In the Weeds

by Daniel Browne

  Seth was the first to speak. “This is a new one for me. Are you sure it’s cool for us to take over a public amenity?”

  Jack answered with an equivocal tilt of the head. “We’ll go to the community board for approval, of course. That’s a given. But look at what’s here now. Hard to argue your garden wouldn’t be an improvement.”

  “It’s a farm.” Elliot beat me to it.

  Jack raised his hand, begging our pardon. He was able to wring many meanings from the same basic gesture and always be understood. “Terrific. And a farm needs space. The court will give you just as much square footage as the roof.”

  “What about the wall?” Twitchy asked, probably anxious he’d have to figure out how to get rid of it.

  Seth ambled over to the fence, heeding the call of destiny. “The wall is the best thing about the space. It gives it history, authenticity. Picture a ten-foot trellis covered with hanging vines, beans, peas, tomatoes.”

  Elliot joined him, stepping over the offering left by the black lab. “The kids could paint a mural on the other side. For some reason, I’m seeing Johnny Appleseed with Jay-Z’s face.”

  Kat was snapping pictures with her phone. “What about rainwater collection? You could put cisterns on top of the building next door and run a pipe down to the court. Landlords get an abatement for that. I read about it for one of my classes. And that way, you’ll still have something on a roof, so the name won’t sound so wack.”

  I wasn’t sure if I wanted to kiss her or Elliot for hiring her. The rapt looks on Elliot and Seth’s faces suggested they were feeling the same.

  John was keeping his own counsel. Elliot gave him a tentative thumbs-up and raised his eyebrows to make it a question.

  “This community board thing,” John said. “Any way around that?”

  Jack inspected the ash accruing at the end of his cigarette. “Let’s put it this way. The decision ultimately rests with us, and the decision is made. But we’re more comfortable moving forward with projects that have the community’s seal of approval.”

  All eyes, except Jack’s, were on John.

  “I don’t want to fall down the rabbit hole,” he said.

  “Nothing to worry about. I’ll be there to help you grease the skids. And aren’t these two”—Jack waved in the direction of me and Elliot—“Vivienne’s protégés? They must know their way around a community board.”

  I locked eyes with John. “Trust us. We know how to handle this.”

  His nod was almost imperceptible, but somehow Jack picked up on it with his back turned.

  “Right, then. I’ll see about getting you on the agenda for the next meeting. In the meantime, we’ll set you up with a community garden license. My colleague Winston will take care of that. You may need a school garden license, too. Winston will know. Once you’re licensed, we can supply you with soil, tools, whatever we’ve got lying around really. You’ll be part of the family.”

  Maybe that should’ve made us think twice, especially Elliot and me, who knew firsthand that, as families go, city government is more Borgia than Cleaver. But really, what was there to think about? The Schlossers, Twitchy, that tree-hugger Bloomberg, even John—it looked like everyone was going to get what they wanted.

  * * *

  Winston from GreenThumb—the city’s community garden program—was a reedy young black guy with sleepy eyes, a goatee, and a houndstooth newsie cap.

  “So you guys want to join the movement, eh?” That was his opening line when he met us at the handball court later that week.

  “You know it,” I said, though I wasn’t exactly clear on what he was talking about.

  “Cool. I like to make sure people know their history before they sign up. It’s a lot to live up to.”

  We agreed maybe a bit too eagerly. Winston sized us up. “You know, this shit is personal to me. My moms was a Green Guerilla back in the day, throwing seed bombs over the fence in Bed-Stuy.”

  Lucky for us, it wasn’t hard to get him going on the subject, and soon enough we were fully up to speed on the Green Guerilla movement. Apparently, during the fiscal crisis of the ’70s, when the city was a patchwork of vacant lots and bombed-out buildings, neighborhood activists would pack balloons with tomato seeds, fertilizer, and water and then chuck them over barbed wire, rogue acts of beautification. Liz Christy, the founder of the Green Guerillas and a friend of Winston’s mom, took over a lot on the Bowery in 1974 and eventually convinced the powers that be to lease it to her for a $1 a month: the city’s first official community garden. GreenThumb came along a few years later. The Guerillas were still around, too, only now they were more into plant giveaways than seed bombings. I wondered what they’d make of our plans for the handball court, the welcome circle, and the woven bamboo fence. So much for the days of pelting the concrete with dirt and seeds till something sprouted.

