Chapter 13: The Plan
After the meeting with Dr. Rush, Quincy’s life went on as normal. But in the back of his mind he was constantly trying to figure out what exactly he could do at least to try and make the world a better place. What would have the greatest effect? He wondered if he could get people to stop doing drugs or drinking, but knew that this was a difficult task for even those who want to quit and the people around him did not seem to want to quit. Maybe he could start an anti-litter campaign, but would that really do anything about the major problems in Philadelphia.
The harder he thought, the more discouraged he became. Was there anything he could do that would matter? What was the source of all the problems?
Then one day Quincy had a revelation. On his way to school he passed by a house with a little tiny garden. It was rare to see any sort of vegetation in Philadelphia, but few people were lucky enough to have a tiny plot of land to grow flowers or whatever they wanted. In this particular garden there was an old man bending over and pulling up something. Then Quincy realized that the old man was the strange man who had told him that his eyes were not open.
Before Quincy could pass by, the old man looked up at Quincy and their eyes met. Quincy knew there was no escaping. He could not pretend he had not noticed the man, but he couldn’t help but feel a little scared of him. He hoped he could continue on and avoid this spot from now on, but luck was not visiting Quincy today.
“How does the world look today?” asked the old man.
“What do you mean? Who are you?” Quincy replied.
“What I mean is that your eyes have opened. Finally, you can see.”
“I have always been able to see, and my eyes are always open when walking around. Otherwise, how would I see?”
“Never mind that, have you ever had a garden?”
“No, I spent most of life in an apartment, and there wasn’t any place around my apartment complex that would have been available for planting.”
“Well, this tired old man could use some help. If you wouldn’t mind I’ll gladly pay you.”
Quincy looked at the old man. He tried to gauge if there was any evil intent behind the old man’s invitation. Then he looked at the old man’s arms to see how strong the man was. Quite confident he could defeat the old man in a fight, Quincy decided that his good nature would not allow him to turn down the request of the man.
“Sure, I have a little time before I need to be at school.”
“Wonderful, I need you to help me weed my garden.”
Quincy opened the gate allowing him to enter the man’s fenced in plot. And he got down on his haunches and began to help weed. The first weed he saw, Quincy yanked on and pulled off just the upper portion. Almost instantaneously the old man grabbed Quincy’s hand. Quincy was glad that he had drunk very little that morning, since his bladder nearly hit the release valve.
“What are you doing? Have you never weeded a garden before? First off, do you even know why we have to weed?”
“Well, no, like I said, I’ve never had a garden before.”
“Oh, yes, you must excuse me. My age has brought agitation with it, and my surroundings do little to help. Anyway, the reason we must weed the garden is to prevent weeds from stealing the nutrients and sunlight that help the flowers grow healthy and beautiful. If allowed to grow, the weeds will slowly destroy and overrun the garden. But if checked, the weeds can be eliminated, though we must be ever vigilant to ensure the weeds do not return uninvited.”
“I thought that was what I was doing. I was pulling out the weeds as you asked.”
“You were only pulling out the top of the weed. You left the most important part behind, the root. If left, the root will sprout the weed again and again forever. Like a hidden cancer, the root will plot to destroy your garden time and time again until you take your battle to the root. Only then have you defeated the source of the weed. When tending to your garden, you must remove the root of the weeds, or you have simply made a temporary cosmetic fix. Underneath the ground evil will be plotting its revenge.”
Being a little overwhelmed by the old man’s melodramatic description of the importance of weeding, Quincy replied, “You take gardening very seriously. But I will do as you ask.”
Quincy went on to remove as many roots as he could. He felt as though he was doing something extremely valuable even though removing a few weeds seemed like a minor task. After several minutes, the weeds were all removed.
“Thank you for you help. I hope you’ll stop by and see the garden when it is in bloom. I will be watching your garden as well.”
Not sure what the old man was talking about, Quincy smiled, said “You’re welcome” and continued on to school.
