Good People (4 page)

I don't think I've ever actually had anemia, though listlessness is a symptom. I have always been listless. Regardless, my anemia isn't what makes me tired these days. It is probably because I am dying. I think this is the only explanation as to why I am even more
tired than usual. But I am also hungry and I would think if one were dying one wouldn't have an appetite at the same time.

I should probably have a good last meal before I hang myself. I believe it's customary. I almost never prepare a meal for myself as I am not worth the bother most of the time. Usually I eat soup from a can or dry toast and cereal. The last proper meal I had was about three months ago at a neighbor's. Sometimes the neighbors see me crawling home after I've been beaten and they invite me into their home and tend to me. The neighbors here are good people and some of the very few who haven't taken liberties with me. Apparently, one of them is a nurse, so she had all kinds of ointments and bandages to apply and fasten. I sat in the kitchen as she did this. I remember her asking me what happened, so I told her sometimes people like to beat me. She asked me why and I told her I had no idea but it's always been the case. She asked me if she should call the police and I told her not to. All they would do is ask me questions and then get in a few licks of their own. After she mended my wounds she prepared an extravagant meal and insisted I stay for it. There were meat and potatoes and vegetables and gravy and bread, along with wine and water. They had me sit at the head of the table and made a point of calling me their guest. I ate all the food put in front
of me. I didn't want any of it, as I am rarely hungry after a beating. Still, I did my best to choke down my portions, though I declined a second helping. I didn't know what was expected. I didn't know if I was free to participate in the family conversation. It seems they were discussing the tribulations of the eldest son. He was having trouble in school and in danger of expulsion. He was probably guilty of beating his classmates, if I had to guess. He looked like a delinquent, with a thick neck that supported a cinder block of a head and big rough hands that seemed to have been in a fistfight recently. His arms and chest were especially well developed. He looked like the sort that could deliver a serious thrashing on someone. I cannot say I recognized him. Sometimes the neighborhood thugs have their way with me, but I do not think he is one of those. Not that I would necessarily know this one way or another. I don't always look people in the eye when they are beating me. I learned this from my mother, as she didn't like it when I looked her in the eye during a beating. As dinner went on, the nurse or her sons would sometimes look in my direction between forkfuls. They were trying not to, as they had excellent manners, but I could tell they were curious. I must've been a sight. I don't believe I was still bleeding during dinner, but I was in a great deal of pain. I think I may've even groaned once or
twice. The nurse asked if I was okay and I told her I was fine. I told her this was nothing, that I'd had worse. I told them all about the time my mother took us shopping and caught me handling the peaches. I was trying to fend for myself, like she'd taught me, but apparently this wasn't the appropriate moment to do this. I thought she was down some other aisle as I approached the produce section and found a basket of peaches. After opening one of the plastic bags hanging from the hooks, I started examining them. The next thing I knew my mother was grabbing me by the collar and dragging me outside. She said, Who told you to touch the peaches? She said, Do you think people want to eat peaches after you've contaminated them with your filthy hands? Just as we got to the corner, I managed to break free and sprint down the street. I could hear my mother screaming for my brothers and sisters to chase after me. She said I was fast but had no endurance. She said, Stay on him, kids, he'll wear down. She told them to wait for her before they did anything. I think I made it four or five blocks before I started cramping up. Everything hurts whenever I run for too long, my sides, my chest, even my head. I looked around for a place to hide, but there wasn't any, so I waited for my brothers and sisters to catch up and, when they eventually did, said, What took you so long? They surrounded me and waited for our mother,
who found her way over in a few short minutes. My mother was in better shape than she looked and was surprisingly agile. I think all of us in the family are good athletes. At any rate, she pulled some twine from her purse and instructed my brothers and sisters to tie me to a post. After my brothers and sisters complied, my mother said, You may commence. Ordinarily I prefer lying down during a beating, but there is no way to do this when you are strung up. I've only been strung up for a beating a few times and I can't say I like it at all. It puts too much pressure on your wrists, arms, and shoulders. I don't remember what happened afterward, as I probably lost consciousness. Sometimes this happens to me if the beating is particularly sound. I imagine they cut me down and took me home, where I probably slept straight through for a week. I told the nurse and her sons that the beating I took today was nothing compared to what happened that day after the peaches. I told them not to worry. I told them I always bounce back, that I'm tougher than I look. No one said much after my story, though I think I remember the nurse saying, You poor thing. I smiled at her and winked. I think she liked that. I don't always remember to wink at people, but it's a solid maneuver. I've even done it to one or two of those who've beaten me. I declined dessert but I sat at the table and sipped some tea. I watched them eat
their pie, which apparently was homemade. It smelled good, but I couldn't. The nurse said I should take a slice home and saved one for me. By this time it was clear everyone was getting tired. I needed to lie down. Eventually dessert was over and I was free to go. I waited for them to clear the table and then thanked everyone for the fine meal and hospitality.

