Robert Lopez - Good People

I have, over the years, been badly beaten. This is probably one of the reasons I’m as tired as I am now. I am almost always tired and I always want to go to bed and I always try to sleep the entire day away and I blame the people who have beaten me, among others. This is no way to go through life, no way to live one. I would tell people this if anyone cared to ask. If someone said to me, Is this any way to go through life? I would say, No, of course not. I would say, What the fuck is wrong with you, asking me a question like that? My mother used to ask me this all the time. She would stand with hands on hips, look me dead in the eye, and say, What the fuck is wrong with you? I would have to think about what was wrong with me and then answer. Sometimes I’d have to come up with a list and hand it over to her like it was homework. This always took a long time to do as there has always been a lot wrong with me. But no one asks me questions anymore, which is good because I don’t have answers, other than this one about life and how not to go through it. For instance, I don’t know why people like to beat me. I have tried to figure this out for years now. I’ve wondered if I ever did anything to provoke these beatings. If such was the case I could do something to prevent them. I could alter my behavior, avoid certain circumstances, certain crowds. To be fair, not everyone has beaten me, though certainly a great many have and many others have tried to do so. I am fleet afoot and can sometimes outrun those who mean to beat me. The trouble is I have no endurance. So, if someone who means to beat me has any endurance at all they can catch up to me in no time and then commence. I remember someone saying that once before I was beaten. They had me cornered, tied to a post, and someone said, You may commence. I haven’t always been beaten this way and I can’t remember the circumstances surrounding this particular beating. Often more than one person wants to beat me at the same time. I’m not sure why this is. It probably makes it easier on them, the division of labor. I imagine it’s taxing to beat someone all by yourself. I wouldn’t know this because I have never in my life beaten anyone, either on my own or as part of a team. I think it would take too much out of me to beat someone. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if beating someone was more exhausting than taking a beating. But this is something I don’t know anything about so I shouldn’t talk about it. This was always one of the things wrong with me growing up. Whenever mother asked what the fuck was wrong with me I could always answer that I talk when I should listen and that I don’t know anything. I remember I said something about apples once, how they were sprayed with pesticides and were toxic and mother beat me senseless. Sometimes she’d have some of my brothers and sisters help her and I think this was one of those times. I cannot say it was any worse than being beaten by a single individual. When you are being beaten it almost doesn’t matter how many people are doing it to you, although it probably is worse, now that I think about it. When you’ve been beaten as often as I have sometimes you have trouble thinking things through. This is another reason I am as tired as I am now and why later today I will hang myself in the backyard. Thinking takes too much out of me. It’s because of the beatings, I’m almost certain. My memory has been compromised, which is why I haven’t had a peach in so long. The thought of a peach hasn’t even occurred to me during all this time. Certainly I must’ve eaten some kind of fruit over the years. One couldn’t live this long a life and not had any fruit during the course of it. What’s troubling is that I can’t remember eating any fruit other than peaches and I only just remembered that the other night. It stands to reason I’ve seen peaches at a grocer’s or in someone’s kitchen, but I have no memory of actually seeing peaches, let alone eating them. It is possible I’ve subsisted solely on meat and bread my entire adult life. I don’t think this is unusual or unique is what I think I’m trying to say. Anyone who has been beaten as often as I have would have a faulty memory and trouble thinking things through and as a result be as tired as I am now. Surely others have subsisted on meat and bread alone. The world is a big place and has a lot of people in it. My mother used to say this all the time. I think she meant that I could be replaced, that I wasn’t essential. This is yet another reason I’m no different, not by any measure. It is no wonder I will hang myself later in the backyard. The question is why I haven’t done so sooner. I have no answer to this question. Clearly, it was a mistake or a series of mistakes, not hanging myself sooner. I have made a great many mistakes. To go through the mistakes now would be pointless. The more pressing concern is will I have the energy or strength to hang myself later.

I did practice hanging myself yesterday, to make sure I could do it properly. I went out to the backyard and positioned the step stool under the strongest branch of the oak tree. Of course, I’d prefer hanging myself from a peach tree, but there are no peach trees in the backyard and to traverse the countryside looking for a peach tree would take too much out of me. And I don’t know if a peach tree is strong enough to support my weight. The last time I checked I weighed upward of two hundred pounds. You wouldn’t think someone that substantial could be so fleet afoot, but you’d be wrong in my case. Out of all the things wrong with me this isn’t one of them. People are always impressed by my speed and agility. They say I move well for a big man, usually right before they start beating me. So, I gathered my two hundred pounds, stood on the step stool, swung the noose around the branch, and slipped it over my head. Obviously, I did not kick the step stool away, but I’m certain I can do this later without expending too much effort. Even still, I was exhausted after this dry run. I had to go straight to bed afterward and wound up sleeping for eighteen hours straight. Theoretically, I should be well rested for later, but that isn’t always the case. I can sleep for three days and wake up spent. This was another thing wrong with me growing up. I would wake up after sleeping for a full day and go downstairs and ask my mother, What’s for breakfast? And she would say, What the fuck is wrong with you? She would say that I missed breakfast and lunch and it was almost time for dinner. I would always apologize to her, but she never accepted my apologies. She said my apologies were insincere. She was probably right. She’d say I was just like my father and I couldn’t argue because I didn’t know what he was like, having never met the man. At this point in a conversation with her I would grow weary and announce that I had to go to bed. I would tell her I might not wake up this time so it could be goodnight maybe forever. She’d say none of us was that lucky. It was true, none of us was that lucky, except maybe when it came to my father. We never knew exactly what happened to him. Mother said she got lucky when he joined the navy and got killed in action overseas. I’m not sure any of us believed her, but we knew better than to ask questions. As I walked up the staircase to my bedroom I would tell her, Someday this luck will change, and she’d answer back, Don’t count on it unless you join the navy. Sometimes she would tell me to wait up so she could tuck me in, but she never actually meant that. The only time she would come into my room was when she meant to beat me.

I don’t know why people always want to beat me, but they always have, from the time I was a small child. Back then they beat me at home, in school, at church, on the way home, the way to school, the way to church. Even when they took me to the hospital to mend my wounds, they’d beat me there, too. I can remember lying on a gurney in an ambulance and both the paramedic and driver taking turns. Then they’d hand me off to the doctors and nurses, who would continue the beating. Afterward I would get to rest. They would tell my mother, they would say, He needs rest.