Do not. Do not, I repeat, throw trash in the cans in front of Building #3. Look at your hands. If you see you got diapers in them, or orange peels, pizza crusts, bobby pins, cigarettes, hair—well, that goes down your floor’s trash chute. The one in your hallway marked DEPOSIT TRASH HERE NYCDSPW. The cans in front of Building #3 are for Paper and Cans and Bottles. Nothing else, especially not paperwork. DO NOT throw your paperwork into those cans bins. Keep your paperwork with you AT ALL TIMES. Because it could be you think THE AUTHORITIES are coming to check the building out when in reality they coming to check you out. Be aware—the NYC Department of Sanitation and Planetary Welfare don’t play no games.
Do not spy. I repeat. Do not spy or repeat stories on neighbors in the name of climate changeability. That means you Miss Fields of 5G. Miss Sharpe of 2G don’t have nothing to do with you or your Paper or Cans or Bottles. She ALSO don’t want to know how your husband really died and if you cashed in his policy behind everybody’s back to buy you a new Buick. She don’t care if you order biscuits from Sylvia’s down in Harlem once a week per delivery instead of making them by hand like the rest of us mortals. Put down your periscope, Miss Fields of 5G. Miss Sharpe of 2G don’t have time for you seeing as how busy she is crocheting that afghan with the Sprockets from Immaculate Conception Junior High (it isn’t particularly my taste but who died and left me judge? I just know I wouldn’t want an afghan on my bed that said SAVE THE WORLD GODDAMMIT in cute pink yarn). Just mind your sustainable beeswax. Any further problems please call Keesha at the NYC Department of Community Climate Peace, ext. 2499. Keesha will have the answers.
It’s what the fancy places like Riverdale or Kingsbridge have been doing for some time now. (Years? OK then, they been doing it for years): recycling. Separating the dead from the living, the good-for-the-planet from the going-to-hell-in-a-handbasket-for-the-planet. One day THE AUTHORITIES handed out documents entitled the Better World Directive and next thing you knew, we had to look at our garbage with kindly eyes. We had to talk to our garbage in sweet voices, we had to let it know that it was part of something larger than all of Isaiah Gardens. We had to prepare for “Inspection.” Everyone in Buildings #1 through #10 sort of agreed why the hell not except for those oldsters at the Senior Center in Building #8, serious as the grave, no pun intended. They were pure against “Inspection.” Because since when is garbage more important than people? they asked. Since when do THE AUTHORITIES care more about filth and scum than the sanctity of human life, us ladies and gentlemen up here suffering, no heat or hot water for three days straight, then the grandkids don’t call us ever seems and on top of that, someone’s speakers out the window that WILL NOT STOP PLAYING “Going Up Yonder?” We’re not nobody’s slaves, the Senior Center says (somewhat incongruously, I might add, given their elderliness)—but of course THE AUTHORITIES don’t want to hear any of that, and I’m also inclined to view those ramblings as nonsense. Not everything has to go back to slavery days, just saying.
Try to remember. All I’m asking is that you try to remember. When you see these big blue bins in front of Buildings #3, #5, #7, and #10, please sort things out. Do not. Do not, I repeat, fill them with: leftover pie crusts, Three Musketeers wrappers, torn shopping bags from Century 21 or Food Bazaar, fake nails. Do not throw your bones, chicken or otherwise, into those bins receptacles. We are not slavery, we are not downtrodden. We can, in fact, be like those fancy places, Riverdale or Kingsbridge—even our neighbors (sort of) in Co-op City. Be aware! We CAN know the difference between crumpled corn muffin wrappers from Isaiah Gardens Deli versus the crumpled forms you needed to fill out last week for the foster care program but you forgot and now it’s maybe too damn late seeing as how the deadline’s passed and why in the world did you ever think someone would want to look you in the eyes and say, Mom?
