The Lucky Star Read online

  ALSO BY WILLIAM T. VOLLMANN

  You Bright and Risen Angels (1987)

  The Rainbow Stories (1989)

  The Ice-Shirt (1990)

  Whores for Gloria (1991)

  Thirteen Stories and Thirteen Epitaphs (1991)

  An Afghanistan Picture Show (1992)

  Fathers and Crows (1992)

  Butterfly Stories (1993)

  The Rifles (1994)

  The Atlas (1996)

  The Royal Family (2000)

  Argall (2001)

  Rising Up and Rising Down: Some Thoughts on Violence, Freedom and Urgent Means (2003)

  Europe Central (2005)

  Uncentering the Earth: Copernicus and the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres (2006)

  Poor People (2007)

  Riding Toward Everywhere (2008)

  Imperial (2009)

  Imperial: A Book of Photographs (2009)

  Kissing the Mask: Beauty, Understatement and Femininity in Japanese Noh Theater (2010)

  The Book of Dolores (2013)

  Last Stories and Other Stories (2014)

  The Dying Grass (2015)

  Carbon Ideologies I: No Immediate Danger (2018)

  Carbon Ideologies II: No Good Alternative (2018)

  VIKING

  An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC

  penguinrandomhouse.com

  Copyright © 2020 by William T. Vollmann

  Penguin supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin to continue to publish books for every reader.

  LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

  Names: Vollmann, William T., author.

  Title: The lucky star / William T. Vollmann.

  Description: New York : Viking, [2020]

  Identifiers: LCCN 2019032256 (print) | LCCN 2019032257 (ebook) | ISBN 9780399563522 (hardcover) | ISBN 9780399563539 (ebook)

  Classification: LCC PS3572.O395 L83 2020 (print) | LCC PS3572.O395 (ebook) | DDC 813/.54—dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019032256

  LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019032257

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Cover design: Brianna Harden

  Cover photograph: Kayla Varley / August Image

  pid_prh_5.5.0_c0_r0

  In memory of Jean Stein, gentle benefactress and beautiful friend. I will never forget you.

  Since there are so many literal gaps in the tattered texts with which we are dealing, in effect all readings of Sappho are really fictions of Sappho.

  JANE MCINTOSH SNYDER, 1997

  And that is how Madhavi was born, with a pubis like a cobra’s hood.

  PRINCE ILANGÔ ADIGAL, ca. 171 A.D.

  CONTENTS

  Also by William T. Vollmann

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  I

  You Who Were Loved Above All Others

  Child Star

  When an Innocent Girl Abandons Herself

  You Seem a Little Sad

  The Island

  It’s All Been Wonderful

  But I Feel Like a Terrible Person

  Neva

  Who We Were

  What She Did to Us

  II

  The Stream of Pleasure

  Her Name in Lights

  I Guess I Just Like Nice People

  Chain of Command

  Judy at School

  Some Names Are True

  Humiliated in Skirts

  The Reptile Sheds Her Skin

  Show Nights

  With Shantelle

  III

  What the Cat Caught

  Just Kiss Me

  Thirst

  Neva and the Baby-killers

  Almost Flagrante Delicto

  The Lucky Star

  Onscreen

  Divings of a Mermaid

  Like a Suspect Who Loves Only to Please

  Coming Down

  IV

  Without Shame or Limit

  The Paratrooper

  Auditions

  Rehearsals and Performances

  Sorry I’m Bleeding

  The Old Fake

  Some Warmth That Wasn’t There

  Shantelle’s Medicine

  Neva’s Surprise

  The Bloodsucker

  V

  How Francine and I Coped

  How Sandra Coped

  Narrower Than It Used to Be

  That Certain Tone

  The Absolute Latest

  More to Tell

  Raised Again

  Afterword

  Notes on Sources

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  THE LUCKY STAR

  Because thy lovingkindness is better than life, my lips shall praise thee.

  PSALM 63:3

  I

  You Who Were Loved Above All Others

  I, the servant of God, am thankful to Him that no one can help falling in love with beautiful women, and that no one can escape the desire to possess them, neither by change, nor flight, nor separation.