  Winston clearly longed for that grimy, anarchic era. A lot of city kids I knew who came of age in the Giuliani years felt like they’d missed out on all that crazy, rip-it-up-and-start-again energy. Most pined for Television, Spoonie Gee, and Basquiat. For Winston, it was Liz Christy and the Guerillas. Elliot said something flattering about him carrying on his mother’s legacy, and a faraway look came over him.

  “Yeah, it’s deep. Really, though, I don’t believe in change from within the system. I’m just doing this till the revolution comes.”

  Fair enough. Winston inspected the handball court and made some desultory checkmarks on his clipboard. “This would be a great spot for growing weed. You’d probably need armed guards, though.”

  I could tell Elliot wanted to follow up on that suggestion, but the window of opportunity closed quickly.

  “What are you guys planning to do for water?” he asked.

  It was an issue we hadn’t really thought through clearly since the big change in plans. I mentioned Kat’s rainwater collection idea.

  Winston smoothed his goatee. “Cool, cool. But it’s not going to be enough to get by on.” He flipped through the papers on his clipboard. “My records say there’s a pipe somewhere under the playground. They probably thought about putting in a fountain at some point. I’m telling you straight-up, though, Parks would have to tear up the whole place to find it. I don’t want that shit and neither do you.”

  We nodded. No way was I telling the community board we were going to have to destroy the neighborhood’s only playground to water our radicchio.

  Winston peered through the chain link at something on the other side of the street. “There’s a fire hydrant over there. Problem is, you have to call the firehouse every time you need water. If they’re good dudes and you bring them some beers every now and then, they may come when you call. Then again, they may not.”

  We told him that sounded less than ideal.

  “Some gardens have permission to open the hydrant themselves, but it looks like they put a custodian lock on this one. Too many block parties in the summer. What do they expect? It’s not like there’s a pool anywhere in walking distance. But that’s the man for you.”

  “Can’t they just give us a key to the lock?” I asked.

  “You need a magnetic wrench to get it off.”

  “So can they give us a magnetic wrench, then?”

  Winston shoulders rose so slightly I could hardly tell he was laughing at me. “They’ve probably only got the one. They’re custom made to fit the lock. Cost a few thousand each.”

  “A few thousand?”

  “If I were you, I’d make friends with whoever owns this place”—he nodded towards the building next door—“and if you can’t make friends with them, make friends with someone who lives there and knows where they keep the hose.”

  “Guerilla style,” I said.

  Winston didn’t answer. Whether it was a you-didn’t-hear-it-from-me silence or a how-dare-these-white-boys-appropriate-my-mother’s-legacy silence was hard to say.

  * * *

  Before Winston could issue us a license, we needed to
collect signatures from the farm’s ten charter members. We tried to explain that this wasn’t to be a traditional community garden, that the primary users would be the Begin to Win students and teachers, but he didn’t seem particularly interested. Dude was a revolutionary in waiting, but when it came to the execution of his GreenThumb duties, rules were rules. Not that the signatures represented a major hurdle; really, we could have just rounded up Seth, Twitchy, Kat, Edgar, and the teachers Elliot had gotten to know at the school and called it day. (Something told me John would be cagey about signing an official document, however benign.)

  But why pass up an opportunity to introduce ourselves to the neighborhood? We decided that we’d canvass the building next door first, since we needed to figure out the situation with the hose anyway. Buzzing various apartments didn’t get us anywhere. Either everyone was at work or the intercom was broken. Peering into the narrow, unlit vestibule, it was hard to escape the impression that the place wasn’t kept up too well. The linoleum was dingy and peeling. The garbage cans around back were uncovered.

