The Association

by Bentley Little

  He was bluffing. He had to be. This was all show, a performance put on for his benefit, but Barry had to admit that the technique was effective. He was way out of his depth, and fear had overtaken anger as the dominant emotion within him.

  "What do you want?" Barry said shortly. "Why did you invite me here?"

  Calhoun sat down again, steepled his fingers. "We seem to have reached a stalemate. As far as the bylaws are concerned, you are a squatter.

  You no longer hold any rights to your house or property, yet you continue to reside there and seemingly have no intention of moving out."

  "What's your point?"

  "You said at the annual meeting that you wanted a real election. I

  take that to mean that you would like to have yourself or someone handpicked by you elected to the board."

  "Yeah?"

  "I think it's time to invoke Article Ninety." The wall behind the table was suddenly illuminated by a spotlight hidden in the ceiling, and Barry saw that there was writing on the stone. Elaborate calligraphic script, with red letters nearly a foot high, covered the space from floor to ceiling. He could read the words "Article Ninety"--there was no title, no section number, no paragraph designation--but that was it. The rest appeared to be gibberish.

  "It is the one article that you will not find in your printed version of the C, C, and Rs ," the president said.

  "Why is that?" Barry asked.

  Calhoun leaned forward over the table, and there was an intensity in his expression that caused Barry to back up a step. "Because it cannot be captured or caught or frozen in time. It cannot be diminished by being limited to a single meaning. It is forever changing, adaptable to any circumstance that arises, and it is at the very heart of our homeowners' association. It is what grants us our authority and power, what allows you and everyone else to enjoy the perfection that is life in Bonita Vista."

  Barry stood there, not knowing what to say or how to respond. He could not recall hearing the door behind him close, and he casually turned his head to the side, pretending as though he was surveying the room but actually checking to see if the doorway was clear and he could haul ass out of here.

  No such luck. The metal door was securely shut.

  He faced forward again, filled with a growing dread and feeling of claustrophobia. The chamber smelled to him of sweat and blood and bodily fluids. He had to suppress the very real urge to vomit.

  "It is the responsibility of the minister of information to address Article Ninety," Calhoun said. He nodded toward the old man seated directly to his right. "Fenton?"

  The other man shooed away the woman working on his lap and stood. If possible, he looked even more peculiar than the president, his too-perfect and off-center nose appearing to have been placed on his face in order to imitate an element of normalcy that simply was not there.

  "Article Ninety," he intoned. "We ask thee for thy words of wisdom."

  "Thy wisdom is infinite," the other board members chanted.

  "Provide us with the knowledge to deal with this as with all matters."

  "Thy rules and regulations are as blessings to us all."

  Fenton closed his eyes, turned and bowed to the wall. "Article Ninety, Barry Welch wishes to mount a challenge to appear on the ballot for the Bonita Vista Homeowners' Association board of directors. How is he to be accommodated and how are we to determine his eligibility?"

  Abruptly, the gibberish disappeared. The words on the wall were still in that elaborate archaic calligraphy, but they were suddenly readable, understandable. The resulting declaration was not couched in the pseudo legalese that made up the rest of the C, C, and Rs but in a stilted quasi religious formality that sounded no less odd. Fenton straightened from his bow and read the words aloud: "Whosoever desires to place his name upon the ballot must first engage in battle with a current member of the board of directors. This must of necessity be a fight to the finish, the death of one ensuring the position of the other on the sacred ballot. Have mercy on the soul of this combatant for he knows not what he does."

  The six old men turned to look at him. Barry was already shaking his head. "I don't know what's going on here, but I want no part of it."

  "It's too late for that," Calhoun told him.

  "I'm not fighting anybody." But at the same time, he was thinking that this was why he had come, this was the confrontation he had been seeking. He had not expected anything so simplistic or crudely literal, but he now had the opportunity he'd been seeking to combat the board. He thought of Barney the cat, thought of Ray, thought of Kenny Tolkin, thought of Dylan and Chuck and Danna, thought of Maureen and their baby, and he allowed the anger to seep in, allowed the rage to build, Calhoun grinned, and as before his smile seemed far too wide. "Barry Welch," he thundered. "I hereby challenge you to battle! In front of all and sundry neighbors! Hand-to hand combat to the death!"

