Good People

by Robert Lopez

  PRAISE FOR ROBERT LOPEZ

  “[Lopez’s fiction] bears genetic traces of Beckett and Stein, but [his] powerful cadences and bleak, joyful wit are all his own.” —Sam Lipsyte, author of The Fun Parts and Home Land

  “A contemporary writer to look up to . . . [Lopez] is a word-storm, a force of literary nature come unhinged, blowing shutters against readers’ houses.” —Rumpus

  “Lopez’s prose is more like a great jazz performance: pointedly provisional, even damaged, and solicitous of audience participation . . . intoxicating as the best Coltrane.” —Review of Contemporary Fiction

  “Lopez’s ability to create an authentic, consistent voice . . . is remarkable. . . . Reads completely new and true.” —Quarterly Conversation

  “Lopez examines the almost inherent dysfunction present in modern relationships. [They’re] like Rated-R version[s] of a Raymond Carver story.” —Ampersand Review

  “Lopez’s layering of words is astounding. His diction may appear ordinary, but the space between what is said and what the reader hears is profound.” —Bookslut

  “[Lopez writes] stories with openings that suggest mirth, luring in the reader only to subject them to something much more unsettling: relationships upended, perceptions failing, boundaries literal and metaphorical entirely shifted.” —Vol. 1 Brooklyn

  “Literary pleasures like [reading Lopez] are all too uncommon.” —Laird Hunt, author of Neverhome and Kind One

  “Lopez and his writing are original and pure, fearless and hypnotic. He is one of the brave protagonists of American literature.” —Michael Kimball, author of Big Ray and Us

  “Gets under you skin and latches on.” —Brian Evenson, author of Immobility and Windeye

  “[Lopez’s world] is an affectless poetics planet caught in the black-hole gravity of a Stephen Dixon-esque free-falling narrative sink.” —Michael Martone, author of Four for a Quarter and The Blue Guide to Indiana

  ALSO BY ROBERT LOPEZ

  Asunder

  Kamby Bolongo Mean River

  Part of the World

  First published in the United States in 2016 by Bellevue Literary Press, New York

  For information, contact:

  Bellevue Literary Press

  NYU School of Medicine

  550 First Avenue

  OBV A612

  New York, NY 10016

  © 2016 by Robert Lopez

  This is a work of fiction. Characters, organizations, events, and places (even those that are actual) are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available from the publisher upon request

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who wishes to quote brief passages in connection with a print, online, or broadcast review.

  Bellevue Literary Press would like to thank all its generous donors—individuals and foundations—for their support.

  The New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature

  This project is supported in part by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts.

  Book design and composition by Mulberry Tree Press, Inc.