  SHAYKH UMAR IBN MUHAMMED AL-NEFZAWI, ca. 1400

  1

  Not until Selene’s wedding, when the fan’s three blades winged slowly round and round while green ribbons twitched from the light bulb, did the transwoman, resurrected from another crying spell, meet her for whom she must have been meant: the lovely quiet one who could help her, the adorable one with the pubis like a cobra’s hood—the lesbian. On this glaring afternoon, no less fortuitously because the procedure had been conceived and undertaken in Selene’s honor (her cheeks excitedly pinkening), the transwoman, whom younger and therefore crueler ladies called sloppy, fat, unclean or just plain lazy, had so painstakingly constructed herself that at least here in this dark lounge she might have been female to the core. The retired policeman whom she dated once a week liked to compare her to a suspect who can nearly pass his polygraph examination. She had long since persuaded herself not to be hurt by repetitions of this compliment, which, since he did regularly hire her, expressed his tastes as much as her womanliness. The last time she had looked half as good, which was on Easter, when she, Shantelle and Selene availed themselves of the cosmetics liquidation sale in Chinatown, she’d swished into his room and said: Maybe now you’ll agree that you’ve seen something, to which he replied: You ain’t seen nothing until you’ve seen a girl take a bullet right through her smile and down her throat.—During their appointments, which terminated with what he called a climax, she frequently drank comfort from a lovely fantasy of surrendering to an unknown man who hid his face while penetrating her over and over, this act being observed by a crowd of flint-knapped faces that would have included the retired policeman no more than some gynecologist whose invasion has been rendered safely invisible to the patient through the childish magic of a surgical drape. Her clients, sweetheart
s and special friends tended to be male; many of them she actually liked, but her heart’s desire was to be a woman with a woman—and now right here among our tall and smooth-skinned drag queens who smelled of powder sat the lesbian in a green blouse, her shoulder smoothly sparkling like Venus’s marble breast.

  2

  Last year or maybe the year before, a different goddess had set her own unanswerable tone. When she first saw that girl’s black curls shining so wide around her shoulders, and when the girl’s white teeth and lustrous eyelashes consequently commenced to illuminate us, the transwoman lost her ability not to watch the breathings of the girl’s breasts in their white, white blouse; how she longed to slide her face down the girl’s brown arms, which shone as only young female flesh can! Unlike those misdirected lovers who push their own cause, the transwoman adored the girl’s self-assured voice, which was sleekly insistent if not domineering. Possession being impossible, she aspired merely to parasitize. Sometimes she ordered an extra bourbon and ginger ale (six dollars), stirring its lone ice cube round and ever round in hopes that the girl would uncross her legs. No matter what, such efforts were never wasted, thanks to that sleek voice within the stunning white smile—because (most fortunately for all worshippers) the girl, whose name was Letitia, liked nothing better than to speak of herself. Her long yellow-pale fingers were always gesturing to explicate who she was not, why others miscomprehended her and what she refused to do. Fascinated, the transwoman tried to memorize her smell.

  I know exactly what you mean, said the girl, because everyone has these conceptions of me. If all that people think about me are certain conceptions, she smilingly continued (not realizing that several degenerates, Francine the barmaid for instance, thought nothing whatsoever about her), then that shows a willingness to simplify me so they can deal with me quickly.

  The transwoman nodded avidly, licking her lips.

  I found it interesting, remarked the girl, that you could only imagine that. That you couldn’t move beyond it.

  Watching her crossed legs, the transwoman mouthed the prayer open, open, open.

  The girl continued: I smile every time people say, the thing about black women is . . .

  Oh, yes, well, that’s right, said the transwoman, almost sick because at any moment Selene’s best friend Samantha would come in, and then she would no longer have Letitia to herself. Fortunately, Letitia and the transwoman’s frenemy Shantelle hated each other. Shantelle, who liked to inflict spitefulnesses interspersed with lovey-doveyness, sat contentedly enough on the dark side of the bar, doing business with Francine.

  Do you have any understanding of the point I’m making?

  Well, I guess so, but . . .

  I’m ready for a refill. Only up to here. Otherwise it gets too watery.

  Francine, could I please get a round for Letitia?

  Six dollars.

  But just up to here.

  Yeah, Letitia; I’m not deaf. What about you, hon?

  Oh, what the hell, cried the transwoman in high self-delight. Make it a double.

  Thirteen dollars total. Thank you.

  And then, Letitia continued, they gave me a rose quartz necklace. It went extremely well with my white gold earrings. Of course they’re not responsible for that. And I don’t blame them for not understanding that I’m allergic to sterling silver.

  I’ll bet it’s real pretty on you. Why don’t you model it sometime?

  The thing is, I wanted to give them the opportunity to see how it looked on me while I was managing the project.

  I’ll bet you got compliments. I’ll give you compliments—

  Actually, I didn’t, because what the marketing team failed to consider was that Stage Four might go over budget. They probably didn’t feel comfortable with the analysis design. And yet they expected me to get the business panel on board!—You don’t understand any of this.

