In the Weeds

by Daniel Browne

  “When you said you weren’t going to do any more community outreach—that’s when I should’ve backed out. I knew right then you guys were trouble. But I needed a big win to get my name out there. And yeah, I needed the fucking money. Do you know how hard it is running your own business? Do you know how close to the fucking edge I am? I should’ve just called Green ’Burgs a nonprofit because then apparently I could do whatever the fuck I want.”

  He didn’t seem close to calming down. His face was pink, and he was pacing with such velocity I thought he might literally bounce off the walls.

  “You realize I saved your ass, right? I cleaned out my entire greenhouse so you’d have something to show for all your dicking around. You owe me five thousand just for the plants.”

  “I thought those plants were a donation,” I said.

  “The fuck they were!”

  Elliot laid his hand on Seth’s shoulder.

  “You have to know we want to pay you,” he said. “We’re going to pay you. We just need some more time.”

  “And where does that leave me? Am I supposed to tell ConEd I need more time?”

  “We may not have cash, but we still have connections. Buildings, Transportation, Environmental Protection...anybody with a say in city contracts, our ex-boss knows them.”

  Seth seemed to consider the offer and then physically shake it off, a dog with a fly in his ear. “No. The last thing I need is to get in any deeper with you guys. For all I know, my reputation is already shit by association. As a matter of fact, I’ll make a deal with you: take my name off your website, never mention me to anyone in connection with this train wreck ever again. You leave here now, and we’ll just pretend none of this ever happened.”

  I gave Elliot a quick look. Was Seth saying what I thought he was saying? It seemed improbable, but then, he may not have been in his right mind. In any case, we didn’t press for clarification. We got the hell out of there before he had a change of heart.

  Elliot had somehow managed to swipe one of the tarts, and he broke off a piece for me as we walked.

  “You should’ve told him you were having a baby.”

  I scarfed the tart shard, my first morsel of food all day. An hour after purchase, it was still delicious. “My kid isn’t even born, and I’m already a deadbeat.”

  “At least now you’ve got experience dealing with tantrums,” Elliot said.

  The concept of Papa Elliot had always been a mystery me. He certainly didn’t look the part lately; in most jurisdictions, a beard like that would disqualify you from unmonitored contact with a minor. And yet I’d seen the rapport he had with Miss Marcella’s third graders and how easy it came to him.

  “I should’ve taken notes,” I said.

  “Wouldn’t hold up in court. We’re just going to have to hope Seth never comes to his senses.”

  “I meant the other day with the kids. Whatever magic power you have over them, I need some of it.”

  “The farm is actually good preparation for a kid. You’re already exhausted, overwhelmed, and hemorrhaging money. All you need now is spit-up on your shirt.”

  “Jesus.”

  “You know what helps, in my experience? Drinking.”

  We set off in search of a bar—not a microbrewery or cocktail parlor but a real dive. It didn’t take long to find our place, a nameless hole in the wall on Third Avenue: cheap wood paneling adorned with Christmas lights, a middle-aged woman with orange hair and fingernails tending to a couple of grim day-drinkers.

  Elliot nodded in approval as our eyes adjusted to the gloom. “I figured out what our problem is. Too much daylight.”

  I tried to get into the spirit, but three-and-a-half IPAs were enough to make me dull and withdrawn, a brooder with no thoughts to dwell on. Elliot meanwhile was making friends with the bartender; she apparently lived in a houseboat on the canal, and Elliot let on that it was a lifestyle he was contemplating. I said goodbye without bothering to make a plan for tomorrow.

  On my way home, I passed by the terrarium shop, and one of the wares on display in the window caught my heavy-lidded eye. Sitting on a stand that was either made from a tree stump, or cleverly designed to look like one, was a glass bulb, bigger than a snow globe but smaller than a fish bowl. Inside, a layer of gray stones was covered by a layer of soil, which in turn was topped by a miniature landscape of what looked like moss and ferns. In the midst of the greenery stood a plastic figure just slightly larger than my fingertip, a man in a black open-necked shirt and slacks, a gray sweater, or maybe it was a jacket, slung over his shoulder. Quite the little yuppie. His features were too tiny for me to tell what he was thinking. Was he pleased with himself for leaving the office and the condo behind? Or was he lost, desperate for a can of bug spray and a WiFi signal? Most importantly, did he realize he was trapped, sealed off from anyone who might have cared for him, all that indifferent nature closing in?

