Crow - The Awakening (36 page)

Margaret stood up, no longer so shaky and weak, and she took the cups into the kitchen. "Plus, I have a treat for you I think you'll like."

The roof of the apartment building had a lot of room and it was almost completely filled with what appeared to be raised beds and a greenhouse, a small collection of beehives off in a corner, and several large tubs planted with fruit trees in another corner. Steven stepped out of the service elevator and took it all in, stunned. Margaret walked out behind him, not saying anything. The beds were not planted with anything currently but still had the dead plants from the last season's crop. Steven put his hands in the soil of one of the beds. It was fresh and rich and smelled of humus as he disturbed it and he could feel that the soil was alive.

"One of our tenants set this up and ran a market garden, but they got divorced and we were left with it," Margaret explained. "Think you can do something with it?"

Steven looked back at her. Suddenly he realized how dead things were in the concrete city and how much it affected him. Even the possibility of bringing some life here energized him. "Yes. Yes, ma'am." He looked around, wondering where to start. He'd have to plan out the crops. The spring season was pretty much over but he could plant for the fall season and perhaps even be able to get something going for the summer season. The fruit trees needed pruning and he would have to go through the beehives.

He noticed the modest little greenhouse again. That was new for him but he was immediately drawn to it. He walked over to it and looked in. It was a very sturdy affair of welded steel framing and twin wall paneling. Inside it was steamy hot even with the roof vents automatically opened. Most of the plants that were in there had become desiccated, but a few were hanging on. At the far end was a potting bench, and next to it a little desk with a chair. Steven suddenly knew where he would be setting up his laptop and conducting his search. He opened the larger vents and the influx of cool air was immensely refreshing. "This is perfect."

"I thought so." Margaret smiled, holding up an elevator key.

Steven took it from her and looked around and smiled. This was most definitely not what he was expecting, but it was very much him. He walked around, inspecting the plants. He already had ideas of what extra plants he would put in there, seeing it rich and overgrown with lush tropical growth. It was like the greenhouse knew what it wanted. "I could spend a lot of time up here."

"That's good. I missed the fresh tomatoes," Margaret said. "And our tenants really miss having fresh produce grown right here."

"Oh, you'll get more than that." Part of Steven's mind was already working out what he'd plant and where. "I'll need to get some seeds ordered."

"You just let me or my son know what you need and it's yours." She was beside herself with the idea of having the gardens back.

He started to walk out of the greenhouse when he noticed a plant he had seen before. It was one of the large tropical dandelions. He walked up to it and felt it. It was there. The scent of the flower brought back memories and his heart jumped. Steven closed his eyes then looked at it again. It was still there. He turned to Margaret to ask her about it but she was headed back to the elevator already. He looked at the plant again but found himself holding a dead leaf of one of the tropical plants the previous tenant had left there. Steven blinked and stepped back. Shaking his head, he walked out of the greenhouse and caught up with Margaret. There were too many good things starting to happen to let that disturb him.

Laurence pulled up to another homeless shelter. Since Steven had been robbed and was now broke, Laurence banked on the idea that he had tried to get into one of these shelters. He had been to a few already and figured he would hit up another before calling it a day.

Mel met him at the door and Laurence flashed his badge. "Have you seen this person?" he asked, holding a picture of Steven up for Mel to see.

"Yes. I remember him." Mel looked at the picture. "Is he okay?"

"Did he stay here?" Laurence pressed on, ignoring Mel's question.

"No. He's a minor so we were unable to help him," Mel said.

Laurence raised an eyebrow and looked around. Pesky state laws again. Workers were handing out sack suppers to a line of homeless patrons. "Has he had any contact with your employees?"

"Yeah, I think he talked to Brian. That's him over there." Mel waved at Brian to get his attention and waved him over. Brian gave a sack to another homeless man and walked over to Laurence and Mel.

"Brian, this man is trying to find that kid you talked to."

Laurence held up the picture. Brian looked at it and smiled.

"Yeah, I've seen him. He looked lost." Brian smiled.

"Did he say anything about where he was going?" Laurence asked.

