In the Weeds

by Daniel Browne

  I eventually noticed the three ballers eyeing me from their usual post on the other side of the street. I knew it was a bad idea to come charging at them in a rage without Ambrose Fierce to back me up, but the thought was like the analysis of a sports commentator, a mere observation with no power to affect the action. In any case, they didn’t seem too concerned. If any of them blinked, I missed it.

  I pointed back at the carnage. “Did you do this?”

  Chicago Oakley—they were wearing the same jerseys as the other day—made a pssh sound with his lips. “Just because we’re brown, you accuse us of doing something like that? Yo, that’s some racist shit.”

  New York Oakley shook his head. “Man, how you gonna bring people together, if you go around pointing fingers? It’s sad.”

  I could feel the arm I was pointing with start to shake. “I’m calling the cops.” Another stupid move, but I’d hit my limits as a diplomat.

  Chicago Oakley held a finger phone to his ear and put on his best white-boy whine. “Hello, 911? I’d like to report a serious crime. Someone pissed on my vegetables! Yes, it’s an emergency!”

  “It’s a herbicide!” New York Oakley chipped in.

  “What’s that? Ten break-ins? Three murders? Well, were they white? No? Then what are you waiting for?”

  All the air went out of me in a single sigh. “You really pissed on them?”

  “They told you, we didn’t do that shit,” Sprewell said. He seemed to be the only one who was genuinely nervous about possible repercussions.

  “Was it Contreras? You can tell me. I’m not going to call the cops.”

  “Look, we don’t know who did it,” New York Oakley said. “Could be anybody, the way you’re pissing folks off, coming in here with no permits, taking shit over.”

  “We tried to explain the permit thing to him.”

  “Is that what you and all your boys were doing, coming at him with shovels and shit? Explaining?”

  There was nowhere left for this little powwow to go. I turned to face the wreckage.

  Sprewell followed me halfway across the street. “Hey,” he whispered. “You hiring for the clean-up? Let me give you my number.”

  I said I knew where to find him. I wasn’t sure if I was threatening or humoring him.

  * * *

  Vivienne was livid when we told her what had happened.

  “We can’t have this. Marnie invited a hundred people to the ribbon-cutting ceremony. Martin even said he might come back early to attend. And we need to impress him so he’ll help us out with Baruch.”

  I’d forgotten about Marnie’s quest to get a chair named after Vivienne. From the beginning, she’d seen the farm as a Trojan horse, and clearly she’d gotten Vivienne thinking along the same lines.

  “I’m calling Hector,” Vivienne said. “He needs to get his kid on a leash.”

  Elliot told her that was a bad idea, but she’d made up her mind.

  “You can’t let people push you around, Elliot. It’s like you don’t even remember my anti-bullying campaign.”

  I was with Vivienne on this one. Surely, an ambitious pol like Hector Contreras wouldn’t want word to get out that his son was a rageaholic who wantonly destroyed city property and peed on a disabled child’s chili peppers. Maybe he could broker a ceasefire.

  “See, boys, this is why you always ask for more than you need. At least we know we can afford to rebuild.”

  We should have enough. That’s what I’d told Tricia. I’d used up twenty-three of my twenty-six weeks of unemployment. Unless Obama and the Democrats rammed another extension through Congress, things were about to get hairy.

  Where Vivienne was outraged, Seth was distraught.

  “The hoop house, too? This is so fucked up. I’ve never been a part of anything so fucked up.”

  His concern turned out to be mostly for himself. “I’m supposed to speak at a conference next week. ‘From the Barn to the Block: Urban Agriculture in the 21st Century.’ What the fuck am I going to say now?”

  I suggested that he could have an inspirational triumph-over-adversity story to share—if he pulled himself together and helped us rebuild.

  “But what if they just fuck it up again?”

  We told him to let us worry about that.

  “Are my guys going to be safe out there?”

  As long as Vic doesn’t throw the first punch, I thought. We assured him it would be fine.

