Joshua Mohr - Some Things That Meant the World to Me

I stepped on another stenciled message on the sidewalk, this one in red paint. It had an arrow pointing toward new luxury condos and said: Letsgentrify like itsgoing out of style!

I approached 19th Street and noticed the construction zone. The yellow machines ready to rip into the asphalt. The tired men in orange vests and hard hats, sipping from coffee cups. San Francisco had been replacing the water mains under Valencia Street for months now One of the workers fired up a jackhammer. Too much scraping chaos for my hangover, so I turned toward Bartlett Alley. Caffeine was my chief priority, followed by a shower to scrub the dumpster from my body, the moist clump from my hair. But as I took the turn onto Bartlett, about thirty feet away from the coffee shop, there was a homeless guy sleeping on the sidewalk with a splayed pizza box covering his face.

I took him as a sign. A symbol sent from the universe, a reminder that things could be worse. I looked around, but I swear that suddenly the streets were lifeless, abandoned, and when did that happen, the streets of the Mission district vacant, no pedestrians or cars or buses or bike riders? Even the clouds were fixed in the sky. Just me and the homeless man in our suspended moment. I looked down at him: his face curled inside a cardboard box that must have smelled like cheese and processed meat and had a snow angel of grease leached onto its piece of wax paper. Things could be worse. I mean, I could be sleeping on the street and using a pizza box as a pair of sunglasses.

I stood, staring at him. Feeling newly optimistic. Yes, I'd woken up in a dumpster, but I had an apartment to go to and I'd get another job soon, and I needed to stop being so hard on myself. I needed to make sure and remember this guy and his pizza box because even when things didn't seem like they could get any worse, there were always grotesque mutations.

I studied his filthy clothes, jeans and black T-shirt. We were wearing the exact same thing, and I wondered: what if this feeling faded away? What if I woke up tomorrow still stunned by the sleeping man, but the next day, the memory grew stale, and in a couple weeks I barely remembered seeing his agony, and next year it was as if I'd never witnessed him at all?

So I took off running to Walgreens, on the corner of 23rd and Mission, to buy a disposable camera. I wasn't going to let a gift like this disappear and I walked into the store and a muzak version of a John Lennon song that my mom used to sing played, its timeless melody reduced to the barbiturate of background noise.

I combed Walgreens' aisles looking for the cameras, walked by products to pluck and bleach and conceal and color. So many shades of brown to dye your hair. Chestnut, almond, cocoa, caramel. I walked by curling irons and greeting cards and ear drops. Finally, I had to ask an employee where the cameras were and she said that they were behind the counter and I paid for one and ran back to where the man had been sleeping. He was right where I'd left him, sprawled on the sidewalk in front of a used furniture store, its exterior painted like an Irish flag.

The streets were still empty. Miraculously empty. Their bustle erased. Not a peep from any jackhammers. I took the camera out of its cardboard box and wound it and snapped a bunch of photos, probably ten. I didn't want to bother the guy, just needed a few decent pictures of my milestone.

I tiptoed away from the sleeping man. Part of me wanted to thank him, but he had no idea he was my miracle.

As I walked toward the cafe, carrying my disposable camera, my indispensable pictures, all the hibernating animals of the neighborhood revived themselves. Cars and buses whizzed down the streets. Construction machines like prehistoric carnivores carved into the meat of the road. Passersby clad for downtown jobs power-walked to the BART station. A homeless woman had a dead houseplant in her shopping cart, her arms so skinny they looked like prosciutto wrapped around pigeon bones.

"Home is where the heart is," she said, holding the withered houseplant out to me.

One more stop on my way back to the apartment, after leaving the cafe. I needed some cigarettes, a cherry on top of any strong cup of black coffee.

Since it was so early, though, all the liquor stores weren't open yet, and I had to go up to the one on Dolores and 22nd Street. Stepped on another sidewalk stenciling that said, Stop the mar for oil. Ride a bike.

I walked in, and there was a young woman standing behind the counter. What can I tell you about the way she looked that won't reduce her to pounds, feet, inches? Hair and eye color? The hollow information from a driver's license. I can tell you she had a sexy belly jetting out from under her shirt, a haze of dark hairs around her bellybutton. When I went to sleep that night, I pretended my pillow was her stomach.

"Pack of Camels," I said.

For a few seconds, she didn't move to get the cigarettes, standing back there and looking at me as if the carcasses of my failures were mounted all over my face like taxidermy Mercifully, she turned around to grab them, and I surveyed the other merchandise behind the counter — booze and condoms mostly, but also a felt outline of a country that said "Jordan" underneath it. One of the boxes of condoms said "Magnum, extra-large."

When she tossed the cigarettes on the counter, I said, "I'll take some Magnums, too," because sometimes you need people to think there's something out of the ordinary about you.

The Jordanian Girl looked at me. Smirked. Blushed. Said, "You a big boy, huh?"

I laughed. "Yeah, I'm a big boy."

She put the cigarettes and condoms in a plastic bag. It didn't seem like she'd noticed the dumpster's smell all over me, the homeless cologne. "I moved in down the street so you'll be seeing lots of me," I said, not wanting to lie to her but needing a reason to start coming here as often as I could.

"What were you taking pictures of?" the Jordanian Girl said and pointed at my camera. Again, I didn't want to lie, but I worried that the truth might make her look at me the same way she had when I'd first entered the store, like I was a failure, and I couldn't bear that. "I take pictures of the neighborhood."

"Buildings? People? All the construction?"

"Pigeons."

She grimaced. "They're so ugly."

"That's what I like about them."

"Their ugliness?"

"The fact that they can't hide it," I said. "The rest of us spend our whole lives trying to trick each other."

"Are you tricking me?"

I picked up the bag with the condoms, felt a gust of embarrassment. "Can I take your picture?"

She shook her head. "This pigeon doesn't like to have her picture taken."

"Maybe next time."

"Anything is possible, but I wouldn't hold my breath."

I breathed as much air into my lungs as I could, cheeks ballooning out. About ten seconds later I exhaled, red-cheeked, dizzy, ready to pass out.

"You should quit smoking," she said.

One time I told my mom and Letch that I wanted to cook dinner for them.

"No way," Letch said. "Cooking skills are hereditary."

My mom laughed, almost spit some tcha-bliss out of her mouth. Everyone knew she could barely thaw dinner, let alone cook anything. "Don't listen to him, baby. We'd love for you to cook us dinner."

"Speak for yourself," Letch said. "I'm scared for my life."