  First Edition

  1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2

  ebook ISBN: 978-1-942658-03-0

  For My Mother

  Contents

  Family of Man on Isle of Wight

  Goldbricks

  Guiding Eyes for the Blind Dog Training School

  The Problem with Green Bananas

  Goodnight Maybe Forever

  Anytime, Sweet

  Welcome to Someplace Like Piscataway

  Essentials

  Good People

  The Human Cost

  Now I Am Doubled Over

  The Sky Was Everywhere Like Water

  I Want to Kiss Myself, Good God

  A Regular Day for Real People

  Someone Great Like Socrates

  Why We’re Trapped in a Failed System

  A Cloud That Looks Like Jesus

  Christine and Grace, Naturally

  Big People Everywhere

  How to Direct a Major Motion Picture

  Acknowledgments

  Family of Man on Isle of Wight

  LET ME UNDERSTAND something to you, if we can take a moment together, spare a little time reaching out as we catch up over coffee because I know we’re all busy, we have things to do, there’s laundry, there’s what to have for dinner, there’s dental hygiene and all the rest, but for now let me say this, please if I may and then I’ll let me go, I promise, you can hold it to me, you can trust me, you know you can trust me, look at my face, see, do you see what I mean by the look on my face, good, I know, because I will swear a blood oath if that’s what you require, I want you to rest assured, I want you totally at ease, listen, I am at ease and you know this, everyone knows this, I aim to please and am only too happy, so if you insist let’s consider it a tontine, yes, good, even if you don’t know what that word means, because what’s a definition anyway, I myself am not defined by words and neither are you, but believe me, it’s a real word, tontine is, I heard it once on TV, an old man said it while weeping, a comrade had died in his arms, in battle on the battlefield, while the bombs were bursting above him, he was there alone and weeping, the dead comrade in his arms, it was all very moving, the naked emotion, the smoldering, wasted landscape, he on his own, aggrieved, bereft, so you know he didn’t make it up, not like that, under those circumstances, but the truth is the truth and it is unavoidable, we can’t put it off any longer, we need to face facts together, as a group, as a family, if you will, because we are a family if you think about it, even if you don’t think about it we are a family, who says you have to think about it to make it so, to make a family, families aren’t ideas and anyone who says so is a liar, like my uncles, they were all of them liars, every last one of them, none of them died on the battlefield like that, not like they said they did, listen, I’m not trying to cast aspersions, be divisive, we are all family here, the family of man, the isle of white, I don’t know what that is, the isle of white, although I think it’s isle of wight, I think it’s spelled wight instead of white, but I can’t say for sure, I always thought of the family of man living on the isle of white, in my imagination it looks like heaven, like the Garden of Eden, if there was a Garden of Eden, which there probably wasn’t, but that doesn’t matter because there’s strength in numbers, and we have them, we have numbers, they can’t take away our numbers, so, here it is, the truth, unvarnished and naked and appalling, here it is, are you ready for it, I don’t think you’re ready, you don’t look ready, you look unwell if you ask me, you look peaked, worn-out, frazzled, I’m worried, have you seen a doctor, you should see a doctor, make an appointment for tomorrow morning, take a physical, it couldn’t hurt, change your diet maybe, do some deep knee-bends, do some push-ups, do something for God’s sake, I mean take a look at yourself, it’s not pretty is it, but what do I know, I don’t know anything, that much is clear, maybe after all that you’ll be ready, maybe then I’ll take one look and think, yes, you’re ready, because we have to be ready, this is war, after all, and we have to be ready for it, we have to be ready to charge onto the battlefield and lay down our lives, but what does it mean to be ready, how does one get themselves ready, even if we are ready or even if we look ready the truth is we are never ready, we’re never ready for what’s in store, for what comes next, not out there on the battlefield, alone, weeping, it’s aw