  I’d be lying if I said I was expecting the first tenant we encountered to be a willowy white girl with waist-length hair pushing a vintage Schwinn, a rolled up canvas balanced atop the basket. She was a Pratt graduate named Sasha, and she was psyched about the farm.

  “Not much going on to make this feel like a real community,” she said. As our chat went on, she mentioned that she was also a part-time art teacher at Begin to Win.

  “Didn’t you hear about us from Principal Jenner or the teachers on the farm committee?” Elliot asked.

  Sasha shrugged. “They don’t tell us anything. Honestly, it’s kind of a shit show over there. I try to just keep my head down.”

  Sasha was soon joined by Xander, a cartoonist she knew from Pratt. Xander had a bleach blonde crew cut and a skateboard with a Keith Haring design. We seemed to have stumbled on a den of slumming artists. Xander said he spent most of his time at a studio space he shared with some of the other residents, but he was happy to help out whenever he was around. “I’m all for it. About time someone did something about that situation.” I wouldn’t have said the state of the handball court was so bad it constituted a “situation,” but then again, I didn’t live next to it. Sasha and Xander both signed on to be members of the farm and said they’d spread the word. Neither had any insight into the whereabouts of the hose.

  Around lunchtime, a black SUV rolled up, and out of it stepped a young Hasid in shirtsleeves, a black fedora fighting the jack-in-the-box trajectory of his ginger curls. “There’s our landlord,” Elliot whispered as he crossed the street towards us. He was smiling, but he didn’t extend his hand as he approached.

  “You fellas were here yesterday, looking around.” Apparently, we’d already succeeded in establishing our presence in the neighborhood. “You with the city?”

  We explained what we were up to. As he listened, he tugged absently at one of his sidelocks.

  “A garden, huh? That’s good. Because this”—he waved at the handball court—“this is a problem for me.”

  He didn’t say why it was a problem, and we didn’t ask. Maybe his “problem” was the same as Xander’s “situation.” Whatever the case, it was promising for us.

  “Will you be installing a gate in the fence,” the landlord asked. I hadn’t noticed till then that the entrance to the court was just a gap in the chain link. “Believe me, you need one around here. Razor wire and cameras, too, if you want to protect your investment.”

  We agreed a gate was a must but let the other suggestions lie.

  “And what would you think of a second gate connecting my courtyard to your garden?”

  By “courtyard,” he could only mean the back alley with the uncovered garbage cans, separated from the handball court by another length of chain link, which was indeed topped with razor wire. I was starting to see why he was so interested in our little project. Elliot told him the farm—he made sure to emphasize the word—would be full of children from the school most of the time and therefore off-limits to other visitors. The landlord didn’t seem particularly fazed.

  “So evenings and weekends, then. We’ll just put up a sign with the hours and tell them not to eat the kiddies’ asparagus.”

  “It’s an intriguing idea,” I said, measuring the words. But not a very good one, I added silently.

  The landlord laid one hand on my shoulder and the other on Elliot’s. “Sure it is. You get your water supply—and water isn’t cheap these days, believe me—plus whatever you want to do up on the roof. Sounds kooky, but what do I know? I’m no farmer.” He gave the word “farmer” a little extra tickle. “And I get the only property in the neighborhood with garden access for every tenant.”

  “The main thing you’ll be getting is a major tax abatement,” I said.

  The landlord nodded. “The tax abatement and garden access. Everybody wins.”

  “By law, we can only grant access to people who sign up to become members.” I was pretty sure what I was saying wasn’t true, but I didn’t want to give in just yet. “At the very least, you’ll have the only building in the neighborhood with garden views.”

  The landlord pursed his lips. “You just put in the gate, and we’ll work out the details. You’ve met them, my tenants? They’re good kids. They get a little crazy, some of them, with the piercings and the tattoos, but they’re all from solid families. Everyone who knows me knows: I only rent to good people.”

