prose by qin sun stubis

Abe’s Garden

Abe was middle-aged, shy, and modest. For some thirty years, he dwelled alone in a lovely neighborhood filled with families and children. He wore thick glasses, a wrinkled shirt, and a ready smile. His house was a low, box-like structure no larger than the size of an efficiency apartment. From the street, anyone could have mistaken his property for an abandoned lot, an eyesore, with overgrown vegetation and random vines climbing high over the house. His bungalow burrowed deep under this tangled green canopy, away from view, a long time ago. 

Abe never married and had few visitors. No one ever remembered entering his house, or seeing anyone else doing so. Just Abe, alone, came and went, using the barely visible bunker as his shelter. And Abe was a creature of habit. Every morning, at exactly a quarter to seven, he left his home on foot and returned ten hours later holding a plastic bag of food, disappearing back into his jungle. He wouldn't be seen again until the next morning. 

And, yet, nobody ever judged him, or called him a hermit or loner, even though he never struck up a single conversation with anyone as he walked to and from his house. Abe didn't have to be social to know almost every soul within half a mile, including many stray cats and runaway dogs whom he fed often from his plastic bag. If only he had opened up, he could have shared many things, like who had just moved in or out of the neighborhood, whose children had gone away to college or gotten married...or most important of all, how he had been entrusted with thirty years' worth of confidences about the personal perils of those around him, and single-handedly rescued some from the brink of disaster. But he didn't. And he never would. Every story he heard was for his ears alone. He was good at guarding them. He had turned himself into a walking vault filled with drawers of secrets, each locked with a unique key. Good old Abe.

Abe worked as a cashier in the town's one-and-only convenience store. That was where and how he met everyone. For the last thirty years, people saw him standing at the same checkout register with the same canvas apron. Although through the years, his hair turned from brown to salt-and-pepper to white, and the embroidered name on his apron slowly faded from "ABE" to "ABC," his gentle smile never changed and his eyes always radiated kindness from behind his thick glasses. Abe had a way with people. He greeted them by name and bent his tall frame down to listen and nod as he rang up their purchases. Sometimes he took a few wrinkled bills from his own pocket to cover a transaction after hearing a sad, whispered tale. Each person was served as if they were his one-and-only customer and every conversation started and ended right there.

For someone so shy and quiet, Abe was a magnet for those in trouble, and nine times out of ten he was somehow able to help. The only thing it seemed he couldn't or wouldn't do was to raise the dead. The lonely often went to his store for a loaf of bread just to see and talk to him. When their problems weighed heavily on them, they often picked a time when store traffic was the lightest to make sure that Abe had all the time in the world just for them, them alone. Naturally, many started to depend on Abe to help hold up their sky. They felt comfortable sharing private matters with him that others might see as too shameful or pathetic. He had become not just a friendly pair of ears but a confidante and emergency raft that could keep them afloat. Abe never judged but helped, and his resources seemed to be endless.

No one ever questioned how his petty paychecks could have covered their grocery bills, gambling debts, faulty investments, and hospital fees. His abrupt, kind gestures shocked and  delighted those at the end of their rope, when hope had long deserted them. These people came  to Abe when they were lost and broken, and had no one else to turn to. They usually stopped in front of him as they tried to buy a case of beer or a tub of ice cream to drown their sorrows. Abe, a man of few words, was a gifted listener and never gossiped. His kind eyes, softened by his opaque lenses, projected encouragement as if asking, "Can I help?" 

So they unloaded their despair upon him, not expecting him to perform any miracles. What could he do? A store clerk, who looked like a troubled man himself, a man with little means. Yet Abe managed to surprise them, relieving them in the way a sudden puff of wind released a fruit fly desperately entangled in a spider web. Once they got free from the trouble that had ensnared them, they dared not look back. They quickly wanted to erase their embarrassment from their memories and move on. People took his money and kindness, knowing all too well that they could never pay him back, like children getting gifts from Santa Claus at Christmas. And Abe was their year-round, ever-present Santa. 

