Another mother told her child that he couldn’t have anything because the food was meant for bums and hobos. I had gotten up from my bench to explain to her that the garden was for anyone who wanted something to eat, but she waved me off and quickly turned her back.
Occasionally a bum would pass by and take something from the garden. I noticed a vagrant looking both ways, as if making sure that the coast was clear, before then stepping quickly into the garden and plucking a tomato that had been planted close to the street. He hid it beneath his tattered jacket and hurried away. When he saw me sitting in the back of the garden he quickened his pace. I kept an eye on the man, as he pulled the tomato out from its hiding place and took a large bite, as if it were an apple. The man’s face curled up in disgust and he spit out what he’d bitten off and threw the rest of the tomato on the street. I heard him mutter something indistinctly as he walked away, and while I couldn’t be sure, I felt that the bum had said something about only eating cheeseburgers.
One day, while I sat in the garden reading and waiting, the youth who had suggested that I plant vegetables walked by. I called out to him and walked out to the curb to meet him as he passed.
“I’ve planted vegetables for anyone who wants them,” I told the youth.
“Man, what you think we’re some kind a’ charity case o’ sometin? Aint nobody up in here need your help. We’re all doing jus’ fine witout you butting in.
“But I thought you,” I began.
“Man forget this,” the youth interrupted and continued his saunter down the street.
One evening about a week after my encounter with the youth I arrived at my garden and found all of the fruits and vegetables gone. I would have been thrilled, were it not for the spray paint that coated the ravaged plants.
“I am doing this in her memory,” I told myself. “And she wouldn’t be fazed, so I can’t be either.” And I set to work that day tending the garden just as I would have done on any other day.
My gardening continued in this fashion for about a year. And every time I was almost ready to give it up, some stranger would happen by and take some lettuce for a salad, or a watermelon for a picnic. And although the percentage of food that people took for consumption paled in comparison to the amount that rotted in the garden, those few people gave me the fortitude I needed to continue leaving my house each morning.
One morning a man pulled up to the curb in an SUV and asked me if I were the owner of the plot. I told him that I was and invited him to take anything that caught his eye. The man stepped out of his vehicle, took a zucchini, and looked at it as if he weren’t quite sure what it was that he held in his hand. He thanked me for my hospitality, but quickly added, “I came here because I have a business proposition for you.”
I didn’t respond, but the man continued, “I want to buy this plot of land to build a small apartment complex.”
I still didn’t respond.
“I’d be willing to pay you a fair price.”
Still no response.
“I know what you paid for it a year ago and I’d be willing to give you thirty percent more than that,” he offered.
“It’s not for sale,” I finally said.
The man shook his head and got back into his SUV.
Not long after that I began receiving complaints from people who claimed that produce from my garden was being used to pelt their homes and storefronts. Then my son called, insisting that I take the offer. “You have to also consider zoning,” my son had said. “I checked and the land is zoned for multi-family residence. That means that you might not be allowed to use the land for agriculture.”
Still, I held firm. I continued tending the garden until the illness set in. At that point everything happened very quickly. I’d woken up one morning and had trouble breathing. I called an ambulance and asked that I be taken to the hospital. If I’d foreseen the chain of events that call would set in motion I might not have ever made it. I spent over two weeks in the hospital, where doctors prodded and poked me incessantly, and a high fever brought me to the brink of delirium and made it almost impossible for me to keep track of the days. My son came to visit twice during that time, and on the second visit he told me that they had decided to put me in an assisted living center. I insisted that I would rather die in peace lying on my own bed, but I seemed to have no choice in the matter.
“At least let them take me by my garden before they lock me up,” I pleaded.
“I’m afraid they can’t do that,” my son told me.
“It’s not that far out of the way, and I just want to see it one last time.”
“Dad, they can take you by the plot where it was, but while you were sick I had to manage your estate, and they’ve already begun work on those apartments.”
“You sold my garden and stole my money?”
“No I sold it for you. You still have all the profit. I know I told you that you’d overpaid for the land, but when you held out, the man who wanted to build the apartments offered almost double what you’d bought the land for.
I stared at my son in disbelief.
“The doctors said that you weren’t mentally fit to handle your own affairs, so I had to take over,” my son explained. “If you get well enough that they allow you to leave the assisted living center you’ll be able to buy a huge plot of ground for a new garden.”
I didn’t answer. I knew that I would never get well, and that even if I did, it would never be considered well enough to leave. I didn’t say a word as my son drove me across the city, or as the receptionist at the assisted living center kindly showed me to my room and helped me into my new bed.
Chapter 3
“So who have you told about your little experiment?” the stranger asked Thomas.
“Nobody,” Thomas answered. “If anybody knew it would ruin everything. I have to be able to go through with it without anybody having the slightest idea.”
“You should at least tell her.”
“Julia?”
“Yes. That way you would have somebody to vouch for you when you’ve finished. Otherwise, who will believe you when you say that everything you’ve done was part of an experiment?”