As he walked to school he replayed the mornings events over in his head. What a strange beginning to his morning. It was the first time he had ever been engaged by conversation on his way to school. Usually people were too busy frowning or ignoring everyone else to allow a conversation to begin. The other strange part was that he had never seen that garden before. In all the days he had walked to the subway, he had taken that same route, but had never noticed the garden. And it wasn’t like there were plenty of gardens to see. So he felt as though it should have stood out in his mind.
Picking up where he had left off, Quincy struggled with where he could start his mission to change his world. He wondered if the problems of the city had a root. A place that if altered would lead to a chain reaction. What caused the city to be such a horrible place? Why is it that people were so cruel towards each other? The more he thought about it the more he believed that unhappiness was the root of the tragedy unfolding around him. People that are happy with their lives are less likely to need something like drugs or alcohol to make them happy. And people that are happy will probably be more likely to care about the place they live in. They probably won’t litter or consent to living in dirty disgusting conditions. Quincy had discovered the cure: a smile! If only he could make people smile, make them happy so that they inspired others to be happy. Then maybe they would take better care of themselves and those around them.
But how could he make others happy. He didn’t have the time to go around from person to person making sure that everything in their lives was going well. He needed a plan that would allow him to make a few people's day a little better and then in turn those people would make another person’s day a little better and so on and so forth. In the end, the happiness would cycle back to the original person.
Quincy couldn’t fight off the feeling that the old man had been trying to get him to see this through the gardening lessons. It seemed far too random an occurrence to not have been planned with a purpose. Maybe the old man would have some advice. Quincy turned around and began walking back to the site of the garden. He must have passed it as he ended up back at his house. He tried walking back the same route as he had before, but no sign of the garden. The harder he tried to figure out what was going on, the more confused he felt. At one point he was sure that he had arrived at the place where the garden had once been.
Not sure what would happen, Quincy decided to knock on the door. After a few seconds, a middle-aged woman opened the door.
“Can I help you?” the woman looked a little suspicious of Quincy.
“I’m sorry to bother you ma’am, but I feel almost certain that there was a garden around here somewhere and I thought you might be able to tell me where it was.”
The woman’s face turned a little pale, there was signs of fear in her eyes. “I have to admit, I’m a little freaked out by this, but I think I have a letter for you. It came in the mail the other day and it was addressed to ‘the boy looking for the garden.’ So I’m assuming that is you. Let me get it.” Still unsure of what was going on, the woman closed and locked her door as she went to get the letter.
While he waited, Quincy thought about how sad it was that people had to lock their doors with deadbolts, security systems and more just to make sure that they were safe in their own homes. As he thought about that, the door opened again and the woman handed him the letter through the small crack in the door allowed by her chain bolt. Quincy took the letter and smiled.
“Thank you. I’d tell you what is going on, but I’m just as confused as you are. I was sure that there was an old man out in a garden right here next to your building. And how someone could have known that I’d come asking about a garden that clearly doesn’t exist is beyond me. But thank you again.”
“Yeah, that sounds pretty crazy, so I hope you’ll forgive me if I close the door and lock it.” The lady did as she said, and Quincy didn’t blame her. This seemed far to strange to him as well. Unfortunately he was part of the strangeness, so he couldn’t simply lock the door and hide from what was going on.
Instead, Quincy opened his letter. Inside was an old browned piece of paper. It looked like the type of paper that facsimiles of the Declaration of Independence were printed on. As he unfolded the letter, the brittle corners of the paper fell to the ground. The letter read, “Dear Quincy, Tend to your garden. Sincerely, V.”
Quincy felt as if he were in a movie. He expected the dramatic music would be playing in the background, and suddenly the plot of the movie made sense. Unfortunately, Quincy had no idea what it meant. That is, until he folded the letter up and on the back of the letter was written, “Damn it man, must I spell it out for you. Philadelphia is your garden, and the evil that plagues it must be weeded out! Your thoughts about unhappiness are a good place to start.”
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