Bentley Little - The Association

He walked self-consciously over to his usual table and sat down, trying not to notice the complete lack of conversation, the air of hostility that overhung the eatery. Lurlene looked over at her father first, getting his okay before angrily slamming down a menu and a glass of water. The water splashed over the table and onto Barry's lap, but he forced himself to smile and keep his voice calm as he picked up the menu and handed it back to the waitress. "I don't need this, Lurlene .

I'll just have the usual."

She grabbed the laminated menu from his hand and stormed off without saying a word.

Something had happened since the last time he'd been here. He had no idea what it was, but it had to have been big to engender this kind of anger, and he only wished he knew so he could fight against it.

He used his napkin to wipe up the spilled water and took a sip from the half-filled glass. He was thinking about approaching Hank, just walking over to the old man's table, coming right out and asking what was the matter, when Joe stood up from his place near the counter and strode purposefully over to Barry's table.

Barry wasn't sure how to react, so he just remained where he was, took another sip of water, and watched the other man coming.

Joe faced him squarely. "Didn't think you'd have the nerve to show your face in here."

There was anger in his voice. No. Not just anger. Rage.

Barry's heart was pounding. He could not remember the last time he'd gotten into any sort of physical altercation, but he had the feeling that Joe was going to try and goad him into one right here, right now, although he still had no idea why.

He stood but tried to remain relaxed and friendly, though that was getting increasingly hard to do. "I don't know what you're talking about, Joe. Whatever's happened ..." He spread his hands in a gesture of innocence. "... I'm out of the loop. You're going to have to clue me in."

"Weston Richards," Joe said, practically spitting out the name.

The man stared at him for a long moment, and Barry shook his head, still unaware of the intended meaning.

"I don't know what this Weston's done," he said, "but--"

"Weston didn't do nuthin '!" Lyle shouted from his table near the door.

"He was killed. You guys poisoned him!"

Barry looked toward Hank. "There was another accident?"

"This weren't no accident," Hank said, and Barry could see the fury in the old man's eyes. "They killed that boy on purpose. The Richardses didn't have no dog."

"And his head was bashed in!" Lurlene glared at him.

There was a sinking feeling in the pit of Barry's stomach. "I don't know anything about this. This is the first I've heard about it."

Hank nodded. "That's the problem. No one knows anything about it."

"But we know who's responsible," Ralph said from his seat at Lyle's table.

"Look--" Barry tried to be reasonable. "--I hate that stupid homeowners' association as much as you do. More probably because I

have to put up with their shit and abide by their damn rules."

"But you're still a part of it," Lyle pointed out. "You're still a member."

"I have no choice! If I live there, I have to pay dues!"

"You have a snowplow!" a woman near the window shouted.

Barry looked over at her. She was someone he had not seen before, an overweight woman with an over bite and too-large breasts, and he didn't understand either her reference to the snowplow or the anger he saw in her eyes. "What?" he asked her.

"In the winter. You have a snowplow up there. But it's only for Bonita Vista. Our plow broke down last year and we were snowed in for nearly a week. Snowed in! But you wouldn't help us, wouldn't let us use your plow, wouldn't clear off any of our roads!"

"What about the water?" Ralph said quietly.

There were nods all around.

"Look, I wasn't even living here last winter. I'm not involved with the water. I have nothing to do with this Weston thing--"

"Our utility rates went up in town because of all the electricity you use!"

"The runoff from your carved-up hills is contaminating thecrik !"

"I just live there," Barry said defensively. "I don't--"

"Weston's head was bashed in," Lurlene repeated. "He was poisoned and frothing at the mouth and the top of his head was bashed in. I knew that little boy."

"I didn't do it!" Barry said.

"No," Hank said, and his voice was loud enough and grave enough to silence all the others. "But you didn't do nothin ' to stop it neither."

They stared at each other, and Barry realized that there was no way he was going to ever win here, no way he was going to change any opinions or convince anyone that he should not be tarred with the same brush as his neighbors.

"They're trying to kill off our kids," the woman near the window said.

"They're mad that we won't go along with their plans, and now they're trying to kill off our kids."

Joe's voice was seething. "Pets ... kids ... Who knows what's next."

Barry wanted to be able to argue with this, wanted to be able to fight back, but he couldn't. Such an idea might seem ludicrous, but he couldn't dismiss it out of hand, and there was no way he would stoop to defending the homeowners' association.

"I think you'd best get your food to go," Bert said to him from behind the counter, and it was clear from his tone of voice that this was an order, not a suggestion.

Barry's eyes focused on the small white sign propped up on top of the cash register: we reserve the right to refuse SERVICE TO ANYONE.

He had the feeling that this was going to be the last meal he would ever order from this place. Or be allowed to order.

He stood, finished off the last of his water, and walked over to the cash register.

He would not be surprised if Bert kicked him out of the office as well.

And if the sentiment of the coffee shop regulars was any indication of the local attitude toward Bonita Vista, he doubted he'd be able to find another office very soon.

With the association banning him from writing in his own house, it'd be the old rock and a hard place dilemma.

Maybe he'd just stake out a campsite in the forest, get himself a generator to power the computer, and write out there.

With a frown, Bert handed him the greasy bag of food and took his money, silently proffering change. Barry did not look at anyone as he walked straight through the center of the coffee shop to the door. His footsteps sounded embarrassingly loud in the stillness.

Once outside, he breathed a little easier. The claustrophobic tension that had been pressing in on him dissipated in the open air, and he walked back to his office across the open field, feeling as though he'd awakened from a paranoid dream and was back in the real world.

Fifteen minutes later, he had finished his lunch, abandoned the real world, and was in the realm of death and supernatural horror, the unpleasantness at the coffee shop pushed to the back of his brain, existing for the moment only as a possible element he could add to his new novel.

He was in the middle of a monster-POV chapter, flying along, his fingers barely able to keep up with his mind, when the silence of the office was suddenly shattered by the crash of glass. A baseball flew through the window next to his desk, sending shards flying inward, and Barry instinctively ducked. It could have been kids, a foul ball hit in the wrong direction during a pickup game, but somehow he knew that it wasn't. When there was no follow-up, he quickly sprang to his feet and sprinted the three steps to the front of the office. He yanked open the door, saw a man running across the field back toward the coffee shop, but could not tell who it was.

Was this merely a warning, he wondered, or the beginning of regular organized attacks against him? He didn't know, but neither possibility was promising, and he backed up his files on diskette and took the diskette with him as he locked up the office.