“I don’t need anyone to believe me.”
“It wouldn’t hurt to tell your sister though,” the stranger insisted.
“Not even her. I’d thought about letting her in on it for that reason, but telling her would be the worst thing I could do.”
“I know. I only suggested it to make sure you wouldn’t cave in and say something to her. So remind me why you’ve chosen this path over killing yourself?”
“It’s not instinctual to kill oneself. The whole point is to prove Nietzsche’s statement that we only act perfectly when we act instinctually.”
“So the only question that remains is whether or not you can really go through with it,” the stranger mused.
“Of course I can,” Thomas answered. “You don’t really think I’m going to break down and start conforming. I’ve been preparing for these next few days for months, and I’m ready to go through with them.”
“I know you can get through the first half of your little experiment,” the stranger said calmly. “Everyone can act instinctually. I’m questioning your ability to complete the second phase. If you can’t finish the experiment, then everything will be lost, completely meaningless. And I worry about how traumatizing that might be for you. Wasn’t it Nietzsche that said something about the truth being ugly?”
“Don’t worry about me,” Thomas said firmly.
“I’m sure you’ll be fine. You’d better get some rest,” the stranger suggested. “It looks like you’ve got a big day ahead of you.”
Thomas was trying to understand what the stranger had meant when his sister’s voice called him back to reality.
“Thomas!” Julia yelled.
Thomas opened his eyes and rolled over in his bed.
“Thomas!”
Julia’s voice came from behind the closed
bedroom door.
“You’re going to be late for class,” Julia called.
“I don’t feel like going to class,” Thomas shouted in reply.
Julia opened the door to his room and walked through the doorway.
“Are you sick?” she asked.
“No. I feel fine. I just don’t feel like going to class today so I’m not going.”
Julia looked surprised, but she didn’t say anything as she walked out and closed the bedroom door behind her.
* * *
“Thank you so much for finding a few minutes for me on such short notice,” Hannah said.
The woman who sat behind the desk had short brown hair, thin black glasses, and wore a modest beige blouse. To Hannah she looked like the model of what it meant to have it all together.
“It wasn’t any trouble to squeeze you in. So what is it that brings you here?”
“One of your clients recommended you,” Hannah began.
“No, no, no. I mean, why are you here?”
“I don’t really know if I can put my finger on it,” Hannah said. “I’ve just had a lot of instability in my life this past year, and wanted someone to help me sort everything out.”
“What kind of instability?” the woman asked.
“I’ve changed houses, gone from being married to being a single woman, and, well, a lot of things have changed. Basically I’ve been given the opportunity to start life all over, but I don’t know where to begin.”
“I see. Do you have children from your marriage?”
“Yes. We had four. Well three from my marriage and one who, well it’s a bit complicated.”
“And where do your children live?” the woman asked.
“Most of them are grown and out of the house, and Lewis, he’s my youngest, lives with me.”
“Does your ex-husband have custody or visiting rights?”
“My ex-husband isn’t even, well that’s where it’s all a bit complicated,” Hannah said.
“I understand.”
“I don’t even know what I’m expecting you to help me with. I feel like I’m just wasting both of our time.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” the woman said. “Most people don’t know what it is they need at first. That’s why you’re here. People go to doctors to find out what’s wrong as well as for treatment.”
“So do you think you can help?”
“Why don’t we schedule a full appointment for you. I’ve got an opening in the afternoon on Thursday if that works for you.”
“That’ll be fine,” Hannah said.
“Then I’ll go ahead and write you in. You can arrange a method of payment with my secretary on your way out.”
“Thank you so much,” Hannah paused. She glanced at the nameplate that sat on the dark wooden desk that separated her and the doctor. “Do you go by Jenny instead of Jennifer?” Hannah asked.
“My clients usually call me Jenny,” the woman answered.
“Thank you, Jenny,” Hannah said and got up to leave.
* * *
Julia sat in the back of her freshman biology class. She didn’t know any of the one hundred and twenty-four students who occupied the classroom, but nobody knew her either, and she found comfort in the anonymity. She wasn’t taking notes, but would have had the professor said anything worth remembering. After the first day of class, Julia had completely given up on him covering any pertinent material. She occupied a seat in the lecture hall simply because she hadn’t realized that attendance policies don’t matter in classes that never take role.
A woman in her mid-twenties came in late creating a small disturbance as she worked her way past the other students in Julia’s row and sat down in the empty seat next to her.
“Sorry,” she whispered as she pulled out an oversized notebook from her backpack and flipped through pages before beginning to furiously take notes. She glanced over at Julia’s empty notebook, as if hoping to write down any important information that had been covered in the first few minutes.
“Don’t worry, you haven’t missed anything,” Julia said.
Julia waited out the remaining forty-five minutes in silence while the woman next to her frantically scribbled words, as if her future would depend solely on the volume of her notes. When the professor dismissed the class, Julia gathered her belongings and followed the mob of students who were filing out of the classroom.
