Joshua Mohr - Some Things That Meant the World to Me

I was with Angel-Hair during high school, and there weren't any proms in there. But I'd seen them on TV, so I knew this was as close as I'd ever come: old lady Rhonda fussing over me, getting me ready for my big date with Handa.

She also gave me $100.

"I can't take this," I said, and she said, "Oh, please," and I said, "No, seriously," and she said, "Then pay me back once you start working again."

And I'd been thinking about work. I'd run into an old coworker who told me the place he was at needed line cooks. "The food is shit," he'd said, "but it's all the beer you can drink after your shift." It wasn't how I'd dreamed it: I'd fantasized about moving to San Francisco and someday cooking at my own restaurant, featuring Meat Trees, but this would have to do.

I took a shower to wash Madeline's scent off of me. Someone in the building must have spent the whole day running hot water because mine was freezing. I stood in the stream, goose bumps raised on my skin, even under my Rorschach tattoo. I rubbed my hand over it, feeling it like Braille, wondering what a blind person would see running their fingers across its topography.

Once I was out of the shower, I smelled my hands, my arms, my shoulders, trying to inhale the slightest trace of Madeline, but she was totally gone. I put on clean clothes, shoved my curls around until they looked less like Vern's eyebrows, which wasn't easy since my hair was thick as asbestos.

The last thing that happened before I left for the restaurant was old lady Rhonda holding up a camera and screaming, "Say cheese!" and snapping a picture. She smiled and said, "That one's going on my fridge," which made me think about the pizza-boxpicture on mine and I was happy.

"Are you ready for this?" Handa asked, motioning her arms down her body like she was the grand prize on "Wheel of Fortune," performing a slow pirouette.

"I think so," I said, excited. Nervous.

She looked fantastic: pants hugging the shape of her legs, an inch of skin showing above them, showing those divine black hairs, a wreathe around her bellybutton. Her shirt stretched like a lucky water balloon, holding all of her in there.

We walked to a small Italian place on Valencia, between 23nd and 24th. There were only four tables in the dining room. The owner was the waiter. And the cook. He sat us in the window. We were the only people in the place. He asked us what we'd like to drink.

"Do you like red wine?" I said to Handa, and she nodded, so I said to the owner, "Bring your favorite bottle of red, please," but as soon as he walked away, I told her I needed to use the bathroom and I followed the owner, whispering, "When I said `bring your favorite,' I meant `bring your cheapest."'

"Sparing no expense, huh?"

I didn't have time to care what he thought.

I went back to the table.

We shared an antipasti plate and polished off the wine, while I listened to her talk about her life. And it was weird because I tried, I really tried to listen to what she was saying, but I couldn't stop thinking about what I'd say if she asked about my life, which made my maraca toss and turn, made me feel far away from her, like she was an astronomer looking at me through a telescope.

"Do you like working with your father?" I said.

"No."

"What's wrong with it?"

"He drives me pretty nuts. Not that I can blame that all on him." She stared in my eyes. "I can go a little crazy every now and then."

"Join the club."

"I started the club!"

"But seriously, what drives you nuts about working with your dad?"

"He wants me to get married. Have twenty-five Muslim babies. Do what my husband says."

We flagged down the owner. He brought us a new bottle and opened it. We ordered entrees. We were still the only people in the restaurant.

"What do you want?" I said.

"To have my own life before I'm a mother. To really accomplish something. To get out of that liquor store and do something surprising. Something no one ever thought I was capable of doing." She smiled. "Maybe I'll win a Nobel Prize."

"I believe it."

Handa bit her lip and looked at the ceiling. I'd never noticed before, but there was a small scar on her forehead, in the shape of a wasp. "I don't expect to save the world," she said, "but I'd like people to know that I was in it."

The owner refilled our wine glasses.

"What about your life?" she asked me.

My maraca shook faster. "What about it?"

"Tell me everything."

I drank all of my wine in a big sip, and she stared at me. "I'm not sure what to say. I guess I'd change it all."

"Everything?"

"I'd start all over. New parents. New life. Possibilities."

"You don't feel like you have possibilities?"

"Not really."

"How sad!"

"Is it sad? I don't know I like cooking. Some days that's enough."

"And you take pictures."

"And I take pictures."

"How long have you lived in San Francisco?"

"About ten years. Since I was twenty." Once the words were out of my mouth, I couldn't believe I'd been here that long. It felt like ten months, like ten tiny months ago I'd fled Phoenix. Angel-Hair had arranged for me to get a job after I got out of the hospital, but six, ten, fifteen months later, everything there reminded me of everything I'd lost, and I needed to escape that emptiness. Even emptiness can suffocate you.

"What brought you here?"

"I was working at a drugstore in Phoenix. My boss knew I liked to cook and he had a buddy in SF who owned a restaurant. He phoned in a favor. I moved here, started peeling garlic and potatoes, worked my way up."

"Is that what you do for a living?" She finished her wine. I split the rest of the bottle in our glasses.

"When my arm isn't broken, yes."

The owner brought our entrees, grated fresh cheese on our pastas.

"I want you to cook me dinner. Do you have a secret recipe?"

I nodded. "Meat Trees."

She laughed and said, "What are Meat Trees?"

Hearing her laugh was like she'd taken everything awful and everything I'd squandered and turned it into an ant, one tiny ant that I could barely see, something so small that it couldn't hurt me anymore, and if I held the ant, if I placed it on my skin, I'd feel its tiny weak legs walking all over me and I'd know that everything was going to be all right.

"You'll see. Would you like to take a walk after dinner?"

It was really cold, but we stuck with the plan, combing the streets of the Mission. We got big cups of coffee at Muddy Waters, strolling down Valencia, its unpaved chaos, its sleeping monsters still lined the side of the road. We passed an Irish bar that had "With or Without You" playing on the jukebox. I told Handa that you could go into any Irish bar in San Francisco and within fifteen minutes, a U2 song would come on.

"Why?" she said.

"Name another Irish rock band."

She didn't even have to think about it. "Flogging Molly"

"I think they're Americans."

"No, Irish."

"Irish-Americans?"

"Maybe," she said, "but I doubt it."

"My point stands: fifteen minutes in any Irish bar in SF and U2 will play."

We peered through the bar's foggy window Not a woman in the place. Skinny and pale men singing along with Bono, serenading imaginary lovers.

"Will you play a game with me, Big Boy?"