In the Weeds

by Daniel Browne

  Mostly, they were proud of their handiwork and eager for my seal of approval. For reasons I can’t entirely explain (stick around, Dr. Freud), I was tight with my praise, doling out a “Not bad” or “Getting there” when a “Great job!” or “Awesome!” would probably have been more developmentally appropriate. I even told one boy he needed to start over because his well was too close to his neighbor’s. Part of it, I think, was that I didn’t want mine to be the remedial group. If Kat had to fix my rows later, I would carry the shame with me for all my remaining days.

  Amazingly enough, the kids responded well to my style. They seemed motivated by the idea that this was a job to be taken seriously. The girl with the missing tooth, for instance, had apparently overheard me critiquing her classmate; she asked for a ruler so she could make sure there was enough space between all the seeds. I thought that might be taking things too far, but the others seemed to like the idea of an official inspection. Maybe it was a side effect of being tested all the time. Happily, I was saved by the bell: Sasha came by just then with popsicle sticks and felt-tip pens. Each plant would be marked with the name of its caretaker, who would observe its progress over the coming months and, when the time came, feast on its ripened goodness.

  Farming done for the day, it was time for art. Wasn’t that just how Marx envisioned it?

  Clapping for the kids’ attention, Sasha told them to turn over their construction paper and, with the pens she’d given them, draw pictures of their own. The theme was what your seed will look like once it grows. Interpretations varied. Some tried to copy Ash’s friendly cartoon veggies. Others had a field day with scale, scrawling carrots as tall as buildings. Still others depicted family scenes: mom, dad, and siblings sitting down to a single cucumber. My favorite was an expressionist take on Elliot’s photosynthesis lesson: a bulbous pepper gobbling up jagged sunrays and breathing out swirling gusts of oxygen. The saddest came from a mousy girl who turned in an accurate representation of the seed she’d been handed, nothing more. Whether she’d been conditioned to keep her expectations low or just lacked imagination, I couldn’t say.

  Sasha collected all the drawings and, with Ash’s help, began taping them to the handball wall, while Seth snapped away like a paparazzo. She informed the kids that their big art project for the summer would be turning the drawings into a single mural for the whole neighborhood to enjoy. That seemed to go over well, though a few suddenly had second thoughts about their contributions. Kat told the group she’d be tending to their plants all summer; anyone who wanted to help her water and weed should bring a note from their parents. Before we knew it, Miss Marcella was checking her watch, the children were filing out, and we were waving goodbye, our first class in the books. The finicky girl stopped on her way out to ask for my assurance that no one would move or otherwise mess with her seed in her absence. I promised.

  Class dismissed, the Raise the Roof team indulged in the satisfaction of a job well done. Ash and Kat pored over the pictures taped to the wall like they were at a Chelsea gallery. Seth was glued to his viewfinder, clicking through the precious moments he’d captured, grumbling, “So many adorable faces, and no permission slips.” I was inspecting my seedbed for any irregularities, when Elliot sidled up.

  “So?” His eyebrows hadn’t gotten the message that the children were gone.

  And I guess I was stuck in tough love mode because all I said was, “Not bad.”

  “Yeah, if by not bad you mean totally fucking awesome.”

  Daryl and his silent partners showed up at their usual time. They were none too pleased when they saw how much they’d missed.

  “You gonna let those kids mess up our wall with all that trash?”

  “It’ll look better once we get it all plotted onto a grid,” Ash said. “I promise.”

  “Whatever, man, I just work here.”

  They were even more aggrieved when we told them they had to leave before the special ed class arrived.

  “So it’s like that, huh? Y’all forgetting your roots?”

  Kat told them to come back tomorrow. The rainwater collection system still had a ways to go.

  “We’ll see. We could be busy tomorrow.”

  They skated off on the boards Craig had made them.

