Joshua Mohr - Some Things That Meant the World to Me

Our garage door went up and my mom backed her car out. As she was driving up our street, she pulled over next to me and said, "Did you miss the bus?"

"I was three minutes early," I said, and she said, "Then where is it?" and I said, "Maybe it's still coming," and she said, "Jesus Christ," and I said, "I swear I was here early," and she said, "Just get in."

We drove. She sped, weaving in between cars, honking. She smoked and flicked the butts out the window.

"If I lose my job," she said, but never finished her thought, just kept saying that, over and over, "If I lose my job…" and "If I lose my job…"

I was starving and kept saying, "Sorry; Mom."

"I don't want you to be sorry," she said. "I want you to stop making my life so hard."

There was a clock on her radio, and I watched it, trying to slow the numbers down with my mind. I looked at green stoplights as we drove up to intersections and tried to keep the lights green, too. I tried to do everything I could think of to help, because I didn't want her to lose another job, and I didn't want it to be my fault.

We approached the last stop light before my school. It was green. I focused on it. I told it, please, you have to help me, you don't know what will happen if she doesn't make it.

I tried to reason with this light, to level with it, to show it our side of things.

But it wasn't listening. It went yellow. Red. My mom went, "Slut."

I counted every second until it went green again. Mom lit another cigarette. The veins in her arthritic hands looked like blue pens.

We turned right onto my school's street. I already had my backpack in hand. I said, "Just pull over and I'll jump out," and she said, "Okay," and I said, "I'm so sorry for this morning," and she said, "Don't worry," and I said, "No really, Mom, I'm so sorry if I ruined your job," and she said, "Just forget it," and we pulled up in front of my school, and the entire parking lot was empty.

There weren't any buses. Any cars.

There weren't any students or teachers walking around.

The place was completely deserted.

I looked at her, and she had this huge smile on her face.

She said, "I got you!" and I said, "What?" and she said, "It's Saturday, silly."

I didn't understand what was happening.

She told me that she'd made the whole thing up as a joke: she'd decided to wake me up instead of letting me sleep in so she could play a little trick on me. She said, "Were you surprised?" and I said, "Yeah," and she said, "You didn't have any idea?" and I said, "No way;" and she said, "I got you good," and she leaned over and tickled me, and I never minded being tickled, even though sometimes her nails were rough on my skin.

"How about breakfast?" she said, and I said, "You don't have to work?" and she said, "We've both got the day off."

We went to a diner, and I ate a sausage omelet while mom drank black coffee and kept on smoking. Every once in a while she'd excuse herself to go to the bathroom, but I didn't mind. The bathroom was in the back, and there wasn't a door near there. I knew she couldn't disappear until we left. I ate my omelet as slow as I could.

The next morning, I had a hankering for Lucky Charms. Old lady Rhonda asked me for my wallet, said she left her money upstairs but not to worry, she'd pay me back.

"You don't have to do that," I said.

"Once you're cooking again, you can buy the cereal. Until then, I'm your sugar-mama buying sugary cereal." She also said she felt like mimosas, and she'd be back in ten minutes for Lucky Charms and cocktails.

I stayed on the burned couch, dozing.

I had my nightmare. I'm still working up the courage to tell you about it.

When I finally heard the front door open and close, it wasn't her, but little-Rhonda. "Good morning, sunshine," he said.

"Old lady Rhonda is coming right back," I said. "Don't you have something else to do?"

"Are you getting rid of me?"

"I'm trying."

My neck hurt from the charred couch so I crawled over to my mattress, which was still streaked in Madeline's entrails. I let my hand linger over her blot, but I have to tell you that I didn't feel sad. I didn't see the stain and feel defeated. And once I'd seen the stain, my good hand didn't shimmy like a possessed maraca. Yes, I thought of Madeline, I missed Madeline, but I was all right. There was no Letch haunting me. No Lyle ignoring or hurting old lady Rhonda. Just me and her, two people who'd been segregated from happiness.

An hour later she still wasn't back and I worried something had happened. I put some clothes on and walked downstairs to our usual liquor store.

"You seen Rhonda?" I asked the guy.

"Half an hour ago."

"Did she say where she was going?"

"No, but they seemed like they were fighting."

"They?"

"Her and Lyle."

"Lyle's gone."

"He was just here"

"Are you sure?"

"I've known Lyle a long time."

"And he was just here?"

"Rhonda started buying this," the guy said, tapping a box of Lucky Charms, some OJ, and champagne. They sat behind the counter. "But then Lyle walked in and said he had to talk to her right now"

"Was he mad?"

"How do I know?"

"Was he yelling?"

"No."

"Was he aggressive?"

"Like what?"

"Did he grab her?"

`Yes.'

"Where?"

"The elbow"

"Was she hurt?"

"How do I know?"

"Did she look hurt?"

"She looked fine."

"What do you mean `fine'?"

The guy picked up a remote control and flipped on a little TV. "She didn't look hurt."

"Are you sure?"

"No."

"No?"

He changed channels, zooming through them, stopping on a soccer game. "I don't know. She looked normal, okay?"

"Then what?"

"Then they left."

"Did they say where they were going?"

"No."

"Did they go to their apartment?"

"I don't know!" he said and fiddled with the TV's volume until it was so loud people could probably hear soccer blaring in the lower Haight.

I was back in my apartment. Pacing. Opening and closing my good fist as it shuddered with angry life. There was a knife lying on the counter. It wasn't that sharp, but if I had to, I could take it upstairs to defend myself. "Where are you?" I said, hoping little-Rhonda would answer me, that he'd help me figure out what was supposed to happen next. Should I go up there and pound on the door? Should I hold the knife behind my back?

It was the only knife I owned. I used it for everything. I sliced cheese for quesadillas. I used its tip as a screwdriver, its handle as a hammer.

Then my toilet flushed, and little-Rhonda walked out carrying the newspaper. He looked at me, knew something was wrong, and said, "What?"

"Her husband's back."

"And?"

"He took her," I said, and as soon as the words wormed their way out of my mouth, my hand took off buzzing at mach speeds because I was convinced I'd never see her again. That he'd hurt her. Or hold her hostage. That he'd say, "We're still married and I want to work things out," and she'd say, "I love Rhonda Eke a son," and he'd say, "Not if I have anything to do with it," and if I never saw old lady Rhonda again it would be the worst disappearing act of them all.