  Like a hardy weed, Seth rallied. Ambrose Fierce was back at work the following Monday, and with some help from Sasha and Xander, they were able to resurrect the tool shed in a matter of hours. We decided to scrap the hoop house for the time being; we wouldn’t really need a covered growing space until colder weather arrived anyway. The downside was there would be no place for the kids to take shelter from the rain, but that was the least of our worries.

  Vic made it his personal mission to reinforce the gate with heavy-duty steel hasps and bolts. There was a debate about topping it with barbed wire—hadn’t the next-door landlord warned us we’d need it? Still rattled, I was all for it, but Elliot put his foot down.

  “This is a farm for kids, not a supermax facility,” he said.

  “The school’s for kids, too, and they have barbed wire!”

  “We might as well get a Doberman.”

  Big Craig screwed up his face. “How would you keep the dog away from the plants?”

  In the end, I saw that Elliot was right. Deep down, I knew there was no way even the most imposing gate was going to stop another ransacking anyway. Elliot was holding out hope the vandals had gotten it out of their system, a one-time protest. My own pipe dream was that Vivienne would fix this for us. In the meantime, all we could do was keep our eyes open and our fingers crossed.

  “Your funeral,” Vic said.

  In any case, our biggest concern security-wise wasn’t for the farm itself. It was for Kat. Seth had a greenhouse full of plants in an abandoned lot near the Green ’Burgs office, and he’d offered to clean himself out in order to restock the farm. (It was too late in the season to start from scratch with seeds.) That meant we’d need Kat out there watering at least three days a week. And on most days, there was virtually no foot traffic on the surrounding streets. For all intents and purposes, she’d be in a cage by herself. I was hoping Elliot would tell me I was paranoid, but he took the danger seriously. Seriously enough to raise the issue with Kat.

  “Are you guys telling me to come at my own risk? Because I’m pretty sure that’s against OSHA guidelines.”

  I threw out some half-cocked suggestions: Xander and his neighbors could act as lookouts. Begin to Win must have security guards; we could work out some arrangement with them. Elliot, true to form, proposed a more personable tack.

  The next day, the three of us went out to the farm together. Seth met us there, and while he and Kat sorted through the new plants, Elliot and I headed across the street to parlay with the three ballers. They were fixed to their usual spot, but there was something different this time. It took me a moment to pick up on it: they weren’t wearing their jerseys. Instead, they had on identical white T-shirts with the same symbol that had been spray-painted on the handball wall: a green leaf in a red strikethrough circle. They raised their chins to acknowledge us as we approached.

  I didn’t return the greeting. “Where’d you get those?”

  The one with the tribal tattoo shrugged. “Everyone’s wearing them.”

  “It’s the new fashion statement in the ’hood,” the free spirit said.

  For Elliot’s plan to work, we’d have to ignore the provocation. “We never asked you your names,” he said.

  They hesitated—maybe they thought we intended to sic the cops on them—but in the end civility carried the day. That’s how we came to be formally introduced to Nelson (New York Oakley), Felix (Chicago Oakley), and Dante (Sprewell). We told them our names, and then we all shook hands. As shows of respect go, it wasn’t the warmest, but it was something.

 
; Elliot raised his thumb over his shoulder in the direction of the farm. “See our friend back there? She takes care of all the plants. But now she’s scared to come out here by herself.”

  “Yeah? And why is that?” Felix asked.

  “Because of what happened,” I said.

  Felix flung his arms in the air, as if we’d pulled a fast one on him. “Man, we already told you we had nothing to do with that.”

  “But you can understand why she’d feel unsafe,” Elliot said.

  “What is it with white girls? They see a little graffiti, some broken bottles, automatically they think they’re getting jumped. You say good morning, they look at you like you took your dick out.”

  “So you’re saying she has nothing to worry about?” Elliot asked. “This is your block, you’re out here every day, so if you tell us it’s safe for her to be here, we’ll take you at your word.”

  Felix looked to his associates for confirmation. They straightened up, a united front. “You go tell your girl she’s got nothing to worry about.”

