sentenced to the work project.

Thank you, said the girl listlessly.

My heart breaks for that child, the Queen said into Tyler’s ear.

Next case. Ms. Browne. Loitering with intent to commit prostitution, on top of the previous charges. They’re recommending a year for this and refiling as a felony. You want to plead guilty now to avoid refiling?

Yes, I would, the brunette head was saying.

Scandalous, how they coach them to implicate themselves! whispered the Queen indignantly. But Tyler’s head ached; he scarcely understood any of it. And as for Domino, to her the judge’s words were like steam from the sewers at Bush and Jones…

| 237 |

Thirty days later, the blonde came home. Nothing could make much of an impression anymore upon her soul’s hardstamped shell except perhaps the forces of petty and determined abrasion. On the thirty-first day, already bored and crack-hungry, she went out to Ellis Street to make money and in a lucky place where the waffle-pattern of windows was reflected in the hood of a shiny red car she was immediately solicited by a Dominican who raped her. The tall man had memorized the Dominican’s license plate number. When the blonde, half dead, told the Queen what had happened, the Queen went to the tall man, who went to Tyler, who ran a reverse trace on his computer, using ROYAL INFORMATION SYSTEMS, change from insecure login to secure login, the icons crawling on his bright green screen until he’d obtained a name and address for the Dominican, together with a physical description which matched Domino’s recollections. — No problem, Tyler said. Happy to help.

The Dominican had a daughter who was just now completing her first year of study at law school in Baltimore. He fully believed and expected that she would graduate at the top of her class. He expected such greatness of her that she had gone to Baltimore to get away from him. It was her image which he now saw in the mirror. Years later, long after his daughter had dropped out of law school to give birth to her illegitimate child, the Dominican told me this story. He was my taxi driver. He said that the spirit of his daughter in the mirror kept her hair pulled back by pink ribbon. She was smiling at him, telling him not to worry. But when he’d told his daughter about it that day on the telephone, she’d laughed incredulously. When the tall man and the other gangster saw him gazing open-mouthed into the mirror, they whirled around, but could see nothing. Then the tall man told the Dominican to stand up and take it. The Dominican rose, attempting to prepare himself. He told me that he was proud that he neither wept nor begged.

The other man went to the window. — Somebody on the sidewalk, he said.

All right, the tall man said to the Dominican. Down on your belly. Greasy Spic hands behind your head. Close your eyes. I said close your eyes.

The Dominican closed his eyes.

Now say a prayer to Jesus. Go ahead, man.

The Dominican stuttered, but could not speak.

Now count real slowly to twenty, said the tall man. Then stand up.

The Dominican, waiting for the bullet or the knife, counted as slowly as he dared. When he’d uttered the ominous number twenty, he was still alive. Keeping his eyes tightly shut, he rose to his knees. Nothing. Unable to bear it anymore, he stood up, looked behind him, and found the door open and the two killers gone.

After paying the other gangster, the Queen and the tall man gave everything else to Domino: the Dominican’s Rolex watch, his diamond wedding ring (the tall man had broken the man’s finger getting it off), his wallet with six hundred dollars in cash, thirteen hundred dollars cash which the Dominican had hidden in the freezer (the tall man had broken the Dominican’s nose in the process of learning where that was), and his station wagon with the keys. Domino might have made a couple hundred dollars more had she sold the car to a certain fence she knew, but it pleased her far better to drive it out to Hunters Point and smash the windshield, slash the tires, sledgehammer the engine, pour gasoline all over the upholstery and torch it.

Stupid bitch, sighed Justin, but she hugged him tight and stuck her tongue in his mouth.

I asked the Dominican whether the Queen’s retribution had altered him, and he said: Well, those two niggers, they were some evil characters. They taught me to fear God. After I got over my resentment, I realized that I had done wrong. My face was all split up, and my finger is still crooked, as you see. Perhaps my nose is also not the same as it was when I was born; what do you think? You know, I was living the wrong kind of life at that time. I was in the habit of thinking that women were meat. And then, to find out that this Queen of the Whores wasn’t just a legend, but she really existed and had the organization to track me down and punish me for what I had done, well, it made me realize that there are women with balls.

