Disclaimer: All hail to Jonathan Larson
Author's notes: Just because.
There had been a garden up here, once. Once upon a time. A little garden in a little box, tended by little hands. Compared to Roger's anyway. The girls spent half the summer up here, that year. It was their project, their creation, they gave life to these plants. And through the plants, gave life to us. We ate healthier that summer than we ever had in our lives – carrots, tomatoes, cucumbers, and potatoes.
God only knows where they came up with this idea, let alone got what they needed to make it happen – best not to ask, usually, since I have quite the guilty conscience sometimes. But the girls loved it, loved watching green things sprout out of nowhere, loved watering and weeding and pruning. It was so girly and domestic. Roger was a bit disgusted, almost, to be a rock star with a freaking vegetable garden. It was, after all, ours by association.
I guess back in the day, before Alphabet City became affectionately known as 'that shithole', someone built the box and filled it with dirt and left it for us to find. Halfway through the summer Roger and I declared that if we never saw another vegetable in our lives, it would be too goddamn soon; it didn't make sense, they said, to buy food when we can grow it! Which, unfortunately, was true. We dug up every possible way there was to cook veggies, then came up with some of our own, just to have a break in the carrot-cucumber-tomato-potato soup monotony. I think Roger even wrote a song about it, claiming that everything in his life, even music, was infested with vegetables. It only lasted for a summer, though.
By the time summer rolled around again, life as we knew it was crumbling to tiny, tiny pieces. All three of my roommates were always 'out', the answer I got every time I bothered to ask. This was around the time our friendly neighborhood anarchist moved in, too. He probably would have enjoyed four months of fresh vegetables. He missed it though, and was only there for the bad stuff that followed.
When Roger finally emerged from his room after two months of withdrawal, he went up to the roof to clear his head. Ten minutes later he almost knocked me over as he barreled down the stairs and into our loft, slamming the door to his room and staying there for another three weeks. The next time I went up to the roof, I saw a pile of dirt surrounded by broken boards.
One summer, Maureen and April planted a vegetable garden on the roof. Now, in my box of things I don't want to remember, but should, there is April's funeral announcement, clipped from the paper. There is the necklace Maureen returned to me when she left me. And, at the bottom, there is a dirt-encrusted trowel.