The Royal Summit Read online

  “It’s called—uh . . . ” Emma said, and then trailed off. Trevor smiled triumphantly. “I don’t know,” Emma continued. “But it’s certainly not called that!”

  “I’m basically a farm historian,” Trevor responded. “I feel like I know everything about farms. Ask me anything,” he taunted. His desert trip had rendered him insufferable, but if Donna had correctly forecasted Trevor’s mental state, he would not be with them for much longer.

  “Okay,” Emma said. “Where does the water come from in wells?”

  “That’s so easy,” Trevor said. “The ocean.”

  “How are we getting ocean water in the middle of West Virginia?” Emma asked.

  “You ever heard of the Underground Railroad?” Trevor asked. “Transported water. Saved a whole generation of southern people.”

  “The Underground Railroad helped slaves escape,” Emma said. Trevor laughed loudly.

  “Why would slaves need to escape?” he asked.

  “Because our ancestors enslaved them,” Emma said, jutting her chin out. “Hence the term ‘slavery.’”

  “Listen,” Trevor said. “I don’t know much about that, never read about it on the Stream. But I do know that they quite enjoyed transporting buckets of water through the Underground Railroad to fill up the wells.”

  Donna stared at her eldest stepchild and wondered how and when the Royal Education system had failed him, and realistically, everyone she was forced to work with. He was a veritable adult who couldn’t even grasp the history of slavery, or understand anything beyond the extent of his own experience. From what Donna had seen in the Dukes and Duchesses that surrounded her, very few people could. The Royal men tended to be even more foolish and, maddeningly, they were also the ones in power.

  “It’s bale,” came the voice of what may have been a mouse. Donna remembered that the Sweaty Intern was still with them. “It’s a bale of hay.”

  He was truly a very integral facet of her plan—the human sacrifice. One day she would make sure he had a nice place to live and good psychiatric help to deal with all the emotional turmoil she had put him through. Not today. Maybe tomorrow, but tomorrow was pretty busy.

  “What was that?” Trevor scoffed. “Did Tablo just speak?”

  “He’s allowed to talk!” Kyle said. Of course Donna knew that this boy was the one Kyle had played with all those years ago. She had collected all of the transformative figures in the children’s childhood like precious dolls, keeping them safe and removed so that she could play them later in their lives to great effect. She knew that Kyle’s goodness would be his downfall.

  “Well, it’s certainly not bale, that’s for damn sure,” Emma said.

  “Yeah that’s totally not a word, dude. But good try,” Trevor said.

  “Maybe it is bale!” Kyle mumbled. “Lots of things that are words sound like they’re not!”

  “Name one,” Trevor challenged. Kyle thought for a few moments.

  “Bottle?” he said. Emma and Trevor looked at Kyle and then burst out laughing.

  “That’s the most word-like word I know!” Trevor said.

  “I have to agree,” Emma said. Before the discussion could switch to the word-merits of “bottle,” the limo slowed down to a halt.

  “Untint,” Donna said. Slowly, the limo windows transformed from gray shields against the outdoor peasant air to a clear portal into their backward world. In spite of Donna’s knowledge of what a farm in the depths of West Virginia would look like, she didn’t truly know until right now. They were pressed up against row after row of leafy green plants, the likes of which one usually only saw in ornamental paintings. Interspersed throughout the field were people dressed in the sort of peasant attire Donna had only ever seen in dramatic reenactments at the Royal Village—overalls, work gloves, and thick boots.

  “What are they doing?” Trevor asked breathlessly.

  “They’re . . . farming,” Donna answered. She tried her best to sound confident, but even felt her own voice waver. She thought she knew where corn came from, but seeing this made her realize she had little to no idea about the physical process involved in making the bourbon that fueled the Royal Village.

  “Holy shit, cows are big,” Emma said, her face pressed up against the window. Trevor stared at a squirrel and mumbled to himself softly, an odd tic that was not pleasant to watch. Donna turned to consider the pale face of the newest King.

  “Shall we?” she asked Kyle. She squeezed his shoulder in an approximation of tenderness that she knew he needed, and that he would interpret as a loving sign of support. He squared his shoulders and puffed out his chest in a clear imitation of his older brother.

