The Royal Family

| 591 |

Hal Lipset died, said Celia.

What’s that? John irritably returned, checking international exchange. The Thai baht, the Korean won and the Malaysian ringgit were still low. Already foreseeing the day months ahead when the Chronicle would read Stocks Lose 207 Points on Asian Jitters, he decided to devolatilize, which is to say coagulate, certain investments.

You know, that guy that bugged the martini olive.

Uh huh. And whatever Greenspan does is going to hurt. I can see that coming. Good thing your mutual fund is—

John, are you listening?

Oh, him, said John, bored. Back in 1965, right? Just a demo for the Senate. A life of twenty minutes and a range of twenty feet. I’m going to be home late tonight. Rapp’s at his wit’s end with that stupid Pannel file, so I have to clean up his mess—

How do you remember all that stuff? said Celia in astonishment.

What stuff? That’s my job. Some people have to work.

No, I mean like all that stuff about Lipset’s olive.

Mom brought me up well, I guess. Which reminds me. We need to shoot up to Sacramento to clean the headstone of Mom’s grave.

What about Irene’s grave?

What about it? Are you jealous?

Yes.

John laughed. Connoisseur of restaurants, he preferred to memorialize Irene not only with the occasional angry and fugitive visit to Forest Lawn, but also with a drive to Western Avenue for a long lunch at Cho Sun Galbi, which had been Irene’s favorite establishment when she still lived at home. The gleaming aluminum plates and equally gleaming fume-hoods in the middle of the plasticized granite tables gave him a sense of satisfaction. He missed Koreatown a little. It gave him a sense almost of gaiety to imagine bringing Irene’s successor, Celia, to Cho Sun Galbi where, admiring the mellow beer-colored shadow of his drinking glass, he’d offer her kimchee as red as blood, and allow her to help herself from small white porcelain bowls of bean sprouts, sugar-dried fish. Laughing, talking loud, he’d regain his pleasures. Irene with her suicide had poisoned this place; so be it. Celia would impart new associations. Afterwards, in some pleasant hotel room, he’d get to enjoy Celia’s white legs like chopsticks flashing in a bowl of red kimchee.

John?

What is it now, Ceel?

John, how come you don’t like people to know you’re smart?

Oh, for God’s sake. Just for once, can’t we leave me out of this? One goddamned time. That’s all I ask… Fidelity made me five hundred dollars last week, but I think I’m going to lose it. You need to get your financial shit together, too, kiddo. How many times do I need to keep telling you? My goddamned broker’s just sitting on his fat ass. I call him my broker because he’s making me broke. Ripping me off, driving me straight to the poorhouse…

John?

Yeah, I know my tie’s not straight. I’m sick of this tie anyway…

John, do you ever worry about your brother?

John slammed the newspaper down. — And just what does Hank have to do with anything?

I don’t know. I guess that bugged martini olive reminded me of him.

Look, said John. He’s my brother that I don’t talk about. Period. Okay?

Do you think he knows how to bug olives?

Now you’re trying to goad me, John said.

Maybe he’s got this whole apartment bugged and he’s listening to us right now.

Wouldn’t put it past him, John laughed. Except that he’s probably sleeping it off in some doorway. I can’t believe that piece of work is my blood relative.

John?

What? I’ve got to go.

John, I’m pregnant.

From me or from a bugged olive?

You know, John, I had a talk with Irene once. Before she died.

Well, when else would it have been? Unless you believe in ouijah boards.

And she told me you said the same thing to her. She said you never trusted her. But you were in the wrong, John. She was always faithful to you. And you really shouldn’t say such hurtful things—

Oh, balls, said John. Whose side are you on — mine or Irene’s? Well, congratulations. What’s it going to be, marriage or an abortion? Let me know, but not right now, because I have to go. Can you straighten this tie for me?

Did you just propose to me, John?

Whatever. All right, so you won’t straighten my tie. I’m going. Make sure you double-lock when you go to work…

Let’s get married, John.

All right already. Twist the knife! Do we have to go on and on about it? No, cinch up the knot. Is it still crooked right here? Oh, Jesus, I’m late. I’m really late. You and your bugged olives…

| 592 |

They honeymooned in Hawaii, and then on a blue-grey Sunday John wanted to fly to Las Vegas to wrap up some Feminine Circus business with Brady (who in prison would resemble some old grey tree shooting up like the skeleton of a fabled pike, leaning each year farther against empty air). In the stretch limo which Brady had sent, the tulip-shaped glasses gleamed like rubies behind the long long windows, and the crystal decanters in their mirror-backed cases wore gold. John grinned and laid his hand on the back of his wife’s wrist.