  Sal’s class came in the afternoon. It was a much smaller group: eight students in all, with five adults—including Edgar and Sal—attending to them. There was a range of ages; the oldest seemed to be a teenager, the youngest about the same age as Miss Marcella’s third-graders. Their conditions varied, too. Several weren’t noticeably disabled, maybe just a bit less attentive and slower of speech than the Begin to Win students. Others showed signs of autism or palsy. The teen was the most severe case. The entire right side of his face and body sagged; his mouth was open and his upper lip pulled back from his teeth in a permanent grimace; his left hand was upturned, the fingers crooked and splayed. Watching them slowly shuffle through the gate, bearing their tomatillos, chilies, and herbs in plastic pots, I had to smile like a Nickelodeon host just to keep it together. I tried to buck myself up by reciting the Begin to Win values—Respect! Preparation! Excellence! Spirit!—under my breath.

  Elliot led them to the section of the farm we’d set aside for their plants. A moment of awkward hesitation followed, as the students milled around; one of them tugged on Edgar’s sleeve, while another pressed her face against the chain link fence. I noticed the three ballers—Oakley, Oakley, and Spre—keeping an eye on us from across the street.

  Sal’s Playboy medallion was concealed by a velour track jacket. He appeared to be waiting for us to make the next move.

  “Do you want to say something or should I?” Elliot asked him.

  Sal cracked his neck with what seemed to me exaggerated indolence. “Doesn’t make a difference.”

  Elliot went for it. “Hey, guys. Welcome to the farm. We’re so glad you could be here today. Are you excited to plant some vegetables with us?”

  No response, aside from a sort of wordless mumble from a girl with a hearing aid, and she didn’t even make eye contact. Sal shook his head, as if to say, “What an amateur.”

  Now it was Sal’s turn. “Listen up, kids. These guys are trying to start a garden, but they don’t have any plants. So they asked us if they could borrow our plants. What do you say?”

  He didn’t get much more of a reaction than Elliot, just some redoubled mumbling and a couple of head bobs, but it seemed to meet his satisfaction.

  “Let’s get to it.”

  There was no primer on photosynthesis, no construction paper or popsicle sticks. We didn’t try to teach them proper planting technique. What happened was this: each of us—Edgar, Sal, the other teachers, Elliot, Kat, and me—squatted beside one of the students and helped them remove their plant from its pot and transfer it to the ground. I was paired with the mumbling girl. My job was first to dig a hole that could accommodate her chili plant, which she held close to her chest like a doll. It was a beautiful plant, the first buds already coming in a glossy red. The girl was reluctant to give it up. I asked her if she wanted to place it in the hole herself, but I couldn’t understand her answer or even tell for sure if she was answering me. We seemed to have reached an impasse, until Sal came over and, putting his arm over her shoulder, gently talked her through it. She set the pot down between us, and together, we burrowed in with our fingers and carefully extracted the plant. My instinct was to quickly get it into the waiting hole, but Sal stopped me with a look. Leaning in close to her ear, he continued to quietly encourage her. Her inchoate commentary grew more excited, her blazing blue eyes wider, as she lowered the plant into the ground herself. All that was left for me to do was top off the hole with soil. I didn’t realize until we were done that I’d been holding my breath.

  That experience alone was enough for me, enough to justify the sore back and bruised ego I’d picked up over the last few weeks, the groveling at various feet—Gollick’s, Greta’s, the battleaxes of CB3—not to mention
the chintzy economies at home, canceling the cable, asking Tricia not to run the AC, even though our fourth-floor apartment was stuffy as a motherfucker. Finally, here was the proof it was all worth it. But it was nothing compared to what happened next.

  The girl began to stroke the chili plant like it was a pet. Again, my gut reaction was wrong: I was nervous she might damage it or get a burn from the capsaicin in the chili buds. This time, though, I didn’t need a look from Sal to keep me from ruining the moment. I held myself in check, letting the situation unfold of its own accord. And what unfolded was a blissed-out communion so mesmerizing it was a while before I realized I was as absorbed in watching the girl as she was in petting the plant. Subconsciously, I must have wanted us all to be connected because I actually caught myself reaching out to pat her head. I glanced at Sal to check whether he’d noticed; the way he looked at me, thin lips ratcheted into a shape resembling a smile, gave me the sense he knew what I was thinking and it was all right.