  “We shall.”

  He took a deep, steadying breath and opened the door. Donna watched her children step out into the bewildering sunlight and followed suit, entirely in control of the future but quite honestly, more than a little afraid of the pasture filled with cows.

  “Fresh milk, Trevor?” Farmer Joseph asked, gesturing to the glistening jug in his hand.

  “It’s T-Money,” Trevor said reflexively, while looking at the white concoction dubiously. He had just witnessed the incredibly graphic process of liquid being squeezed out of a cow’s unseemly udders, and it had made him want to never consume a single drop of milk ever again. Emma shook her head imperceptibly, Donna pursed her lips, and Kyle looked as if he might be sick. Trevor followed Kyle’s line of sight to the strung-up pig leg hanging from the butcher’s block in the corner of the open-aired kitchen. Trevor felt his stomach gurgle. He remembered the cow who had stared at him with those glassy, emotionless eyes while Farmer Joseph had worked those udders methodically. In those cow’s eyes he could see himself reflected back, caged within the fence of his family and by extension, society. But they were being live-streamed straight to the RoyalChatterStream through an entire fleet of devices hovering around their faces like an obnoxious swarm of fruit flies, and Trevor knew he had an image to uphold.

  “Are you going to drink it?” D. Bones asked. Trevor twitched and looked away from his one remaining friend, who was currently in the form of a gray squirrel staring through the kitchen window. D. Bones had been talking to him ever since his trip to the desert, but Trevor knew better than to respond to his spirit guide in front of people who wouldn’t understand.

  “I think you should drink it,” D. Bones said. “Jane is watching and Chattering right now! She totally doesn’t think you’ll do it. But the people will love it if you drink it.”

  Trevor thought of the smug face of Jane standing somewhere behind the madness, probably in a radio control booth outside. He could feel the oppressive presence of his twice-scorned former lover watching him, as always. He would show her. He would show them all. He was on a tumultuous quest to find himself, primarily to spite all of those who didn’t believe that he was the single most important human on this planet. In order to try to discover the real meaning of “Trevor,” he had recently started doing yoga, stopped doing yoga, stopped drinking, started drinking coffee instead of water, changed his hair, changed his beard, started drinking again, hired a stylist, fired the stylist, decided that family was the only thing that mattered, realized that actually having sex with random women was the only thing that made him feel alive, and Chattered many ruminations on the state of the world along the way. His current sense of self was tenuous at best.

  “Absolutely,” Trevor said aloud to the farmer. “We all would!” The rest of the family reluctantly agreed. Farmer Joseph, a simple, thickly-bearded man with a warm smile and a GlassPhone™ that was many generations too old, handed small jars of the freshly-pumped milk to the Royal Family.

  “A toast,” Farmer Joseph said, raising his glass high into the air. Trevor glanced at the pale faces of his family and raised his glass as well. It wasn’t the first time he had downed a mixture of perplexing origins, and it certainly wouldn’t be the last. He saw D. Bones holding up tiny squirrel fingers in an adorably anthropomorphic approximation of a “
thumbs up.”

  “I feel as if we should toast to the greatest farmer who has ever lived,” Trevor said, the words spilling out as effortlessly as the milk had flowed from the cow’s udders. “The farmer who will change the world. In fact, he already has.”

  He could feel Farmer Joseph standing up straighter next to him, but surely the simple peasant couldn’t be that foolish. Nobody cared about the peasants, not even other peasants.

  “Me!” Trevor declared, raising his glass high. He had never farmed a day in his life, but it didn’t seem so hard. Just remember to water your plants, right? His family reluctantly extended their glasses in the silence that followed, and Trevor smiled broadly at the faces staring back at him. All he needed to be happy in this life was for people to see him, for people to like him, and for people to care.

  He raised the glass of chunky milk to his lips and downed it in one, laborious gulp. It had the consistency of a milkshake made out of sour cheese and it very nearly choked Trevor as it slid slowly down his throat. But he swallowed it because Trevor swallowed anything he was handed in a social setting. He looked at the grimaces of his family around him and took solace in the fact that they all seemed equally displeased, save for the genuine look of pure joy that washed over Kyle’s face.

