The Association

by Bentley Little

  Maureen at least was keeping busy, doing work for her California clients, but he himself was lost. Although he'd made token efforts, he had not yet started writing again. Not even a short story. Each time he broke out his pen and notebook and sat down to write, he drew a blank.

  Maybe he could sue the association for loss of wages due to pain and suffering.

  A week after his trip to the real estate office, they were eating lunch on the deck and the painters showed up. He didn't know who they were at first, assumed they were some type of inspector sent by the association to snoop around their yard. He intended to ignore their existence the same way he ignored the endless stream of fines and notices, but when the four men unrolled a massive plastic dropcloth on the driveway, quickly pulled paint guns out of the back of the truck, turned on a compressor, and started spraying the front of the house, he threw down his sandwich. "That's it!" He pulled open the sliding glass door and ran downstairs and outside. "What the hell are you doing?" he demanded. "This is my house!"

  The three men painting the windowless section of the front wall with a coat of brown ignored him completely. But the oldest man, a bald fellow applying masking tape to the windows, looked over as he approached. "We've been hired to repaint this residence," he said.

  "The work order's in my truck. You want to see it?"

  "I don't give a damn about your work order!" Barry yelled. "This is my house and I don't want it painted! Now you stop where you are and make that section the same color it was!"

  "Can't do it, Mac." The old man continued taping up the window. "I

  got a work order from your homeowners' association. You got a beef, take it up with them. But the way I understand it is they asked you to change the color and conform, you wouldn't do it, so they called us."

  "I don't believe this shit!"

  "I'm sorry," the old man said. "But, like I said, you gotta take it up with them. They're the ones paying the bill." He gave Barry a sympathetic look. "That's why I wouldn't live in no neighborhood with a homeowners' association."

  Who were these men? Were they from Corban ? They had to be. After his experience at the coffee shop, and especially after the rally, he'd assumed that the townspeople were of one mind and were all antagonistic toward Bonita Vista. But he realized that there was a whole class of workers whose livings were intertwined with the gated community and whose livelihoods depended on it.

  Economics made strange bedfellows.

  Again, he thought that everyone Bonita Vista touched was somehow corrupted.

  "I don't want my house painted," Barry said, and this time it sounded more like a plea than a demand.

  "Sorry," the old man said again. "Nothing I can do. I got my work order."

  They slept that night with all of the windows closed, but the house still smelled like paint.

  The next day, they received a Request for Reimbursement from the homeowners' association for the amount owed the painters: five thousand dollars.

  He was sitting on the deck, staring drunkenly at the sunset, when Maureen quietly slid open the door and sat down next to him. In her hand was a stack of pink association forms and a computer printout.

  "I've been adding up all of our fines and charges," she said.

  "And?"

  "It's almost a hundred thousand dollars."

  He practically spit out his beer. "What?"

  "I know. I couldn't believe it either. But it's over twenty five thousand for the initial landscaping--"

  "Twenty-five--"

  "Let me finish." She ran down a list of overcharged services and exorbitant fines.

  "Well, we're not paying them anything."

  "They'll take our house."

  "We're going to owe more than the house is worth!"

  Maureen's eyes widened. "That's their plan," she said wonderingly.

  "That's exactly what they want. They want to take our home and drive us into bankruptcy. Jesus, why didn't I see it before?" She looked at him. "The fines? Okay, they might be settled by taking the house. But the work? The painting, the landscaping, materials, and labor? Those involve tradespeople who have to be paid. Do you honestly think that the association is going to let us off the hook for those charges? Hell no. They'll take us to court, and we'll lose because the work was done, the services were provided, and we owe" She took a deep breath. "They're going to ruin us."

  "Should've listened to Greg Davidson," Barry said. "Hey, maybe I could volunteer to work it off."

  "Don't even joke about that," Maureen scolded him.

  She was right. It wasn't very funny. He wished he had something else to say, wished he had some sort of plan to get them out from under this, but he didn't, and he drank his beer and stared out at the sunset in silence.

  She couldn't take it any more.

  Liz stared at the phone in her hand for a long while, then took a deep breath, and dialed the number of Jasper Calhoun A chill passed through her as the old man answered. "Hello, Elizabeth."

  How had he known it was her? Caller ID, she told herself. A lot of people had it these days. There was nothing unusual or mysterious about it. Still, she thought of his odd face with its unnatural complexion, and the cold within her grew.

  "What can I do for you?" he asked.

  Even after all that had happened, she had too much pride to beg. She refused to give Calhoun the satisfaction of pleading for mercy. But they'd broken her. For all her tough talk and firm intentions, she had not been able to hold up under the constant onslaught. Maureen and Tina and Audrey and Moira could say they supported her and offer her friendship and hope, but they weren't with her at night.

  They weren't there in the house when the bad things happened.

  Last night had been the last straw.

  She'd heard voices calling her from outside, seen lights shining on various windows even through the drapes, and she turned on the television to distract her. What she saw took her breath away and caused her to fall back onto the couch.