Buildings #4 and #6 get their Paper and Cans and Bottles carted away in special yellow and black striped receptacles every Wednesday. The rest of the Buildings have to alternate between weeks, like the rest of the Bronx. Buildings #4 and #6 may go about putting on airs like they are the darlings of the NYC Department of Terrestrial Terror and Environmental Misbehavior, but we know the truth. Those people over there just plain nasty.
In the beginning, Building #2 was the start of everything ecological. That’s where most of the Immaculate Conception Sprockets live, a.k.a. the youth of Isaiah Gardens, a.k.a the action-packed hope of our corner of the Bronx: Sammy Abani, Joseline Diaz-Hunter, Callie Brown, Bellerina and Angelina Fromm, Malik Wiseman, Cody Collins, the list goes on. The Sprockets—so called because they set everything in motion, as in: you can teach an old dog new tricks—they were the first to go door-to-door handing out revised copies of the Better World Directive (viz: the Better World Directive 2). They were the first to tell the residents that there was such a thing as light pollution; they were the first to tell the seniors in Building #8 not to wear fur. If I had kids I would want them to look and act like the Isaiah Garden Sprockets. If I had kids, and they were over at Immaculate Conception, bored out of their gourds and feeling sad about being PART OF THE PROBLEM while some crusty old nun shows them a filmstrip video of our poor earth and mentions how we are ALL killing it softly (“I brought you into a fertile land to eat its fruit and rich produce but you came and defiled my land”)—my kids, my very own Sprockets, would stand tall and say we need to be doing something about our environmental obnoxiousness or else we’ll ALL be going to hell in a handbasket, every last one of us, no matter White nor Black, rich nor housing projects; and if that cruciferous clergywoman says something like, Children don’t cry, the Lord will protect, the Lord will instruct, my very own Sprockets will reply: Sister, it’s really up to us. WE ARE THE SOLUTION.
(The foster care paperwork is sitting right on my dearly departed gran’s coffee table. There’s not a stain upon them, save for the crumpling and the weird oniony splotch from who-knows-where? Who or what can I be? Will someone ever want to say Mom?)
In the past, the Sprockets who reside in Isaiah Gardens most definitely have brought their school knowledge home to their parents—which, in Building #2, happens to consist of a lot of nursing, pre-school, and union-jobbers. Smart folks, in other words—edumacated, as Keesha sometimes softly jokes. Those folks likely heard their kids out (unlike the parental units in Buildings #9 and #10 that only use their babies to find the TV remote) and said: Thank you for reminding us to do the right thing. We love you babies. We want our Mother Earth to win. We couldn’t be prouder. (Sadly most of these Sprockets are getting ready to graduate now and head out for the greener pastures of Bronx Science or Horace Mann and leave us mortals back here in the trenches. In the words of the philosopher R. Nevil: C’est la vie.)
Do not be afraid.
Do not be afraid to call Keesha. She will answer the phone like “This is Miss Dabney of the NYCDCCP what is your concern?” but don’t let that put you off. She is and is not one of THE AUTHORITIES. She will always ask for your ID and tell you that you are LATE AGAIN but then she will stick up for you—as in, she will look NYCDHPSSS (the New York City Department of Housing Project Sustainability and Spartan Spirit) in the face during the PSI (Preliminary Surprise Inspection) and ask why do they have to treat Isaiah Gardens like they’re the enemy? Isaiah Gardens has JUST as much sense as those buildings in Riverdale and Kingsbridge—maybe even more! There are lackadaisical people in the world and there are goodhearted people in the world and Isaiah Gardens happen to be in the latter category. Before doing a three-snap Keesha will say: Don’t underestimate them, NYCDHPSSS! Isaiah Gardens is a force to be reckoned with, believe you me! Bring on your watch dogs—they ain’t afraid!
(“Inspection” being no joke. First Post-Preliminary happening tomorrow and damned if I want Keesha looking like she’s got Alpo on her face.)