  “This . . . this is the best thing I have ever tasted,” Kyle uttered. The floating GlassCameras™ captured every heartwarming moment of Royal and peasant interaction, sending it straight to the Stream with the headline: Watch The Royal Family Get Weird With Peasant Milk. Trevor bristled as the cameras turned away from him in favor of Kyle. Whatever. King Kyle could have his gross milk and his stupid farmers. Trevor didn’t need any of that nonsense. These people didn’t deserve his stunningly glorious beard anyway.

  “Father, I’m home!” rang a melodic voice from the entryway. The Royal Family and GlassCameras™ swiveled toward the voice to find a radiantly blonde peasant with the naïve look of someone who had never seen the ocean. Trevor smiled. Game on.

  “You’re going to woo her, aren’t you?” D. Bones asked from the window. Trevor gave his companion a slight, imperceptible nod. Of course.

  “Hello, Patricia,” Father Joseph said. “This is my daughter, Patricia. Patricia, this is the Royal family.”

  “It’s nice to meet you,” Patricia said, her eyes wide with what must have certainly been a distinct lack of world experience. There was an undeniably intoxicating innocence to the peasantry that had captivated Trevor the moment this young woman walked through the barnyard door.

  Trevor jostled through his family to reach Patricia first. He extended his hand and smiled his most dashing smile.

  “T-Money,” he declared, “formerly known as Prince Trevor, and now more recently known as famous rapper, music producer, and spiritual guide.”

  “I know who you are,” Patricia said. Trevor turned to look at Emma with a confident smile; he liked to rub his successes in her face as constantly as possible. If King Kyle wanted the family to treat the peasantry well, he surely could not be blamed for taking that to heart in the most physical way possible.

  “You do, do you?” Trevor asked, flashing a smile at the GlassCameras™ and the ex-girlfriend who was surely behind them.

  “Yes, you’re the one who killed my dog,” she continued, her innocence suddenly acquiring a newly sinister air. Trevor laughed to deflate her poor joke. But then he saw the start of a tear begin to well in Patricia’s eye and he knew that laughing had been a terrible, terrible mistake that was now broadcasted to the entire nation.

  “I don’t think I understand,” Trevor said.

  “Patricia, not now,” Farmer Joseph said. “You promised you wouldn’t.”

  “I’m sorry, Dad, but I’m not going to stay quiet, no matter how much they’re paying us! They killed Scarlet!”

  “I can assure you that we certainly did not kill anybody’s dog, least of all yours,” Trevor said, flashing his teeth and hoping that his good charm would be the answer to the problem, as it usually tended to be. But as he smiled, he felt his stomach gurgle menacingly. He certainly should not have consumed that glass of chalk milk.

  “Your Royal Village waste is poisoning Federalist Papers Creek,” Patricia shouted. “And Scarlet drank from it, and now she’s dead.” She stared at Trevor intently, her face flushed with dead-dog passion. He found himself wishing that somebody, anybody, would have that sort of face-flushing passion for him.

  “I do!” D. Bones reminded Trevor. Somebody human.

  “I, uh—look, I didn’t kill your dog,” Trevor said softly.

  Patricia’s angelic features had turned demonic, warped with rage and grief. Kyle stepped forward in front of Trevor and turned toward Patricia to try to perform his crude approximation of a Kingly social dance around hurt feelings.

  “Patricia, we are so very sorry for your loss,” Kyle said formally. “We assure you that we are looking into the situation, even as we speak.”

  Where was all this ability to communicate coherently coming from? Kyle was more prone to mumbling in the corner than taking charge of any situation. Trevor could have let Kyle continue to dive into his newfound ability to soothe trampled emotions, but he couldn’t let Patricia win, and by extension Jane, and by further extension all the women who had scorned him.

  “No, you know what? We’re not looking into the situation because we have better things to do than worry about your stupid dog,” Trevor said.