  “I can tell her you personally vouch for her safety?”

  Dante cupped a hand over his mouth, a pantomime of confidentiality. “Yo, if you need security, just put us on the payroll. We’ll have this place on lockdown.”

  Felix raised a hand like he was going to cuff him. “You ever heard of extortion, dummy?” To us he said, “We’ll make sure she’s safe. For as long as you can keep this mess up and running, anyway.”

  “Fair enough.”

  We all shook hands again, our respective grips firmer this time. Elliot invited them to come back to the farm with us so they could meet Kat, but they demurred.

  “No offense,” Felix said, “but we don’t want nobody to see us associating with you people.”

  Fair enough.

  * * *

  Walking back to the farm, we saw Kat, Ash, and Craig huddled around a gangly kid. As we got closer, I recognized him as one of Daryl’s older friends. By the time we made it to the gate, he’d scooted off on his DIY skateboard. Kat and the guys were still standing there, heads hanging.

  “What now?” I asked.

  Kat looked up, teary-eyed. “Daryl got beat up. He was on his way here the other day, and some other kids jumped him.”

  “Because he was helping us?”

  She glared at me like I’d lost my mind. “No. They were just picking on him because...I don’t know why. Because kids are assholes, I guess.”

  I was upset, of course, and angry, but mixed in there was a whisper of relief we weren’t responsible.

  “He’s at home recovering,” Kat said. “I tried to get an address, but his friend didn’t know. Or he didn’t want to tell me, maybe. He says Daryl’s grandmother—I guess she’s his guardian—probably won’t let him come out here anymore.”

  I noticed that Big Craig was staring at nothing, chewing on his lip.

  “Is he all right?” For some reason, I asked Kat even though Craig was standing right there.

  “I’m out,” he said quietly.

  “You’re out?”

  “I can’t be here anymore. Otherwise, I’m going to go find the kids who did this.”

  “OK, Craig’s out.” I turned to Ash. “Can you make sure he doesn’t go vigilante on his way home?”

  That earned me more dirty looks. Craig was the only one who didn’t seem to take offense.

  “Job’s almost done anyway. Tell Vic I’ll settle up with him next time. And if you do see Daryl, tell that little fucker...tell him...”

  He couldn’t finish the thought. Kat did her best to wrap him up in a hug, and Ash patted his head like he was an overgrown child. And that was the last we saw of Big Craig. He made walking away look simple.

  ***

  The hoodoo wasn’t all bad all the time. Before long, Kat was on speaking terms with the three ballers, though the speaking consisted mostly of “’Sup?” and “Later.” Even after the band finished their quickie rebuild, Ash joined her most days, unless Seth had lined up another job. They got plenty of help from Xander and some of the Triangle’s other foremost artists in residence. We’d decided to keep the grubby sofa that had crushed the hoop house as a totem of our resolve. At any given time, there was usually at least one mixed media sculptor lolling on it in a heat-induced daze.

  More encouraging was the visit from an older black gentleman named Henry. He lived on the opposite side of Peter’s Place in one of the houses built by Pfizer in the ’80s. I happened to be there the day he came, wearing matching khakis like he was on safari, bearing a potted basil plant.

  “My place is nice and all, but they didn’t leave much room for a garden.”

  Kat found a place of honor for his basil—space wasn’t an issue since the break-in. He said there was plenty more where that came from, so she offered to sign him up as a member. Henry was reluctant.

  “I don’t need to sign a piece of paper to come out here and water my own plants, do I?”

  It occurred to me I hadn’t spoken to a single person from his side of the block. Looking now at the tidy row houses, I realized we’d neglected a potential trove of allies.

  “Did you work for Pfizer?” I asked him.

  “I did, till they left town in ’04. Won’t hear a word against them either. They stayed longer than they had to. Built those houses, gave space to that school, put in cameras on the corners. Ask anybody. The neighborhood was better off then.”

  “We’re trying to bring it back.” I could feel Kat cringing, and I didn’t blame her, but I was beyond shame. I desperately wanted this man on our side.

