The Royal Family by William T. Vollmann Read Free Book Online Page B

he’d be good to you. I wanted you to be happy . . .
    And tonight, of course, he’d been holding Irene’s hand.
     

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    John Alan Tyler was not yet sufficiently established in his career to own a house in San Francisco, much as that would have pleased his wife. This had less to do with money than with the allocation of money. (Doesn’t that apply to all of us? Couldn’t the crazy whore buy a mansion in Pacific Heights, if only a certain percentage of her gross receipts went into the piggybank for, say, seven thousand years?) Although John was still young, having only recently passed the third-of-a-century mark, he received a salary almost commensurate with his idea of his own importance. Much of it he had to spend on clothes, because in the office it was a matter of faith for all to appear in five different suits a week, with extra apparel for interviews, public appearances and business trips. John did not set this policy, and I cannot disparage him for abiding by it. Then there were his neckties, which his brother had mocked during that first meeting with Domino. You wouldn’t believe how expensive a necktie could be until you’d gone shopping with John, who remained convinced, perhaps rightly, that everybody who mattered knew how much those neckties cost, and treated the wearer accordingly. —His elder brother, to whom stripes were stripes and plaids were plaids (or, when he was drunk vice versa), did not matter. Still, John would say one thing for Hank: He was very good to Irene.
    John was well aware that his wife had reason to feel neglected. He loved her sincerely. When she had broken off their engagement, he hadn’t even reproached her, although sitting alone he’d slowly squeezed a wineglass in his hand until it shattered. John belonged to the Order of Backbone. When called upon, he could be generous and magnanimous, even good. Once Irene agreed to marry him after all, their future deliciously in the bag, he did not feel quite so called upon. Irene was an excellent woman who’d undoubtedly go to heaven when she died. But a necessary part of her excellence was an idealism which he admired but did not share. To speak more plainly, John had discovered that Irene was positively mushy with fantasies. She’d required a “fairytale wedding,” which he’d provided, although his mother had been against it and he was still paying off the bills. She also expected to live happily ever after. She seemed to believe that since they were married, he shouldn’t work anymore, just stay home day and night with her. She was spoiled. John had to put her straight. First of all, he explained, he did have his friends, who had known him long before he’d met her and whom he was not prepared to dismiss simply because he had married somebody. Then there was the fact that he did have to go to work amidst the tan-hued, grooved cliffs of the financial district, where below mailboxes and flags, chilled by the Transamerica Pyramid’s steeply tapering shadow, breadwinners hastened to new appointments, with their neckties blowing. Irene for her part had started as a dental receptionist, but then the dentist got audited and that was the end of that. She was reading the want ads now—so she said. John wished that she didn’t get so sad and bored, especially on those foggy rainy nights when he must stay late at the office. Precisely because he did not intend to work for Rapp and Singer more than another five years (unless they made him full partner on excellent conditions), he had to put in his time. He wanted a brilliant promotion, and then he wanted to transship, probably for Harville and Keane, although Dow, Emerson, Prescott and Liu occupied a comparable place in his aspirations. Once he had gotten in solid with Harville and Keane, which would take another three years of late office nights, he wouldn’t be much over forty and Irene would be just thirty-four, at which point they could start a family. John knew not to stop