Robert Lopez - Good People

The walk home with the neighbor was a long one. Still clutching his hand, she prattled on about one of the doctors at work, remarking that one was a letch. The one in the passenger seat said every so often, That’s terrible. He also said once or twice, People are different. He wanted to talk about the one who says that pussy is pussy, what he saw in the supply closet. He wanted to know what could be done about it, how he should proceed.

The one in the passenger seat now says, There are different kinds.

The one in the passenger seat rarely leaves his apartment unless it’s to commute to or from work. On weekends and holidays, he goes to breakfast at the diner. He eats pancakes and bacon, almost always. He spreads the butter all over each cake, however many pats he is offered, then pours a generous amount of syrup onto the plate. He likes the pancakes drenched but not soggy, and he likes it when syrup gets on the bacon, too. Inside the diner, there are always well-dressed people, people who’ve come from church, people who are related to one another, families, loved ones. He always finds a table facing away from these people. He doesn’t want to listen to their conversations, the righteousness.

The one driving talks about the one in the passenger seat with his wife sometimes. He talks about the shirts behind the door. He remembers when his boss introduced them, how his hand was damp. He points out that he never socializes with people in the office, how he always keeps to himself. He tells his wife he thinks the one in the passenger seat is half a fag. The wife asks why he would think such a thing. He tells her he isn’t sure, that he’s heard it around the office, that it’s the scuttlebutt.

Whenever the wife initiates sex, she likes to ask her husband about his special friend at work. She calls him a fairy because she doesn’t like the word fag . She wonders if he would like to join them sometimes. The one who is driving feigns anger when she talks like this, but the truth is, he doesn’t mind.

The one in the passenger seat almost never discusses his work or his colleagues when talking on the phone with his mother. When his mother presses him, he tells her that everyone is cordial. He tells her they are all good people. He has never mentioned the one who is driving by name to his mother. He did say once that he saw something he wished he hadn’t. But when his mother asked what, he told her she wouldn’t want to know.

He doesn’t tell her that he thinks about quitting sometimes but doesn’t know what else he could do for work. He doesn’t tell her that he imagines certain crimes, committing them, things he could do in the workplace, things he could maybe get away with, things that happen all the time, all over the world. He doesn’t tell her how bored he is by everything. He doesn’t tell her that he visits Asian massage parlors every so often on the way home from work, that he knows which ones are good and which aren’t, which try to rob him and which seem like they are genuinely happy to see him, to service him. He doesn’t tell her he’s visited two transsexual prostitutes during lunch breaks, doesn’t tell her that he’s touched their parts and that they’ve touched him and that he wants to do it again. What he does tell her is what goes on in his apartment building. He tells her about the front door, how that the buzzer won’t work for weeks at a time, and how that he has to go downstairs to let the deliveryman in whenever he orders dinner.

The two are in the car together.

The one in the passenger seat says, I’ll say. He rolls the window down a little.

The one driving did not formally propose marriage to his wife. After several months of misinterpreted conversations and endearing gestures, they found themselves in front of an ordained minister and two paid-for witnesses. The ceremony was simple and brief, as there was a line out in the corridor waiting to do likewise.

The bridal night included a mutual decision to forgo the threshold ceremony but was otherwise traditional. Once inside their room, the ersatz honeymoon suite, she spent a solid hour in the bathroom while he examined his genitals under the covers. He was hoping they would go twice, once she came out, if she came out. He wondered what would happen if she didn’t. Wondered what he’d do if she had done something to herself in there, maybe with pills or a razor. He waited. He thought about them going twice again. They’d gone twice only a couple of times before, once during a memorable evening that involved take-out Chinese. He was hoping she would come out wearing something special, something he hadn’t seen before. That is, if she were to come out at all. If she didn’t come out, he’d have to go in after her, break down the door, find her like that, dead in the tub. He’d have to call the police and explain the whole thing, the wedding, the witnesses, the threshold. For the rest of his life, he’d be the one whose wife committed suicide on their wedding night. He’d have that story to tell over and over to all kinds of people, all kinds of empathetic women. Eventually she did come out, and when she did, she wasn’t wearing anything special. She came out naked and said something like Are you ready for me? He was, as anyone might expect, devastated.