  “You with the city?” he asked.

  I explained the nature of the relationship to him.

  “Well, you tell them what we really need around here is some cops. What happened to that boy the other day? It’s a damn shame.”

  “You know Daryl?” Kat asked.

  “I know his grandmamma. Good people.”

  I was about to tell him how much Daryl had meant to us all, but he had other matters on his mind.

  “And how about someone to look after the playground? Condoms, needles, trash can overflowing, people letting their dogs crap everywhere. It’s a mess.”

  I promised to pass on his concerns the next time I spoke to our contacts at the Parks Department.

  “Well, I appreciate that, son,” Henry said.

  “We’re trying to do our part. We just wish some of your neighbors were more welcoming.” I tipped my head toward the other side of the street.

  Henry’s lip curled under his neat gray mustache. “Those project spics? Son, what do you expect?”

  * * *

  Okay, so the hoodoo was pretty consistently dismal. Henry may not have been the cuddliest fellow, but other than the local artists’ colony, he was all we had. It was becoming clear that getting another group of students out to the farm would be tough.

  Sal, no surprise, was pissed at us. Never has the term “spitting mad” been so apt.

  “I knew you dipshits were trouble. It’s my fault for trying to be a good guy.”

  We took our medicine, waiting for him to wear himself out, then meekly pleaded for a second chance.

  “Uh-uh. No way. Believe me, nothing would make me happier than to dump my class on you and your fellow jerk-offs for a couple of hours, see how you do, but unlike you, I’ve got scruples. And if those kids find out their precious plants are dead, they’re going to freak. That my poor, soft heart can’t take.”

  I pointed out that we’d replanted their section of the farm, and in another week or two it would be looking as lush as before. Sal cocked his ear as if he’d misheard me.

  “Are you saying that, because of their impairments, they won’t be able to tell the difference?”

  “No!”

  “No? Because it sounds like you’re suggesting we try to deceive a bunch of handicapped children, use their disabilities to our advantage.”

  We assured him we’d figure out a way to make it right.
r />   Sal was already walking away. “Here’s an idea: Build a time machine, travel back to before you decided to make a difference, and go fuck yourself.”

  I’ll say this for Sal, he made his position clear. Begin to Win was harder to pin down. Miss Marcella always seemed to be busy when Elliot went to see her. Principal Jenner pretended not to see us and started walking faster when we tried to waylay him on his way into work one morning.

  “Oh, they’re definitely ducking you,” Sasha told us when she came by to lend a hand. “I think they’re freaked out by the opposition from the community.”

  “For fuck’s sake,” I said. “It’s one guy!”

  “I don’t know. That’s a lot of signs for one guy to put up.”

  “Signs?”

  “Don’t you guys ever walk around the neighborhood?”

  The honest answer was not really. I always made a beeline from the subway to the farm and only left to hit the bodega for Gatorade and sandwiches. Elliot didn’t seem to know what Sasha was talking about either.

  She took us around the corner past a check cashing place and a barbershop offering “Dominican style” unisex cuts in flaking candy-colored paint. Halfway up the block, taped to a street lamp, was a piece of poster board, professionally printed by the look of it, with the same anti-farm logo we’d seen on the handball wall and the ballers’ shirts. Beneath the logo was a block of all-caps text: “GARDENING WITHOUT A PERMIT = GENTRIFARMING. STOP THE UNLAWFUL TAKE-OVER OF OUR PUBLIC SPACE.” “OUR” was underlined. In smaller type, there was an email address: “saveourcourt@yahoo.com.”

  “I have to admit,” Sasha said, “‘gentrifarming’ is good.”

  Elliot leaned in like he was contemplating a piece of conceptual art. “‘No justice, no peas’ would have been better.”

  For the first time in who knows how long, I took a good look at my partner. His hair and beard had grown snarled, anarchic. I had no idea what a “Dominican style” cut was, but I was thinking it might be an improvement. He’d taken on the burnt umber hue of someone who lives outdoors, and I was starting to wonder about his grasp of our situation.