"No, he didn't tell me where he was going. But he was having a pretty bad day. I gave him a sack lunch and tried to help him but had to go back to the line," Brian answered. He knew exactly where Steven went, but Steven didn't tell him.

Laurence looked at both of them for a moment and decided he wouldn't get much more out of them. "If he comes back could you give me a call?" He handed a business card to each of them.

"Of course. Is he in trouble?" Mel asked.

"His parents are worried about him and want him to come back home. So if there's anything you can do, I'd appreciate it. Just don't let him know, okay? We don't want him running off." Laurence explained to them.

Brian watched him go and fingered his phone in his pocket, deleting the call history. Mel may have believed the officer, but Brian knew better.

"That poor kid. I hated sending him off like that," Mel said to Brian.

"Oh, I'm sure he'll be just fine, Mel." Brian smiled at him, then went back to the food line and continued handing out sack suppers, humming a hymn while he worked.

"Steven, this is Richard, my oldest son from my first marriage." Margaret introduced a slightly more than middle aged man to Steven. He was focused on repairing an item on his bench in the building's basement workshop and grumbled at something that wouldn't come loose. "Richard, this is Steven Crow. He's going to be your helper and get the roof growing again."

Richard looked up from the workbench and nodded, then returned to attempting to repair a piece of equipment. Steven looked at Margaret, raising his eyebrows.

"Well. Have fun." Margaret grinned, winked at Steven, then walked out.

Steven half waved as she left and fidgeted while Richard struggled with the device he was working on. He felt decidedly out of his element and looked around the basement, trying to figure it out. There was a lot of equipment that he peripherally recognized like pulleys and electric motors and similar, but most of it was junk to him. However, in spite of all the junk, everything appeared to be in its own place and the basement actually looked pretty neat... for a workshop.

"Here, hold this." Richard put a wrench on a large nut and moved out of the way so Steven could slip in there and brace himself.

Steven grabbed it and Richard yanked on another one, jolting Steven's arm. "Hold it tighter," Richard said, and yanked again. Steven grit his teeth and tried harder, then relaxed as the nut came loose. "Good." Richard continued disassembling the device.

"That's a steam control valve, isn't it?" Steven offered, feeling a little useless and trying to find something to talk about.

"Yep." He pulled the assembly apart and set about replacing a fouled seal. "Been meaning to replace this for a while now." He looked over at Steven, "It's hard to do in the winter because everyone screams about freezing their butts off." He took the offending part to another bench, "So, you're familiar with steam?"

"We covered it briefly in college," Steven said, remembering that at the time he didn't find it all that interesting.

"You're in college already? Freshman?" Richard looked surprised.

"I just graduated," Steven said, a little bashful.

"Hmph. An over achiever?" Richard put the part in a press and ejected the old seal.

"Just not wasting any time," Steven said a little defensively. He may have finished early, but then he didn't take summer vacations, either, and he had doubled up his classes. He picked up a piece of the old seal that had popped off onto the floor and handed it to Richard, who looked at it briefly then tossed it in the scrap bucket.

"Well, Mom likes you. I guess that counts for something." Richard grinned wryly. He reached into the valve with a rag and cleaned its surfaces and looked in, trying to find corrosion. "She said you're not a stranger to work."

Steven shrugged. He had nothing to compare to. He did what was necessary and did it fast so he could do what he wanted to do. He couldn't say if it was hard or not. "I worked on my father's farm."

"Yep. She said that. Do much work with the farm equipment?" Richard dabbed the rag in lubricating compound and reached back into the disassembled valve.

"Sure." Steven fidgeted. An interview again? And anyone with a farm works on farm equipment.

"Work on diesel?" Richard looked up as he started putting the valve back together with a new seal.

Steven nodded. "Our generator. It was an old Lister genset, though, and we ran vegetable oil."

Richard smiled and wiped his hands off. "Green. I like it. Gasoline engines?"

"I overhauled our tractor. It still works pretty good." Steven was rather proud of that achievement. But it was a messy job. Jonah let him do it nearly all by himself in his workshop to get the experience. It appeared to Steven that it was a good decision after all.

"Electric motors?"

