Joshua Mohr - Some Things That Meant the World to Me

A voice came from beneath me. "You coming or what?"

I looked down and saw the light coming from little-Rhonda's helmet. Like a hotheaded coach, he clapped his hands and told me to hurry up.

"How'd you get down there?" I said.

"Climb faster."

"What is this place?"

"Come on. Chop, chop."

I made my way down. My arms ached. I should have been counting the ladder's rungs, so I'd know how far I'd dropped, but it was too late now

"Finally," little-Rhonda said, as my feet hit the floor.

I shook my arms, trying to get the feeling back in them. "Finally," I said back, mimicking him like I was the kid; I used the front of my T-shirt to wipe the sweat from my face.

"Got any smokes?" he said.

"You're a child."

"You smoke."

"I'm older."

"You're me," he said.

I couldn't win.

Little-Rhonda led me through a maze of corridors. He flipped his helmet's light off and asked if I was scared of the dark. "Knock it off," I said. It was so dark that the tip of his cigarette was like a flare, falling in the sky, guiding a rescue ship to someone stranded on an island.

He turned the light back on. "You're no fun."

"Are we in the sewer?"

"No, this is Sweden," he said and threw his cigarette on the ground. "This is a remote cabin in the Andes. This is an ancient Sri Lankan village."

"What are we doing down here?"

We came around another corner, and finally there was some light, a thin sliver of it peeking through the crack at the bottom of a closed door. Little-Rhonda twisted the knob, but before he opened it, he looked back at me and said, "What happens down here is just as important as what happens up there." He pushed the door open.

It was a small empty room. Over near the far wall was a puddle, in the shape of a Rorschach inkblot.

"Do you remember what that is?" he said.

I'd never forget Dr. Angel-Hair. Our talks. Our hours, days, and months, as he pried into me, stretching, trying to make me better. "I remember."

"Touch it."

I leaned over. My finger went into the puddle. The water was cold, oily. "What is it?"

"Jump in it."

'Why?"

"Because."

"Where will I go?"

"And you have to dive into it," he said.

"What?"

"Dive into it."

"Headfirst?"

"Headfirst."

"Why?"?

"Trust me."

I didn't answer him.

"Oh, Jesus," he said. "Am I going to have to throw you in?"

Me, Rhonda, scared but knowing I should listen. Like a child learning to dive, I put my hands over my head and stood on the edge of the puddle. I looked at little-Rhonda and he nodded at me. I bent at the waist awkwardly and moved my weight forward and took a huge breath, and my fingers went into the cold oily water, then my arms, my head, my torso, my legs, and I didn't want to open my eyes, knew I probably shouldn't open them since I didn't know what kind of liquid I fell into, but I couldn't stop myself. I opened them but couldn't see a thing, everything black, like freefalling down an elevator shaft filled with espresso. I fell and fell into it, kept wondering if I was going to run out of breath, but I never did. Me, Rhonda, an astronaut slipping farther into the darkness. My body slowed down, still falling but as if attached to an invisible parachute. My feet landed on something solid. I lay down on my stomach and noticed that the bottom of the puddle was made of glass.

Little-Rhonda and my mom were on the other side of the window He wasn't wearing his miner's helmet, so he looked like I used to look. He sat on the bathroom counter; he had a bloody nose, a swollen cheek. My mom had a bloody nose, too. Seeing them, seeing the way Letch had decorated their faces made me so mad I punched the glass between us, trying to shatter it so I could save them, and even though I was totally submerged, I could talk, yelling, "Hey! Hey!" but they never looked up, didn't know I was there. I could hear them so clearly, talking to each other in whispers.

"We're out of cotton balls, baby," my mom said to him.

"Do we have any toilet paper?"

"No."

"Coffee filters?"

"Sorr\c"

"Any old fast food napkins?"

She shook her head, saying, "We'll have to use your sock."

She got down onto her knees, removed his shoe, snatched his sock. She tilted it against the hydrogen peroxide bottle and dabbed it against his cheek. He flinched. He said, "Will you sing to me?"

She soaked the sock with more hydrogen peroxide and rubbed it on his cheek's tiny cut. She started singing a John Lennon song; he was her favorite. She only made it through the first few lines before she said, "Do you mind if I hum, baby? My face is killing me."

He nodded and she hummed, her mouth right by his ear. I closed my eyes, and it was like she was by my face: I could feel her breath, could smell the hydrogen peroxide, and having her that close to me was like nothing bad had ever happened.

"Will you clean my nose?" she said to him. He poured some peroxide onto his sock, dabbed away the blood. She pursed her lips. I think she was trying to smile. "Are you hungry, baby?"

He nodded.

"I can thaw some taquitos."

He nodded again, ran the sock under some hot water, scrubbed the last flecks of dried blood off her upper lip. "All done."

"How do I look?" she said.

"Great."

"Aren't you a smooth talker."

"You look really great."

She took the sock from him and leaned down. Where their blood had soaked the sock, it was the pale color a cherry Popsicle stained its stick. She slipped it back on his foot, the shoe after. "Do you want to help me with the taquitos?"

He nodded again; she kissed him; they walked out of the bathroom.

I tried to follow them but knocked into the wall. The space I was in was no wider than the backseat of a taxi. I sat down again, hoping they'd come back to the bathroom. If I waited long enough, they'd have to, because Letch would give them new shiners to clean.

I would have waited forever, just to hear her hum again, but I was running out of breath.

Next thing I knew a Mexican man shoved his finger in my face. "Capitan Basura!" he shouted, poking me hard in the cheek. Then he changed the timbre of his voice to imitate an emasculated Caucasian: "Check out time, sir. How was your stay? Did you enjoy any treats from the mini-bar?" He hit his palm on the side of the dumpster, howling, yelling to one of his coworkers, in English, to come outside, you won't believe it, take a look at this fucking guy.

I didn't say anything but tried to get my footing on that topsy-turvy heap of trash. I could barely stand up straight, put my arms out like a tightrope walker. "Will you help me get out?" I pleaded.

"Get lost," he said to me and switched to Spanish, saying something to his friend who had just walked up. They did a complicated handshake — palms slapping and twisting, fingers snapping. His friend said to him, "He doesn't look homeless."

"I'm not," I said, climbing out, walking away, scratching my head. Something wet clumped in my hair. I didn't remember falling asleep in the dumpster. I wrung my memory, but there wasn't anything besides blackness, and sometimes things were so black they were more than a color: they were a place, a lonely solar system.

I walked onto Valencia. It was early, maybe eight a.m. The fog slithered down Twin Peaks into the Mission. Pretty soon the air would be wet and carrying the faintest taste of the ocean. Scrawny trees lined the street, and they were losing their leaves, tiny brown bodies falling to the pavement like dying butterflies.