ful, so it doesn’t matter that you’re not ready because neither am I and we have to move on, we have to let go, we can’t let this stop us now, nothing can stop us now, not anymore, so here it is, at last, here, moving forward and looking back, I haven’t been nowhere in forever, there, I’ve said it, I’m not kidding, not even once, not even for a little while, not even as a break in the day, a brief respite from the grind, a fucking breather I tell you, not that I couldn’t use a breather, because I can, I need a break, I’m being honest here, all right, I’m not sure I can take it anymore, it’s starting to get to me, the bombs bursting, the comrades dying in arms, I’m burning out, I’m winding down, it’s all happening so fast and I can’t keep up, listen, I’m no different, I need a good night’s sleep and three squares a day, a complete balanced diet, a rich interior life, someone to rub up against every so often, someone to bump into, but I don’t have these things, I don’t think, not that I could remember anyway, not so you’d notice, the memory fades, it’s true, like water down a fountain, like God on a battlefield, take me for example, I’m no different, not in height or weight or deportment, not in practice or habits, I spend most of my time seated, only stand when I have to, am registered to vote, all the rest of it, I don’t like going to the doctor, either, I want what most people want, dead or alive, I’ve seen it before, more than once, always an excellent example they said, everyone knows this, as a child they held me up, over their shoulders, the uncles and all them, they said so, but no one cared, not back then they didn’t, not those people, selfish and small and petty, living their everyday lives, no respite from the grind, no fucking breathers, what I’m saying is put your uncle in the ambulance and carriage him away from here, take him far away from here and reevaluate yourself, down to the river on the isle of wight to be baptized, to be cleansed, we all need to be cleansed, all of us, as often as possible, twice a day if necessary, after all we go to bed dirty and wake up that way, we need to come clean, just once, as a change of pace even, do you feel what I’m saying, is my implication translucent, look at the uncles and all them, on the battlefield, laying waste, filthy, stained, years ago like this, every day, dying in each other’s arms, but not anymore, not these days, now they are old and they are sick and they are dying all alone by themselves, they have the scars to prove it, the stench, the death rattle, can you hear it, it’s indisputable, they haven’t been nowhere in forever, either, not them, not anymore, not for a long time now at least, they broke their backs for us, they laid down their lives for us, and what do we care, do we care, we don’t care, we don’t fucking care at all, you want to know why, want to know why we don’t care at all, me too, I want to know why, too, I’m no different, I don’t know why, either, want to know why I don’t know why, because who fucking cares, that’s why, let me understand something to you, I don’t fucking care what it is anymore, it can be anything, any blessed fucking thing on the battlefield or elsewhere, because this is what happens, this is what we want, we want an understanding, any kind of blessed understanding, it happens every day, all over the godforsaken world, but not here it doesn’t, it isn’t what happens to us, not in these parts, unfortunately, we’ve never had that good fortune, that sort of blind luck, that sort of unholy understanding, not so you’d notice anyway, but it doesn’t matter, not anymore because here we are together, after all we still have each other, this beautiful group, this family, on the isle of wight, together, forever, until death do we partake of each other, at last, for better and worse, for richer and poorer, in sickness and more sickness, that is until we take our leave of each other, as civilized people do the world over, indeed over, it’s harder now that it’s over, but it is over, make no mistake, anyone can see that, even a doctor can see that, so now we can go, because it’s over, clearly, please, let me say this, be kind to each other, be brief and be gone, you should go, I am going, too, I will go first, if that’s what you want, if that will make it easier, remember I’m easy, I said so, you know I’m easy, I know you know I’m easy, listen, maybe you don’t want me to go, I understand, I do, I know what it’s like, I know what it’s like to watch me go, but it’s for the best, really, trust me, I have to, I have to go, I can’t stay here, not like this, not anymore, please, don’t make a scene, you’re better than this, you’re bigger than this, I’m going now, I am, it’s true, where am I going you ask, you know where I’m going, you know damn well where I’m going and I know damn well that you know damn well where I’m going, because I am already gone, in my mind I’m gone already, I am gone though I am here, my body, my mind, still with you still, though gone, still moving to me, still together after all these years, but gone, always gone, and yet together still, a family of man on an isle of wight.