  A cheer went up from the other members of the board and from the volunteer women underneath the table. Behind them, the wall grew dark as the spotlight cut out, the room once again receiving only the dim illumination of sooty candles.

  Yes, Barry thought. I could fight any of these assholes. I could kill all of these sons of bitches.

  Calhoun's grin was positively feral. "Do you accept the challenge?"

  "I accept!"

  "Excellent," the president said. "Excellent." He sat down, his smile disappearing instantly. A cold stoniness hardened his features as he nodded imperiously at Ralph. "Now get this piece of shit prepared for battle."

  Barry was led through a narrow doorway to the side of the taxidermy display case and then down a long corridor with rusted metal walls that looked and smelled like the inside of a disused sewer pipe. At the end was a filthy, low-ceilinged room filled with volunteers who grabbed him and stripped off his clothes. They made no sound, and that was the eerie thing. They simply yanked open his shirt, pulled at the sleeves, took off his shoes, unbuckled his belt, tugged down his pants, passing him from one to the other, the only noise in the claustrophobic chamber his own startled grunts and protestations.

  He was left with only his underwear, smudged with mud and grease by dirty hands. The volunteers backed off, fanning around the edges of the room, looking at the floor, at the walls, at the ceiling, at each other, at anything except him. They seemed ashamed of what they'd done to him-of what they'd had to do to him--and he had the curious sensation that they were behind him on this, that they were on his side, that they would like to see him win.

  Win what?

  He didn't know. Was this supposed to be a fistfight? "Hand-to-hand combat" was a broad enough term to encompass a variety of fighting styles, and he had no idea what the rules of the bout would be. Just judging on appearances Calhoun was big and flabby and old. He should be able to kick the president's ass with no problem. But he thought of the odd, pale skin covering that strange musculature, and the aura of power that surrounded all of the board members, and he was not at all sure he would be able to beat the old man in any kind of fight.

  He was not even sure Calhoun was human.

  He didn't want to think about that.

  Barry looked over at Ralph, who was standing impassively next to a square hole in the wall the size of a large television, a black opening that looked like the entrance to a crawlspace.

  "Am I supposed to go through there?" he asked.

  "When you are ready."

  "Where does it go?"

  He received no answer.

  Barry looked around the room at the shuffling volunteers, then back at that ominous opening in the wall. He was nervous, sweating, filled with a dark dread. He'd been suppressing or avoiding the central truth of the coming fight, but now it was all he could think about. Someone was going to die. Whether it was himself or Jasper Calhoun, one of them would be dead within the next hour, killed by the other.

  He didn't know if he would actually be able to murder the association president in cold blood. He hated him, yes. And he would probably be very
happy if the man suddenly dropped dead. But could he do the killing? Most likely, if he won the fight, he would show mercy and let the president live. But if things progressed the way they did in novels and films, at that point Calhoun would turn the tables and attack, exploiting his weakness, and then he would be forced to kill the old man. And it would be righteous and justified because it was provoked and he was only acting in self-defense.

  Someone was going to die.

  That was a truth he could not seem to escape.

  Taking a deep breath, he crouched down, looked into the dark hole, then got on his hands and knees. He expected some surreptitious sign of support, a nod, a smile, a whisper of "Good luck," but Ralph remained silent and stone faced as Barry crawled into the small passageway.

  The floor was cold, hard concrete, and periodically, as he crawled, Barry's fingers and knees touched puddles of sticky unidentifiable liquid. There was only darkness at first, an inky black that seemed not merely the absence of light but an entity of its own, and several times he scraped his elbows or bumped his head on the hard walls and ceiling of the crawl way But gradually he began to discern grayish light up ahead, an upright rectangle that grew closer and closer, and just before he reached the tunnel's exit, the passage opened up and he was able to stand.

  He stepped out into an arena.