  I was overcome by an urge to buy his freedom, extract him with a pair of tweezers, but the handwritten tag said $75, and I didn’t have the cash.

  Hang in there, brother, I thought as I dragged myself home.

  * * *

  “We have a problem.”

  Given my state of mind, it was entirely possible I’d begun to hear those words in my dreams. The evidence was mixed: a quick inspection revealed that I was in fact in bed; then again, I was sitting up and my eyes were open.

  “Will?”

  I traced the scratchy voice to its source: my cell phone, which I discovered pressed against my ear. I must have scooped it off my nightstand before I even woke up.

  “Who is this?”

  “Jack from Parks.”

  I happened to be wearing my watch (along with my clothes and shoes), so I checked it: a quarter to seven in the evening. Phase 2 of my intel-gathering operation was to listen for Tricia. It sounded like I had the apartment to myself. I dimly recalled her mentioning a yoga class—a lucky break. The last thing I needed was for her to come home from a long day of expressing glands and extracting swallowed string and find me sleeping one off.

  “Are you with me, Will?”

  “I’m with you. We have a problem. But, you know, we talked about it, and maybe it’s not such a problem. John is doing his thing, we’re doing ours. Fuck the fraise de bois.”

  There was a pause. “Okay. I don’t know what you’re talking about. What I’m talking about is Hector Contreras. I got a call today.”

  If Jack’s voice was a cheese grater, my brain was a wedge of aged pecorino. I can’t be this hungover, I thought.

  “What the hell happened over there, Will? Didn’t you go to the community board?”

  I gather enough of my scattered wits to catch Jack up: the halfhearted approval of CB3, our decision (I was big enough to share the credit) not to meet with CB1, the discovery that the community was more attached to the handball court than he had led us to believe, the inane confrontation over permits, the rampage that followed. The silence on Jack’s end was interrupted only by the occasional wheezy gasp, a response, I’m guessing, to the harshness of his preferred brand of cigarette, not the twists and turns in my account.

  “And you’re saying the kid who trashed the garden is Contreras’ son?”

  “What, he didn’t mention that?”

  “This is not good. You were supposed to reach out to the community, not stick your finger in their eye.”

  “I guess we overreached.”

  “You think this is a joke? Contreras is threatening to call a hearing. Maybe you can testify before the council about the misuse of Parks Department resources. Because I’m putting in for retirement.”

  “Don’t worry. Viv is going to call him and straighten this out.”

  “Viv did call him. Suffice to say, he didn’t appreciate her interest in the matter.”

  Score one for Elliot: letting Vivienne loose on Contreras had been a mistake. I curled into a ball, my knees touching my forehead. “What do you suggest we do?”

  Jac
k didn’t hesitate; apparently, the conversation up till this point had been nothing more than a preamble. “I wouldn’t call this a suggestion so much as a kick in the ass. We’re going to have a meeting this Friday. Outside at the site. I told Contreras to get the word out to his people. Anyone who’s got a problem with the garden, this is their chance to get it off their chest.”

  “What if they all want us out?”

  “Then you’re out. We’re not in the business of forcing amenities on communities that don’t want them. So my advice to you is to make sure all your allies are there.”

  I tried to take a mental roll call of our allies; it was a short list.

  “They really made T-shirts with the leaf crossed out?” Jack asked.

  I told him they did. He chuckled—the same guy who’d scolded me for making light of our predicament. Maybe he was just coughing up phlegm.

  “Congratulations, son. Gardens get vandalized every day. But in forty years, yours is the first to incite organized community opposition.”

  It was official. No matter what happened next, I’d accomplished something with my life.

  * * *

  Elliot didn’t answer my first few calls. I imagined him and the other day-drinkers taking the party to the bartender’s houseboat, a cellular dead zone. When he finally picked up, though, I could hear Sadie screaming in the background. Once I’d filled him in on my parley with Jack, there was a long pause, so long, if it hadn’t been for the kiddie clamor, I would’ve thought we’d gotten disconnected.

