Teaching the Youth to Open Hydrants (Semilla Pocket Park, Installment #4)
Everyone should have an exit strategy from the day they walk in. Too many organizations suffer because they expect one person, or a core group, to stay in place forever.
— adrienee maree brown, Emergent Strategy
On an ordinary May afternoon, I walked into my apartment building lobby with two empty watering cans in my hands.
A skinny young man with short curly hair, who I’ll call J, stood there at the front desk as he often did, greeting people who come by.
“Hey Dave. Whatcha doing?”
I held up the blue watering cans.
“I’m going to water the plants.” I motioned my head towards the back of the building.
“Plants? Where? Here?”
“Yeah right behind the building. You wanna come?”
“All right, I come with you. When home from school.”
For two years, I’d greeted J with a smile and a dab up. This was the first time I took it further.
We walked over to the sink in our lobby, near the back door that led to the garden I started with neighbors this year, Semilla Pocket Park. I started filling up the watering cans in the sink.
“Y can’t get water from outside?” J asked.
I exhaled. “It’s tough.” I explained the situation, that we’re starting this garden, that young plants need lots of water, that two hydrants were each half a block away. I either needed to go borrow the wrench from Maria Sola, the nearby community garden, or just use the sink in our lobby.
J nodded his head.
“So you’re from Jamaica?” I asked.
“Yep.”
“You were born there?”
“Yep. But I moved here young.”
“And you live here with your parents.”
“Me, mum, and sister.”
“All three of you in these small apartments?”
J shrugged. “Used to it.”
The cans were filled. And we walked outside.
I handed him one of the cans. “You want to water?” He tilted it onto the plants and the green leaves fended off the shower.
I held the other can. “Watch me.” I began to water around the plant. “You want to water around so that it goes into the roots.”
J gave this slight nod. I told him all about the site, probably going on too long about flood protection and pollinators. “This strip is owned by the city.”
“Dave I help you. I’m gonna call you.”
I gave him my number. Two days later I got a call from J.
“Dave. Home from school.”
I dropped what I was doing. If he was interested, I wanted to nurture his interest, if only selfishly, so I’d have permanent help watering.
I met J outside the building and we walked to Maria Sola. We grabbed four watering cans and the wrench. We walked the three blocks back to our building, to the hydrant across the street.
“This will be faster than the lobby sink.” As I twisted the wrench, I second-guessed whether I should teach a 19-year-old to break the law and open a hydrant without a permit. Was I being a bad influence?
But who would tattle and get us in trouble for watering plants? I twisted slowly. I’ve broken this law a hundred times at this point, and I know that it can quickly gush out as strong as a river. When I heard the water rising, I paused. A stream came, and I kept a watering can underneath. Within 10 seconds, it was full. I pulled one can out and put another underneath. We filled up four.
“You see that? Nice and slow.”
We lugged the full cans the half-block to Semilla, watered, and turned back.
“Your turn.” I handed J the wrench.
The next round, I told him to do it. He twisted and twisted. No water came.
J gave it one last full spin. The water gushed out all at once and drenched his shoes.
“You’ll get the hang of it,” I told him.
A few weeks later, as we watered again, J making a circle around one of the shrubs with a watering can, a woman came by with a young girl who looked about four years old right at her side.
She started speaking to me as if we’d been in the middle of a conversation.
“Back home in Jamaica we have a property with flowers that all bloom at Christmas.” I noticed she was a few inches taller than me. She kept her arms crossed as she spoke.
“It must be so beautiful down there.”
“It is. But here, it’s very dirty.”
At this point, I knew it was past time to introduce myself.
“I’m David by the way.”
“Oh, I know. J has told me about you and the garden every day this week. He says you started it.”
I felt both pride and guilt once again. She never told me her name.
“Well it has taken a group. J has already been a big help.”
She continued. “I worry about who’s influencing him around here.” She still kept her arms crossed but nodded up towards the building’s entrance. He often stood in the lobby, influenced by the group of guys who hung out there too. “And I worry about him just sitting in the house too. But look at me.” Now she looked towards her daughter, who jumped up and down on the wood chips.
“You like living here?” She asked me. Her gaze moved between me and her daughter.
“Well, I love many aspects of living here.”
I paused. I hadn’t told many people yet. “But my partner and I are moving out at the end of June.”
She nodded. “I don’t blame you. Lots of problems, these buildings. Where are you moving? Manhattan?”
“I wish.” I explained that I’d need to leave the city for a few months so my partner Shylin could finish grad school. She would be doing her required clinical hours in Vermont, where I’m from, where it’s easier and cheaper.
“I bet it’s very nice up there.”
“There are a lot more flowers, that’s for sure.” I paused. “I’ll come and visit a lot though. But it might be up to J to keep these plants alive during these heat waves.”
I hadn’t made any plan for Semilla yet. I avoided that too.
Her daughter was wandering around the wood chip path now, her own version of a forest.
“Stay over here,” the mom shouted as her daughter’s gaze turned toward the street.
J hustled back and forth to the hydrant with two watering cans. He tilted the can and made a water circle around another shrub.
“The Bronx is not an easy place to be a single mother,” she told me. “Enjoy the peace and quiet.”
#1: I’m Starting a Garden, of Questionable Legality