  “Touch is the thing for her,” he said. “It’s the thing for a lot of these kids. We’re gonna need the jaws of life to get her back to class.”

  “Sorry about that,” I said.

  “Hey, we’d be doing this with or without you, or did you forget already?”

  “Right. I guess I should be saying thanks for including us.”

  “Don’t mention it.” Sal punched my shoulder, a little harder than he needed to. “These kids love to help the less fortunate.”

  When everyone had finished, we found ourselves surrounded by a heady jumble of colors and scents. We’d brought the farm—a piece of it, anyway—to life. Now the entire neighborhood, from the three ballers to the artists next door, could see for themselves we were for real. The word was out: a calabaza grows in Brooklyn.

  As Sal had anticipated, the goodbyes took longer than they had for Miss Marcella’s class. My girl with the hearing aid whimpered when he told her it was time to leave. He promised she could come back to visit her chilies next week, but that didn’t console her. Then he said they had to go because it was time for Zumba, and that did the trick. She slowly drew her hand back from the plant and held it out so Sal could help her to her feet. Even then, she didn’t take her eyes off it until they were halfway across the parking lot that separated the farm from the school.

  Once they’d gone inside, I stood for a while, as reluctant as she was to let the moment go. Eventually, I found Elliot over by the shed consulting with Kat on next week’s watering schedule.

  “Now that,” I said, “was totally fucking awesome.”

  * * *

  That evening, Seth sent us a link to a gallery of the photos he’d taken. I sat with Tricia on the couch, the laptop between us, and narrated as she clicked through the record of my day. It was hard to get a true sense from the pictures; ever-diligent, Seth had weeded out any that showed the children’s faces. I went on at length about the ones I got to spend time with, especially the chili whisperer. Tricia lingered over every photo. When we got to the end, she slipped an arm around my waist.

  “Wow, you guys rocked it.”

  “We did, didn’t we? We actually made it happen.”

  “You sound surprised.”

  “Relieved maybe. I know this was only the beginning. We haven’t even made it to Marnie’s ribbon-cutting. But what we did today...that’s my life now.”

  Tricia laid her head against my chest. She’d recently gotten her hair cut short, and the sight of her bare neck was a novelty. I brushed it with my fingertips.

  “You know,” she said, “it’s cool to see how much you like being with the kids.”

  “Who knew, right?”

  “Especially since I’m pregnant.”

  I couldn’t see her face because it was still buried in my chest. I took her by the shoulders and tried to wriggle out from under her.

  “Are you serious?”

  Tricia was quiet.

  “I don’t understand. How could this happen?”

  “About a month ago I switched to a different pill. In retrospect, there was a week we should’ve used back-up.”

  “Aren’t you a doctor?”

  “I spay my patients! I’m not giving them Seasonique!”

  “Why did you switch in the first place?”

  Tricia barely opened her mouth to answer. “I was trying to save money.”

  “Oh, well, I hope you kept your receipt!”

  “Stay with me here, buddy. I’m just as freaked out as you are.”

  My eyes started roving around our apartment—the uneven wood floors, perfect for upending a wobbly toddler; the exposed heat pipe; the kitchen window that didn’t lock. And had it always been so small? The previous tenant had used the closet as a second bedroom, so maybe we could make it work...

  “We’re going to need a bigger place,” I said.

  “We might.”

  “Jesus. We can’t even afford cable right now.”

  “But once Gollick’s check comes in, you’ll have enough to start paying yourself, right?”

  I was slow to answer. “We should have enough.”

  “Should?”

  “I mean, that’s the idea, but there are a lot of factors involved.”