Celia was in the bathroom, having just begun her first marital quarrel, during which she’d sighed: I guess I’m just saying that I think there’s room for you to open your arms to more people than just yourself, and John, who’d heard it all before, was sitting on the bed removing his suits and her dresses from the garment bag when the phone rang. — What’s up? he said.

Brady, said the telephone.

Afternoon, Mr. Brady, said John. What’s the good word?

Say, Johnny boy — you mind if I call you Johnny?

Had anyone else been so presumptuous. John would have been filled with wrath. As it was, he was thrilled.

Downstairs, John and Brady shook hands. Brady was explaining: We want to make sure we always give the customer what he wants, where, when and how he wants it, at a low price and with no complications afterward. No complications may be the most important thing. That requires tact, foresight, and above all innovation on our part.

When he said that, he smiled with self-adulation over his latest acquisition, a hairless wrinked dwarf lady who whispered: Donald Duck! Donald Duck! and the men who went in to her had to pretend to be Donald Duck to make her happy.

Celia stood trailing her fingers along one of the railings which ran along one side of the administration room at Feminine Circus so that spectators such as herself could look down into all the various worlds, each of them as stuffy as a museum. To me, Feminine Circus was much the same as the SuperSaverStore where Irene used to go through heaps of cheap clothes for toddlers, trying to pick out Christmas presents for her cousins and her sister’s boy while John very slowly smelled a genuine cedarwood shoetree. (Tyler, hiding behind a chin-high mountain of Date Flakes, watched Irene picking out childrens’ books.) But to Celia this comparison would have rung entirely false. When she was thoroughly bored, she escaped into an echoing expectoration of dollar coins. Her own secret wish in playing the slots was always to get rid of this heavy burden of quarters which God had given her: when they came clattering out after she pushed the CASH CREDIT button, she felt pleased, even victorious; but once she’d gathered them into her fist she wondered what to do with them. In her pocket they made an uncomfortable bulge which resembled an erection. In the big plastic cup they weighed her down. When the machine ate them back again (“like a dog goggling his vomit,” says some medieval tract on apostasy), she felt relief.

No, the house percentages are really quite small, Brady was explaining to her husband. For instance, if everyone in the world were to give me five minutes out of his life, I could live almost forever, and don’t tell me any of those people would miss that time.

Retreating to the hotel room, Celia got underneath the bedcovers, turned on the television’s remote control, and wrote:

protocol update

prep memo to Heidi

make John promise to do dishes 3 x/week

make calendar for Ellen

update for Jeff

floaters to cover breaks

order cannister mailers

adopt puppy?

dining room set

I’m a slick girl, the TV said. You wanna get slick with me? Get Slick. Now available in pharmacies near you. Federal restrictions may apply.

Celia’s mind wandered. She pretended that she and John were hiking up Coyote Peak to see Napa Valley with its multi-greened corrugations of vineyard, and it was cool and windy with blue and turquoise shadows on the facing mountains, as if the newlyweds had entered one of the buccolic scenes on the labels of Calistoga mineral water. A tiny woodpecker drummed for them, accompanied by the buzz of a little plane. It no longer embarrassed her to be spinning fantasies. Sometimes clutched by insomnia, Celia had long since grown accustomed to imagining herself to sleep. She felt very secure to be married, and the inevitable disappointment after the wedding ceremony was best dealt with by careful planning for their future together, and, whenever that temporarily failed, by mental movies of her own devising.

She and John were supposed to meet Brady for lunch, but just as they arrived, Brady’s cell phone rang and Brady began a long conversation by saying: Those girls usually come by the pair, but maybe I can get you one on open stock.

He put down the phone for a moment to lift his wineglass, and Celia heard the client say: Well, I like this shape here.

Winking at Celia, Brady picked up the phone and said: These can be shipped. They’re very high quality.

Finally he hung up. Tapping his finger against his glass, he said to John: You know, they say a good glass is very important when you drink good wine. You see the parallel?

Excuse me, Mr. Brady, said Celia, clearing her throat. These girls you’re talking about are all virtual, right? I mean, nobody gets hurt, right?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, the man said boredly. These girls come in all versions.