  It threw him for a moment, and for several disorienting seconds he did not know where he was or what he was looking at. Then everything sort of clicked into place. He saw the dirt floor strewn with bloody sawdust, the high surrounding walls, the circle of filled amphitheater seats above. The arena was nearly the size of a football stadium. As big as it was, there was no way Calhoun's house could accommodate something this large, yet here it stood, and as Barry looked up into the stands, he saw that all of his neighbors were here, all of the residents of Bonita Vista, dressed in suits and gowns and formal attire.

  The ceiling was some sort of skylight, and through its translucent safety-wired glass Barry could see occasional flashes of far-off lightning. The lightning was accompanied by low rolling thunder. The only illumination within the arena itself came from a series of lanterns and torches lining the curved wall behind the last ring of seats. In the center of the sawdust-covered floor, hanging by a hook from a tall bamboo post, was one additional light, a lantern in the shape of a--human head.

  His breath catching in his throat, Barry squinted into the dimness. It not only looked like a head, he was pretty sure it was a head. He saw flickering flames behind partially parted lips, through the empty sockets of missing eyes. He moved forward, not wanting his suspicions confirmed but needing to know.

  It was Dylan.

  He could see, as he drew closer, the specific features of his friend's face thrown into silhouette by the orange fire burning inside the hollowed-out skull.

  He wanted to scream, wanted to lash out and hurt someone, wanted to blow up this whole fucking building and everyone in it. He looked up into the stands, saw expressions of excitement and anticipation on the faces of women he'd seen jogging by the house, couples he'd seen playing tennis. From a ringside seat off to the side, Mike waved, shouted: "We're all behind you, man." Next to him, Tina nodded.

  They were not behind him, he knew. They were not here to show their support.

  They wanted to see blood.

  The Stewarts had already turned away, were talking to Frank and Audrey and another woman Barry did not recognize. All of them laughed.

  He looked again at the lantern made from Dylan's head, remembered all the good times they'd had together, remembered when they'd first met in a junk course on the history of science-fiction films, remembered the nights they'd spent hanging out in Minderbinder's before he'd gotten married, remembered the time they'd double-dated two sisters who'd gotten into a screaming hair-pulling fight with one another in the middle of a Suzanne Vega concert.

  "Dylan," he whispered.

  There was movement in the darkness beyond, some sort of commotion at the opposite end of the arena. Frowning, Barry stepped past the lantern Dylan head --in order to see more clearly.

  And beheld Jasper Calhoun, standing in front of the far wall.

  Waiting.

  As if on cue, the rumbling thunder intensified, the storm promised by the previously intermittent lightning now arrived.

  Calhoun looked over at him, grinning. Sequential bursts of increasingly bright lightning exploded above the thick glass of the skylight ceiling, and during each flash the president's face seemed to ... change. Briefly. For an instant. Above Calhoun, in box seats lining the north edge of the arena, the other board members also appeared to be temporarily transformed, as though, during their brief seconds of existence, the lightning bolts were somehow able to reveal the true nature of those evil old men.

  No, that's what would be happening in one of his novels. That's not what was happening here.

  Calhoun's face shifted ... shifted back.

  Barry had to fight the urge to run away. His desire must have been obvious because all of a sudden Mike and Frank and several other men in their section of the stands started chanting, "Article Ninety! Article Ninety!" It was clear that they were urging the combatants to begin the battle, demanding an immediate start to the match, and the cry was taken up around the amphitheater: "Article Ninety! Article Ninety!

  Article Ninety!" The rounded concrete walls seemed to amplify random crowd conversations above, and beneath the chant he heard bets being made on the fight's outcome, heard hopeful expectations for gruesome bloodletting.

  He continued to face the opposite end of the ring. Calhoun was wearing his ridiculous robes, and Barry was glad. The bulky garments would limit the old man's movements, he thought. The president would not be able to move freely either offensively or defensively.

