The Green Door (prompt) - 1. O. Henry short story prompt 1: The Green Door

The music wasn't to his taste and the crowd was too loud for him as Rudolf Steiner finished his early dinner at his usual restaurant. The staff had changed over the years, of course; so had the decor; so had the menu; so had the clientele, once almost all gay men. But Rudolf clung to his weekly ritual of dining there alone. The waitress was polite, even kind, during their brief interactions. Otherwise, no one took any notice of him. If only he had become a spy! This invisibility could have been an asset.

He paid and stepped into the still-sunny street. He thought how exciting it had been, decades ago, simply to walk on these streets -- how alive with possibility. People smiled, men cruised, funny things happened, and he was part of the change in a changing world. Now he spent most of his time alone in his increasingly unaffordable apartment in this increasingly unaffordable city, trapped in the poverty of disability, unemployed and unemployable, neither healthy nor acutely ill, neither alive nor dead. His one indulgence, eating at the restaurant once a week, was barely within his means.

He had mostly dropped the spiritual pretensions that had led him to change his name in imitation of the Austrian philosopher. He still meditated with a sangha that discouraged chitchat; he never quite figured out how this business of forming a spiritual community without being allowed to talk was supposed to work. He read, he listened to music, he bought necessities, he mended his old clothes, we went to the doctor, and nothing ever happened to him.

Now he wished something would. Something exciting, something interesting, something unexpected, maybe even something romantic -- anything to drag him out of his isolation. With eyes almost closed, he muttered, "I wish, I wish, I wish..."

"Take a card, sir?" Rudolf had almost bumped into the tall man with umber skin passing out business-sized cards. Startled. Rudolf took one almost by way of apology, and the man turned to other passers-by. Most refused or took one and dropped it on the sidewalk. Rudolf examined his. It was emerald green with white lettering reading "THE GREEN DOOR." Nothing else. Plain green on the back. He picked up a discarded card from the sidewalk. It was the same.

He looked up and asked the man, "What does this mean?"

"It's the green door," the man said with a smile, and turned away.

Rudolf looked around. If this was advertising, they were doing a terrible job. There was no business called 'The Green Door' anywhere in sight. They were outside a building entrance leading to a number of shops; maybe it was inside. It must be inside.

Rudolf scouted the first floor and saw no green door. He took the elevator to the second and third floors in turn, finding nothing. To his right on the fourth floor was a locking gate leading to what looked like apartments. No green doors. Then he turned left and saw an open doorway. Through it he saw the flat roof outside, and a lush growth of bamboo colored the whole sight green. A door to green. A green door.

Rudolf walked through, gently pushing bamboo stalks aside. A man was on his knees digging with a trowel in a planter box. He looked up and saw Rudolf and smiled. "Here to volunteer?"

Volunteer for what? The man looked to be almost Rudolf's age, with a face that had once been handsome. Still was, almost. "Uh, I'm not sure--"

"Of course I don't expect you to make a commitment before you see what you're getting into. I'm Marty." He reached out his hand and Rudolf shook it.

"Rudolf. Rudolf Steiner."

"Like the -- what was he, writer? Philosopher? German guy?"

"Austrian. I changed my name to imitate him when I moved here. I had some pretty silly religious ideas. But the name stuck."

"OK, Rudolf. Come on, I'll show you around." The man stood and took Rudolf's arm. He didn't have any trouble standing from a kneeling position without using his hands, rousing Rudolf's envy.

"The bamboo and the trees are common area and the long planters are individual plots," the man was saying. "People are responsible for their own plots once they get one. We take care of the common area, make sure the planters are in good shape, check to see if anything looks neglected, try to keep things tidy, and make sure people have what they need."

"I had no idea this garden was here."

"Most people don't. You can't see it from the street. Do you have a garden of your own?"

"No."

"When's the last time you worked with plants?"

"Um -- I guess when I was a kid." Rudolf was getting lost in the man's shining brown eyes, his welcoming smile, the easy flow of his voice. "So, how many volunteers are there?"

"Oh, there are a few dozen now, working on all the gardens all over the city. On rooftops, in little wasted spaces between buildings, anywhere we can get permission. All equally invisible."

