Robert Lopez - Good People

The one driving says, What do you know about it?

The one in the passenger seat looks at the one driving. He says nothing.

The one driving likes to hold his wife’s hand when they go out walking. They make it a point to go for a walk twice a week after dinner. She always chooses the path and he follows. This is how they both want it. Once she let him choose the path and they ended up on the wrong side of nowhere.

Their first outing was a walk through the park. During this walk they did not hold hands, though the one driving briefly considered doing so or trying to do so. He realized she might get the wrong idea, that the gesture could be misinterpreted. He thought people from the Midwest were more likely to misinterpret certain gestures. He put his hands in his pockets instead, playing with the loose change he found there. On this particular walk neither led the way, rather, whenever one seemed to meander down this pathway or that one, the other was only too happy to follow, thinking nothing of it, like what could happen if they ended up on the other side of the park after sundown, knowing that people are sometimes harassed on that side of the park at night, even mugged at knifepoint. Nothing like that happened during their walk together, but it could’ve. Had that have happened, had a mugger actually pulled a knife on them, demanding their undivided attention, their wallets and jewelry, their full cooperation, the one driving would like to think he’d have risen to the occasion, that he could have played hero, staring the mugger down, unblinking, the look in his eye telling the mugger that he’d better move on, take his business elsewhere. Otherwise, he’d have to relieve the mugger of his knife, take it off him, getting up real close, daring the mugger to make his move, to flinch. He’d say something like, I’ll take that for you, or You won’t be needing this. Then he’d put the mugger in a headlock or pin his arm behind his back, effectively making a citizen’s arrest, telling his future wife to call the police. He’s pictured it before, many times. But nothing like this happened on their walk together. During this walk each of them looked mostly at the path in front of them, turning every so often to smile at the other or see if the other was smiling back. More often than not, each was smiling when the other looked, except for once when the one now driving mentioned his father, how he’d been arrested once or twice, was never around much, and how that he’d never actually known the man.

Both were pleased with the outing, how it went, and what it promised.

The one driving says, What’s the difference?

The one in the passenger seat says, If you have to ask. .

At home, they divide the chores evenly. He cooks most nights and is responsible for going to stores — hardware, grocery, whatnot — though he is always overwhelmed in a store. He never can decide which item to purchase, which brand is best. Recently he has asked his wife to make lists, this way, he will not have to make any decisions himself.

It takes him twice as long to shop for groceries as it does the average person.

Once she thought something had happened. She thought he’d either run off with someone at work or been killed. He used to mention one of the sales representatives by name. He said something once about her eyes and legs. When he said this about the sales representative, she said, I think we have to get something straight here. She was removing a brassiere, arms twisting around her back, hair down around her shoulders. He was watching. He likes to watch his wife disrobe. Sometimes he lingers on the other side of doorways. He will put his eye against the space between the door and wall. Once he dropped outside the bathroom to look under. He lay down on the carpeted floor, making sure that the floorboards stayed quiet as he did this because sometimes floorboards advertise one’s presence. He can always hear her when she is on the move from the bathroom to the bedroom. She is light on her feet, but that doesn’t matter, apparently, at least not to the floorboards. Once on the floor, with his right cheek pressed tight to the carpet, he got to see those light feet, how she rose up on her toes to drape a towel over the shower rod, almost like a ballerina. Sometimes he will handle himself through his pants, but he never takes himself out, never tries to finish. He is always hopeful that they might have a go afterward. She is usually a good sport concerning his need for a go.

The one driving says, It’s like the old joke: Take my wife. She’s a good woman, but my dick isn’t going to suck itself.

Unbeknownst to him, she is aware of his voyeurism. She hasn’t confronted him about it because she doesn’t mind him spying on her. She would rather he spy on her than on a neighbor, though she is worried that he does this, as well. There is an attractive woman across the street and she has noticed her husband observing her. The first time it happened was on a Sunday as they were getting into the car to go shopping. On Sunday, they shop together instead of walk together. They both think it important to do things together, for the marriage. In truth, the wife doesn’t like to shop, but she also doesn’t like it when she gives the one driving a list and he fails to acquire every item listed. Sometimes what he forgets is the one thing they need most, so Sunday is reserved for them to pick up what he’s forgotten during the week. On this particular Sunday as they were getting into the car, she noticed him glance several times across the street, and there was the woman. She doesn’t know who this woman is, doesn’t know her name, her occupation or if she has one, whether she is single or married or what. She looked at her husband after his second or third glance across the street and told him to get in the car.

She has searched through his closet and the downstairs garage, looking for binoculars or a telescope or a camera with a telephoto lens. She searches approximately once a month, usually when he is out at a store. She has yet to find anything incriminating.

She doesn’t want to humiliate him about this particular predilection, the voyeurism. All in all, he is a good man. Every good man has something wrong with him, something fundamentally unwholesome and feeble. She told him early on that she was open-minded, and enjoyed the look on his face afterward. She said this before they were intimate, before they’d even kissed good night.

Topless, she said, Are we clear?

He hasn’t mentioned the sales representative since.

Before, when he was single, he would go to a store only if it was absolutely necessary. Now he lives in them. He tells his friends that it’s awful, that it’s the death of some essential part of himself, but he does not actually mind. He knows he has to do something. He is a man.

She does everything else around the house, both inside and out. She is always dusting, cleaning, building, caulking, grouting, finishing, fixing. She mows, trims, weeds, gardens, waters. He does not like to be around when she is doing any of these things. Whenever she is out there, he will try to think of a store he should visit, something they might need for the house. Plumber’s tape or clippers or something she mentioned over dinner or during a walk the past week.

He will come home with the plumber’s tape or clippers, proud of himself. He knows not to make a production of it, however. He knows he shouldn’t come bounding through the door exclaiming, I got the plumber’s tape or clippers you wanted. He did this once on a Saturday when his wife was in the downstairs bathroom fixing both the showerhead and toilet tank. The showerhead had been leaking water for some time, since they’d moved in. But the chain connecting the handle and ball cock in the toilet tank had come unhinged the night before. He was the one who broke it. She’d told him repeatedly that he had to be gentle with the handle in the downstairs toilet. She told him the chain was about to come unhinged. To his credit, he’d tried to remember this, and for weeks he was gentle in the downstairs bathroom. The trouble is, he is never gentle with anything, at least not for long. He always finds himself slamming cabinet doors shut, violating keyholes while opening locks, gripping a toothbrush like he’s strangling a garter snake.