It occurs to me that these are the ones likely to find me in the morning. I hope it's the thug son and not the nurse.

I probably went straight home to bed and slept for days on end. The first thing I usually do after waking is take a nap. This is probably unimaginable to most people. They'd tell me I should go see a doctor if they ever cared enough to suggest such a thing.

I would tell them to stop themselves and mind their own for once in their lives. It's probably funny that the first doctor to examine me without beating me will be performing an autopsy. Perhaps they can figure out what the fuck was wrong with me. Maybe it'll turn out I did have anemia all along. That would be funny, too. Although, I don't really know what they'll find and I don't think I care and since I don't know anything about this, I should stop myself already. I do hope they send the report to my mother so she can finally have some answers, if she is still alive. She is the kind of person who can live a hundred years and never once
consider hanging herself in the backyard, so I'm sure she will be around to receive the report. Perhaps I will request they find her. I should think they'd comply with my final wishes, particularly when it comes to a one-hundred-year-old mother. I can't imagine being as old as she is now, can't imagine how much sleep I'd require at that age. This is yet another reason I will hang myself in the backyard today. I hope I will have the energy to do this right and I'm sure I will. I trust they will perform an autopsy, as I believe it is customary. I'd like to think they'll find that I had something that no one else in the world ever had. I'd like to think that after I'm gone they will say something like this about me in the autopsy report. Perhaps they'll even name this condition after me. Maybe then my mother can know once and for all what was wrong with me and that it was no way to go through life.

Anytime, Sweet

T
HE WAITRESS DELIVERED
the food and drinks in a single carry.

I was like everyone else in the diner. We were a congregation of unhealthy people with no alternatives and no resources. I'd been coming here every day for weeks.

Earlier I had walked through a hard-hat area without a hard hat. The sign said I should beware, but I never pay attention to signs, am never wary of anything.

Lately I've had heartburn every night and wake up with a headache every morning.

I told the waitress thank you. I told her she was impressive. She looked me in the face and smiled. I felt genuine warmth coming from her. I could tell she was a good person.

She said you are very welcome. I wanted to give her another compliment, so I said, You have nice tits. She smiled again, said, You are a sweet one.

It was true. I've always been sweet. People tell me this.

The headache always starts at the top and then works its way down in every direction. I almost fell to the ground when I walked through the hard-hat area, but I steadied myself on a bicycle rack. I'm sure no one saw me as this happened. Certainly someone would've tried to help.

She asked if I would like to touch them and I said of course.

I touched them for a solid minute.

All around the restaurant, people were eating and drinking and discussing current events, the people in their lives, how it was going all wrong.

No one saw what we were doing and I'm sure no one would've minded, no one would've tried to help.

She asked me what I thought and I said they were wonderful.

It was true. No one could disagree. They were wonderful.

This is what I wondered as I touched the waitress's tits: I wondered if she had a happy childhood. I wondered if she participated in after-school activities, like bowling or Girl Scouts. I wondered if the mouse running roughshod in my apartment would realize his mistake soon. I wondered if my ex-wife was feeding the dog. I wondered how much longer I could live on
bacon and eggs, home fries, and coffee. Finally I wondered if it would be like they said, like a piano on the chest.