All this hidden beauty. "Why so much bamboo?"

"It's pretty easy to grow in containers, and it produces phytoliths that sequester carbon."

"So you're saving the world."

"One plant at a time."

Marty continued describing the network of gardens and volunteers and the more ambitious attempts at organic urban farming.

Rudolf found the new information overwhelming. He had lived in this city for forty years and been oblivious to this web of plant life threaded through it.

"When I moved here, I was trying to turn everything into a spiritual experience - sex, cooking, going to the movies. This makes me wish I had spent some time with my hands in the dirt. I got sidetracked from my high ideals by day to day life and -- then by death."

Marty's smile faded as he nodded. "I know. It was a terrible time." He put his arms out and hugged Rudolf. "I have address books I can't bear to throw away."

"I write Christmas cards to dead friends, care of the North Pole."

Marty laughed. "I wonder what the post office does with those."

"But -- I was about to say, the original Rudolf Steiner sort of invented organic farming. It's called biodynamic agriculture. It has a lot of bullshit mixed in, just like Steiner himself, I guess. And just like the modern Rudolf -- me."

"But bullshit is great for plants." They both laughed.

This was the longest conversation Rudolf had had in years. This was a man to whom he wasn't invisible or silent; a man who didn't turn away from his gaunt face; a man who grew more handsome the more Rudolf looked at him; a man who was doing something interesting and positive that Rudolf could believe in. This was a man he could fall in love with.

"So how did you hear about us?" Marty asked. "Did Cindy send you?"

"Cindy?"

"One of our other volunteers?"

"Is there a volunteer who's a very tall, striking black man?"

Marty looked perplexed. Rudolf handed him the card. Marty read it. "The Green Door." He turned it over and examined the blank back. "What's the Green Door?"

"I thought this was a the Green Door."

"No, this is the Abe Snelling Memorial Community Garden. My husband and I started it and then joined the network of community gardens. I thought you came here to volunteer."

"Oh. You have a husband."

"Yeah. We got married as soon as it was legal. I don't know about you, but I couldn't believe how fast that happened. Ten years ago I would have said it was decades in the future. Anyway, we got into community gardening six years ago now, and urban agriculture and permaculture, and we just fell in love with it."

"I can see that." Rudolf looked up and silently said, Dear God, Please grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, and oh, by the way, Bitch, I hate You and the cloud you rode in on!

"So you're not interested in volunteering."

"Well, maybe I am."

"Trust me, you'll fall in love with it."

"I might at that. I have to warn you that my energy level is up and down. I probably can only work a couple of hours at a time, and I might have to cancel sometimes."

"Any time you can give is valuable."

When was the last time anyone said that to him? "Could I work alongside you for a while? Until I get the hang of it?"

"Sure. Come Thursday around this time. You can meet the husband."

"OK. I will."

As Rudolf left, he thought of Marty's enthusiasm for his little garden, of his belief in healing the planet one plant at a time. Rudolf had wished for something to happen, and something had. It wasn't romantic. Or was it? Maybe romantic tales of falling in love were just metaphors for falling in love with the world, or some part of it. And maybe the old, flickering flame of sexual desire was the universe's best means of rekindling Rudolf's interest in life, even if the sexual desire was a dead end.

A month later, as Rudolf walked home from a delightful lunch with Marty and his husband, he noticed a new bar had opened: The Green Door. Inside, the tall man who had handed out cards was setting out chairs, arranging glasses, getting things ready.

Rudolf walked in. "Hi."

"Hi. Would you like a table? Or do you want to sit at the bar?"

"Neither. So this is the Green Door. You were handing out cards a while ago and I took one."

"Oh, yeah. We were trying to generate some buzz."

"The cards didn't say where or what it was."

"That's marketing for you. Keep some mystery. Get people asking questions. So wouldn't you like to sit down? I can practice telling you our specials."

"No, thanks. Place looks good, though."

"Thanks. Maybe we can be of service some other time."

"Oh, you already have."

Rudolf left with a smile on his face. He looked up and silently said, Dear God, Sorry about what I said earlier. But you can still send that boyfriend I've been waiting for anytime.