Gazing upward, Celia discovered chandeliers like flowers, crystal beehives, and transparent glass spiderwebs.

Actually, Brady said to her, we’ll give your husband a very special price. And listen, John. I can give you the same price for the next five years. Celia, after lunch I need to borow your husband for a minute. I guarantee I’ll return him in better shape than I found him. Perfect balance.

Celia stared miserably at the tablecloth.

Come and see this one, John, Brady was saying. It is gorgeous. You’ll see the hipbones. They’re extremely elegant pieces. And extremely strong. And extremely elastic.

I guess it all goes together, Celia said dully.

From his shirt pocket, Brady removed the transparent cast or likeness of a human nipple as astoundingly beautiful as the crystal stopper of a thousand dollar glass decanter. The thing was a dodecahedron each of whose faces sent the light back in a different shade of blueness.

No, John, said Celia. You don’t need another one.

Brady laughed. — I’ll bet you two aren’t the first pair who’ve come to blows in a place like this. And in a dispute like this, the wife always wins. Know how I know, John? Because you brought your wife. It’s not about you and any of these so-called pieces. It’s about you and her.

Celia was silent, so Brady patted her arm and said: You should give a Christmas present to your husband.

He’s already very spoiled.

So spoil him a little more.

Do whatever you want, John. I don’t feel so well. I’m going to lie down…

The air conditioning was as cold as a cretin’s hand.

| 593 |

You have been summoned, Domino said pompously, lolling back on her purple-sequined wrists. All the girls, come and kneel around the Queen… Where’s my ashtray?

Here, ma’am. Yes, ma’am.

Oh, brother, said John. This is lame.

Beatrice, I want you right now to go get the bitch. You are not in any trouble. Just go an’ get her.

That’s not Beatrice, John said to himself.

The Queen lay very still, lolling around on her swollen, abscessed legs, scratching at the purple sequins.

Now, Chocolate! she laughed. Chocolate, you little bitch! Come here. Siddown. On your butt.

The other girl was hanging her head in the corner with her hand held out and her other hand on her thighs.

That’s not Chocolate either, John realized.

I just brushed my hair, Domino was saying, smashing a beer bottle on the stage. Y’all are crazy. I want you to beat the bitch up. Take this, little motherfucker, and beat her up! I’m not playing. Awright. Now this is what we’re gonna do.

The whores were sitting in the corner at stage left, pouting and quickly wiping their lips before their cigarettes.

An’ every guilty woman, I want their pussies sewn shut, Domino mumbled. An’ all the men—everyone—I want them all brought to me. — You know who you are? You’re the first to have your pussy sewn shut. Do you want your teeth knocked out, too? How’d you like it if I took this cigarette and put it right out between your eyes? Oh, didn’t it hurt enough for you to scream? Well, let’s try it again, you little slut. Get out of my sight. Don’t drink that beer. It’s got that tramp’s lipstick all over it. Come ’ere, Sapphire little one. I’m gonna give you one chance.

The little one quickly put the Queen’s shoes on, and Justin tied them.

The Queen’s belly was sagging.

You’ll never be number one shotgun under me, she said. You’ll never be a shot-caller anymore.

The tall man was smiling vaguely under the long matted hair as he started taking the collar off, holding the chain, and the lady-in-waiting bowing double…

Sapphire tried to cling to her ankle. — Let go of me, said the Queen.

That’s not Justin, said John. That’s not Sapphire.

(He was right. Domino had sold the real Sapphire to Brady long ago for five hundred dollars cash. Sapphire had lasted for months. She’d been one of Brady’s star moneymakers.)

I want you to beat this bitch into oblivion, Domino was saying. Someone in the audience gasped, and she quickly said: Don’t worry, baby. It’s all virtual.

Somebody booed her. Pretending not to hear, she said to the ersatz Justin: I want you to bring her back when she has one breath left. Just one breath.

This is pathetic, John thought. This is embarrassing. This is Feminine Circus.

When he and Celia got back to San Francisco, he went straight to the Wonderbar and almost shyly asked the barmaid, whom he didn’t recognize, how business was, at which she froze in suspicion and fear, saying: We got no business here! and shouted something in Spanish, at which the solitary whore, fat, old and miniskirted, sent a hateful glance John’s way and went out. John never saw Domino again.