Robert Lopez - Good People

I assume that’s a mistake. I’m sure it’s the Guiding Eyes for the Blind — Dog Training School, or something to that effect. I ask my wife where she got the directions. The cemetery, she says. I don’t point out the mistake to her, but I wonder if it was hers or theirs.

When I go up to the Garcias, I tell them how sorry we are and ask if there is anything we can do. I want my wife to say it, but I figure it’s my job. I feel like an actor playing the sympathetic friend in a movie. I see myself putting a hand on his shoulder. My wife is next to me, hugging Mrs. Garcia, when I do this. The image of Mrs. Garcia naked comes to me when I see my wife console her. There is probably something wrong with me for imagining this. Then I hear Garcia call me by name and it feels wrong. It is the first time I’ve seen his eyes, which are more or less green or hazel. From our driveway it doesn’t look like he’d have green eyes. My wife and I finish with our parts and move to the back of the parlor. We watch for a few minutes as he greets and thanks the people giving condolences, and then we leave.

During the drive home from the cemetery, I picture seeing-eye people, with harnesses strapped to their torsos, leading a herd of blind dogs through the streets. The dogs carry black walking sticks and move them from side to side to avoid what the seeing-eye people miss. But then I think this is stupid and so I stop thinking about it.

A month or so later we’re both off from work on the same day. Frank Garcia is in his backyard raking and I’m finishing the deck in mine. I hear the leaves rustling through the weathered fence. Three men from the electric company are going from yard to yard, cutting down trees and limbs that hang over the lines. Snow isn’t far off. One of the men is hooking himself onto the tree between our houses, whose branches reach into both our yards. In a minute or so, he’ll fire up his buzz saw and get to work. He is wearing camouflage pants, but I can see him clear as daylight. Given how high he is, I’m sure Garcia can see him, too.

She said she couldn’t because her week was bananas. I told her I like bananas. I said I cut them up and put them in my cereal in the morning. I don’t cut up a banana every morning, though, and I told her this. Sometimes I can’t find a ripe banana. Sometimes I go to five different stores and can’t find a single ripe banana. You’d think it was a conspiracy. You’d think all the grocers, supermarkets, and bodegas have it in for me. And I won’t buy green bananas. I won’t give them the satisfaction. Green bananas are like life insurance, to my way of thinking. I’ve always been shortsighted like this, can never see myself living long enough to enjoy a green banana or collect life insurance. I mean anyone’s life insurance, not mine, of course. I know that I can’t collect on my own life insurance. I don’t think I’m anyone’s beneficiary, either. Not even my father, if he’s still alive. He disowned me years ago, but I don’t blame him for that. He had better things to do than own someone who doesn’t have the foresight to buy a green banana. It’s not like I don’t know that green bananas turn yellow in time and in theory. It’s just that I can’t believe it actually happens to real people. I’m sure if I were to buy a green banana and bring it home, it’d stay green in perpetuity. I don’t know what this says about me except that maybe I’m shortsighted or am faithless, except I’m not sure it’s true that I’m faithless. I’m sure there’s something I believe in, and if you gave me a second, I could probably come up with a whole list. My father wouldn’t be listed if he’s still alive, although I doubt he is. I never saw him as the type that’d live a long time. I probably get that from him, if I get anything at all, other than the cutting up of bananas. If he’s dead, I’m sure he died standing up and talking back because that’s how I remember him. He wouldn’t take anything off anybody and that’s another thing I get from him. This is what I told her when she said her week was bananas and before she even had a chance to reply, I said, And you’d better believe it, sister.

TODAY I WILL HANG MYSELF in the backyard. I’m neither proud nor ashamed of this. Every day I do something and this is what I have scheduled for today. Yesterday I ate a peach. I hadn’t had a peach in years, I don’t think, since I was a child. The night before I remembered that my mother would bring home peaches from the grocer whenever they were in season. So I put on my trousers, found a clean shirt buried under some newspapers, and walked to the grocer where I picked out the peach I thought looked best. I remembered to squeeze the peaches as I was trying to decide which one to purchase. I remembered that peaches could be too hard or soft and that neither was a good idea. My mother is the one who taught me how to pick out peaches this way. She said that someday she wouldn’t be around to take care of me and my brothers and sisters and someone needed to know how to pick out peaches. This never did happen, though. Mother was always around to take care of us and I think she still is today. What I mean is I think she is still around, not that she is still taking care of us. At this point she probably can’t even take care of herself. I imagine she’d have to be close to a hundred years old now. I haven’t seen nor heard from her in years. I tried not to think about my mother or who might be taking care of her as I was picking out my peach. There wasn’t anyone around when I was testing the peaches and for this I was grateful. I don’t like to see anyone touching the fruit and I’m sure they feel the same about me. The peach I eventually did pick out seemed to have the perfect texture and tone. I was both pleased and confident as I walked to the cashier. After paying for the peach I took it home so I could rinse it properly. My mother taught us how to rinse a peach under cold water. She said we should never rub a peach on our shirt because it would bruise. She said we could clean an apple that way, but not a peach. This didn’t matter to me because I never cared for apples. My mother would bring apples home from the grocer, but I refused to eat them. I told her I found apples to be disagreeable. This always upset my mother, whenever I said something like this. She said I didn’t make any sense, that I was an idiot like my father. I didn’t know what this meant exactly, if he didn’t care for apples, either. My mother was often upset and my brothers and sisters and I always had to be careful whenever she was around, which was all the time. Mother never left us unattended. She didn’t trust us. I don’t blame her. I didn’t trust us, either. I considered saving the peach for dinner but decided to eat it right after the rinsing. The first bite held great promise, as my teeth broke the skin and penetrated the inner fruit. As I started to chew, however, I realized that the peach looked better than it tasted. I tried another bite, thinking perhaps it might get better as I kept going. It didn’t. I felt cheated, as anyone might imagine. I felt as though I had let myself down, that I’d let my mother down, that I should’ve known better. I’m not saying this is the reason I’m going to hang myself in the backyard today, of course. I’ve been planning to hang myself for a while now. Countless others have done likewise and I’m no different, not by any measure.