“If there is one thing I know it is that I know nothing,” Mr. Douglas said brightly.

Mr. Douglas was that guy in the complex who waved at everyone and said “don’t take any wooden nickels.” What was the wooden nickels some oldtimey folk band? Mr. Douglas decorated his stoop every holiday and swept the sidewalk in front of his door every week. Mr. Douglas was that guy.

He also had a lot of plants, like a lot of plants, like a chaotic mini jungle in his kitchen window amount of plants. Ash had bought me a plant. Why I don’t know? To torment me I guess cause it up and died on me. I went over to Mr. Douglas’ place desperate. Deep green with bubblegum pink splashes, it had been a kind of nice plant. Sighing I looked at the sorry tangle of wilted stems and brown leaves.

“So bro you can’t save it.”

“Au contraire mon frere I just do not know if it can be saved. Let’s give it a whirl. In for a penny in for a pound, am I right? Come in. How’s your mother?” Mr. Douglas said taking the plant from my hands.

I followed his small back from the foyer to the great room. Mr. Douglas talked with every step. All the townhouses had the same layout but Mr. Douglas had grow lights and humidifiers lining his walls. Red, pinks, and innumerable green leaves splayed from every corner. Shiny metal shelves of plants greeted me. We threaded around stacks of plant books.

Unceremoniously Mr. Douglas dumped Ash’s gift on his dining room table. It plopped on the wood surface in a desiccated thump.

“Hey, hey, doesn’t that hurt?”

“Hurts less that starving to death on your window sill, Sonny. This is an alocasia variegated definitely probably Lowii maybe Amazonia. Grows in the understory,” Mr Douglas looked at my quizzical expression. “Think jungle floor dim and damp.”

As the old man talked his hands cracked and cut my poor plant. Apparently I had no root rot so there’s that. Holding up a lime green lump between his thumb and index finger, Mr Doug squealed. Apparently I also had corms and it was a big deal.

“None are so blind as he who will not see,” Mr Douglas said.

He transferred the failed mother parent to a glass vase and planted the little lumpy items in a small pot of spaghum moss. Soft and earthy, the dried moss tickled my fingers. I wanted to pay him for help. His cheeks flamed red and he kept saying he wouldn’t hear of it.

“Well I guess you just love plants.”

“Not really. It was my late wife’s thing. I’m just keeping them up for well you know,”

Mr Douglas said. “Keep your moss moist and you will have new props in no time. For mama plant you can transfer her to soil in a few weeks.”

Wondering about the “well you know,” I walked back home with my plant and her babies. The alocasia was already perking up. Ash would be so proud.