A Basil Plant Named Mozart
I was so lonely walking out of that store and back into the busy people street when overhead I heard an argument a woman opened up her window, threw a flower pot from it I was startled by the crash but went over to find a little plant I quickly emptied out my paper coffee cup and adopted it transplanted it took it home and named it Mozart
– Mermaid by Regina Spektor
Scout wasn't sure if he was allowed to bring a basil plant with roots overflowing the rim of his coffee cup into a Wal-Mart, but it wasn't like he had a car he could leave it in either. So he took it inside.
He scanned the isles until he spotted a blue-vested employee. She was stocking shelves with her back turned to him. So Scout cleared his throat and walked over to her as he said, “Excuse me.”
When the woman turned around, Scout realized he was wrong. She was not a woman. The employee just wore his ponytail so high that Scout mistook him for one from behind. It was amazing how Scout managed to make the same mistake every time he saw Amak, despite having a class with him once a week, but here he was. Again.
“Oh, hi Scout,” Amak said out loud. “What can I help you with?”
Scout fidgeted and ran his thumbs along the side of his cup. Should he switch to sign language? Scout would have to do it one handed... But, probably none of the other customers knew sign language, so it wasn't likely that Amak expected people to cater to him in this environment. He started the conversation speaking, and had his hearing aids in, so maybe that was best?
Why was he trying to be considerate to Amak anyway? Amak was never really subtle about the fact he didn't like Scout. Maybe it was best to nip this interaction in the bud.
“Don't worry about it. I'll find someone else.” Scout waited until he was finished speaking before turning to leave, but for whatever reason, Amak wasn't going to let him go so easily.
“Hang on now. This is kind of my job, so I'm happy to help. See?” he forced a grin and pointed to it. “Smiling and everything. What do you need?”
Scout shifted between his converse and stared at his new plant for a moment before saying, “I'm looking for things that can help me take care of this. Like a pot, and a bit of soil...”
Amak raised an eyebrow. “That plant isn't going to grow like that. The stem's broken and split down the side.”
“I know it's hurt.” Scout pulled the plant closer to his body protectively, despite the half that was fighting to stay upright. “But it will grow.”
Amak raised his eyebrows skeptically, but only said, “Well, what you're looking for is the gardening section. Which is...” he turned around to point, but his hand fell limp at his wrist. “Actually, never mind. I'll just take you there. It's ridiculously out of the way – all the way in the back. I'm not sure what the architects were thinking when they built this place.”
Scout stood a little straighter as he followed Amak out of the home improvement department. “So does that mean they actually encourage people to drive around the back?”
“Yeah. It causes a real traffic jam on the weekends. Harder to bring in merchandise too. I guess the area they had to work with wasn't big enough for their usual shape and they improvised. Terrible idea, really.”
So that's what happened. Scout always felt something was off about this building, and he couldn't figure out why. But it was because it was missing its wing outdoor departments, and yet the building seemed just as large per square foot as the other Wal-Marts. Scout was never able to figure out how one fit into the other and the unease behind not being able to figure that out was the remaining 5% of the reason why he never shopped here.
They walked the rest of the way in silence. It was probably difficult for Amak to walk and listen at the same time, and Scout didn't have anything to say anyway. So it was easy to see the stiffness in Amak's shoulders as he walked, and the glances he kept throwing over his shoulder looked more like a nervous animal than a bored employee making sure their customer kept up with them. Scout kept meeting his eyes every time he did this, but Scout was starting to suspect that was unnerving him. It seemed kind of strange that Amak would be afraid of him when Scout was a solid four inches shorter, but Scout's learned to not question these sorts of things. So he looked at Amak's shoes as they walked instead, and eventually they reached the back of the store and the gardening section.
“So!” Amak clapped his hands together and gestured around them. “This is it. Pots are right...” He walked down the path looking between the isles until the fifth row, where he stopped and pointed. “Here. And, conveniently, it looks like they have potting soil right along the back wall for you. Need anything else?”
