When No One Is Watching(56)

A tear drips off the end of my nose, soaking through the thin paper of the cigarette as I light it.

“Dammit!” I drop the lighter onto the ground as the flame licks out and burns my thumb; the dog starts barking even more wildly.

Our conversation with Kendra, the check in Drea’s room, Paulette’s fear of Theo, Tony’s shit at the brand-new bodega, Drea disappearing . . . it all swirls around in my head, threatening to overwhelm me.

I start to wonder if maybe I shouldn’t just give up on the tour. The neighborhood is changing too fast; maybe everything will be gone before I can even make the first demo. Maybe none of this matters because Mommy, the only one who actually believed I could do this, isn’t here to see it.

I exhale a cloud of smoke and shake my head, then wipe the tears from my eyes. I need to do this, even if only once, for the block party. Just to show that we were here, and we’re still here, and that fact matters, even if I throw out all the notes I made and the tour ends up being me bullshitting anecdotes about the people who made this neighborhood what it is.

Toby suddenly yips in pain, and I glance toward the fence. Toby is a menace, but I don’t want him getting hurt, either.

“Arwin! Leave that dog alone, will you?” Josie’s voice grates through the wooden slats of the fence.

“I’m just playing, Mom. You leave me alone!”

Lord, if I’d ever spoken to my mother this way she would’ve death-glared a hole into my soul.

Josie says, “Sorry, honey. But I’m trying to relax on my day off. And gardening is my way of relaxing.”

“That stuff smells!” Arwin complains. They are talking entirely too loud for two people right next to each other, driving my blood pressure up another point or two.

“It’s fertilizer. Do you know what that is?”

“No.”

“It’s shit, sweetie.”

Something about the way she says the curse word with such deliberation and relish, to her child, makes my shoulder blades tense up.

Arwin just giggles and yells, “Shit! Shit!”

Josie laughs, too. “Sometimes you have soil that isn’t good for growing things in anymore. It needs time to become fertile again. So you cover it with the shit, and then you wait. You let the shit do the work, then you come in and plant your crops. My grandfather taught me that. His grandfather taught him that.”

My phone vibrates in my hand and I’m so on edge that I almost drop it. I stiffen in the moment right before a name pops up on the screen, but it’s Len, not Drea.

Shit. I was supposed to go meet him in the garden.

“Hey,” I say, trying to sound like something other than a stressed-out wreck. “I’m sorry I’m late. I’m gonna head over right now. Can you wait a couple more minutes?”

“No.” His voice sounds like it did when he was a little boy, and then he clears his throat. “I was sitting on one of the benches waiting for you, with the kids, and the cops showed up.”

“What?” I stub out the cigarette, and I’m already through the back door and jogging past the kitchen table when he responds.

“Yeah. Um. They—they kicked all of us out? Everyone who was just chillin’ or gardening. Said it was on order of the owner, and I was confused because I thought your moms owned it. I tried to ask them what was happening, but they started pushing me—”

He stops and takes a shaky breath, and in that moment I hear the aggressive tone of a police officer in the background ordering people to disperse. I’ve heard that voice and that order on too many videos followed by hashtags on social media.

“I’m coming, okay? Just listen to the officers and walk away from the garden.”

“Okay.”

“Stay on the phone with me, Len. Don’t hang up until I get there.”

My hands shake as I lock the door, and then I run hard down the street, the soles of my sneakers pounding the pavement and my heart a wild, fearful thing trying to escape my chest.

No. No. No. No.

My disbelief keeps pace with my feet. This can’t be happening. Not after everything else.

When I get to Mommy’s garden, I find two officers standing in front of the chain-link fence. Just behind them, a wiry white man with graying hair is removing a new padlock from its plastic casing. The padlock Mommy used for years, more a deterrent than actual security, is on the ground, broken.

Inside, a crew of three or four other white guys in construction-worker uniforms of jeans and T-shirts are walking around examining everything. Taking notes. I see the decorations the kids had been making for the block party on the ground under their boots.

I’m too shocked to feel anything.

This is it.

This is the end of everything.

In my peripheral vision, I see Len standing with Ms. Candace. A few middle school kids on their bikes stand with feet on the ground and hands gripping their handlebars. Some of the older people who often come relax in the garden, or tend their own plots, keep watch, too.

I walk up to the officers, a strange sensation in my head like when the pressure drops on a plane and your ears stop up. Or like when the husband you thought you were giving a second chance gifts you an ebook titled Divorce for Dummies.

“Excuse me, officers. May I ask what’s happening here?” I manage to ask in my most polite, least threatening voice, even though strangers are invading Mommy’s garden.