Because Keesha is also a force. There was that time some months ago when she asked me why I didn’t have any kids because the way I looked out for Isaiah Gardens made it clear I had a natural maternal instinct. When I was quiet, she lowered her eyes and begged my forgiveness for asking something so thoughtless. Not everyone needs kids to be a mother, she said, That’s all what I was meaning. I told Keesha I wasn’t offended. I told her my life, in fact, never seemed to have much time for kids, what with thirty years plus pension from the NYC Department of Elder Lovability and Microclimate Management, then no partner whatsoever with the hours I kept. Then moving in to take care of my gran in Building #10, then winding up staying here at Isaiah Gardens, where I have dutifully checked every inch and nook and cranny and no gang warfare whatsoever (thanks to me) and no drugs anywhere to be seen (double thanks to me); this has never been a paid position so clearly I do what I do out of love. You are the heart and soul of these houses, Keesha told me. You’re more than a mother. You’re a goddess. I blushed. That Keesha.
(She has brown eyes and brown hands that slip your paperwork back to you with the gentlest of ease. One time Keesha said to me: I found these documents in the recycling receptacles, Ms. Willis. I can’t imagine you would want them to go to waste. Please take them back.)
Building #7 has a couple cerebral palsy kid-mothers in it, scooting their kids’ wheelchairs past the bins receptacles in order to make those special schoolbuses, the short ones, you know which ones I’m talking about. I see those mothers wave their kids off, then try to put the cans and bottles and newspapers in the right places and I know they mean well even when it doesn’t actually happen. No one will hold it against them. Those mothers will not cause the “Inspection” to fail, even if they sometimes place diapers and tissues in the openings meant for soda cans and toilet paper rolls and organic egg cartons. Their faces flush. Do I want a flushed face as well? (Am I worthy? Mom.) Building #9 has those so-called college students (and yes, Bronx Community does too count!) but as far as we can tell, saving the planet is not on the same level for them as littering the floors with protest posters while simultaneously leaving a trail of wings and Styrofoam containers from elevator to door, like those kids in Hansel in Gretel—what were their names again?). Damn.
Some of those posters say:
CITY HALL SATURDAY 10:00 AM
MOTHER EARTH MARCH FOR OUR GREEN!!!
or:
COME THIS FRIDAY NIGHT 8PM
DON’T LET THEM TAKE
OUR GREEN FROM US!!
ISAIAH GARDENS SENIOR CENTER BUILDING #8
or:
ONLY YOU CAN PREVENT
OUR GREEN FROM
DISAPPEARING!
(Someone—maybe Miss Fields of 5G—keeps adding an S to the word GREEN. And I have to laugh, and if you honest, you have to laugh, too.)
Keesha was the one to come out and remove the vandalized posters. She looked me up and down—as if I could be capable of such ignominy—and said, Ms. Willis, you know this ain’t funny. This ain’t right. If we don’t lead our people the right way, who will? Shaking her pretty little head. Sounding so sanctimonious that I wanted to shout, We ain’t in church, Keesha! No need to get all up in MY FACE when I wasn’t the one who added that S! And I wanted to shout that and perhaps I did, because Keesha suddenly put her soft brown hand on my arm and said, Apollonia, I meant you no disrespect. I know you love Isaiah Gardens with your heart of hearts, and that you care about its future, and that you WILL HELP the residents understand the importance of saving our green. And suddenly my heart is full and back to remembering things correctly, and I just wish all the time my gran had had a touch more faith in me. I want to kiss Keesha but it just winds up on her cheek. Here I was thinking she was the enemy. My bad. I apologized and all was forgiven.
Do not think of yourself as a victim. Even when the NYC Department of Sanitation and Planetary Welfare issued a follow-up to the Better World Directive 2 (viz: the Better World Directive 3) that began: PEOPLE! YOU CAN’T BE HAPPY IF YOU DON’T GOT A WORLD TO BE HAPPY IN! GET IT TOGETHER OR ELSE! DON’T SEND A BOY OR GIRL TO DO A MAN OR WOMAN’S WORK! RECYCLE GODDAMIT!
