Leon, the Gardener

Reading, PA

By The Fringe 2016

October 19^th, 2016

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LEON, The Gardener

“Even if nine out of ten people are bad, and there’s only one good one, you still got to treat that one person right. You can’t just lump him in with the rest.”

Leon stands inside the chicken-wire fence that surrounds the community garden on the south side of Reading, weeding an overgrown plot. Deemed the poorest city in the country in the 2010 census, the garden is one of the few natural bright spots in the neighborhood. However, like Reading itself, this plot has seen better days. Its tenant hasn’t maintained their garden, and after multiple warnings, the plot will go to someone else on the waiting list. “We gave ‘em a yellow tag about a month ago,” Leon says, “You don’t have to clean it all up right away. Just come by, pull some weeds, and show you’re putting in some effort.”

Self-described as quiet and shy, he’s lived in Reading his whole life and seen the city go through many changes. “Things ain’t going too well right now,” he says. “It can get pretty rough.” There’s crime on the south side — young kids with nothing to do. “That’s why we try and get ‘em involved in the garden, teach ‘em how to take care of something, teach ‘em about eating right, growing things… get involved so people around here can get good food that isn’t filled with all the pesticides.”

As he talks about the city and life on the south side, Leon brings up the local police and the Black Lives Matter movement. He knows first hand what it means to be harassed. “When I was younger,” he says, “I had this real nice Cadillac, and they’d pull me over all the time. Black man in a Cadillac must be doing something wrong. It made me so angry. Once, they said I was running stop signs, and I’m like ‘officer you’ve been following me for how long? Because there aren’t even any stop signs on this street.’ Meanwhile, we’re blocking traffic because of where he pulled me over, and I’m like, can we at least move so these people can get to work? He didn’t care, but everybody wasn’t looking at him. They’re all looking at me, wondering what I did.” Leon laughs, “All I did was own a Cadillac.”

“A lot of them, they don’t even live in the city,” he says. “They come here to do their jobs, but they live somewhere else.” Leon would like to see more community policing, “like they did back in the day.” He believes it all comes down to communication — that there are no excuses for so many killings of innocent people. “Why do you have to shoot to kill?”

The conversation turns back to his garden, and Leon explains a few natural options for keeping various grub worms and parasites out of the gardens, without using pesticides. But, “grub worms,” he says, “be grubbing” — they ruined an entire plot of his a few years back. But, despite the hot and dry summer, he’s had some nice produce this year.

The city of Reading donates the water and land for the community garden, and Leon volunteers his time to guide the effort. He provides us with 45 minutes of conversation, but when it comes time for a photograph, he hits us with an emphatic, “Oh no. No, no, no. I don’t want none of that. Look, I don’t really even like people that much. Really, I’m quiet and shy. I just try to live a good Christian life.”

Leon smiles widely when we ask him if, in his place, we can take some photos of his garden. He opens the fence, and we step inside an inner-city oasis filled with bee balm, peppers, and squash. Looming precariously across the alley, a decrepit shell of an abandoned building is a constant reminder of what happens when things are left untended and forgotten.