Good People (3 page)

Guiding Eyes for the Blind Dog Training School

T
HERE WAS THE SMELL
of smoke and Mrs. Garcia sitting on the sidewalk across the street and ambulances and fire trucks parked everywhere with their lights still flashing and rescue workers milling about, some of them looking like they were still trying to rescue people, others standing around, talking into walkie-talkies, pointing fingers. I don't know if you can say Mrs. Garcia was in shock or not. She was pulling on the sleeves of her pink sweatshirt and twisting her feet into the pavement. My wife said she saw her spitting, like she had accidentally swallowed something she wasn't supposed to, like maybe she was trying to spit out the fire somehow. I didn't see the spitting, but maybe that's what it means to be in shock. Maybe that's part of it.

None of the neighbors congregating together on
both sides of the street or the rescue workers milling about said that it was twisted and fucked-up and ironic that a fireman's house caught fire, that a fireman's son winds up dying in that fire and that same fireman was off somewhere else trying to save someone else when it all went up. At least I didn't hear anyone say that. I doubt anyone was thinking it, either.

Frank Garcia, the fireman, isn't my friend. He belongs to a long list of neighbors here who aren't friends. I can't say I like him or that I don't like him and I can't say that it bothers me. I don't think I belong here, in this community, but I'm doing what I can, what's expected. Everyone here wears golf shirts tucked into Bermuda shorts, and boat shoes. Everyone here drinks domestic beer from cans and has procreated at least once. They drive tanks, shuttling children to school to camp to hockey to soccer to arts and crafts to the mall.

So I know who Frank Garcia is, have seen him do all of this, but I haven't told him anything about myself, haven't asked him a real question. I don't care and I can't bring myself to care, even though maybe I'm supposed to care, seeing that now that I am an adult and part of a community. I haven't told him I'm not sure about this parenting business, that maybe there are enough people in the world already. I haven't even told my wife this yet. Instead, I keep saying I'm not sure, keep saying maybe one day soon.

But Garcia and I, we've never had a conversation beyond the weather or sports. I watched his son, Carlos, grow up from the kitchen window, saw him play stick-ball in the street, trick-or-treating on Halloweens, walking home from school. He seemed like a good kid, if you can tell that sort of thing from the kitchen window.

We've never had any problems with the Garcias. Occasionally they'd have his firehouse buddies over and they'd carry on for longer than necessary. We can hear them late into the night two or three times a year, but always on a weekend, so it never seems too obnoxious, never a real problem. I've never had to go over there and talk to him about his parties, about his tank, about anything.

My wife says she's never talked much with Mrs. Garcia, either. She says she seems like a good person. I want to ask her what that means, but I don't. I want to say that anyone can seem like a good person, that everyone in this neighborhood seems like a good person, but that certainly can't be the case. I'm sure if one were to overhear what these good people talk about, one would draw other conclusions. My wife is good with people, is better at thinking the best of them, better at talking than I am. My wife says Mrs. Garcia is a schoolteacher, third grade, and she's involved in local politics. She's knocked on the door, looking for contributions.

I've never told my wife, but one time I saw Mrs. Garcia naked. This was before they replaced that short rail fence with the stockade one. I was mowing the lawn and she came out of their pool without a bathing suit. She must've been in her own world because I was right there across from her, plain as milk, next to the lawn mower. I hate mowing the lawn, but this is what I mean about doing what's expected, my part. There's certain shit you have to do if you're stupid enough to buy a house out here. You have to cut grass. You have to shovel snow. You have to answer the door when it rings, though I don't always do that. You have to rake leaves, but this is where I draw the line. There's nothing so fucking pointless as raking leaves. At some point I might try to hire someone to take care of the yard year-round, when we're a little better off, when it comes time to have our own children.

Mrs. Garcia looked good naked, which is not something I would've guessed looking at her from the kitchen window. I've seen her getting in and out of her wagon, the one with the vanity plates, positive, scrawled across in capital letters, like she's some kind of self-help guru. Never thought much of her body, but she's got one. I felt myself stiffening up, even thought about going inside to take care of it, even thought of going over there and showing her how she moved me.

I watched her run a towel through her hair and down her body and then walk into the house.

Having nothing to do with our neighbors is not even a topic of discussion in our house. They could be murderers, perverts, Christian Scientists and it wouldn't make a difference, but still they all seem like good people to my wife and apparently that's enough. We moved here because my wife has friends here, friends who said this was a good place to settle down, start anew, raise a family. Even still there were no Welcome Wagons when we moved into the neighborhood, no block parties on the Fourth of July, only the fireman and his fire friends two or three times a year, but only on weekends, so it's always okay.