Afterward there was the standard back and forth, give and take, push and pull.

All of which has led the one driving here, a block or so away from the restaurant. He is looking for an indication from the other one, something that would telegraph his intentions. He wonders if he is about to be blackmailed. He wonders how it would work, if he’d pay. Maybe the one in the passenger seat would demand sexual favors. There is no way of knowing. He likes to think that he could kill the one in the passenger seat instead, if it comes down to it.

The radio news is on and they are about to do the sports and weather. He turns the volume up so he can hear the scores. He cannot account for what has happened in his life, how he’s gotten to this point. He remembers playing football with his father once. His father had a rocket for a throwing arm, which surprised him. He didn’t think his father would be much of an athlete. He was almost always gone, the father, only showing up once in a while, maybe every five years or so, when he needed money. And now he is married and about to eat lunch at a bad restaurant, hoping to dodge food poisoning, this new assignment, and the forthcoming blackmail.

This morning, he told his wife he wasn’t sure about having children yet. He told her he didn’t think he was ready, that he wasn’t sure about the prospect, how he would fare. He said they didn’t have enough saved, that he needed his sleep, that he didn’t have much of an arm. He said they were young, that they had plenty of time. His wife didn’t respond to any of this. Instead, she went downstairs, into the bathroom, maybe to fix something, otherwise to kill herself.

The weather this day goes unnoticed. Neither of the good people looks up at the sky or catches that a light rain has started.

The one driving turns into the restaurant’s empty parking lot and parks the car close to the entrance. The one in the passenger seat unfastens his safety belt and makes a sound with his mouth. The sound probably means something, but the one driving doesn’t hear it. The one driving is busy turning off the ignition and says, This is where you’re wrong, man.

Getting out of the car, he says, This is where you’re dead wrong.

SOMEONE’S COAT IS IN THE MIDDLE of the floor, which indicates the owner is probably dead by now. We think it’s a woman’s coat, as it is small and formfitting, or rather, it looks small and formfitting. We haven’t picked the coat up off the floor and we aren’t planning to, either. The coat is evidence and shouldn’t be disturbed. We aren’t sure why the coat shouldn’t be disturbed, but this is what we’ve been told. It probably has to do with the investigation and future criminal prosecution. We don’t want anyone to get off on a technicality, that much we do know. We also know the coat’s owner is probably dead by now, this much seems certain, though everything else remains a question. We think it’s a woman’s coat due to the size and style, but it could easily be a man’s coat. We’ve all seen men dressed in small formfitting coats, so it is not unusual, and because of this we are not assuming it’s a woman that has been killed for her coat, because it could easily be a man, particularly the kind of man who would wear this kind of small formfitting coat. This is not to say that a man who wears this kind of small formfitting coat deserved what happened to him or had it coming. This man didn’t have it coming any more than the rest of us do. But it stands to reason that the kind of man who might wear this kind of small formfitting coat would be targeted for such and an easy mark. Case in point, there are no indications of a struggle. Everything seems exactly as it should be and there are no blood-stains or splatters, nothing is broken. We have had a thorough look around and have been careful so as not to disturb anything. For instance, no one has picked the coat up off the floor and tried it on for size to determine just how small and formfitting this coat is. We aren’t doing this so as not to hinder the investigation. We’ve been told that we must never tamper with evidence. We keep this in mind whenever we happen upon a crime scene, which is about four or five times a week now. So what’s important isn’t the coat or who owned it, if it was a man or a woman or what. It’s not even important that we apprehend whoever it was that perpetrated this particular crime or bring this criminal to justice. Now we must remember the victim. This was a human person who lived in the world like the rest of us. Someone who ate food and drank water and breathed air and showered daily, maintained personal relationships, exercised regularly, voted in most elections, both local and national. We cannot lose sight of this part of it, the human cost, the loss of life. We remind each other of this as often as possible. We say we have to do better next time, and while we are resolute and determined, it seems we are always too late and for this we are sorry.