Joshua Mohr - Some Things That Meant the World to Me

"Scared, I guess."

"I'm not one for giving advice. But one thing I learned in my life is that you have to go after the things that mean something to you. What you want never comes without a fight." She frowned, pointed toward the ceiling, her apartment, her husband. Her grimace got more severe. "I guess I didn't actually learn that lesson, but I should have."

I took a bite of waffle. "I'll ask her out soon."

"Soon," she scoffed. "Like your arm?" She didn't say it in a nagging way, but like she really cared.

"You should have had kids," I said. "You'd have been a great mother."

"That's the nicest thing anyone has said to me in years. With all your charm, I think you should ask that girl out this week."

"I don't know"

"What's the worse thing that can happen?"

I thought about Karla grabbing my hand and shoving it into my wet crotch, calling me pathetic little baby. "Maybe I'll ask her." I finished my waffle, my mimosa, my cigarette. "I'll think about it.

Will you do it for me?" Old lady Rhonda took my empty plate to the kitchen. She handed me another cigarette when she came back and sat down. "I'm not trying to pressure you. I just think it will do you some good to get a girlfriend." She smiled. "Okay, fine, maybe I'm trying to pressure you a little bit."

I'd have done anything she asked. "I'll do it this week."

"Good bo\ Another mimosa?"

"No thanks."

"But the orange juice has so much vitamin C. Will you please have one more?" She told me to finish the last sip of my mimosa so she could make me another. I tipped the coffee cup way back, killing the last of it, and she said, "It's almost flu season so we need all the vitamins we can get." Then old lady Rhonda walked to the kitchen and poured champagne in my coffee cup, topping it with orange juice, which bubbled up over the top of the mug and spilled all over the counter. "Damn!" she said.

I ran over to the kitchen and slurped mimosa off the counter. "Look at all the precious vitamin C you're wasting," I said. "Will you help me?" and she leaned down, and together, we licked that counter until there wasn't a drop left.

When the wasp stung me, my mom got all protective and worried in a way I'd never seen before. I walked in the house, crying, holding the welt on my arm where it had stung me, and she said, "Baby, what happened?" and I told her that I'd been stung and that my skin was all itchy and my throat hurt and that it was hard to breathe. She said, "You must be allergic," and I said, "Am I going to die?" and she said, "I won't let anything bad happen to you."

I'd had colds and the flu tons of times, and she never cared. She'd tell me to stop being so dramatic, it's just the sniffles, grow up. She'd disappear for days. Not call once to ask if I was all right, and when she got home, if I wandered behind her, like a shunned pet, and asked where she'd been, she'd say, "I need to rest. We'll talk later"; but all that happened later was about two gallons of tcha-bliss, missing notes on her keyboard, whining about her arthritis, maybe a fight with Letch.

The wasp sting made her really worry about me. She wet a rag with freezing water and held it on the sting, then my forehead. She rubbed an arthritic hand across my cheek. I kept crying because my skin broke out in a gigantic rash, and she hugged me the whole time.

I kept saying, "You won't let anything happen to me, right?" and she said, "No, baby. I never will."

About a month later, the wasp sting was long forgotten and she was up to her old routine of pretending I wasn't there.

She was out of work again, and it was one of those days where she and Letch couldn't stop screaming at each other. I was supposed to be watching TV and minding my own business, but I couldn't concentrate on anything except their warfare in our stretched, sandy house, as they screamed throughout the desert that was everywhere: a cactus had sprouted next to the TV, a dove perched on it; animals flying, slithering, crawling, running all around our house, our desert; animals, livid and territorial.

Letch saw me looking at my mom and him. "Get the hell out of here so we can finish talking, Rhonda."

Then he slapped her.

I'd never seen him hit her before.

He pointed toward the door and told me, "Now."

My mom rubbed her cheek.

I stared at her, wanted to do something to help, but she said, "Just get out, baby."

I ran into the front yard, ran into the street, ran down it. I was running and I couldn't stop thinking how her saying, "Just get out, baby," was the first thing she'd said to me all day, and I got to thinking about the wasp sting, about her holding that wet rag on my forehead, and the next thing I knew, I ran to where the wasp had stung me the first time. I'd seen the nest but thought I could sneak by without bumping it, but I bumped it, and a wasp flew out and attacked, and I was running there now to bump the nest again, to bump it so hard that the wasps had no choice but to defend their home, their family: The nest was stuck to a telephone pole. I took my hand and, like Letch had hit her, slapped the nest. It was only the size of a silver dollar. It was brown. I slapped it and most of it broke off and landed on the sidewalk. Next thing I knew I felt a sting on my shoulder. My heart started pounding. Throat tightening up. I sprinted home so she could see me crying and see the rash exploding all over my skin, its bright violence. She'd wet the rag with freezing water and make sure I was all right.

About a month after that, I tried it one more time. She'd just gotten home from another of her disappearing acts; she and Letch were going in circles about who she'd been with this time.

"Just me and Lori," she said, and he said, "Lori my ass."

"I swear it was just the two of us," she said, and he said, "I believe there were two of you, but his name wasn't Lori."

She said, "Seriously, Lori," and he said, "Seriously, Lori my ass," and he hit her again, shaking his head, saying, "Yeah, right, Lori."

I sat in front of the TV, but paid more attention to the desert. We barely had a home anymore. Its rooms had stretched to huge distances. The walls had fire ants all over them. Joshua trees and Gila monsters were in the kitchen. Buzzards in the bedrooms, picking at the dead flesh. And the sidewinders, my bodyguards, always slithering in that impossible S-shape of theirs, chasing danger away from me whenever they could.

It was only a matter of time until Letch told me to get the hell out so I left. Went into our backyard. There was now a wasps' nest on the eve of our crappy patio. I'd discovered it a week before and had been waiting for the right time to make one sting me. I almost did it when I first noticed the nest, but my mom was in the middle of her latest disappearing act, and I knew Letch wouldn't care if I'd been stung a thousand times. I imagined myself walking up to him and screaming, "A wasp stung me!" and he'd say, "Sure, Rhonda, I'd love a Bloody Maria, thanks for asking."

I pulled a chair over and stood on it to reach the wasps' nest. I flicked it with my finger. Nothing happened. I flicked it harder. Flicked it like six times. Nothing. I punched the nest and still nothing happened.

The wasps weren't home, and I could hear Letch and my mom screaming, and I didn't know what to do. Was I crying?

I heard Letch yell, "Maybe I'll leave for a while with Lori, too," and my mom said, "Go ahead," and he said, "See you next week," and she said, "Fine by me," and the front door slammed.