  “I can’t do Friday,” he said finally.

  “You have to. The meeting’s set. Jack’s printing up flyers.”

  “It’s Sadie’s birthday. We have plans.”

  “The meeting isn’t till six. Have your party in the afternoon.”

  Elliot’s answer was muffled. I realized he was covering his mouth with his hand. “We have evening plans. We’re going to a concert.”

  I was mulling this over when intuition struck. “The Pavement reunion?”

  Elliot didn’t answer.

  “Your three-year-old’s a big Pavement fan?”

  “Well, she’s going to be four at that point. But yeah, as a matter of fact, she is.”

  “Are you fucking with me?”

  “‘Shady Lane’ is her jam. I have a playlist that’s just ‘Shady Lane’ twenty times in a row, and whenever she’s on the verge of a meltdown, I throw it on.”

  “I can’t believe this.”

  “I’m more of a ‘Summer Babe’ guy myself, but hey, whatever works. You’ll understand when you have yours.”

  Something about that last comment rubbed me wrong. It felt like Elliot was pulling rank, taking advantage of his status as a veteran dad. Which reminded me, Sadie had a mom, too.

  “Why can’t Cora take her to the concert?”

  “Pavement is kind of our daddy-daughter thing.”

  “This isn’t optional,” I said, channeling my inner Jack. “Friday could be our last stand.”

  I was acutely aware that I used to be his boss. Used to be.

  “It’s just another meeting,” he said. “You and I both know there’s no anti-farm movement. It’s one guy handing out free T-shirts.”

  “You really expect me to face this alone?”

  “You said you didn’t want to be the behind-the-scenes guy, remember?”

  Had we been standing face to face just then, I would’ve kicked him in the shins.

  “I’ll make the rounds tomorrow,” he said. “Line up our supporters.”

  “That should leave you a good ten, twelve hours to chill at Rita’s.”

  As soon as the words had left my mouth, I wanted to reel them back in. Elliot had worked just as hard as me. Harder really, when you factored in curriculum development and gravel hauling. We both knew it. I wouldn’t have blamed him for throwing it in my face.

  He didn’t. Instead, he said, “Look, if you really need me, I’ll bail on the concert, tell Sadie I have to work.” Those last words were barely audible.

  I pressed the screen of my phone against my temple. All along, the dream for Elliot was to be his own man, free to follow his own funky drummer. I couldn’t bring myself to take that away from him.

  “I can handle it,” I said.

  “I know you can. You always do.”

  Tough to stay pissed at a guy like that. In fact, I wanted to live up to his confidence. Time to man up, kemosabe.

  Power to You People

  Elliot was wrong about the protest being a one-man show. It was the first time I’d seen anything resembling a crowd in Peter’s Place. Hector Contreras’ son was there all right, but he was joined by about a dozen others in anti-farm shirts, including Felix, Nelson, and Dante, the three ballers. Contreras the elder was nowhere to be seen, but the meeting wasn’t devoid of political representation. Like the ghosts of officialdom past, the stalwarts of CB3 had come to haunt me: the chairman mopping the mugginess of the evening off his pate; the maybe-albino bodybuilder; Suzette the upstart, her braids swaying like a beaded curtain. They were conferring with a short woman, her soft features belied by a military-grade crew cut. An envoy, I figured, from the much-spoken-of, never-spoken-to CB1.

  I immediately sought out the supporters Elliot had committed to rallying. No surprise, the pickings were slim. Sasha and Xander were there, along with some of their creatively pierced neighbors. They waved, and I longed to join them, but the optics wouldn’t have been favorable. Henry, the former Pfizer employee, was standing with a couple of older black women in floral print dresses, probably fellow residents of the row houses. I caught his eye, but what I saw there looked nothing like an invitation.

  The sight of Kat and Ash approaching was so comforting it took me a minute to notice what they were wearing: matching white T-shirts emblazoned with a crossed-out leaf. I headed them off before they could join the protesters.

  “This is a joke, right?”

  They looked at each other, then at me, Kat with an expression that split the difference between guilt and pity, Ash with something more like defiance.

  “We’ve been getting to know the people around here,” she said. “They feel ignored. No one’s ever asked them what kind of improvements they want to see.”

