Javante was doing penance for throwing a rock through Michael's window. Michael is a former teacher and one of the guys who helps around CRISP Farms in the 9th Ward. He was the one that offered Javante the experience and saved him two hundred dollars. Javante would be responsible for helping the two of us plant peppers and okra.
Javante's favorite part about planting was the break between each plant that gave him time to hang upside down on the gate that had no chain link and served no purpose other than a false barrier. It was a perfect size for an eight year old to hang and swing.
Javante's favorite part about planting was the break between each plant that gave him time to hang upside down on the gate that had no chain link and served no purpose other than a false barrier. It was a perfect size for an eight year old to hang and swing.
The world must have been upside down to him. I didn't try to force too much. If he helped, he helped. He asked me did my lectricity get turned off, because his mama's lectricity got turned off, but his grandma's lectricty still worked, so they was staying by her.
I told him I wasn't sure.
I told him I wasn't sure.
"You gonna give me a dollar when we finished," he said.
"We're saving you two hundred dollars," Michael said.
"What you need a dollar for?" I asked.
"Something from the store."
He had already eaten six or eight leaves of curly kale and red Russian kale, and even jammed an entire bunch of crisp mint lettuce into his mouth, but that he chewed and stood with his mouth open, green saliva, and green bits all around his pink tongue, and through this mess, he asked, "This is good?"
"Is it bitter?" Michael asked.
Javante nodded his head. We told him that he could spit it out.
He bent down before me while I planted okra. I had him water each hole. Then I taught him stem and leaf and the difference between the two. It took a few times of my pointing for him to go from leaf-leaf-leaf-leaf to leaf-leaf-leaf-leaf...I mean stem. I felt it was a success.
Kids can only pay attention for so long, and it was clear that Javante had other important things to do, so Michael and I planted Scotch bonnets, jalapenos, cayennes, sweet reds, and banana peppers. At one point, I turned to see Javante sitting on the back of my truck, blowing up a balloon that kept getting bigger and bigger until it rivaled the Goodyear blimp from a distance. As I investigated the capacity of this amazing balloon, I realized that it was a condom.
I asked Javante, "Where'd you get that balloon?"
"This not a balloon," he said. "It's a condom."
"Where you got that condom?"
"At the barber shop. I got it for free."
Javante tied up the condom balloon and hit my truck with it. He hit the condom balloon against his chest and against his knees and stood in the back of my truck, condom balloon raised high like David about to slay Goliath.
Biting ants attacked my feet. I swatted them away.
"Look," Javante yelled. "It's flying. It's flying."
The condom rose with Javante's seemingly helium breath, higher into the sky, toward France Street and all the heroin dealers milling about. The three of us watched like it was a hot air balloon about to land on the moon. The ascension of this condom balloon made Javante's day, so much so that when the condom balloon hit Mr. Jackson's pine and popped so quick you almost heard a hiss, and then hung on the bristles with a lifelessness that defied it's former majesty, Javante did not even seem phased. Maybe, just maybe, he had three more condom balloons in his pocket, and if not, there would always be another trip to the barber.