  Who was he kidding? Calhoun was a monster. There was no way in hell the two of them were evenly matched. This fight would not be happening if there was even the slightest possibility that Calhoun could lose. It was rigged, the outcome guaranteed. Barry knew that the deck was stacked against him, and if he were to come out of this in one piece, he needed to quickly figure a way out of here..

  He turned around, saw volunteers standing in the doorway through which he'd come, blocking that exit. There didn't seem to be any doorway on Calhoun's side of the ring, and the wall surrounding them was too high to scale-assuming he could get through the well-dressed crowd if it wasn't.

  For the first time, he wondered what would happen if he was killed, what they would do with his body. Would Maureen be informed? Would he appear to have been the victim of an accident, or would he just disappear, his whereabouts never to be known, leaving Maureen and his unborn son or daughter forever in the dark? Would a lantern made from his head decorate this hellish arena?

  He should have told her about this, he thought. He should have at least written and mailed a letter so she would know the truth.

  Suddenly Jasper Calhoun raised both of his hands, and the activity of the spectators halted, their chanting and myriad conversations stopping instantly. Even the thunder ceased, and though Barry knew that was a coincidence, it still made him feel uneasy. The president smiled at him from across the ring, then clapped his hands twice.

  Paul Henri, dressed once again in livery, emerged from between the five board members and stepped to the edge of the wall. He blew on some sort of trumpet whose notes were lost to the air, but his voice, when he spoke, could be heard clearly. "Let the games begin!"

  With a roar, Calhoun came at him, robes flapping like the wings of some crazed black bird. Barry felt an instinctive rush of primal fear. His first impulse was to run, to duck left or right, get out of the way, but he held his ground and punched into the oncoming figure, experiencing a grim satisfaction as his fist connected with what felt like the president's stomach.

  He hadn't anticipated such an abrupt attack. He'd half expected to have the ground rules spelled out, to be told beforehand what was and was not acceptable, maybe even to
shake hands and count off ten paces before turning to fight, but apparently all was fair in war and an association dispute, and he knew now that he'd better use whatever dirty tricks or underhanded techniques he could--because Calhoun certainly would.

  He'd hit the old man with everything he had, putting weight and momentum behind his punch, but the president barely seemed to feel it.

  He lurched sideways, then turned, lashing out with hands that looked more like claws. Barry was only just able to avoid their reach, and then Calhoun head-butted him hard in the face.

  He felt his nose explode. Blood flooded into his throat and shards of bone seemed to shoot under the skin of his cheeks like needles.

  He fell backward onto the sawdust and heard rather than felt his head hit the hard-packed dirt below: a sharp whip crack that cut off with a dull solid thud.

  He looked up and saw a double ring of faces looking over the edge, all of them yelling and cheering wildly. His gaze happened upon Curtis, the gate guard, and Frank. Both of them were smiling cruelly, happy to see him in pain.

  The arena shook as an explosion louder and clearer than the background thunder, a noise that sounded like too-close cannon fire, rocked the building. Lightning had hit the skylight, cracking the thick safety glass, and through a fracture in the ceiling, rainwater began leaking down in a dripping curtain that bisected the ring, soaked the sawdust, and somehow put out the fire in Dylan's hanging head. Barry grinned crazily. "It's a sign from God!" he yelled at Calhoun "He's bringing down His wrath on all you motherfuckers!"

  The president remained nonplussed. "There is no God," he said.

  Barry felt woozy, warm blood from his shattered nose and the wound at the back of his head mingling with the cold wetness of die rain on his scalp, but he retained enough presence of mind to roll as Calhoun attempted to stomp on his face.

  A black boot barely missed his head, and he reached out and grabbed the attached leg, digging his fingers into flesh. He yanked hard, putting all of his weight behind it, and Calhoun was momentarily thrown off balance. Barry staggered to his feet and ran toward the north end of the arena to get away from the president, trying to gain time and formulate a fighting strategy. Think! he told himself. He tried to remember a rule or regulation that would prohibit this fight or at least put an end to it. The only thing Calhoun respected was the C, C, and Rs --it was his law, his Bible, and if Barry could come up with an association ordinance that addressed this specific situation, he could get out of it.