Joshua Mohr - Some Things That Meant the World to Me

When I walked back into Damascus, the bar erupted with applause. Everyone held their drinks up in my direction.

"The man of the hour!" my friend, the bartender, said.

The hooker, her name was Karla, sat at the bar, patting the stool next to her. She must have been about forty. She wore so much makeup that it looked like she'd rubbed refried beans on her cheeks. She seemed pretty collected considering what she'd just been through. My mom was always pretty collected afterward, too. A welt rose under Karla's left eye. A small gash on her forehead. No amount of refried beans would conceal these things.

"My hero," she said. "Let me buy you a drink."

She wasn't blinking like she'd come out of a coma any longer. "Did you call the cops?"

"We don't need the cops."

"We need the cops."

"Forget it. Let's have a drink."

I sat down, and she examined my face. Under a streetlight, I'd already measured the damage in a car's side mirror: I knew about the cut on my nose, the skin peeled off my cheek and chin, the purple halo of bruise around my eye. The weird tl-ing was that Karla seemed more concerned about my injuries than her own. She traced my bruise-halo with her fingertip and said, "Poor baby."

"It's not so bad," I said, which wasn't true. The guy had really done a number on me, but right then, nothing hurt. People admired me. My wounds gleamed like trophies.

Vern stormed over and handed me a warm one, which it looked like he'd already had a few sips from. "Good work, soldier," he said and before I answered, he stomped back to his barstool.

Karla rolled her eyes, shook her head, finally reaching over and cupping my face in her hands. "How about a freebie?"

"Sex?"

"Why not?"

"No thanks."

She looked baffled that I'd insult her generosity. "I'll take care of everything, baby. I'm a trained professional." She kissed me. And because of the way her lips felt on my aching face, I'd have done anything she said.

Every person in the bar, maybe thirteen people total, wanted to buy me a drink, and who was I to say no? I'd never felt the UV rays of the limelight before, never known that kind of tepid fame. It was marvelous, our collective race to oblivion. We drank whiskey as if the world wouldn't make it to tomorrow's traffic jams. We listened to rock and roll on the jukebox. We sang along. Karla kissed me in the most astonishing ways, using her tongue on my Adam's apple, and even though I hadn't showered in days, she licked the briny film of alcoholic sweat from my skin. A little after one a.m. she said, "Let's have sex," and we loped out of Damascus, arm in arm.

It was a warm night, September in San Francisco, Indian summer. You could actually see the stars. Not that many, but it was better than nothing.

Karla asked if I'd like to take a shower while she changed her sheets. I took it as a hint and agreed. My head spun as I stood in the stream, washing my body, my hair, using her toothbrush, which I'd found tucked behind the bar soap. I was even going to shave, but she said, "I'd like to clean your wounds," through the steam.

I hadn't heard Karla come in the bathroom, couldn't really see her. I looked down, and my cock had shriveled to a clump, barely visible through the mangy fur. "I'm not sure I can do this," I said.

"Don't worm. I've taken miles of dick."

"Maybe we can just sleep?"

"Why?"

"I'm not feeling very… able."

"There's no reason to be intimidated," she said. "Just aim for the walls."

"ButI — "

"I've got a reputation to protect."

"But — "

"Sshh," she said, telling me to get out of the shower. When I opened the curtain, she stood there holding an open towel, like a mother. She dried me off. The towel felt amazing as it snaked around my body. Karla started with my legs and worked her way up. "Turn around," she said, and rubbed the towel across my back and arms, reaching around to my face, finally fitting the towel on my head, turban-style. Its extra heft made it hard to keep my head straight.

Karla soaked cotton balls in hydrogen peroxide and ran them over the shiners on my face and arms. I smiled.

"Does that feel good?" she asked.

"Better than anything."

I smiled again. Her hands felt wonderful mopping my face with the cotton balls. So relaxed, my head lolled and the turban unraveled and fell off.

Twenty minutes later we walked into her bedroom. She took off her clothes; Karla had a tattoo running down the middle of her back. She said it was a Mayan column, stacked stones, drawn all in black. "I retrofitted my spine," she said, told me she had no choice but to reinforce it after all the crap her ex-husband had put her through.

"What happened?"

"Bad enough he treated me that way in the first place. I'm not going to keep it alive by thinking about it anymore." She hit the light and climbed in bed, kissing me on the cheek.

I can tell you that being in bed with her was magnificent, that it made every kick and punch from that man worth it. I felt nauseated and my face ached and my ribs were killing me, but I was happy. Do you understand that? I fell into a hibernating sleep, curled in her armpit, my nose almost touching her nipple, curled into her warmth, and it was so perfect, just that perfect, her fingers scratching the nape of my neck. You could have thrown us in a coffin and covered us with dirt. It wouldn't have mattered to me.

Letch taught me how to make Bloody Marias from scratch. Tequila, Tabasco, tomato juice, lemon juice, Worcestershire, horseradish, salt, and pepper.

"Put your balls into it," Letch said. That phrase was the only piece of fathering he ever gave me except this: he'd been teaching me to love myself. The first time he mentioned it, he made a masturbatory gesture in front of his crotch, up and down, ferociously slow.

"How do I love myself?" I said.

"Do it fast," he said.

Letch was mom's latest boyfriend and he called me Rhonda because he said that was a dumb blonde name and that I was a dumb blonde, as in, "Are you queer, Rhonda?" and "Make me another Bloody Maria, Rhonda." I was a boy so I didn't like being called a girl's name, and my hair was black, but Letch was a tough guy so I had to let the whole Rhonda thing slide.

I walked to the kitchen and Letch was eating a bowl of Lucky Charms, complaining about the way the house looked. "We're not animals," he said. "Can't you keep this place clean?"

"Sorry," I said, wondering when mom would come home this time. She'd been going on her disappearing acts more and more, taking off for a few days at a time, leaving me money to order pizzas. The worst was how she'd act once she got home, all annoyed as I followed her around the house.

"I know it's hard without your ma around, but she'll be back soon," he said. "Until then, you're responsible for cleaning up around here. Make me a drink."

Letch went back to his Lucky Charms, pushing gigantic spoonfuls of yellow diamonds, purple horseshoes into his big mouth. "That's a faggot's haircut, Rhonda," he said.

There wasn't anyone in the barbershop except a pretty blonde woman wearing white jeans. Her hair was styled high, all space-age. She didn't look that much older than me.

The shop didn't have any air conditioning, and it was way over one-hundred degrees outside. July in Arizona.