  Goldbricks

  WE ARE IN A BOAT but there’s no captain, no crew of any kind. I do know bow and stern and starboard and port and I know the hull and that the captain always goes down with his ship, but you have to know navigation to be a captain and I don’t know navigation. I couldn’t navigate a toy boat from one side of a bathtub to another. I have no sense of direction, other than everything is always going to hell. You don’t have to study navigation at the naval academy or own a compass to know this much about the world, to know where everything is always going. I’ve never owned a compass myself, but my father did once. He never let me touch it, said I wasn’t responsible enough. I lost his pocket watch is why he said this about me, why he never let me touch the compass. He said he hated my guts because I lost his pocket watch and that I’d rue the day. I never did rue any of the days, but I always regretted losing my father’s pocket watch, which turned out was given him by his grandfather who fought in the Great War. He said that his grandfather held on to that watch through many a hard-fought battle and it was good luck and a family heirloom. He said that watch survived the Germans and mustard gas but couldn’t last five minutes in my feckless hands. I didn’t know what feckless meant back then and I still don’t think I know what it means, but I used to look at my hands to try and figure it out. My hands are small and smooth and offer no clues. My father said I was delicate, called me a daisy. I don’t think my father ever had anything good to say about me, at least not after the pocket watch. I’m not sure how I lost that pocket watch, but I’ve always suspected my brother stole it. My brother was no good and a common criminal but even still he always outsmarted me. I think my brother is in prison now, which probably serves him right. I heard from some relative that he tried robbing a liquor store but it didn’t work out, that his accomplice gave him up during questioning. It seems right to me because our father gave up on both of us long ago and my brother and I gave up on each other shortly after that. Our father always wanted the two of us to enlist, but neither of us ever did. This is another thing I regret. I think I would’ve done well in the service. I’d probably have joined the army because I don’t much care for water. This is another reason I’m no captain. I’m probably not qualified to be a crew member, either. I don’t know what the crew is responsible for on a boat, but one assumes it’s the grunt work. Toting barges, lifting bales, things of this nature. I’ve never been good at anything physical. I can’t even mop a floor properly. I always leave swaths of floor streaked and unmopped. Our father used to admonish me for mopping the floor this way. It was the same whenever I mowed the lawn, which was only that one time. My father came outside and said, This is what you get when you ask a daisy to mow a lawn. He was referring to certain lanes where the grass was still knee-high. This is why I’d do better as a field general behind the front lines or in front of them, drawing up battle plans on a blackboard, barking orders to subordinates. I suppose field generals are out there in the field, though, inside tanks, looking through periscopes, but I don’t know if they have periscopes in tanks. Surely there are periscopes in submarines, but probably not tanks. I have no idea how they see from inside a tank. I don’t know how they can steer from inside a tank or how they know where to aim the cannon. I don’t even know if that’s what they call the g
uns that sit atop tanks. To me, it looks like a cannon, but I’ve never seen a cannon in real life so I don’t know what one actually looks like. Another thing I don’t know is if they had tanks during the Great War or if my father’s grandfather ever rode in one. The only thing my father told us about his grandfather was that he fought in the Great War and had a lucky pocket watch. My brother said that our father made up these stories about his grandfather, that he never did fight in any war, let alone a great one. He said our father probably bought that watch in a pawnshop. I almost felt like arguing with him, but realized I agreed with him. I’m not sure how many people ride in a tank, though I’m guessing there has to be at least two, one to steer and the other to shoot. I’d probably want to do both, but not at the same time. It would be too much to do both at the same time. My father always told me that I had to concentrate on what was right in front of me—the floor, for instance. He wanted to know what kind of daisy couldn’t mop a floor properly. He would grab me by the scruff of the neck and point my head toward what I’d done or left undone. He would say, Look at this, Daisy. Are you blind or something? Not long after this my brother started calling me Daisy and it got so that everyone started calling me Daisy. I didn’t mind it then and I still don’t. I might be the only full-grown man in the world called Daisy. Not every man has that kind of distinction, being one of a kind. I try to think about this whenever I have a job to do, concentrating on what’s right in front of me. I remember my father showing us how to make French toast step by step as an example of doing this, from cracking the eggs to pouring the milk to sprinkling the cinnamon and vanilla and the rest. He said you can’t think about the vanilla until it’s time for the vanilla. He said this is what it takes to be a man, to be a leader. It’d be the same with the tank. One drives while the other shoots. There’s a division of labor. I think it would be nice to take turns so that on some days you are driving the tank and on others you are shooting the gun, but I’m not sure if that’s how they work it. There is no cannon on this boat, which is just as well. I’m not sure who we’d be expected to shoot if there were a cannon on board. There’s no captain to tell us where to steer or shoot, which is something I think I’ve already said. This is something I do from time to time, repeat myself. My father used to hate this about me. He used to ask what was wrong with me. I’d ask him to be more specific. He took me to the doctor once, but they told him they couldn’t find anything terribly wrong, no more than anyone else. They said something about a vitamin deficiency, but my father scoffed at that. He called them a bunch of quacks, said vitamins can’t help daisies. If you ask me, I don’t think I’ve ever had a vitamin deficiency, though I do think something isn’t right. I’ve always had a hard time remembering facts, names and dates, what happened and in what sequence, along with concentrating on what’s in front of me. Maybe everyone has these problems. Maybe everyone has a hard time remembering things but they’re better at pretending otherwise. There are planes flying overhead. This is what’s currently in front of me and I don’t have to pretend otherwise. Perhaps if there was a captain or a cannon, we’d be instructed to shoot at the planes. I have never once been on a plane, but when I was a child I thought I’d grow up to be a pilot. I thought it’d be a good job to have, but it turns out I can’t see out of my left eye and they won’t let you fly a plane if you’re half-blind like that. I found out I was half-blind after my father took me back to the doctor and insisted they were mistaken the first time, that there had to be something wrong. I didn’t realize I couldn’t see out of my left eye until they told