Skeptical of his conversion, I inquired whether he still went to prostitutes, and, if so, whether he ever raped them. His face grew ugly then, and he told me to mind my own business.

| 238 |

Strawberry, Domino and Beatrice stood in the doorway of the bar smoking. Later, considerably after their days and nights together had ended, Domino would always remember a gleam of light on a heap of garbage bags, and Strawberry leaning up against the wall of the Wonderbar with a long, long cigarette in her hand, her arm around one of the regulars’ necks as she tried to wheedle five dollars out of him. She remembered Strawberry as being continually with men, touching men, holding men’s hands as if she liked it — no wonder Justin smacked her around! Strawberry had the marijuana giggles. A police car drove by and Strawberry ran inside in a panic, discovering Tyler, who, flush-faced, was gripping a beer in both hands like a praying mantis, leaning on the bar as he gazed at the Queen with a foolish smile. The Queen laughed hah-haaw! — When Strawberry came out, Beatrice was gone on a date (having gigglingly whispered in the blonde’s ear: That’s a good idea to hide it in my shoe. You gave me a good idea!) and Domino was speaking with the Queen about a private thing as Strawberry should have comprehended but could not because she was still paranoid, so she kept asking about the police car, worrying that it might not be entirely gone in search of other victims, until Domino finally told her to shut up. Strawberry was hurt. She had wanted to tell Domino: Look! Maj’s got this skimpy little lace top on, like she’s planning to go to work tonight. You think she…? Instead, there was nothing to do but turn her back to Domino and the Queen. The Queen sighed. When Domino had completed her sad worrying and confessing, she went up to slip her arm around Strawberry’s neck, but was angrily thrown off, and just then one of the girl’s regulars, who had not been seen for a long time, rolled up almost silently in his black pickup truck, and Strawberry, screeching with excitement, flew across the sidewalk and into the opening passenger door of the already moving vehicle which carried her off.

Domino shook her head wryly.

That girl got a thin, thin skin, said the Queen.

Domino didn’t say anything for a long time. Then, holding the Queen around the waist, she said quietly: Look at that black night sky. It’s going to rain again. I think it’s going to rain all night.

You don’t want to go out, the Queen said.

I never did.

Nobody made you, honey. Queen’s not gonna tell you no lies. Girl, you’re free. You don’t have to do nothin.’

Some nights I have a bad feeling, Domino said.

What’s your fear, darlin’? C’mere. Come tell me.

Well, you remember, uh, that time I got raped?

The first time or the second time?

The first time. The second time wasn’t so bad. At least we punished that Spic and cashed in, thanks to you and Justin. At least he didn’t stick a gun up my ass…

So that’s your fear. Somebody’s gonna hurt you bad, maybe fuck you up and put you in the ground…

That’s right. And somehow I thought that once you came to us, Maj, then we’d all be saved. Don’t think I’m not grateful, but… Like everything would just work out on its own, and—

You can have all that if you want, said the Queen. You been there, Domino. You know what they call that place?

Crack heaven! laughed the blonde so sadly.

No. Don’t even joke about it. Jail. Jail’s the name of that place…

But it isn’t right. I’m tired of these shitty lousy streets. And all the men whose cocks I have to suck on…

Then don’t suck, the Queen said. Nobody can make you do what you don’t want to do. Even that man stuck his pistol up your ass, you could have said no. You could have died and not been tamed.

That’s bullshit.

Domino, I tell you this. Listen to me, Domino. Domino, you gonna outlive me. I know it. You got nothin’ to fear. Domino, someday you gonna be Queen after me. And I swear to you, nobody ever gonna rape you again. I know that. You believe?

I—

You believe me, honey, or you don’t believe?

I believe…

Good. Then go out there and make us all some fresh money. Or do you want me to get that other man who hurt you? You know I can find him. I found the Dominican, didn’t I? I mean, Henry and I found him. But I know you so well, honey. Just gonna make you angrier and angrier to see him. Well, maybe he’s dead. Hold my hand.

I—

Close your eyes and hold my hand. That’s a good girl. Now what do you see? You see his face?

It’s so dark, Maj…

All rightie, now. I got a glimpse of him. Kind of a glimpse, anyways. Man got those droopy eyes and the long moustache, I seen that man. Squeeze my hand.

I do not want to see that bastard.

You see, Domino? You tellin’ me now yourself you don’t wanna see that guy. How can I please you? How can I help you? Now, sweetie, you gotta put up or shut up. Squeeze my hand.

No—

Last time I’m gonna ask you. Squeeze my hand. Okay. Good. Somethin’s glowin’ just like that wool cap on top of Justin’s head. Now we’re past that. And here’s those seein’-eye demons. Now we’re in the darkness. His name is Ray. He’s doin’ time up in Pelican Bay. I can see him up there. Can you see him?

Domino pulled her hand away. — Oh, this is all bullshit! she shouted, and ran away crying.