This is when I took my hands off her tits, picked up my fork, and dug in.

I told her thank you again and she said, Anytime, Sweet.

I smiled for her real wide.

I went back to the eggs and the rest of my life.

Welcome to Someplace Like Piscataway

I
DON'T KNOW WHERE
my sister lives, but I think it's here in Piscataway. I can't think of another town or city that she might live in and I can't think of another reason we'd be in Piscataway. I'm almost sure that's where we are. I remember seeing a sign that said
WELCOME TO PISCATAWAY
and have no memory of another sign saying
NOW LEAVING PISCATAWAY
or
WELCOME TO SOME OTHER PLACE
. We are driving around trying to see if anything looks familiar, but so far nothing does. I have trouble recognizing things, streets, buildings, people. I once ran into my sister on the boardwalk in Atlantic City and it took me five minutes to figure out who she was. I believe this was before I visited my sister here in Piscataway, but I might be mistaken. Perhaps I visited when she lived somewhere else and it was there that she told me she was moving
to Piscataway. I remember she served tea and played the cello. I asked when she learned to play the cello and she said she'd been playing since girlhood. This I disputed. I told her I didn't remember her ever playing an instrument, said she was mistaken. She said she only played in her bedroom with the door shut. My sister is one of those who has answers for everything. This might be one reason I have a hard time recognizing her. I can hardly understand questions myself, let alone the answers, which is probably why we don't talk to each other much. I think my sister is a social worker and I seem to remember her saying she worked in a hospital. I don't think she is a doctor or a nurse, though. I've never seen her in one of those coats and I'd like to think if she were a doctor or nurse, I'd know this about her. There's only so much you can keep from anyone, let alone family. I do know that she's never been married and I'm pretty sure she's a virgin. You walk around her house and you know no one ever has sex here. Her house is like a museum is why, every piece of furniture from some bygone era, everything shiny and gleaming and too clean for anyone's good. She can talk about her house for an hour straight without taking a breath, going on about where she found that love seat, what she paid for the sconces, what book gave her the inspiration for the new chandeliers. I try to nod and ask questions during these
lectures, but I feel like an idiot. I'm not sure why she turned out this way. Our parents didn't keep house like this, never paid attention to how anything looked. Maybe that's why, maybe it's the apple falling forty-eight miles from the tree. She's a recluse, my sister, but the rest of us are people persons, or at least I am. I always need to be around people, the noise they make. There's a lot I don't know or understand about my sister, but I do know that she loves animals and is concerned with their welfare. She feeds feral cats and saves puppies and protests companies that torture chimpanzees and chickens. She knows I'm allergic, so she kept her own cats in the basement the day I visited. I think she has four of them. This probably says everything anyone might need to know about my sister. I wasn't allowed in her bedroom growing up, so it makes sense I never heard her play the cello. I don't know why I wasn't allowed in her bedroom and I'm not sure who disallowed it. If I had to guess, I'd say it was my sister, but it could've been my parents, too. No one in the family ever trusted me. Also, I had my own problems trying to keep healthy and out of the army. Our father wanted me to enlist, said it would make a man out of me. I told him I had other plans. He said I should at least take the civil servant's exam, that it was good to have something to fall back on. You can't reason with someone who thinks like this. My sister
never talks about our father, even though she takes after him, but only sometimes, in some ways. I can't remember ever seeing them in the same place at the same time. Maybe she was inside her room with the cello while the rest of us were outside trying to keep healthy and live our lives. She said she was best at Bach concertos but didn't feel like playing them anymore. She said that part of her life was over. This is how she talks, as if everything has some other meaning. I started stirring the tea right after she said this about her life. I wanted to go home, play some poker. I've been making a living at it for five years now and there was a tournament starting that night. I don't think my sister knows that I'm a professional poker player. We don't talk, like I said, and she probably wouldn't care regardless. She kept on about the cello, said she played her own compositions now, pieces she called “Death March for Summertime Five and Ten.” I told her she played very well. I told her it made me think of aquatic animals, which it did, like whales drowning in shallow water. This is when she threw the bow at me and told me to fuck off. I didn't mind because that's the way she is sometimes and I was expecting it. She learned this from our father. Whenever he was home, you had to walk around the house with your head down unless you wanted some color in your life. He didn't like people looking at him was the