Scout caught up at him and looked down the isle, and sure enough saw various pots. With a frankly ridiculous range of sizes – from one about the size of the paper cup in his hand to large ones that was easily half his size and probably weighed more than Scout did soaking wet. He could probably rule those two out for his plant, but he was having a hard time deciding between the more medium ones.
He turned to Amak and asked, “Do you have any idea what size I should get?”
Amak shifted off of the balls of his feet – was he planning to bolt if Scout had said No? - and walked over to the shelf. He glanced between the pots and the plant in Scout's hand several times, and then pulled out a pot about 8 inches tall and in diameter, which was much larger than Scout would have expected for his little basil plant.
“You want a pot about twice the size of the roots you have so that the plant has room to grow,” he explained. “So this one will probably work the best.”
“Thanks.” Scout blinked and took the pot from him, placing the cup inside of the pot and then tucking it safely in the arm of his non-dominant hand. “Do you like nature?”
Amak raised an eyebrow, a weird mix of confusion and offense in his expression. Maybe Scout worded that question poorly. With Amak's indigenous appearance, he probably heard stereotypical comments like that a lot. That wasn't Scout's intention though – he was genuinely curious. This hadn't come up in any of their practice sign language conversations in class, and it seemed more and more common for the people he met to prefer the indoors to the outside.
“I guess so,” Amak crossed his arms. “I spent a lot of time outside as a kid, and we went camping a lot. But my mom is the one who really likes plants. Our house is overflowing with them. What about you?”
“My dad and I had a large garden,” Scout said, looking down to the basil's leaves as he rubbed his thumb over one of them. “Like, large-enough-to-feed-us-and-have-extra-left-over-for-the-farmer's-market kind of large. But we didn't have any potted plants. Which is why I asked.”
“Ah.” Scout saw Amak nod out of the corner of his eye. Then he vanished and Scout had to look at him properly to see him grabbing a bag of dirt from along the back wall and bring it back to Scout. “This is the smallest bag we have, but it'll probably still be too much. That okay?”
Scout rolled his eyes. Like he really had a choice. He held open his free arm to take it. “Yeah, that's fine.”
Woah. This was much lighter than the tightly packed bags of manure Toby had him lug around for their garden, but it was awkward trying to get a good grip and balance it in his arms when his other hand was previously occupied.
Amak was biting back a smile as he said, “Do you need some help? Or a maybe a shopping basket?”
“Take this,” Scout shoved the pot at Amak and used the opportunity to throw the bag of dirt over his shoulder where he could easily balance and carry it. He took his plant back a few seconds later. “Thanks for your help. I think I can handle it from here.”
“Hang on.” Amak held up a finger and disappeared around the end of isle. It was nearly a minute before he returned with a straight wire rod support, with circles built into the side. Amak slipped the end of the wire in Scout's pot next to the paper cup. “To help it grow upright,” was all the explanation he gave before moving on to, “Also, I'm not exactly sure what this does, but mom always put a layer of gravel in the bottom of her pots before adding the soil. I wouldn't bother buying any rocks though, there's literally a parking lot full of the stuff right out those doors over there.”
The corner of Scout's mouth twitched into a smirk. “Thanks for the heads up.”
Amak shrugged. “I'm here to help.”
After a few more pointers on potted plant care (such as putting a plate under the pot to catch any excess water), Scout parted with Amak at the register. It was strange having a vaguely normal conversation with him. There wasn't even a teacher breathing down their necks this time. He was also notably more relaxed once the topic switched to gardening. Perhaps people calmed down in stressful situations when presented with some vaguely familiar ground for them to stand on. Scout filed that revelation away for future use as he scooped a couple handful of rocks into his hoodie pocket.
= = =
Scout was watering Mozart when his roommate returned from his late class. The soil was absorbing the water better than a sponge, and it felt kind of nostalgic watching the dirt practically beg for more. During dry spells Scout was out in the garden with a hose making sure every square foot of garden was watered and happy. Toby didn't trust sprinklers to get the job done well enough. It was kind of laughable he expected an apathetic teenager to fare better than an automated piece of technology, but somehow the garden survived.
