Bentley Little - The Association

"We'll both stay here tonight," he said. "But tomorrow I'm going back home. I want you to stay here for a few days while I... straighten things out."

"No!" she said, clutching his arm. "Don't go back there! We're through with that place. Just sell it, sell the house, sell everything."

"We can't, remember? There's a lien."

"Fuck it. Write it off then. We'll survive. We'll find a little tract home. We'll rent an apartment if we have to."

"Like you said, it would follow us around. We can't just walk away and pretend it didn't happen. There's a record. It'd be financial suicide--"

"Don't give me that. Since when have you given a damn about finances?"

He met her eyes. "You're right," he said. "I just... can't let them win. I can't do it. I can't walk away from this."

She squinted suspiciously. "What did you mean, 'straighten things out'?"

"I don't expect you to understand--"

"Oh, it's a guy thing, huh?"

"No, not that."

"A man's gotta do what a man's gotta do?"

He grabbed her shoulders, held them tight. "Someone has to take a stand." She pulled away from him, stood. "What does that mean? What does any of this mean? You're talking like someone in a bad western movie. They tried to abort our baby!"

"That's why I'm going back."

"Goddamn it, Barry!"

"I'm going back."

"I won't let you!"

"You have no choice." He looked at her. "/ have no choice."

* * *

By the time he reached Bonita Vista it was nearly noon. At the gate, the guard smirked at him, forced him to show his driver's license, and took an inordinately long time looking up his name on the list of residents. Finally, his admission approved, the gate swung open. Barry threw the melted ice from his Subway cup out the window and into the face of the guard as he drove past. "Asshole!" he said.

He stepped on the gas and sped up the hill.

Their home had been desecrated. The property had been re landscaped yet again, this time with a rolling green lawn that defied the natural aesthetics of the hillside and looked as though it had been transplanted from a golf course. One lone tree remained, but all shrubs and bushes were gone, the irregular ground smoothed over and planted with bright green grass.

The house looked like something out of Dr. Seuss.

Their shingled roof had been redecorated with black and white zigzag stripes. The side of the house facing the street was bright yellow, the upstairs window red, the two bottom windows blue. The door was not only pink but had been padded with some sort of fuzzy material.

Inside, much of the furniture had been removed and the walls were blank, all of Maureen's artwork and groupings taken down. There was only one couch, the coffee table, and his stereo system in the living room; only the bed, dresser, and television set in the still-bloodstained bedroom. He had no idea where the rest of their stuff had gone, but he had the feeling that it was not safely packed away in storage.

The mailbox was crammed with dozens of fines and notices from the homeowners' association.

First things first. He walked back into the house, got a book of matches from the junk drawer in the kitchen, and strode down to the end of the driveway, where he very oh Obviously and dramatically dumped everything out of the mailbox onto the asphalt. He lit a match, touched it to the corner of one envelope, then to the corner of a pink form. In seconds, the entire pile of papers was burning.

As he'd suspected, as he'd hoped, Neil Campbell appeared from up the street, walking briskly, clipboard in hand. The prissy little man looked positively apoplectic. "You can't do that!" he shouted, turning in at die driveway.

"Can't do what?"

"Those are official notices from the Bonita Vista Homeowners'

Association, and you are required to respond to them! You cannot--" He pointed with his clipboard, his arm shaking in disbelief. "--burn them!"

"Get off of my property," Barry said.

"What?"

"You heard me."

"There is a clause allowing board members and committee --"

"If you're not off my property in one minute, I'll throw you off myself." Barry pushed up his sleeve. "Do you understand?"

Campbell backed up a step. "You're making a big mistake. I am here as a representative of the Bonita Vista Homeowners' Association."

"Thirty seconds."

He started writing furiously. "I am reporting all of this."

"That's it." Barry grabbed the toady's arm. "Get out of here. Now."

"Don't you touch me!" Campbell jerked away.

Barry punched him. Hard. His fist connected with the man's stomach, and by God it felt good. Campbell doubled over, let out a surprised gasp, then scrambled backward to get out of the driveway.

"Don't you ever set foot on my property again!" Barry kicked the pile of burning papers, sending a half-blackened piece of envelope skittering out into the road.

Campbell ran off.

"And tell your friends, too," Barry shouted after him. He smiled as he watched the forms and notices burn themselves out.

In the morning, an expensive embossed envelope waited for him in the mailbox. There was nothing on the front, no return address, not even his name. It was blank.

Inside was an invitation for dinner at Jasper Calhoun's house.

His first instinct was to throw the invitation away and not go, but he realized that was only because he was afraid. He recalled the ominous dread he felt when he and Jeremy had walked up to the president's home.

It would be simpler and safer to stay at home tonight, watch TV, listen to his stereo, read a book. But he had returned to Bonita Vista for a confrontation, and while he would prefer that confrontation to happen at his house, on his own turf, he was not about to run from it no matter where it occurred.

There was no RSVP on the invitation, and he assumed that was intentional. Calhoun wanted him to worry about this, wanted him to fret over it until the very last minute.

He did spend the afternoon worrying, but it was not over whether he should accept the invitation. It was over what he should bring with him. He had no gun, but he considered hiding a knife in his boot or sticking an array of screwdrivers in his belt buckle or even walking in wielding a nail-studded two-by-four. He was pretty sure this was a trap, and he would be a fool not to protect himself.

In the end, however, he decided not to bring a weapon. There would doubtless be others present at the dinner-henchmen, board members, friends, supporters, followers-and it would be impossible for him to fight them all no matter what he was carrying. Besides, there'd probably be some sort of frisk or body search or metal detector. The best idea was to go in clean.

He debated whether to tell Maureen, and eventually decided he would not. He did not want to worry her, but he did call, and they talked about trivial things, innocuous things. Without saying so specifically, he led her to believe that he was merely cleaning up the house and yard while poring through the revised C, C, and Rs looking for ways to attack the association by using its own rules and regulations.

"When are you coming back?" she asked.

"Soon, I hope."

There was a pause.

"I don't suppose you're going to tell me what's really going on there?"

He should have known she was too smart to be fooled by his crude attempts at misdirection. "No," he admitted. "I'm not."

"It's not just me anymore," she told him. "There are two of us who need you."

"I'm not going anywhere."

"I'm sure Dylan, Chuck, and Danna thought the same thing. I don't know what you're doing, and maybe I don't want to know, but be careful. This isn't a game. Those people are dangerous. I don't want to send out a private investigator a year from now and find out that my new baby's father has been turned into a Stumpy."