  “She was not stupid,” Patricia retorted. Farmer Joseph stood next to his daughter with a hand on her shoulder and regarded Trevor with the glint of fatherly aggression.

  “I think that was out of line, Prince Trevor,” Kyle said next to Trevor.

  “For the last time, it’s T-Money!” Trevor shouted. “And I feel like it’s not out of line to tell the truth, and the truth is that we really could care less about your mangy mutt.”

  “It’s couldn’t care less,” Emma said from behind them.

  “What was that?” Trevor asked, wheeling around wildly. He heard soft sobs behind him and basked in the guilty power of inflicting pain on those around him, for no other reason than to feel less pain within his own mind.

  “You said that you could care less, which means that you care somewhat and you could go down in your level of caring,” Emma said in her deeply unpleasant monotone. “But you’re trying to say that you couldn’t care less, as in, you’ve reached the absolute lowest amount of caring possible.”

  Trevor stared at his sister and remembered just why he liked to make her life a living hell. As he opened his mouth to argue, he felt the aggressive tapping of a finger on his shoulder. He turned around to face Farmer Joseph.

  “I would like you to apologize to my daughter,” Father Joseph said. Trevor rolled up his metaphorical sleeves and prepared for the imminent physical attack.

  “I would like your milk to taste less disgusting,” Trevor said, “but we can’t always get what we want.” Before Farmer Joseph could react, Trevor felt his stomach flip within him. Beads of sweat grew along his forehead and he knew something was going to snap, and soon. Trevor wished that Farmer Joseph would punch him. He needed something that would bring him back into his body and out of his brain, if only for fleeting relief from these thoughts. When Farmer Joseph moved toward Trevor with all the speed of an angered corn-gatherer, Trevor prepared himself for impact.

  But instead of a physical blow, Farmer Joseph enveloped Trevor in a hug.

  “I can see your sadness,” Farmer Joseph said. “And I’m sorry.”

  Trevor felt his stomach heave once more and knew that another wild attack of expelling its contents was certainly on the horizon. Farmer Joseph patted Trevor’s back, and he felt the onslaught of revulsion rise up in his belly. But as he braced himself for the unpleasant sensation of milk-fueled bile passing through his throat, something entirely novel happened. Instead of an upturned stomach, a stream of hot wet tears burst out of his eyes and trailed down his cheeks.

  Trevor hadn’t
cried since age six, and for a moment he wondered if he had hit his head and this was a stream of blood. But the closer Farmer Joseph hugged him, the faster the tears came. The entire world faded away and left Trevor alone with his emotional release and the unfamiliar sensation of a man’s beard grazing his neck. He was teetering on the edge of a mental precipice, and with every tear he took one step closer to jumping.

  “Just do it,” D. Bones said in Trevor’s mind. “Jump.”

  So Trevor wept his last tears as a mortal man, and jumped off the edge of his brain into his new existence as an entity that defied the constraints of the human experience.

  @Zerohero55: I can’t believe Prince T is so vulnerable. Luv him

  @guggles08: Royal Family is soooo lame, except for T$, I wish I could be him

  @No_sense: so over the royal family. Trevor crying was funny as hell tho

  @Ericetta44: did Trevor just say he was the best farmer ever? Lol I’d believe it, he can do anything

  @JanetheReporterOfficial: Expand for pictures & video of Prince Trevor attempting to “set free” a cow at a West Virginian farm

  @OfficialKennedyCampaign: How much longer will we be forced to watch this Royal nonsense, while people are starving? #KennedyforPresident

  @TMONEY: New work coming your way. Stay tuned for some big changes.

  “I can’t believe he actually tried to ride a cow out of there, like nobody would notice,” Emma said with a gurgling chuckle. The vicarious emotions of watching her brother slowly unfurl his madness in front of the entire world still coursed through her body. She was pressed up against the body of her forbidden lover on the rooftop of her suburban hotel, which tended to make other feelings course through her body as well.

  “You can’t believe it?” Daisy asked, a wry smile dancing across her lips. “Imagine watching it on your GlassPhone™ while trying to keep a low profile in the middle of a West Virginian general store. I was shrieking while they restocked the nails.”