Chapter 14: Tending to His Garden
A week had past since his gardening lessons, and Quincy had planned today to be the day that he started his efforts to bring happiness to the city. It was early Monday morning, on the first day of his spring break, and Quincy was down standing on the sidewalk outside his apartment. In his hand was a large bucket. His first victim approached. A large boned female was walking straight at Quincy, and as usual had made no eye contact. Her face was stone cold, and showed no emotion. As she neared, Quincy reached into his bucket and pulled out his surprise. The woman, prepared for the worst, through up both arms as if to fend off an attack. Her face looked as if she were ready to tear Quincy to shreds if he tried anything. But the fear and anger in her eyes melted away. In Quincy’s hand was a yellow rose with a little letter tied on with a string that read, “Have a wonderful day! Share a smile!”
“What is this for?” she asked.
“I simply want to wish you a great day. Nothing more.”
“You mean you don’t want any money, and you aren’t promoting any cause? And you aren’t planning to rape me?” She asked. It was clearly hard to let go of her preconceived notions about anyone who attempted to talk to her on the streets.
“Happiness is the only cause worth promoting. I only ask you donate a smile to me, and a few more to others.” And from above, a voice shouted “Have a good day’ as if to compliment the process.
“If only there were more people like you in this city!” The woman glowed as she walked away.
Quincy couldn’t help but feel as though he had succeeded, even if making that one person happy was all he ever achieved. But as the day continued, he had more of the same success. A few people were too suspicious to accept the rose, but many that did lit up like they had won a million dollars. They were shocked that someone simply wanted to wish them a good day.
Yet, this was only part one of his plan to bring happiness to the masses. Part one of his plan would from now on be giving out roses on the sidewalk. Tuesday would be an entirely different plan of attack.
When he woke up the next day he got an early start. He had lots to do! He had bought a huge pack of sliced meat, chips, plastic baggies, paper bags, and bottled water. With this, he made as many lunches as he could. He had several backpacks full and stuffed in his refrigerator by the time 10:00 rolled around. At that time, he put one backpack on his back and carried his bike down the stairs. Every person he saw asking for change, he stopped and gave them a lunch. Some of them thanked him, others hugged him, and he even got a few dirty kisses on his cheek from an elated homeless man who claimed it was the first time he had a whole sandwich in months. He did note that this was in exception to the time he used ketchup to glue together 13 or so unfinished sandwiches and made one whole one. But Quincy reassured him that if such a rulebook existed on sandwiches, it was not likely that the said creation would qualify as a complete sandwich.
After giving out each sandwich, Quincy only asked that each homeless person smile at some of the people passing him or her by. And by the end of the day, Quincy had felt as though the second part of his plan was a small success as well.
The third day was a complete failure. How was Quincy to know that the people double-parking their cars would not like to have them relocated in a bonafide parking spot? Though, Quincy was rooted for by the people who were sick of weaving in and out of parked cars in the middle of the road. Still, Quincy decided it was best that he hide out at home for the rest of the day, in case the death threats made by the double-parkers were not just hypothetical.
On day four Quincy realized he was running out of money so he decided to search the house. He was sure that his dad would have some money hidden around the house. He found more sugary looking products than he could find in a bakery, but was having little luck finding money. Only shortly before he was planning to give up, Quincy stumbled on the mother load. In his fathers walk-in closet he found a life-sized dummy doll laying face down. It was dressed in his father’s clothes, resembled his fathers features quite a bit, and had a needle stuck in one arm. Quincy was sure that his father must have used it to demonstrate to others how to use the drugs that he supplied to dealers. In the back pocket of the dummy was a wallet. It looked exactly like his fathers and it was filled with dozens of hundred dollar bills. Quincy assured himself he would never steal from his father, but he was quite sure the extremely lifelike doll wouldn’t mind. Quincy would have loved to continue justifying his actions, but the room smelled awful. He wasn’t sure what the smell was, but he decided he rather not find out.
With the money, Quincy was sure he could carry out his plan for a few weeks. Today, Quincy planned to bring smiles to the subway. He arrived at the subway in time to see the morning rush. But he did not enter the gates; instead he purchased a thousand tokens and let as many people as he could ride the subway for free. He was sure he was guilty of a major crime, because people were smiling while at the subway station and it was because of him. He had never heard the words thank you used so many times in all his days spent traveling the streets of Philadelphia. On the other hand, he’d never heard anyone say thank you at all.
With another success under his belt, Quincy looked forward to day five of his plan. Day five’s plan is what Quincy referred to as Buffet Day. There was no specific plan for how he would brighten the lives of his fellow citizens. Instead, Quincy planned to make himself useful in anyway possible.
He started the day off by helping an old woman carry her groceries into her house. At first she refused to accept his help, but she quickly realized that Quincy had no use for her grownup diapers and the stockpile of frozen juice. So she agreed to allow him to help. Quincy denied her attempt to pay him a quarter for his help, and insisted the only payment he wanted was a smile.
After this, Quincy picked up trash along the sidewalk, and swept an entire block. He knew that it would be a mess by the next day, but those who trekked past today would enjoy one block of clean sidewalk. After this, he ran to the local hardware store and purchased a few packages of wild flowers seeds. The weather would be warning up soon and so he thought it would cheer people up to see signs of life as they walked down the street.
Throughout the rest of the day, Quincy held the door for anyone he could. He helped strangers with their daily tasks. He tucked in a few homeless people taking a noontime nap on park benches. Anything he could do to help people, he did.
Quincy planned to continue doing his efforts on the weekends, now that his spring break was ending. He figured he could alternate between his first and second day one weekend, and his fourth and fifth day every other weekend. He had decided to throw out his third day due to unfavorable responses.
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