  “You can’t do this,” I said.

  Ash squared his shoulders. “Still a free country, last time I checked.”

  “I’m paying you, for fuck’s sake! You work for me.”

  Kat frowned, a mother disappointed in her wayward son. “That’s not what we heard.”

  “Seth told us nobody’s getting paid,” Ash said.

  “Is that what this is? A shakedown? Because we’ve got money. Kat, there’s enough to pay you through the season. As for you”—I glared at Ash—“we made a deal with Seth. If you’ve got a problem, you need to work it out with him.”

  “It’s not about the money,” Kat said. “It’s about doing the right thing.”

  “You know how that movie ends? There’s a riot.”

  “This doesn’t have to be ugly,” she said. “You and Elliot seem like okay guys. You’ve got good intentions. At least, I think you do. All we’re saying is you need to open a dialogue with the community you’re trying to serve.”

  I was afraid if I kept looking at her I’d start to twitch, so I turned my head. “Obviously, I can’t have you taking care of the farm if you’re siding with people who want to destroy it.”

  “No worries. I’m taking a job at Crop Top, Senior Gardener and Educator.”

  Perfect. “Good luck,” I said. I’d need WD-40 to unclench my jaw.

  They left me standing alone. I closed my eyes and tried to collect myself. When I opened them, there was a guy standing in front of me, his skin more freckle than not, red hair approaching afro proportions, eyes red-rimmed and watery like a mole’s.

  “You one of the organizers?” he asked me.

  “Not exactly,” I said.

  “Oh, well, I’m from the Post. I got a call from Counc
ilman Contreras, and it sounded like there might be a story here.”

  He held out his hand. It was weirdly cold, considering the weather, like he’d been icing it.

  “So, you live around here?” he asked. I couldn’t tell if it was a genuine question or a reporter’s trap.

  “I’m one of the farmers.”

  “Oh, great.” He slipped his hand into the pocket of his cargo pants and pulled out a tape recorder. “So why don’t you tell me what’s going on here tonight?”

  “Just trying to have a dialogue with the community we serve.”

  “Seems like a lot of folks are pretty upset about what you’re doing.”

  “I wouldn’t say that.”

  What was with “folks” all of a sudden, I wondered. Brad at Prometheus, Seth at the community board meeting, Obama, now this guy.

  “Really?” the reporter said. “Because I’m hearing there’s controversy over the use of the handball court.”

  You’d like that, wouldn’t you, I thought, imagining the headline: TRIANGLE RESIDENTS GO BALLS TO THE WALL AGAINST PARKS BOONDOGGLE. They’d never been big fans of Vivienne at the Post, which suggested another possibility: PARK AVENUE VIV ON BROOKLYN BALLERS: LET THEM EAT SPROUTS!

  “I wouldn’t say that either.”

  “So what would you say?”

  I was itching to give him a “no comment,” but I knew that would be tantamount to an admission of guilt.

  “I’d say give us a chance. We’re trying to make a difference here. All we’re asking for is a little understanding.”

  “So the problem, as you see it, is that folks here don’t understand what you’re trying to do?”

  “No! I didn’t say there was a problem. No problem, just dialogue.”

  I don’t know if it was the pleading note in my voice or the utter lack of quotable material in what I’d said, but the reporter seemed to lose interest in pressing me. He said he’d follow up for comment after the meeting. With that to look forward to, I watched him burrow into the crowd.

  Jack was the last one to show up, but there was no sign of hurry in his step. For all the world, he was just a man out for an evening stroll. He patted my shoulder as he walked by, but that was the extent of his solidarity. No pre-gaming, no sizing up the opposition. I had little choice but to tag along after him like a caddy. He zeroed in on the community board contingent, shaking hands with the chairman and company. I followed suit, but they didn’t seem too enthused about getting reacquainted. All the while, Jack was scanning the faces of the protesters. At one point, he leaned in close to my ear and said, “Isn’t the girl one of yours?” casting a glance in Kat’s direction. I tried to convey the complexity of the situation with just the look on my face, but Jack’s own expression—like he’d taken a sniff of expired milk—told me he’d already gauged the extent of my failure and moved on.