And as if on cue, one of the lazy fathers in Building #4 started walking up to everyone with a nuisance Bible talking about: The earth is defiled by its people; they have disobeyed the laws, violated the statutes and broken the everlasting covenant. Some told him to shut the hell up. Some told him to go home and put some clothes on. The Senior Center at Building #8 told him to come in and have some coffee but he refused so they told him forget you then, crazy old coot. Not last week when this man passed by me tending to the tulip bulbs outside of Building #7, he gave me this look. And even though the sun was shining directly in my eyes, I knew he knew. He knew. Where there is a will, there is a way—and maybe we all are onto something, each in our own, immaculate approaches.
Last week was also when Keesha made a surprise visit and looked everywhere. Again the sun was sparkling and the air was as crisp as snowdrop blossoms. She grabbed me by the arm (was I that lost in thought?) and smiled her usual luminosity. Oh, Ms. Willis, these recycling containers are looking so much better! I know you trying, I know the Buildings are trying, and I appreciate it so very much! I appreciate you so very much, Ms. Willis! We will get there. Of course, my heart flew out of my body and circled the bins containers the rest of the day—can a heart be a cherub as well as a goddess? I SO needed that luminosity! Because just last month the NYC Department of Elder Lovability and Microclimate Management had written me an answer on the flimsiest onion skin stationery:
We’re sorry, Miss Willis, but we are not in the position to offer a letter of recommendation to one of our former employees in regards to foster parenthood as it presents a conflict of interest pursuant to Employee Code 117 of the City Code 118 of the New York State Department of…etc., etc.
(The last line being: You know, back then you were no angel. In red magic marker no less!)
But when Keesha looked at me through the snowdrop air, I wanted to reach back in time and straighten my wrinkles and crow’s feet and weird-working hips and shout, Who the HELL are you AUTHORITIES calling no angel? Forget you to infinity and back!!! I’m better than you ALL DAY LONG.
We all are better. We forget to remember that. Don’t forget.
This morning Miss Fields of 5G beckons to me in the courtyard of Building #8. I can see a murmur of senior heads in the distance behind her, all gathered behind the door at the Senior Center, clucking and waiting and maybe a few pairs of hands folded upon stomachs. Say Ms. Willis, Miss Fields calls out. I am in the middle of my walk-through as Volunteer Buildings Coordinator (a fancy word THE AUTHORITIES gave me to check on things in my spare time which is all the time, unless a foster child shows up and makes me his or her own) and I stop in front of Miss Fields while she nods in that old courtly way the seniors do. We been in there reading all them Better World Directives, she whispers to me. We been studying them, actually, Ms. Willis.
I told her I’d only gotten up to the BWD3. There’s more? Won’t you please elucidate, Miss Fields?
She pointed her finger hither and thither.
The Better World Directive 4 appeared on all the front doors to the buildings in Isaiah Gardens:
Miss Fields could have had tears in her eyes (who can tell when it comes to old people’s rheum?) but then she unweepily whispered, Why haven’t we grown, Ms. Willis? These little kids up here growner than us—what happened, Miss Willis? She waved her hands at the supermarket fliers stuck in the chain link fences around Buildings #9 and #10 of Isaiah Gardens: the craggy coffee cups, the puckered plastic milk gallons. It didn’t used to be like this when we first started, Miss Fields said. We were just inside telling each other about the old days, when people acted with respect. When people cared whether they lived in a pigsty or not. And those people were us, Miss Willis. What happened, Miss Willis? What happened? All we want to do is just sit back and cry!
Do not just sit back and cry! I repeat: do not just sit back and cry!
(I had no idea whether Miss Fields of 5G was in favor of the Better World Directives or not. Did she think her and her aged cohort would perhaps be the ones carted off to prison? She walked back to the senior center doors, and again I could feel that gray-headed murmur of old folks eye me with judgment. But judgment about what?)