No one is uncivil. There is a collective indifference and everyone is fine.

From our bedroom window you can look into Carlos's room. The siding is charred. From the outside, it doesn't look that bad, doesn't look like someone could've died in there. The paper said they found cigarettes in his room. Carlos was thirteen and maybe he was learning how to smoke. Maybe he fell asleep or forgot to put a cigarette out and this is what happened. There's no way of knowing and that's something you can't ask.

They say the people most likely to help in an emergency are people who are trained to handle emergencies. I'm not sure where I heard that, but it was from
someone who sounded like he knew what he was talking about. Maybe it was on television. I believe anything I hear on television. They said when there's an accident, the ones who pull over are doctors, nurses, cops, etc. Laypeople don't, not because they can't be bothered, but because they wouldn't know what to do. I tell this to my wife when she asks me if there was anything she could have done. She was the one who called 911 and said
I don't know
when they asked if anyone was in the house. I told her there was nothing she could have done, that no one could ever think that.

I'm not sure either of us believes it.

The directions are on the kitchen table when I come in from raking. My wife, from the den, tells me I should start getting ready. I've thought about not going. We've never been inside their house, never shared a meal, never even shook hands. There'll be lots of people there and no attendance sheet and most people don't sign the guest book, either. I don't think the Garcias would even notice is what I tell my wife. Nevertheless, we're obligated, my wife tells me. We're neighbors.

G
et off 495 at exit 19, turns into Jackson Avenue. Stay on Jackson Avenue for mile, then make right at Guiding Eyes for the Blind Dog Training School. Cemetery on left.

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.

The Problem with Green Bananas

S
he 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.

Goodnight Maybe Forever

T
ODAY
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.

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.

I think I could withstand the beatings better when I was younger. I know I was always tired, but probably not as often as I am now. I remember trying to sleep away as much of the day as possible. The day had nothing in it I wanted or needed to be awake for and I'm sure the feeling was mutual. Now, I know full well that days do not have feelings. Please don't think that because I have trouble thinking things through or that I have made a great many mistakes that this is one of them. What I am saying is that no one occupying any part of the day cared one way or another if I was a fellow participant, a member of the team. My mother was one of these. Sometimes she'd see me downstairs and say, Who are you again? I told her I was passing through, to pay me no mind. My mother didn't like it when I was fresh like this. That's what she'd say, she'd say, Don't be fresh. But just as a day has no feelings, neither did I growing up. I think I cried once after my
mother called me a chickenshit bastard, but that was it. I must've been very young, perhaps only four or five. She laughed at me and asked, Did I hurt your feelings? I told her I had no feelings. She said I was a chip off the chickenshit block then. I think she was referring to my father, but I told her I didn't care, and she said, Is that a fact, and I said, I believe so, yes. She said, We'll see about that, and gave me a sound beating. She probably beat me for a solid fifteen minutes and I am proud to say I didn't once cry during that particular beating or any subsequent beating, either.

Every bone in my body has been broken multiple times and I have felt every single break, so some of what I say isn't exactly the whole truth and nothing but.

Because I was trying to sleep away as much of the day as I could my mother had a hard time waking me every morning for school. She would call up from downstairs and say, Start to stir. I almost never stirred when she commanded me to do so. I almost never obeyed the woman even though everyone else in the family was scared to death of her and rightly so. My mother was known to beat her children with rolling pins whenever they were disobedient. She would be downstairs beating my brothers and sisters and I would hear the crying and wailing from my bedroom. I would sometimes barricade myself in there, pushing a dresser in front of the door so Mother couldn't get in.
Sometimes she would rap against the door and call me chickenshit names for not having the balls to face her. I would tell her that my balls had nothing to do with it, that the sun was to blame. I'd tell her I was tired. I'd tell her I was allergic to the sun and she said, This is no way to go through life. She said I was probably anemic and chickenshit. I didn't know what anemia was back then, but I don't think I had it. Even still my mother tried to feed me steak cooked rare because of the anemia. She said it would help, that it fed the blood, that I was an embarrassment. She would plate a flank steak and tell everyone it was for her anemic chickenshit son and when I didn't eat it she would beat all of my brothers and sisters right in front of me. She would say, See what you make me do, as she beat them. This is why my brothers and sisters used to beat me, too, because I never ate the bloody flank steak and they had the scars to prove it. I never blamed them, nor did I ever try to fight back. I always took the beatings lying down. Meaning I would lay myself down and wait for them to finish. I figured they would get tired or bored beating someone with anemia who took it lying down.