  On BVTV, for all to see, was the death of Ray.

  It was a re-enactment. She knew that. But, damn it, the man looked a lot like her husband, and she watched as he slipped in the shower and hit his head on the hard porcelain. He lay there for a few moments, head bleeding, then got groggily to his feet and staggered out of the bathroom to the kitchen, where he attempted to pick up the phone. The show was depicting the association's version of events, the story they wanted everyone to believe, and though Liz knew it wasn't true, she wanted to believe it, too.

  She could believe it, she decided.

  She just wanted all this to stop.

  The man who looked like Ray stumbled onto the deck, then fell over the railing to the hard ground below, his already bleeding head landing sickeningly atop an irregularly shaped rock. The camera cut to a scene inside the house where Liz saw herself--her real self, not an impersonator-sobbing on the couch.

  She let out an anguished cry, unable to endure this cruel indignity, a whole host of hurtful emotions churning within her. Immediately, the scene switched to a live feed, and she saw and heard herself wailing in real time.

  She shut off the television, ran into the bedroom, jumped on the bed, and hid under the covers, pulling in arms and legs and head so no part of her was exposed. There might be a camera in this room, too, but it wouldn't be able to capture her. The camera could focus on her blanket and bedspread all night as far as she was concerned. They would not get another shot of her.

  She was filled with bleak despair and a crushing sense of loss. She replayed in her mind the scenes she'd just witnessed on TV. Ray's re-enacted death had been filmed here, at her home, and she wondered when and how that had occurred. She'd left the house only briefly and infrequently since the funeral, and it was impossible for them to have staged such elaborate setups in those brief snatches of time.

  At night, she thought. They filmed it at night. That's what she'd heard. That's what the noises were.

  But filming those scenes only accounte
d for some of the noises. What else was going on? What else were they doing here?

  She felt even more violated than she had before. Having her suspicions confirmed, knowing with certainty that others had been in her house, gave her not only a feeling of powerlessness but hopelessness. She did not know how much longer she could put up with this. She did not know how much longer she could survive this constant barrage.

  So she'd decided to meet the association halfway.

  "Elizabeth?" Calhoun prodded.

  "I'd like to talk," she said.

  The president chuckled. "I knew you'd come around."

  "I don't want to be on the board," she insisted. "I just want to--"

  "Talk," he said. "I know. Why don't you open up your door and let me in. We'll discuss the best way to handle this situation." Open her door? Liz hurried out of the kitchen and into the entryway, where she looked through the peephole. He was on the porch! Standing on the welcome mat, talking to her on his cell phone.

  Don't let him in, a voice inside her said, and the voice spoke in Ray's dulcet tones.

  But she could not endure any more of this. She was not as strong as Ray had been, and alone, without his unflagging self-confidence and dogged determination, she could not stand up to their harassment.

  Don't... Taking a deep breath, she unlocked and opened the door.

  The president stepped inside, smiling, and she shivered as he touched her shoulder. "It'll be all right now," he told her. "Everything's all right. Everything will be fine."

  "I guess we weren't invited."

  Barry and Maureen stood in the darkened guest bedroom, staring out the open window. The cool breeze, a preview of approaching autumn, carried with it the sound of revelers. Through the trees, a concentration of lights at the community center created an irregular dome of illumination in the moonless night sky.

  They'd seen cars driving down earlier. And people walking. He knew from previous flyers that the community center would be having its grand unveiling this week, but they'd never been told a specific date and had received no invitation to the gala.

  Other people obviously had.

  He moved over to the east window and looked out. He saw more lights than usual twinkling through the pine branches: people had left their porch lights on while they'd gone down to see the new center, "It looks like almost everyone went," he said.

  "You can't tell that by looking out the window."

  "Call it a hunch."

  "I doubt if Liz went," Maureen offered helpfully. He snorted. "Yeah, that makes me feel better."

  "Come on. Do you honestly think they're all going to turn into rabid association supporters just because they went to a party? Most of them probably only showed up for the free food and drink. "

  "Maybe."

  "What's that mean?"

  "You know damn well what it means." He turned to face her, seeing only an impressionistic version of her features in the darkness. "They get their way, the association. I don't know if it's ... it's magic or...

  I don't know what it is. But these people are on their side! Look at the sheriff. Look at everyone who showed up to head off that rally! We were there under duress, but most of our beloved neighbors were there on their own, happily brandishing their weapons and longing for a fight."

  "Then maybe it's a good thing we're ostracized. Maybe they'd convert us, too."

  "No," he said firmly. "That could never happen."

  "And the same goes for other people. Not all of them, maybe. But some of them. Mike and Tina. A few of the others we met."

  He remembered the party at Ray's when Greg Davidson had announced his intention to leave Bonita Vista and everyone had gathered around swapping anti-association stories. "Maybe," he said. "Hopefully." He moved next to her, and they stood at the window, staring into the darkness, listening to the party.