  Just as an old school lesbian separatist would have turned away from an otherwise comradely woman who occasionally fucked boys, Letitia drew the line at the transwoman for being simply impure. But she was too perfect to tell her. And so the transwoman got to stare at her in unalloyed delight.

  Judy, are you even listening? That’s why they pushed it over to me, to sabotage me, but it backfired because I actually expanded the project base.

  Is your drink okay? asked her adorer. You’re not touching it.

  Do you have any idea what a product base is?

  I’m sorry but I can’t quite picture it. I wish I could. Do you want to explain it to me? I mean—

  I like to think you’re just lazy. But maybe it’s something more mindless or even vicious, said the girl. I could use another cigarette.

  Rushing across the street to buy her a pack of filter-tipped high-tar Carolina Naturals, the transwoman had thought to desire Letitia throughout her life, but the lesbian’s appearance removed that impulse, not just then but retroactively. And yet it would not be fair to label our Judy’s emotings as any more insignificant than the shadow on an old sandstone relief, whose kings and goddesses appear deliberately outlined for an eternity which is actually but one bead on a necklace of alterations—and why is this tallheaded figure’s face now shaded while the paw of that eroded lion glares out so self-importantly?—Random or subtle as may be, imperceptibly restless, the shadow never fails to make pretty embellishments. Whatever the image may be at any instant, it presents a perfect reality, as was the case with Letitia—who, however, got bored and disappeared.—That stars do get overthrown is the first law of celebrity astronomy, as we saw in 1983, when the seventeen-year-old underdog Kathy Horvath came up against Martina Navratilova at the French Open. The young challenger decided to be aggressive in the very first set, by hitting deep (thus the printed account) to Navratilova’s backhand, and won by six to four, then lost the second set zero to six, but in the final set hit a deep forehand crosscourt, which her opponent, narrow-eyed, her wheat-colored bangs sweat-glued to her forehead (Francine licked her lips), clenched her muscular arms and swung at, but failed to float, so that Kathy Horvath won again, six to three, locking Navratilova out of a Grand Slam. But Letitia’s case was different. Having triumphed over us, she departed to continue her own Grand Slam. Sincerely desperate, the transwoman begged the retired policeman to track her, which he did in less than three minutes while she sucked him off, which required nearly twenty: Letitia had career-hopped to Atlanta; she wasn’t even dead yet!—The transwoman rushed to cry this news. Foreseeably, Francine couldn’t care less (when she lay all alone at night, she longed to be crushed between the thighs of the black tennis star Serena Williams), and Selene uttered two catty remarks, but we most important regulars began once again to sicken with loneliness. (As Xenia said: It must be something I’ve seen on TV, watching men and women be in couples.) We could not bear the lack of any adorable someone, being unable to adore ourselves. So the transwoman started trolling right away for a new idol—first fixing on gentle, blonde-banged little Erin, whom thanks to a mismatch in street medications she had once perceived as sneering at her, hence another memorably public detonation into tears, at which Erin had hugged her, kissing her cheek with a reassuring awww!; Erin had furthermore said: But, Judy, I love T-girls!* There was one that helped me put my luggage on the bus last night. She had this long blonde hair down to here, and she had long hands and huge fingers and she was tall and slender and I love tall and slender people! I just saw her for two seconds and I wanted to cream in my pants.—After this, the transwoman began hoping to make Erin one of her special friends. Why not? Hadn’t Judy Garland found herself a lucky star? But as for the rest of us, especially Shantelle, when we entered the bar in late afternoon, the thing we hunted had not yet wafted down any spoor, so we sat drinking adulterated liquor out of superficially washed glasses, waiting for whatever might come in the night.—In came the lesbian.

  3

  While broadshouldered longhair
ed ladies laughed in bass voices, shotglasses clinked and the minister beamed over his clipboard, the lesbian sat unaccompanied, drinking gin and tonics. For several weeks she had been growing famous in our bar, admired not only by the men and women who desired her, but also by the high-class impersonators young, slim and beautiful, who could dance like nymphs and lip-synch without error (you would never guess). They all began to drink her in as if they were spectators at her fatal car crash. Without knowing why, Selene sometimes daydreamed of watching her sipping from a silver cup; while Shantelle acted out, Francine smiled despite herself and the straight man frowned as if a fist were beating his breastbone. Now even the transwoman had heard of her.