“I’m Maggie,” said the woman who had come in late. Julia shuffled her feet down the crowded aisle. She didn’t want to turn around to acknowledge the woman, but didn’t have to since the woman had pushed her way through the crowd and now stood next to her.
“I’m Maggie,” the woman said again, as if Julia hadn’t heard her the first time.
“Good to meet you,” Julia said.
“What’s your name?” Maggie asked.
“Julia.” She wanted to lie, not because she disliked the woman, but because she’d found refuge in being overlooked.
“I saw on your schedule that we’re in the same lab, and then I remembered seeing you there last week.”
“Oh,” Julia said softly, afraid that her anonymity would be short-lived.
“We’re going to have to choose lab partners tomorrow, and since I don’t know anyone, and you’re always sitting by yourself, I thought that maybe we could be in a group together if that would be okay with you.”
Julia worked her way out of the classroom and into the more crowded hallways.
“Okay,” she said with resignation, and then pushed her way out of the doorway into the open air. She’d had a hard time adjusting to a huge campus at first. Her high school hadn’t been small, but she knew people there. A few of her friends had moved up with her and lived in the dorms on campus, but she never saw any of them. And, despite the fact that she’d introduced herself to what felt like hundreds of people, Thomas was the only person who knew her name. She’d felt small and insignificant at first, until she’d decided to embrace the anonymity.
Nobody knew her, and nobody cared about her past. She could be anything she wanted. If she smiled everyone would see her as a happy person, or if she pulled her hair back and walked with a brisk step, she could be studious. She could be the façade and nobody would ever see deeper than whichever exterior she decided to wear.
Today’s exterior was the overwhelmed student in a hurry, whose only reason for not walking casually or talking with a friend was because she didn’t have time for such frivolities. The façade held up until she reached the small rental house that she’d leased with her brother and walked through the door. She’d managed to convince herself that she had too much on her plate and went to her room immediately to start working. She buried herself in textbooks and finished all of her reading for the next two days before Thomas got home.
She heard him turn on the television and went out into the tiny living room to join him. He flipped through the channels and stopped on what turned out to be some sort of ‘documentary’ on the playboy mansion.
“You’re not really going to watch this?” Julia asked.
“This is what I feel like watching,” Thomas replied.
“Come on. Let’s watch something else, anything else.”
“This is what I feel like watching and if you don’t like it you can do something else.”
Thomas’s attitude took her aback. She exhaled sharply as she got up from the chair and walked back to the kitchen.
* * *
Lewis had sat in the living room waiting on his mother to get home so he could show someone the magic trick he’d spent the afternoon perfecting.
“Hey mom,” he said when Hannah got home from her appointment. “You wanna see me make this quarter disappear?”
“Do you have to show me right now?” Hannah asked.
“It’ll only take a second.”
“Okay.” Hannah sat down on the couch and Lewis began his routine by having her examine the quarter.
“You just need to know that it’s a
real, everyday quarter. Now I’m going to wave my hand like this.” Lewis closed the quarter in his fist, which he rubbed furiously with his other hand.
“And look, it disappeared!” he exclaimed. Lewis opened his hand to show that the quarter had in fact vanished.
“That’s pretty good,” Hannah said, genuinely impressed. “How did you do that?”
“It’s magic,” Lewis said emphatically.
“I know it wasn’t magic. There’s always some sort of sleight of hand,” Hannah replied.
“All magic is really just deception,” Lewis answered. “None of it’s real. You just have to get good at tricking people.”
“So how did you do it?”
“A magician never reveals his secret,” Lewis said with dignified professionalism.
“So you’re not going to tell me?” Hannah asked.
“No. But I can make it reappear.”
“Okay let me see you make it reappear.”
Lewis rubbed his palms together and pressed his lips as if concentrating with all his might. Hannah waited. Lewis continued to rub his hands and finally gave up.
“I still haven’t gotten good at making it come back,” he said.
“If performing magic tricks isn’t for you then maybe you should take up something else,” Hannah suggested and then turned to leave the room.
“I think I’ve got it now,” Lewis called out after her.
Hannah turned around and Lewis had already begun rubbing his hands together.
“I was just rubbing too hard before,” he explained and then showed her the quarter that had magically reappeared in his palm.
“I’m impressed,” Hannah said and hurried back to her bedroom.
Lewis pulled out the instructions from his box of magic tricks, studied the trick until he felt certain that he could perform it flawlessly, and ran back to find his mother to show her, but she’d already escaped to her bedroom and closed the door behind her. Lewis stood in the hallway for a moment, wondering whether or not he should knock on the bedroom door, but decided against it. He went to his own room, where he turned on the television that his mother had agreed to buy for him shortly after the judge’s verdict.
* * *
Thomas spent most of the day sitting in front of the television. He’d been right the night before; basing all of his actions solely on his passing whims, hadn’t been so difficult. He’d decided to force himself to do something that he didn’t want to do only in the evenings before bed, and then he would only step outside of his experiment long enough to record thoughts, feelings, and observations from the day.