Robert Lopez - Good People

By this time, Tanya was storming out the front door and slamming it behind her. The way she looked in that sundress, it was always a pleasure to watch her storm out a door.

I think I told my Sofia it was a misunderstanding and that I didn’t mean it, that there was nothing to it, that I got too much sun and then I think I said something about Teddy the cripple. This is when she told me to get out, that I wasn’t Tanya’s idea of a handsome man, that she never wanted to see me again.

My Sofia had said this to me before, that she never wanted to see me again.

Still, this was the last time I saw any of those people.

Like most, I am human and do all of the human things. I shave and shower and feed myself regularly, every day, if I can manage it. I sometimes like to slip my hand into the dresses of good-looking women. This does not make me horrible. I also look out of windows and blink my eyes. I wait for people to come back, for someone to walk up the walk, under a parasol. I hold doors open for people. I say please and thank you.

I look out the window and see people coming to and fro or I imagine this. None of them are my Sofia or Tanya. Not even Teddy the cripple limps by in my imagination.

I think about addressing the ones I do see from my window, announcing to them that they are horrible people, saying that they should’ve moved away or died like everyone else, like my Sofia or Tanya, that they should stop talking about what happened, that I shouldn’t be the subject of gossip and insinuations, but what will become of me then, how will I be remembered the world over, my good name ruined, besmirched, and for what purpose and to what end? I think about my legacy and those few who surround me here. I see my reflection in the window, and yes, I want to kiss myself.

My Sofia would kiss me square on the mouth at a moment’s notice if given even half a chance, if she were even half-alive and had half a heart left inside her.

Let me make myself clear. The streets are almost always empty. I look out the window and I blink my eyes. I see nothing, no one, almost always. These days the silence coming from outside is disquieting, which is funny, now that I think of it, how silence can be disquieting. Once in a great long while I’ll see someone or imagine such. Most of the time it’s my Sofia or Tanya. When you don’t see anyone for a long while, your mind can play tricks. I guess this has gone on for a while now, not seeing anyone out the window and my mind playing tricks. It’s hard to know how long. I didn’t mark the date when everyone left, but when I look in the mirror, I see new wrinkles and a cluster of gray hairs.

When everyone who didn’t die comes back, I’m sure they will have trouble recognizing me, what with the wrinkles and gray hair.

The one who won’t have any trouble recognizing me is my Sofia. My Sofia would know me anywhere, I’m almost sure. At night we would sometimes sit on a sofa together. I would watch something on television and she would watch me watch the television. When I asked her why, she said it was because I was fascinated. I asked her if she meant fascinating and she said no.

We were happy then.

So she would know how the hair drapes across my face, obscuring half of it.

I remember the night before she ran away with Teddy. This was the same night I tried to make love to Tanya at the dinner table.

All of us talked about what was happening, what life was like then, how everything had changed, how so many of us were dying.

We wanted to figure out what exactly was happening and why.

None of us could come up with a workable theory.

I TOLD MY FRIEND I was about to sleep with his sister. I told him to sit tight.

Outside, the world was in motion and I watched it from a fourth-story window. From there I could see almost everything. From there I could see the earth and the structures built upon it. I could see people and animals and how everyone conducted themselves in broad daylight.

From there I could hasten my demise should I finally choose to do so.

My friend and his sister wouldn’t want that, though, to say nothing of the world at large.

I keep this in mind because all of us are on the verge of something, a new way of life maybe.

I had been there for most of the last year, at the window, watching the world in motion, considering this new way of life, considering the nuances of defenestration.

I developed a keen appreciation for weather.

Sometimes it rained.

When it rained, it rained from top to bottom and from side to side. If you squinted and tilted your head, the opposite was true.

The wind played a part in this, certainly, if there was a wind.

Otherwise, there were days that were cloudy and uncloudy.

I sat on the precipice.

Poised.

I had recently spoken with my friend. I called early in the morning and woke him. I told him I was about to sleep with his sister. I told him to sit tight.

He said, What, who?

I said, I have no time for games, and hung up on him. Afterward I went straight back to the window and looked out of it.

This is funny because tennis plays a critical element in this whole affair and tennis is a game made up of games.

I could see many buildings and even more windows into those buildings.

In other words, I was at one window, mine own, looking into others I knew not of.

Should I consider this too closely, I’d lose my way and drag everyone down with me.

Such is the nature of windows.

I do think it important to note that I was trying to observe my neighbors in their natural habitats. I wanted to see how they live, what they do. I thought it would be at the least educational and maybe even more than that.

I thought maybe I could learn something about myself.

My friend worked a job, commingled with others, participated in society. I don’t know how he, or anyone, for that matter, can do such things.

I’d known him since childhood. He was a fine boy. Spoke in complete sentences, had perfect table manners and the rest.

I never thought either of us would live long enough that we’d work jobs and participate in society.

I remember a conversation we had once while playing tennis. I was ten times better than him, but he liked playing anyway. Secretly he resented me for being ten times better than him, but I tried not to hold this against him.

I think I told him during a changeover that I couldn’t see either of us reaching middle age. He said, You’re probably right, said we’d be lucky to see a third set.

There was no reason for this fatalism, if this was fatalism.

It was, more than anything else, a lack of imagination.

I think this is why I try to look into windows. I can’t imagine what might be going on in there.

I don’t remember much of his sister, as I think they kept her hidden from the likes of me.

The people outside the window were unscrupulous. There was no sense of right and wrong and this was indicated in how they moved about the world in motion, as if they were balanced, as if they had a clear destination in mind.

Otherwise, the people outside were inscrutable. I’m not sure I know the difference between unscrupulous and inscrutable.

Some of these had dogs. They led the dogs around on leashes, if you can picture that.

My friend’s sister was in the bedroom, waiting for me.

I’m not sure if she had a dog. I haven’t seen her with a dog, but she is the type to have one.

I have trouble keeping time, which is why I don’t know when all of this happened. From the window you can’t tell time, as there are no clocks within eyeshot and I’m not clever enough to make my own calendar. I don’t know how long I’ve been here, at my window, but at some point, I began playing tennis under the everywhere sky.