Now you understand why no one ever complained about Abe's messy yard, or critically judged his lifestyle. It was a very small payment for what he had done for so many for all those years. He took people's troubles away and gave many hope...

And then, one summer night, an ambulance pulled up in front of Abe's place and he was carried out on a stretcher. As the vehicle sped away, its siren pierced the still, dark air and rattled the eardrums of those at home. Many quietly thought about Abe as they ate their dinner, sat in front of the TV and went to bed, wondering what had happened to him. Those who were religious remembered to add Abe's name to their prayers. 

Abe never returned. Overnight, his quiet life had evaporated. No more coming out of his home again with his thick glasses, wrinkled shirt and ready smile, or returning to it with his small bag of food. His store opened on time that day with a goofy young man standing in his place, struggling to add up the price of a gallon of milk and a dozen eggs. Abe's existence had been wiped out completely as if he had never lived and worked there. Even the jungle around his house had already forgotten about its owner. It kept on growing, lusciously, free-willed and untamable, soon obliterating the only narrow pathway winding toward the house. 

That fall, life went on in Abe's world without Abe. From the outside, everyone seemed to have taken in this new reality. When they gathered for a picnic, a baseball game or a school play, his neighbors chatted about everything and everyone except Abe, not that they had ever talked about him before in public. Deep down, many were still thinking about him and what had happened to him. Yet they never brought him up in conversation, not knowing if they could share their private feelings about him with anyone. 

Really, Abe wasn't the kind of man they could gossip about. He was a very private person and a secret-keeper for everyone he knew and helped. When they spoke to him, their conversations were one-on-one, personal and confidential, not meant for other ears....in some cases not even for their spouses and children. And he always kept it that way. They knew they had entrusted him with a small piece of their lives and he lived up to their trust. And now their ties to Abe, along with their secrets, were buried with him. So it only seemed to make sense that they didn't talk about him with anyone at all. 

Soon winter arrived, the fiercest kind anyone could remember in that part of the country. The whole neighborhood was paralyzed by five feet of snow for a whole month, leaving families cooped up in their homes with hot mugs of tea and large pots of stew, and plenty of time to contemplate and reflect. As they dug deeper into their consciences, many couldn't stop thinking about Abe. His thick glasses, wrinkled shirt and smiling face appeared in front of them, as if asking, "Can I help?" 

Guilt set in for the first time. No one ever thought that he could have ever needed help. What had happened to Abe anyway? Their hearts constricted every time they glanced toward his ghostly home, now swallowed by snow. 

Winter's white blanket finally lifted and spring returned, bringing forth tender green on bare branches. Soon enough, daffodils, crocuses, forsythias and tulips broke out their color palettes and brought life back to every front yard and street corner. All except Abe's, where only vines and weeds had awakened from their slumber.  

And then, one morning, a miracle occurred on Abe's property: A pair of rose bushes suddenly appeared, standing proudly at his curb, their bright red buds glistening in the morning dew. Who planted them? No one knew. As spring advanced and transitioned into summer, more colors began arriving in Abe's yard. Every shade of pink, blue, yellow, and purple blossomed from all sorts of newly planted flowers, one at a time, and began to tame the wilderness of his front lawn. Soon, all the vines and weeds were gone, and someone even whitewashed Abe's house so they could see it clearly for the first time. Children came after school to water the flowers, spray each other, and chase their friends. Women came together to weed the garden and chat. That summer, a surprisingly large group of friends and acquaintances got together and held their first neighborhood picnic in Abe's garden. They had found a way to have Abe back in their lives.  

Qin Sun Stubis is a Chinese-American writer living in the Washington, D.C. area. A newspaper columnist for the Santa Monica Star, she writes poems, essays, short stories and original Chinese tall tales inspired by traditional Asian themes. Her historical memoir, "Once Our Lives," is being published by Guernica World Editions.