Steven shrugged. "I rewired the 2k alternator of our cabin genset, if that counts for anything. But except for replacing my honey extractor motor I haven't really had much call to repair them."

"Fair enough. Plumbing and wiring?"

"I helped build our home, the two shops, and our barn." Steven said, shrugging. Plumbing and wiring was trivial stuff, however.

"Well, that's impressive." Richard wiped his hands and put his rag down. "Okay, here's the rules." Richard went to a workbench that had not been used in a while. "This is your bench for fixing stuff." He pointed back at the other bench, "My bench." He looked at Steven and pointed. "Your bench, my bench, your bench, my bench."

He walked back to his bench and finished putting the valve back together. "If you need anything from over here, you need to ask." He turned around and wiped his counter with a rag and meticulously put his tools up. "Easy enough?"

Steven nodded. "Sure."

"Good. Now, let's get this valve put back where it belongs then." Richard walked off with the valve and Steven followed, wondering what he had gotten himself into.

Steven brought up more flats of seedlings to set out in the garden beds, put them on a potting bench he set up by some of the raised beds, and retired to the greenhouse for the evening. It was quickly becoming his new refuge and he surrounded himself with plants as much as possible. It wasn't the forest, but even there on the roof he found the life surrounding him refreshing.

He had cleared out the dead plants and started rehabilitating the survivors and dividing what he could. As he walked along the streets he would often find a discarded houseplant or tree and bring it back, prune it good and coax it back to life. Often he'd arrive back there and see plants sitting at the door of the greenhouse, thanks to tenants who had overgrown plants they didn't want to throw away. He gave them all a home and set up a bench down in the foyer with freshly trimmed and propagated houseplants to replace those his tenants gave him. Sarah made a habit of bringing him something pretty, too. Steven appreciated the attention and kindness, and always gave her plants a special place in the greenhouse. It wasn't long before he had a little tropical jungle motif going in there.

At the far end of the greenhouse, Steven had set up his laptop and gotten to work resuming the search for his parents. As he wiped the dirt off his hands, Steven sat down at the laptop and brought the screen up, watching the progress of the search. The new networking accelerated things massively and he was able to chew through larger databases much faster than before. Thanks to that, he found it much easier to keep a constant queue of databases being parsed simultaneously pretty much all day long. As he concentrated on the screen, he heard a noise behind him. Looking around, he briefly saw a lithe shadow dart behind his little tropical forest. "Hello?" He didn’t think anyone else had access to the roof, but then he remembered that Sarah and Charley liked bringing friends up to the roof now that Steven had cleaned it up. Perhaps a guest had gotten lost? Getting up, he looked around but didn't see anyone. Looking down, he noticed one of the tropical dandelions growing from a pile of dirt that had fallen to the floor.

Richard walked in before Steven could address the plant, and looked around. "You don't waste any time, do you?" He played with one of the banana trees Steven had growing in the greenhouse. "What a jungle." He grinned, obviously pleased.

Steven started at the sudden intrusion, then smiled. "Hey, Richard. Yeah. It's good to have time to do this. I like having all these plants around me rather than concrete." He went back to the desk and sat down.

"The tenants really appreciate those plants you're leaving for them," Richard said as he followed Steven through the jungle to his little computer area. "Happy tenants means happy mom which means happy me." Richard put an envelope on the table. Steven looked at him then picked up the envelope and looked in it.

"Wow! That's some payday. Thanks!" Steven was shocked. He didn't expect much pay at all.

"You've earned it. And you're good for the people here." Richard brushed a palm frond away from his face. "You know, I was planning a trip to Hawaii for a vacation, but I think I'll just come up here instead." He grinned.

Steven smiled sheepishly and tucked the envelope away. He leaned back in the desk chair and soaked in the tropical environment of the greenhouse. It all seemed very familiar to him, but he couldn't quite put his finger on it. "Yeah, it is pretty tropical in here." He remembered and sat up. "Have you seen the garden beds? Tomatoes are already blooming." Steven got up and pointed to the beds. For the first time in years they were all green with plants. The fruit trees had been trimmed and organized and even the beehives were reorganized to Steven's preferred way of doing things and flourishing.