  "Labor Day's only a week away," Maureen said softly.

  "I know."

  "Are we going to go to the meeting?"

  "Of course. This is our chance to make everything public. According to the rules, each homeowner gets three minutes to say whatever they want. I'm going to write a speech, and I'm going to suggest amendments, and by the end of it, at the very least, we'll find out who stands where. I'm taking those bastards to task, and we'll see who's with me or against me."

  "You? What about me?"

  "Us," he amended.

  "No, I mean what about me? Do I get to speak, too?"

  He was surprised. "Do you want to?"

  "No. But is it three minutes for me and three minutes for you, or three minutes total? If we can stretch our time out to six, I'll take up where you leave off and keep talking."

  "It's three minutes per lot."

  "Then the floor's all yours."

  "I have to start working on this now, time myself, try to cram in as much as I can. The annual meeting is the one time a year they even make the pretext that this is a democracy. It's our only shot. We've got to make it count."

  A lone skyrocket exploded in the air above the community center, purple sparkles falling down on the trees. A loud cheer went up.

  "What do you think will happen?" Maureen asked.

  Barry was silent for a moment. "I don't know," he said finally. "I

  don't know."

  The painters returned in the morning. This time, Barry and Maureen were both in the driveway before the men had emerged from their truck.

  "What do you think you're doing here?" Maureen demanded as the painters got out of the cab and walked around to the rear of the vehicle.

  They ignored her.

  "You just painted our house a week ago."

  The three younger men pulled out their tarp and started spreading it on the driveway.

  Barry walked up to the old man. "Let me guess," he said. "This color is no longer acceptable. They want you to paint it a different shade."

  The painter pulled a roll of masking tape from the bed of the truck.

  "Yep."

  "Have you done this before? Painted the same house over and over again until the owners go bankrupt?"

  He paused for a moment, as if hesitant to answer, then nodded his head. "Yep." He pushed past Barry and started taping up the nearest window.

  They left before the painting started, closing up the house and driving out to the lake, where they spent the day hiking and picnicking and pretending that they were a normal couple having a normal day. When they arrived home late in the afternoon, the painters were gone, but their tarp remained draped over bushes on the south side of the house and only half of the building was completed.

  "I guess they're coming back tomorrow," Maureen said.

  Barry nodded.

  They'd slept with the windows closed last time and that hadn't worked, so this time they left the windows open and the fan on, but the smell of paint still permeated everything, and they both awoke in the morning with headaches.

  The job took two days. The painters were clearly being more thorough than before, which made Barry think that this sequence had been thoroughly planned in advance. This would turn out to be a more expensive job, he was sure, and while a part of him wanted to physically throw the painters off his property and burn then- truck, he knew they were only following orders and would merely be replaced by someone else.

  He thought of another idea, though, and he talked to Maureen, told her of his plan. To his surprise, she agreed.

  They waited until the painters were done. After they left, he and Maureen took the white interior latex left over from their remodeling and painted a gigantic happy face on the wall of the house facing the street. On the north wall of the house, they painted a frowning face.

  The next day, the workers were back. This time, they were not merely uncommunicative, they were openly hostile. When Barry met them in the driveway, drinking his morning coffee and offering them a hearty hello, they gave him dirty looks and muttered obscenities. "Who does he think he is?" one of the younger painters asked another.
>
  "Stupid fuck," the old man muttered..

  His plan had worked. He and Maureen had thrown a monkey-wrench into the association's schedule, had reset the agenda on their terms.

  The painters taped off the windows, put down their dropcloth , hooked up the sprayers, and obliterated the left half of the happy face. After they moved to another section of wall, Barry put down his coffee, took out his white paint and started brushing it on the recently completed area, making a series of X's in a random pattern.

  The old man stormed over to him. "Just what do you think you're doing?"

  "It's my house," Barry told him. "And I'm painting it."

  "You can't--"

  "It's my house. I can do anything I damn well please, and if you don't get out of my face, I'm going to kick your fucking ass, strip you naked, and paint you yellow like the coward you are."

  He expected the old man to threaten him, to tell him that there were four of them and only one of him. He was even prepared for a fight right then and there should the bald asshole rush him. But the painter turned and walked away, spoke to his coworkers, and a few minutes later the four of them packed up their gear and left.

  A victory.

  The painters did not return, no others took their place, and there was not even any sign of Neil Campbell and his ubiquitous clipboard. No one called, no notices were left in their mailbox or on their door. The half a happy face and random Xs remained on the wall.

  That night they made love, and in the middle of it, the phone rang. He wanted to let it ring, but Maureen insisted that he answer, it might be important, so he reached over to the nightstand, picked up the phone, and pressed the Talk button. "Hello?"

  The voice on the line was harsh yet whispery. "Throw her another hump for me!"

  Click.

  Someone was watching them. They were being monitored. He pulled the sheets over their bodies and looked frantically around the room, searching for a hidden camera.