Seedfolks: Chapter 5: Leona Summary & Analysis

Leona’s Granny didn’t believe in doctors, even if the doctor happened to be Black. Leona grew up in Granny’s house in Atlanta. Every morning, Granny had a cup of goldenrod tea with a nutmeg in it—the only medicine she’d ever need. Granny’s doctors all told her that the tea would kill her, but every doctor died young. Leona accompanied Granny to the doctors’ funerals, where Granny always placed goldenrod on the graves. Granny, who lived to age 99, could recite the names of all the doctors she outlived.

Leona thinks about Granny one day as she walks home from the grocery store. When she comes to the vacant lot, she sees three people in it. She expects that they’re searching for money in the lot, so she’s surprised to see that they have shovels and are cultivating gardens. Leona decides to plant a patch of goldenrod.

There’s another man watching from the sidewalk and a little girl looking down at the lot from a window. Leona figures that there are lots of people who’d like to grow a garden, just like her. Looking around at all the trash littered throughout the lot, she wonders why anyone refers to the lot as “vacant” when there are waist-high piles of garbage everywhere. Some of it comes from the neighborhood, but a lot of it comes from people outside of the neighborhood who don’t want to pay to take things to the dump. They think that the people in this neighborhood won’t mind a bit more junk or dangerous chemicals in their midst. Ironically, City Hall won’t pick up trash over here, but this area can get trash delivered to it.

Leona wrinkles her nose at the smell of garbage and studies the gardeners. She knows that nobody will want to join them until the garbage is gone, and she knows this is a job for the phone, not a wheelbarrow. Leona has two kids who go to a school with “more guns than books,” so she’s experienced at picking up the phone to complain to officials about things. The next morning, a Monday, Leona stretches out on her bed. She knows she’ll have to say the same thing to several dozen people, and she might as well be comfortable.

Leona starts dialing. Her goal in making all of these calls is to get in contact with the person that will make the garbage disappear. After spending six and a half hours making calls to the city, the county, the state, and the federal government, Leona learns that the city of Cleveland owns the lot. But Cleveland government officials don’t come down to this area unless they’re lost—“You can’t measure the distance between [Leona’s] block and City Hall in miles.”

Leona continues making phone calls the next day. Each person, organization, or agency tells her to call someone else, who then tells her to call yet another agency. These people are “trained to be slippery as snakes,” and they seem to always be on their lunch break. Nobody returns messages, and Leona spends hours on hold. On the third day, Leona realizes that when she makes these phone calls, she’s just a voice or a call waiting. She needs to make herself real to these people.

At this point, instead of making more phone calls, Leona takes the bus downtown to the Public Health Department. She tells the pretty receptionist about the trash, and the receptionist tells Leona to sit and wait with everyone else. Leona does as she’s told, but she also opens the bag of garbage she picked up from the lot before she came. The smell is horrific. Everyone notices it, and they call Leona in for a meeting almost immediately. Leona is real to them now—she’s no longer just a voice on the phone—but she still brings the bag with her into the meeting to make the situation even more real.