me. I can’t remember what my father said when they told him I couldn’t see out of my left eye, but he probably said something like It figures. So this is how my career as a pilot ended before it even began. I didn’t have to fill out an application or sit through any interviews to know that much. My brother and I sometimes pretended to fill out applications whenever our father told us to go out and get a job. He called us freeloaders and goldbricks and said we were good for nothing, which was only true if you looked at it a certain way. So my brother and I would run out to the other side of town during working hours so that we could come back and say we’d pounded the pavement but came up short. This was right before my brother turned to a life of crime, I think. Maybe he’d already committed a few crimes by then, but I’m sure they were petty. My brother was always a nickel-and-dime operation. It wasn’t long after whatever happened next that our father disowned both of us and everyone went their separate ways. My brother’s name is Omar, so you knew it was hopeless right from the start. No one named Omar ever amounted to anything. I’m not sure why our father named him Omar, but that’s what he named him. One of our relatives said my father’s grandfather was named Omar, but we never heard this from our father. I don’t think anyone on this boat is named Omar. I haven’t heard anyone get called Omar and no one here looks like an Omar, but neither did my brother, so that means nothing. The passenger next to me has his hands in his pockets like my father always used to do on account of his arthritis. This is why he said he couldn’t enlist himself, he said he was 4-F, which is another thing he never explained to us. I used to wonder if his hands were feckless, too, but his hands weren’t at all like mine. They were bent and crooked and had lines shooting out in all directions. He’d point a bony finger and wag it at me whenever he was explaining how to concentrate on what’s in front of you. He’d even make up signals for me to do certain things around the house, but I never understood them. This is another reason I’m no captain or crewman. I’m no good at signals and you have to be if you want to be a captain or crewman. You have to know how to send a distress signal and you have to know Morse code. If the boat starts sinking I hope someone knows how to send out a distress signal, but it probably won’t matter. We’ve been sailing for hours and I’m sure there’s no one around to save us if it comes to that. I’m sure I’d drown before help arrived, as I don’t know how to swim. There are life preservers tied to the rails here, but that’s usually for decoration or to trick people into thinking there’s hope. I don’t know these other people in the boat with me, but they seem fine. I’m not particular about who it is I drown with. I guess my brother wasn’t particular about who he robbed liquor stores with, either, which feels like the bigger mistake. My brother did ask me to pull a job with him once and I agreed to it initially but then feigned a stomach flu when it came go time. My brother said that it was only nerves and I had to buck up from the other side of the bathroom door. He said, Be a man, Daisy. I told him some other time maybe. This is when he said our father was right and that I was a good-for-nothing. I’m not sure if he tried to pull that job without me, but he was gone in the morning. My father didn’t even notice until the following week when he asked me where my good-for-nothing brother was. I told him Omar had enlisted and was at basic training. My father laughed in my face, said, That was a good one, Daisy. He was in the living room when he said that, wearing a bathrobe and drinking a beer. Turns out that was the last thing my father said to me in person, so maybe I was wrong about him not ever saying anything good. He sent me a postcard a year or two later, told me to concentrate on whatever was right in front of me. The postcard was sent from some city in Texas I’d never heard of and it made me think that maybe Omar was there, too. I don’t think he was, though, and I haven’t thought too much about Omar since. I do wonder what prison Omar is in and what would happen if I were to visit him. I wouldn’t have much to tell him myself, not that he’d ask. I suppose I’d tell him that I’ve done okay for myself, that I’ve managed to feed and clothe myself most of the time and even had a girlfriend once. But that probably won’t ever happen and what’s in front of me is an everywhere sky and the open sea. The boat is big enough so that you can stand up and walk around and so this is what I do. I look at the other people on the boat and I am not impressed. They are a collection of misfits and goldbricks and if I have to drown with these people then so be it. I spot a young man who looks like he thinks he’s in charge, that he can save
us. I see him gesturing and pointing. The people around him are paying attention. They seem ready to follow his orders and it looks like they think we might make it out of this if everyone does his part. This is when I go up to the young man and say, You don’t have a brother named, Omar, do you? He tries to sidestep me, but I maneuver in front of him. I do this like I expect him to move to his right, which I think he does. There is something about this young man that says he moves right whenever he is cornered or confused. My own brother, Omar, did this very thing, and this young man resembles him if you look hard enough. This is when he says he doesn’t. Actually, how he phrases it is, No, I do not. I don’t care for this formal tone, but I decide to let it go. So I say, Are you sure about this, young man? And he says, I do have a brother, but his name isn’t Omar. I ask, What’s his name then? He answers, Barry. I say, Do you expect me to believe this? And he says, I don’t care what you believe. I say, Listen, young man, this doesn’t have to be adversarial, this business about your brother. I extend a hand in front of him and wag a finger while I say this, like I’m teaching him a lesson, which I am. This is what our father used to do whenever he called us goldbricks, except his finger was mangled from arthritis so you had to keep yourself from laughing. Right now no one is laughing. The young man isn’t laughing and neither are the people who think he can save us. The young man says, I have to go now, I have things to do, someone has to take charge. I say, We all have things to do and your brother, Omar, is no exception. I tell the young man that he is lost at sea and everything is going to hell. I tell the young man, This is on you. He’s your brother, after all. The young man says, Listen, mister. And I say, You got that right. I say, Do you think your brother, Omar, denies having a brother like you do? He and I stand toe-to-toe and I can tell the people around us are nervous. They probably think this is some kind of mutiny. They probably think we’re about to have a fistfight on the deck here. The young man takes a step back and crumbles. I tell him I’m here to speak about his brother, Omar, and that this business can’t continue. I tell him he is a good-for-nothing and a goldbrick but that everything will be fine because I am taking charge of the boat. I walk over to the bow, find a short stool to stand on. Then I turn and face the crewmen and passengers. I tell them to follow my lead, do exactly as I say. I tell some to tote barges, others to lift bales. I tell them I have taken over.