issue. He wouldn't get physical, but he'd dress anyone down for looking him in the eye. I'm not sure what explains such a thing, but I am sure my sister is the same way. She'll say,
Can I help you?
if she catches you looking at her. Once I asked for a tuna sandwich. She told me to fuck off. I almost caught the bow on a short hop and asked if I could give it a try. She said no, said I had no business playing the cello. She was probably right. Other than poker, I have no talent for anything. She said that's why she made tea, so I could have something to do. She said it was important for people to have something to do, especially men. She said men have to be occupied at all times, tricked into thinking they're useful in some way. I told her I didn't like tea, that I had no use for it. She told me to drink it, otherwise, I could go fuck off. I looked around the room, tried to find something to compliment. My sister likes to hear how great everything looks. She likes to hear about the antique furniture and such, something she calls a settee and other names I forget. We were sitting in what she refers to as the parlor, but it's a living room to everyone else in the world. There was patterned wallpaper and an Oriental rug and ornate drapery hanging over the bay windows. I couldn't think of anything to say, so I looked at her instead and tried smiling. I'm not sure what this looked like. I'm not one to smile in front of people. It comes from the poker,
one of the reasons I'm good at it. She asked if she could help me and I told her to be reasonable. She got up and left the room. This is why you never know with people and why poker is easier. Across a table, someone either has a hand or doesn't. They could have the nuts, they could be bluffing. You fold or raise. It's one or the other. The world is easier when you can boil it down to either/or. Of course, poker doesn't actually work this way, there are other variables, but the general point is the same. So when your sister runs off, you can chase after her, consider what she might want, if anything, you can consider doing something to the cello even, maybe cutting all the strings with a pocketknife or even casing the fucker up and carrying it home to hock at the nearest pawnshop. Maybe leave a note saying
Thanks for the tea and cello. Keep up the marching.
The cello was probably worth at least a grand, and I could've used the money, especially back then with the frozen river of cards I was continuously dealt. I think I went three months without looking down at a playable hand. I used to do things like this, steal cellos, and sometimes I revert to form in my head. But I didn't take my sister's cello and I sat there and waited for her to come back, which she did after about five minutes. She didn't say anything, instead she took the bow from my hands and started playing something called “Don't Talk to Me on Fridays
Because by Then I'm Too Tired.” This one sounded like a car that had something wrong with the engine, brakes grinding against each other, metal on metal. After one or two more numbers, we took a walk around the neighborhood, which I remember as Piscataway. But now I'm not sure it was Piscataway. For some reason, I associate my sister with Piscataway, though I could be mistaken. My sister is a fast walker and I had to struggle to keep up. She had a path she always took and so this is where we walked. I remember it led to a park and there were trees and a brook and a playground. It was when we passed the playground that I mentioned something about our father, how he used to take us to the playground when we were kids and the time my sister fell off the monkey bars and we all had to go to the hospital. My sister said she didn't know what I was talking about. I tried to remind her of the little boy who tripped her while she was climbing up the bars and how she had to get five stitches on her chin. She said I was mistaken, that I must be thinking of something else. To this, I said, The hell I am. This is when she stopped and stood in front me. It felt like she wanted to fight. I was getting ready to defend myself, when she stuck her chin out. She said, Show me the scar. I looked hard for it but couldn't find one. I didn't think so, she said. I decided to drop it, but I did consider asking if she'd had plastic surgery.