  It had happened the previous Sunday at the wake for Al’s boyfriend Ed. First Francine and then Sandra dropped a name: Neva, so of course we regulars took notice even though any number of important people received comparable consideration—Judy Garland, for instance, after whom the transwoman had named herself; and when Michelle Obama appeared on the muted television, teaching underprivileged children how to weed carrots in the White House garden, our Selene, who most often incarnated herself as a big-shouldered blonde with vast eyelashes, was riveted, at which Shantelle informed her: Honey, you ain’t never gonna have ten percent of what she got, but I love you anyway, to which Selene replied: Then you can still be my number ten bitch.—Francine by calmly asking who was ready for a shot of what headed off that fight, mostly for the sake of Selene, who never got violent; as for Shantelle, who had already been eighty-sixed twice, Francine would just as soon have cracked her over the head, but then the police might have degraded the occasion; hence business best be served itself by preventing Shantelle from going off, and just maybe Francine loved Shantelle. High above the top row of woman-waisted bottles, Ed’s snapshot now occluded the faded old postcard of a breast with pink spectacles balanced on it. Al sat silently wiping his eyes with a napkin. Unlike me (I appeared svelte in extra-large) Al was too obese to fit into any T-shirt; his belly resembled three sideways buttocks. Francine kept reminding him that today all his drinks were on the house; he said no thank you and tossed down a tequila without noticing, so she topped him off. The retired policeman, who missed Ed but would never admit it, absorbed another shot of Old Crow in order to explain: No, Francine, it was that homeless case. They were being shot in the head while they slept. I got to talking with some people in the neighborhood who said, you know these kids up in the street, they’re always out shooting their guns, and so I went up and located shell casings in the dirt by their door, and we actually matched them to the murder weapon.—Meanwhile Samantha sat apparently praying (she was actually keeping in practice, lip-synching to Barbra Streisand); and although she had promised herself to oversee her waistline, the transwoman could not stop gobbling meatballs, potato salad and those cute, cute miniature roast beef sandwiches with the toothpicks stuck through the buns; oh, my, she simply could not stay away from meatballs, even ones which were frozen in the middle; thus she honored the memory of Ed, who had cheated on Al with her lowpaid semiprivate assistance from Christmas Eve until three months ago, when Ed became too sick to fuck; aside from Francine and the retired policeman, nobody else (especially not Shantelle, thank God) had detected their romance, although it grew peculiarly disheartening the way that Al so often frowned at her; just now she felt ashamed to meet his bloodshot gaze, not that she had ever felt half as connected to Ed as to the retired policeman, who had apparently stopped dating Melba the G-girl bitch.—Just then Xenia was explaining to Francine: I feel like what I have is feminine intelligence. When I pick out the customer who wants a good conversation . . .—at which point Francine had to mix up my usual: six dollars. It was late afternoon going on evening, and after Al drank eight more tequilas and stumbled away sobbing, the red light-fixtures over the bar kept sweating through their glass scales: on summer days the Y Bar invariably sweltered with beer breath and estrogen sweat. A discreet aroma of marijuana approached me from the middle-aged German G-woman who sat sucking on her custom-modified electric cigarette, moving her dark-painted lips as if singing to herself; while three old men in shorts who had known Ed at least as thoroughly as Al kept kicking their glossy legs to the country music; then Selene’s best friend Samantha came in and hugged almost everybody; she was a vast woman in a red wig, with blood-red spangles on her zipper-pull-like earrings; with these formalities safely over, the transwoman ate two more meatballs. (In those days she and Samantha still loved to torture each other with the anecdote about the studio writing Judy Garland out of Showboat because she had grown too fat to film.) Without asking, Francine mixed Samantha’s usual: a wine cooler with a maraschino cherry and two ice cubes. Smiling, the latter blew her a thank-you kiss. As for Shantelle, she wished the straight man would come; he was the only one who didn’t mind when she cheated at liars’ dice. Meanwhile the three old men went home hand in hand, and Xenia was telling Sandra: My best friend who’s now passed away, he got beat one time on the street, he and his buddy who was super feminine; they got beat up, chased; he handled it well; it didn’t stop him from being comfortable with his gayness . . .—Wondering whether or not to eat the last four meatballs, the transwoman sat eavesdropping on two longhaired young G-girls with perfect teeth and ring-hoards on their fingers; cradling their beers, they told us jokes about red-hot redhaired drunk chicks; they both desired the same librarian, who claimed to be straight, and were debating with Francine whether they should try to do her together. The transwoman would have given everything if she could have looked like either of them. She fantasized that Letitia would soon come in and insult her one more time, just a little, and maybe slap her cheeks five or six times while everyone laughed and spat on her; that gave her an erection. Well, why not another meatball, or else a furtive handful of potato salad? Bored and sad, she longed to go home and chew up three sleeping pills—but just then she overheard Shantelle and the two G-girls gossiping about the lesbian, who had been destined to suffer and cause suffering.