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Last Tuesday was the fourth anniversary of the death of my neighbor Mrs. Gerstine Scott. I think about her a great deal, but during this time of year she is especially on my mind.  

Mrs. Scott died five days before the collapse of the World Trade Center and the attack on the Pentagon. I often wonder what she would have thought about those events had she been alive. Even in death, she was affected by the trauma. Her coffin, en route to her family home in East Texas, sat on a tarmac at Oakland Airport for several days waiting for air travel to resume. 

Mrs. Scott came into my life at a time when I desperately needed a friend, someone who wasn’t afraid to tell me what to do, and who was willing to stick around to make sure I did it. There were times when I literally wanted to crawl into her soft lap and go to sleep, but she wouldn’t allow it. Mrs. Scott was all about confrontation, not avoidance.  

She was a very big woman and she carried a large kitchen knife “for protection” in her enormous black pocketbook. Additionally, she always walked with a cane, and I don’t doubt for a second she would have used it as a weapon if she had felt threatened, or if she thought someone she loved was in danger.  

She told me she once hit a burglar on the head with a frying pan full of hot grease, and another time she chased an intruder over her back fence. When Mrs. Scott heard our out-of-town guests had been mugged on the corner of Dover and 54th streets, she came over to our house and gave a rousing lecture on the parts of a man’s body a woman should grab, squeeze, and twist in self-defense. Thirteen years later, the details of the mugging are forgotten, but Mrs. Scott’s speech is seared into our collective memory.  

Last night our housemate Andrea brought home collard greens grown in a neighbor’s garden. The leaves were as big as a small child and so luminously green, I wondered if we could turn off the overhead lights and cook by the glow of their iridescence.  

“Comfort food,” said Andrea, as she set about removing the stalks and tearing the leaves into small pieces. “We need it after all the bad news comin’ out of Louisiana.”  

The house became engulfed with a sweet, loamy pungency, and I was once again reminded of Mrs. Scott. Collard greens were a staple in her diet. She grew them in our backyard and cooked them for us, along with biscuits and gravy, and red beans. 

Andrea put the shredded greens in a pot and filled it with water. She left it on the counter to soak overnight, and by morning the house smells different. The water has drawn the acidity out of the leaves and the kitchen is filled with sharp, earthy fumes.  

“Andrea,” I say, “can we cook these greens for breakfast?” 

“No,” she answers. “We’ve got to wait ‘til all the dirt and spider webs are gone, and then we’ve got to cook ‘em down until they’re soft.” 

I take the dog for a walk. I run into my neighbor Floyd, who points out to me collard greens growing in the sewer culvert at the corner of 54th and Dover streets. “The seeds from Ramone’s garden must’ve run wild,” he says.  

I bend down and look closer at the plant. It is strong and sturdy despite its precarious attachment to a clump of hard dirt.  

“What do you make of it?” asks Floyd. I think of Mrs. Scott, of the greens soaking in the pot back at my house, and of the mugging that took place on this very corner thirteen years ago. 

“I don’t know,” I tell Floyd. “But I’m taking it as a sign that something good is about to happen.” 

And it does. Tonight we’re having greens for dinner.