Joshua Mohr - Some Things That Meant the World to Me

Three weeks later, Vern said, "Pretty soon it'll be a boomerang."

"At least my drink will be closer to my face," I said, launching into a loud complaint about money. As in, I was almost out of it. As in, how was I supposed to work the line with a broken arm?

"Pruno," Vern said.

"What?"

"Pruno. Prison wine. I learned how to make it in Lompoc. You'll save money because you won't be paying for drinks."

That was the thing I loved about Damascus: the resourcefulness of the clientele. Solutions for people who didn't want to solve any of their problems, only postpone them. Hide from them. We plastered ourselves in sad disguises.

"How do I make it?" I said.

Since I was still out of work, I decided to lower my rent and move into a pay-by-the-week hotel, on Valencia and 15th Street. In the late afternoon, Vern showed up at my new digs with a plastic bag full of supplies to concoct his guerilla-hooch: ten oranges, a can of fruit cocktail, fifty sugar cubes, eight packets of Ketchup from Burger King. He also had a box of red wine for us to drink while he taught me the recipe.

"My mom used to drink this shit," I said, telling Vern how she drank boxes and boxes of tcha-bliss. I thanked him for bringing the wine, told him I couldn't give him any money for it.

"Pay me back in free pruno," he said. He unloaded everything from the plastic bag. "First we have to peel these oranges."

Over the next ten minutes we stripped them all, tossed the fruit in the plastic bag and the peels in the trash. Vern dumped the fruit cocktail in the bag and sealed it.

"You have a family?" he asked.

"Do you?"

"Wife and daughter."

"How old's your little girl?" I said.

"Shit," he said, pausing. "I can't remember. Thirty-nine. No, forty-six."

"What year was she born?"

"1955," he said, pausing again, twirling a mangy eyebrow. "That can't be. '59. '69. '47. No — "

"You two are close."

"Fuck you."

The look on his face told me he was still trying to figure out what year she was born.

"I always wanted a daughter," he said, smashing the fruit with his fists, the bag filling with a paste the color of a jack-o-lantern. "But once I had one, I sure made a mess of it." He took the plastic bag over to the sink and ran it under hot water.

"Do you ever see her?"

He wagged his head fast, the way a shark shakes its food in its mouth, and spoke in the softest voice I'd ever heard him use: "I need to wrap this in something."

"What?"

He found his usual, livid tone. "Just get me a towel!"

"How about a T-shirt?"

"Fine," he said. I handed it to him and he swaddled the bag of pruno in it. He stuck it on a shelf, on a nest of stray, uncooked spaghetti.

We stood, staring at the pruno like proud fathers.

"Is that it?" I said.

"That's day one. It takes a week to make pruno."

"A week?" I whined.

Vern poured me another glass of box wine and shrugged his shoulders. "That saying about how long it took to build Rome," he said, "well it applies to pruno, too"

That night, I woke up from my normal nightmare because I heard screaming outside my building. I'd been tossing and turning anyway, because of my arm, the way it throbbed, the way it took the buzzing feeling that had plagued me for years and turned it into a constant agony

I ran to the window, and a guy dragged a couch into the middle of the street. A woman followed him, begging him to stop. They had come out of my building, but I'd never seen either of them before.

"I can change my ways," she said to him. "You don't have to do this."

"I obviously do," he said. "You can't sit on the couch all day and night. You can't watch TV your whole god damn life."

The guy had stashed a bottle of lighter fluid on the couch, and now he doused it until the container was empty

"What about company?" the woman said. "Your sister? Where are we going to sit when your sister comes over?"

He pulled out a match and threw it, flames erupting.

I stood by the window, chain-smoking, watching that woman try to save the couch. She ran up to her apartment and came back down to dump pots and pans full of water on the blaze. I thought about helping her, but my broken arm wouldn't let me be of much use. The fire department never came. The amazing thing was the woman's determination; she spent half an hour trying to save it, but the couch was ruined. Once the fire was out, she dragged its smoking carcass near the curb and sat down on it.

I could hear her sobbing. I walked down. A one-legged pigeon hopped around on its foot, flying away as I came past. "Can I sit with you?"

"It's still kind of hot," she said, "but I don't mind if you join me.

She was probably sixty years old. Her hair was gray and thin and really long. It dangled all the way down to her butt and looked like a fraying cape.

I plopped down next to her on the couch. It was wet, smeared in black. My ass and thighs got soaked, but it wasn't as warm as I expected. The look on her face told me that this couch had meant a lot to her. "What's your name?" I said.

"Rhonda."

"Me, too."

She looked at me and laughed. "I've never met a Rhonda with an Adam's apple before."

"Even in San Francisco?"

We both smiled, didn't say anything. For a few minutes we sat there, peering out at the dark street. Every once in a while a car went by, and the people stared at us. The rickety wheels of a stolen shopping cart worked their way down the street, so I turned to look. An old man with an unruly beard, muscular arms. He pushed one shopping cart and towed another one behind him, by connecting a bungee cord from the cart to the back of his belt. As he got close to us, he said, "That's what I call being on the hot seat," and smiled, disappearing toward the Castro and lower Haight districts.

"What happened to your arm?" she said.

I looked down at its mess and tried to wiggle my fingers back and forth. The ring finger was dead. "Why'd he burn your couch?"

"There isn't a reason," old lady Rhonda said. "Sometimes there aren't reasons."

"You can keep it at my place," I said. "I don't have a couch. You can come over and sit on it whenever you want"

We dragged its smoldering skeleton up one flight of stairs. It wasn't easy and it took a long time but we both seemed to be having fun. I couldn't help but wonder when the last time I actually helped somebody was, and when I realized it was Karla, I wished she could see me now.

The next afternoon, I went to see the Jordanian Girl. As I walked up to the store, she stood in the doorway, smoking. It looked like she was deep in a daydream; I wanted to ask her what she fantasized about, but I knew she'd never tell me the truth.

"Hi, Big Boy," she said.

"How have you been?"

"Dying from all the excitement." She dropped her cigarette and put it out with her shoe, leaned down and picked up the butt. She walked into the store, and I followed her. "I'm having one of those days where I want to pull the bedspread over my head and scream for hours. Do you know what I mean?"

Me, Rhonda, I knew exactly what she meant. "I've been there."

"Where?"

"That place where life seems easy for everyone, except you."

"Exactly," she said, nodding. "Anyway, how are things going?"

"I need some Magnums."

"Oohhhh." She winked at me. "Some afternoon fun, huh?"

"Yeah."

"It doesn't sound like you're having such a tough life."

"It is," I said and strained to smile. She set the condoms in front of me. She wore a turquoise ring. Her wrists were hairy. I could see her bellybutton, and I'd have given anything to touch it.