I am not a good guy

short fiction

My wife is a good woman. My wife is a very good woman. She likes to have a good time by making good friends with other good women. And she finds these friends everywhere. The grocery store, the nail salon, the ballet studio. All of those places.

With my wife, I made a very good daughter. A very good daughter who is very kind and very full of will. These good girls, they live in my home. They live in my home and they love me. Do you believe that? I ask for time alone. And they take me to the library. I ask for more space on the couch. And they hand me a pillow. I’ve never seen anything like it.

Because, me. I don’t want to have a good time. I am not full of will. I am not a good guy. I don’t like simple things like sports or Saturday Night Live or riding a bike to the neighbor’s. I don’t like any of the neighbors.

But these girls, they ask me to come. They ask me to be around. And they look at me. Do they see that I am dead. How I can’t see because a movie is playing inside my skull and it’s black in there, all black, with quick flashes of guilt.

These girls, they make space for me. In the car, at the table, in the park. And I go. I always go. Because it’s with them.

But usually I’m not there, not really, you see. Because sometimes, I’m trying so hard and the try makes it harder to be.

And with all that try, I become a puppet and my own master; my head in my hands, as it is said.

And when I am not there, it is because I am over here. In bed with clean sheets, making coffee while it rains. I’m looking out the window and I’m piecing together my thoughts about all the ways my father hurt.

And I wonder, do I hurt.

Is the black movie in my mind, is that a kind of pain. Is it something I am feeling. And can these girls, can they feel it too. Would they feel it if I wasn’t around. Would they be. Better without me.

Because, they are better than me. And, so, I think— what about, without me.

I could remove myself. Run off. Drive far. A hotel and a TV set. A book and a bad mattress. Muffins and coffee and maybe I’ll start smoking again.

I could just go. At any time, I could go. My father did.

He went. Because, he said, we were better. We were better off.

But we were not. Me and my mother. I’m telling you, we were not. Cus here I am. Talking in circles, living in the dark. Looking out the window.

My wife is a good woman and with her I made a good daughter. But I think about hotel rooms and cigarette smoke. Because as I try to piece together all of my father’s reasons, there’s only one answer, and it is me. It is about me not being a good guy. I am not a good guy. And, so, it must be that my good wife and my good daughter, well, they would be. Better off.