  “Factors?”

  For starters, we owed Seth for materials and labor. We also had to get Kat on the payroll. She’d been on loan from Vivienne up to this point, but we needed her to officially take charge of all the plants that were now in our care. Summer had come early, and it was shaping up to be a scorcher; one day without watering would be enough to wipe out our crop. Elliot and I could pick up a few shifts a week, but we needed to focus on curriculum development, grant-writing, big-picture stuff.

  Like coming up with an out-years budget. Gollick had warned us we needed a sustainability plan, and Prometheus wasn’t likely to give us another dime without one. So whatever was left after paying Seth and Kat, we’d have to think about rolling at least a portion of it over to next year. Of course, next year we wouldn’t have construction costs to worry about—unless we decided we were ready to replicate the program at another school. Come to think of it, hadn’t I promised the good people of Bed-Stuy something to that effect?

  Tricia had been inching backwards as I talked. Now she was perched on the arm of the couch. “Do I need to be worried?”

  I tried to reassure her. In theory, there would be enough to do it all—pay our bills, staff up, set aside something for next year, and compensate ourselves for our considerable troubles. After all, we’d asked Gollick for way more than we thought we needed.

  “When was the last time you heard from him?”

  The truth was we hadn’t had any contact with Gollick since our meeting. Vivienne said he was incommunicado on his annual pilgrimage to Israel. It was his time to reflect on his faith, to recharge his spiritual batteries after another year of pillaging the global markets; disturbing him to ask whether the check was in the mail would be considered, at best, bad manners, at worst, sacrilege.

  Tricia got up and started pacing. “Okay, now I am worried.”

  “Sorry, but this was not part of the plan!”

  “I hate to be the one to break it to you, but the plan has changed.”

  “We just had our best day out there. Do you want me to quit now and go back to the council? Get a job at Marnie period?”

  “That’s not what I’m saying. But like it or not, you’re going to be a dad soon. I need you to think about that.”

  I touched her arm before she could do a full lap around the living room. It took a moment for me to find the words.

  “I don’t want to be just a dad. I want to be a dad our kid can look up to.”

  “Will...”

  “Just think, all those little Jaspers and Fionas in this neighborhood, what do they have to say when Career Day comes around? ‘My daddy’s a portfolio manager.’ ‘My daddy’s an efficiency expert for McKinsey.’ Our kid is going to be the only one who can say, ‘My daddy’s a farmer.’”

 
; That got a smile out of her—a small one. “The Park Slope Hillbillies.”

  “What do you say, Ma?”

  “You still think it can work? For us?”

  This time, the answer came quicker. “I promise you, I’ve got this.”

  I hugged her and sent a silent prayer to the Holy Land.

  No Peas

  The next morning, it was my turn to water the plants. The G train was all but deserted. I was still buzzing from Tricia’s news, seeing the world in all its strangeness and potency. The spectacle of a guy in fingerless gloves and some kind of ill-fitting jumpsuit doing a line of coke off one of the orange plastic seats had a kind of exotic glow to it. I could already hear myself telling Tricia about it later, a tale of life on the Brooklyn frontier.

  I arrived to find the farm destroyed. The gate had been knocked off its hinges. The seed beds were disheveled. Worst of all, the plants from Edgar’s garden had been ripped from their beds. I started frantically searching for the chili plant, the one the girl with the hearing aid had poured herself into. I found it lying on its side, trampled. Most of the drawings the Begin to Win group had put up on the handball wall had been torn down, too. One had been left in place, albeit in modified form: a giant marauding carrot reimagined as a drooling monster cock. On the wall itself, the vandal had spray-painted a leaf with a red strikethrough sign over it, the equivalent of the no-smoking symbol, only the message here seemed to be no gardening. The weirdest touch was the ratty sofa that had somehow been maneuvered on top of the remains of the hoop house. There was something demented about its exposed spring, like a clownless jack-in-the-box.