I sat down on the bench next to the PAPER ONLY container receptacle bin. In the old days we could blame everything on the Allerton Houses. (Yes, I’m looking at you Miss Harvey of 2B and Mr. Washington of 7R—you and your Allerton Houses cousins who frequent our buildings all the time and leave recyclable Seagrams bottles right on the footpaths!) I put my head in my hands and told myself, Please don’t say you can’t teach an old dog new tricks!
Do learn new tricks! I repeat: there is enough love to go around for everyone.
Last night I used the broad side of my hand and straightened out the crumpled paperwork for the foster care people. I could wax sentimental and say something like, The Future Is What You Make It. But isn’t this the truth: that the future is the present, and the present was yesterday? Why do we put all our eggs in the future? Every damn thing is staring us right in the face.
Do not be afraid. Tomorrow is “Inspection.” Tomorrow is just one in a series of many. We can walk or we can run.
Tomorrow I get up and the weather is summertime sunny. It is still March, though, and the proverbial winds have kicked up, though you wouldn’t know it if you saw what I saw: Building #6 is neatly posted with mini posters, undisturbed by the gusts, that read, BLACK LIVES MATTER IN ALL WEATHER; Building #1 is neat as a pin, no loose hair curlers; and though Building #4 remains somewhat shabby and squall-blown (will we EVER have enough Food Bazaar sales fliers???), there are clear recycling bags nestled OUTSIDE their bins, which I take to mean that the bins are full up. It’s happening. I see Miss Sharpe of 2G and Miss Fields of 5G walking next to each other towards the Youth Community Center in Building #4; they are not arm-in-arm (as you and I would’ve preferred to have seen) but they are also not squabbling. I don’t see any Sprockets about, though I do see the cerebral palsy buses idling next to Building #7 (you don’t need to remind me to tell them that idling is bad for our air—I’m already on it!). One of those cerebral palsy mothers is carrying a canvas tote with probably enough recyclable juice boxes to feed the world. Life is moving. Forwards, upwards, diagonal, circle back and up. What, in reality, is there to be afraid of?
It is tomorrow; and I plan to call Keesha over at the NYC Department of Community Climate Peace and thank her for saving those documents. I wonder how she would feel about getting a bouquet of thank-you wildflowers on her desk? Freshly picked from Community Garden #45, corner of Bouck and Gun Hill Road. Swamp pink and large-flowered trillium and marsh marigolds. One never knows until one does.
Tomorrow I pass that same father who spouted all those Biblical gales. He’s got a yellowed Christian Science Monitor under his arm and a big smile upon his face. Still dressed in his bathrobe, but not as scary as before. Good morning, Ms. Willis. Would you happen to know the time?
My watch says it’s just past school breakfast, I tell him, and he smiles even wider.
I brought you into a fertile land to eat its fruit and rich produce.
Much obliged, sir, I answer.
Thank you, he says. Thank you, Ms. Willis. Thank you. He makes a big show of throwing the newspaper into the correct bin. His smile is never-ending. He could be a ghost.
The biblical man enters Building #8 and then all is quiet. I feel like shouting. Maybe I do start shouting. But no one comes out, no one shouts at me: DO NOT SHOUT!
Not even you or your whole “Inspection” team, walking towards me in the pre-hot-lunch sun. Because you know, even without me telling you: we can be as good as Riverdale or Kingsbridge or Co-op City. (Woodlawn had better not turn their noses up at us—we left them in the dust long ago, no pun intended.) We here at Isaiah Gardens can reinvent the wheel—we can turn it into a goddamn flying carpet. Just go ask the Sprockets, go ask the seniors. Ask the mothers, ask the fathers! Be aware! Oh, you say you want specifics? Well then—ask Mr. Leftenant and Mr. Baines of 6K, Building #1. No, don’t even ask—just go and look!