I wouldn't put it past my sister to have plastic surgery. She's always been vain, my sister, which is strange for a pious virgin. I remember being told that she was in her room, brushing her hair, whenever I'd ask after her. I think our mother was the one who said this about her whenever I asked where my sister was because it never seemed like she was around. I can't remember ever seeing my sister and mother and father all in the same place at the same time, not even at dinner. I'm not sure if my sister remembers all of this the same way. You can't tell with her and also she might be crazy. She looks like someone who has spent time in a sanitarium. I think our father spent a lot of time at the park and on his way home he'd stop at the ROTC. I'd find flyers under my bedroom door almost every day. Our mother was either in the kitchen or the living room, sitting on a chair or sofa, reading or knitting. I can't remember ever seeing her somewhere else. What I said instead was, Who the hell was it that fell off the monkey bars? My sister said she had no idea, said it was my problem. She accused me of being pathological, but I'm not sure what she meant by this and I didn't ask. Instead, I asked a question about our family, about what she remembered, but she said she didn't want to talk about it anymore. I asked if we'd ever talked about it and she pointed to some blue jays. She said, Look at the blue jays, how beautiful. Then she
made up a story about the blue jays, how they were endangered due to pesticides and poachers. She could tell that these two had a hard life and that it'd taken a toll. She said she could tell by their energies. She said there was discord for a long time but that they were reconciled now. She said even still everything was tenuous between them. There's no way you can have an actual conversation with someone who talks like this. All you can do is nod and pretend to care and find a place where you can say
I should be getting back
. I did look at the two blue jays flitting from branch to branch. They seemed fine to me, maybe a little high-strung, but fine. After the blue jays, we walked back to her house and then she drove me to the train station, which I believe was here in Piscataway. This is why we drove here in the first place, starting out early today, before breakfast. When I say we are driving around, I mean my new wife is doing the driving and I am in the passenger seat, doing the looking. My new wife has never been to Piscataway, has never met my sister, so this is her first time. Nothing looks familiar to her, I'm sure. This is something I'm smart enough not to ask, though I did have to catch myself once. A lot of people think I'm quiet or shy, but it's just that I'm smart enough not to lend voice to thought if I can help it. It was the same way with my sister and the blue jays. I wanted to ask her if she was taking any
medication or seeing a therapist or getting enough sleep. I wanted to say she should get herself laid one time, maybe get blind drunk some night, but I kept it all to myself. People have a hard time recognizing this kind of genius, but I'm happy to say that my new wife can. She said as much the night we met. She said, I can tell how smart you are by how you sit and say nothing. I married her three days later. This was back in Atlantic City, which seems another lifetime ago, maybe two lifetimes, even though it's only been three days. This is how the world works sometimes. Time and math don't always apply.

My new wife has never been anywhere other than Atlantic City for the past five years. I'm not sure where she was before that. I did ask once. I said, Where are you from? And she said, I'm not proud of this. Sometimes Eastern Europeans talk this way, so I think that's what she is, where she's from. It can mean almost anything, so I decided to drop it. Another thing people don't know about me is my intuition and how sharp it is. I told her it wasn't important. I told her the only important thing was our everlasting devotion. She agreed by getting behind the wheel and driving north to Piscataway. This is yet another reason she is doing the driving, and it works out, so I can do the looking. She wouldn't know what to look for and also she doesn't like responsibility, I don't think. I can't claim this as fact, but I've picked
up on such. There's only so much you can learn about a person in four days, so at this point it's all suspicion and extrapolation, which is as close to intuition as you can get sometimes. I do, however, know plenty about myself, but only when it comes to poker. I know I don't like to play suited connectors out of position and that I'm best at the three-bet. I can play back at anyone who tries to bully me. This is how I met my new wife, at the table. I raised preflop with an ace-ten of spades and she played back at me. So I reraised and put her all in. I was surprised when she called with a pair of nines, but sometimes Eastern Europeans play fast and loose like that. I caught an ace on the turn and that was that until an hour or so later when I saw her crying at the bar.