“What's all this?”
Scout spun around in his chair and saw Émile gesturing to the floor. Or, more specifically, he was gesturing to the fresh layer of soil that coated the floor of their dorm room.
“It's dirt.”
Émile's expression soured. “Yes, I see that it's dirt, but what's it doing here?”
“I wasn't careful enough when I opened that bag over there.” Scout gestured to the half-empty bag of dirt leaning against his dresser.
Émile gave him another incredulous look. “But why did you open it in our room to begin with?”
“Admittedly, I could have thought it through better.”
“No kidding.” Émile tiptoed around the mess and jumped a little to safely flop onto his bed.
“Hey, I have a scholarship in math, not common sense.”
Émile kicked off his shoes toward a corner of room still vaguely considered clean and said, “It doesn't take common sense to clean up a mess you make. Just a little decency.”
A comment about not exactly being a decent person rested at the tip of Scout's tongue, but he kept it to himself. He knew how this verbal volley would go – he'd say something true, and Émile would deny it to his dying day. He wasn't going to be convinced otherwise, and it was exhausting having a pointless argument about Scout's worth as a human being. Especially since neither one of them were wrong.
So instead he just said, “You're right. My bad. You have a brush and dustpan?”
“In the closet.”
“Thanks.”
Émile got settled in on his bed, pulling out a couple of books from his backpack, while Scout started sweeping up the dirt and dumping it back in the bag it came from. It was easy but boring work, and Scout could feel Émile's eyes on him while he pretended to read.
And, sure enough the question came: “Why did you open that bag of dirt anyway?”
“You didn't notice the new foot-tall plant in the window?”
“What? Oh!” Émile blinked rapidly as he stared at Mozart. “Wow. Yeah. That is new.”
Scout almost laughed. Émile was a great guy – kind, owns up to his mistakes – but, bless him, he often had trouble finding the forest for the trees. It was kind of endearing in a cute-animal-fails-at-doing-something-simple sort of way.
“You don't mind, right?”
“Mind what?” Émile smirked at him. “That you got a plant? Of course not.”
“Cool.”
Even after Scout swept up as much of the dirt as he could, the ground still felt like grit and dust. It was really a job for a mop, but Scout knew without looking that they didn't have one of those. He supposed wet paper towels would do well enough if he didn't mind crawling around on a tile floor. So Scout gathered a number of paper towels and started wiping up the floor in silence.
After a while, Scout glanced in Émile's direction. “So what do you think of Mozart?”
“The classical musician?”
“No, the plant on the windowsill.”
“Oh!” Émile looked over to it again. “Cool, I guess. You named it Mozart?”
“Yup.”
“Why?”
Scout picked up the used paper towel and tossed it in the trashcan. “One of his calmer pieces was playing pretty loudly when its previous owner chucked it out of her window. I liked the irony.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah.” Scout peeled off another wet paper towel from his bunch. “Also, even though the man himself died, he kind of lived on too. Through his music. Like being reborn. And that's what I want for this plant.”
Émile tilted his head. “Like, the plant 'died' when it was thrown out, and you're giving it a second life?”
Scout shrugged. “Something like that.”
“Aww,” Émile put on a dopey grin. “That's so romantic.” Scout gave him a deadpan stare, and Emile quickly added, “In the old fashioned sense of the word! Like, cool. It's cool.”
Scout balled up the wet paper towel in his hand and tossed it at Émile's face. “I guarantee that there is not a single romantic bone in my body. Ideals or otherwise.”
The paper towel hit Émile smack in the middle of his forehead, despite flailing to catch it. He tried to look mad, but utterly failed. He threw the paper towel back at Scout, but it bounced harmlessly off of the brim of his hat. Scout smirked and stuck his tongue out childishly before flopping back onto his bed and pulling his hat down over his eyes.
Even if it turned out the top half of Mozart wasn't going to be able to grow properly, the bottom half – the roots, the heart, the core – that part was still good. So it could still grow, despite expectations to the contrary.
Maybe the same thing could be said about Scout, too.