never let it be said that baxter bancroft was not a man of his word. boy. man. teenager. whatever, he was a person of his word. because after ciaran had acted so superior in his reminder that one saturday did not a community garden make, and people were only cleaning the lot because a judge ordered it, and blah blah blah, baxter freaking bancroft had adopted this lot as his very own, because it was about the principle of the thing. and sure, maybe he’d completely bulldozed ahead of charmaine’s original lowkey community garden plans—he’d spent the rest of that week researching fences and buying wood panels and having them installed, first of all, and covered the lot in both seeds and already-grown replanted plants in the weeks following, as well as come in early to pick up trash. because this was his lot now, and it was going to be a great goddamn lot, and then who would be laughing? baxter would, that’s who.
of course, the street tree planting may have been a bit ... much, baxter realized. who brought in an already adolescent tree to grow in a community garden? well, baxter did, that’s who. he had this whole idea in his head that if things were already growing there, people would feel encouraged to help tend to the garden, since it looked already like a place of life. a barren lot with seedlings and sprouts would just be depressing. but many of the seeds had already sprouted, too, and once the tree reached a greater maturation, they would hang a tire swing, and it would be great.
it was going to be great, gosh darn it, baxter thought, stabbing an empty cigarette pack and chucking it into the trash. now that the tree was there, he kept looking up to grin at it, standing proud in the sea of asphalt that surrounded. bringing in plants might’ve been cheating a little, but ... it was worth it. he stopped to sit on that cursed stoop, wiped an arm across his forehead, and rolled up the sleeves of his t-shirt so that they stopped at his shoulders. early as it was, chicago summers were unforgiving. “portia,” he whined into his phone, “i need you to come bring me food.”