  That this was code was lost on none of us. I had the urge to walk away from the deal, but instead I grit my teeth and shook the landlord’s hand. We’d have to revise Seth’s assignment: give the farm enough wow-factor to make it a model for schools across the nation but not so much that it would give the landlord an excuse to jack up the rent on our new artist friends. Was that even possible?

  “Please tell me this is going to be worth it,” I said to Elliot as we parted ways with the landlord.

  He tousled my hair like I was his youthful ward. “Pizza time, kemosabe.”

  Shovel Ready

  There was a notable new addition to the decor at Rita’s: scattered across the communal tables was a herd of ceramic piggy banks, painted gold with Chinese characters on the side, probably bought in bulk at Pearl River Mart. A handwritten label stuck on our piggy’s flank said, “Don’t be such a tightwad. Help us build a kickass farm and bring REAL FOOD to the people!” I had questions, naturally—Did Elliot know? How much money had John raised? Where was the money? Was anybody keeping the books?—and I was in the mood for a principled confrontation to make up for our vaguely grubby negotiation with the landlord. John, however, was nowhere to be found. Instead, we got Greta, Tommy Brutti consigliere by day, rock-and-roll pizza slinger by night, only it was mid-afternoon and here she was in stonewash jeans and a muscle shirt so faded I couldn’t make out the band logo. Hard to tell if she was on the clock, and if so, for whom.

  “I’m supposed to be meeting with John, but he’s too busy running shit,” she said. “That’s cool, though. I needed to talk to you guys anyway. Tommy’s not happy.”

  This came as a surprise. On TV, Tommy always seemed happy, aggressively so.

  “He wants to know what happened with the roof. He was very excited about the roof.”

  We explained the situation: the thought of sequestering the farm high above the ground where average folk couldn’t reach made the Schlossers’ big hearts hurt. Fortunately, the handball court was turning out to be an exciting prospect; our partnership with Parks was adding another level of innovation and collaboration to the whole shebang. It was an impressive spin—at least I thought it was. Greta seemed unmoved.

  “Reclaimed space, that was one of your major selling points.”

  “The handball court is reclaimed space,” I said. “It’s abandoned.”

  “It’s a reclaimed space. But how many abandoned handball courts could there be? We were talking about every school in the city having a rooftop farm. ‘Fuck the s
upply chain.’ Tommy loved that.”

  I wanted to remind her that those were John’s words, not ours, but it didn’t seem like it would be helpful. I said once the pilot was up and running there was nothing to prevent us from replicating the model on rooftops.

  “So maybe get back to us when you’re ready to take that step. Because that’s really Tommy’s interest here.”

  “I thought his interest was helping kids.”

  It was out before I could stop myself. Greta, to her credit, didn’t rise to the bait. Instead, her expression softened, and she adopted a gentler tone.

  “Look, I’m sorry it has to be this way. It sucks. Normally, I’d try to fix this, but between you and me, he’s really pissed he didn’t hear it directly from you. He’s used to having a say.”

  It hadn’t occurred to me to ask how he’d found out. I was about to, but Elliot stepped in, offering to apologize directly to Tommy if it would help.

  Greta shook her head. “It won’t. Just this morning he was saying, ‘Their name is Raise the motherfucking Roof, for Christ’s sake.’ He thinks you tried to mislead him.”

  I was starting to babble about how technically the name was still valid because of the rainwater cisterns, but she cut me off.

  “Look at it from his perspectives. The foundation’s brand new. This was going to be his first big project. But if he’s not all in, he’s not going to dip a toe. The man’s just not a toe-dipper.”

  I was no longer entirely sure what she was talking about, but it hardly mattered. I asked her if Tommy could at least keep his decision quiet for now; I didn’t want the other funders, least of all Prometheus, to find out we’d lost our matching grant. She assured us he’d forget we ever existed by tomorrow.

  “Now, let’s get wasted, so we can go back to being friends.”

  Elliot was game, as always, but between the landlord’s garden access, Tommy Brutti’s reclaimed space, and those golden piggies with their cartoon eyes, I just wasn’t in the mood. Some of us, I said, had a community board meeting to prep for.