Bentley Little: The Association

"It's spreading down toward the houses on Spruce! What should we do?"

Barry shook his head, tried to push his way past them.

"Lightning hit the gate!" someone on the road yelled. "It's open and they're getting in! Where's the president?"

"He's over here!" Mike shouted.

"No!" Barry said.

People came running toward him.

"The townies! They're on a rampage!" "They're going to riot! Call out the volunteers!" He kept walking, ignoring them, striding purposefully toward his car. He could see from a strange glow at the top of the hill that the lightning fire was spreading quickly, fanned by the wildly blowing winds. It was as if the surrounding forest was filled with nothing but dry under, despite the recent monsoons. Behind him, he heard cries of panic, calls for someone to alert the fire department. A woman yelled that lightning had also struck over on Poplar Street and that a partially constructed house was burning, the fire racing through the greenbelt. Several people shouted into cell phones.

There were no fire hydrants here, he remembered. Even ifCorban's volunteer fire lighters wanted to put out the blaze and save the homes of Bonita Vista--a very big if-there was no water with which to do it.

The whole place was going to burn to the ground, and Barry felt like laughing. It served those bastards right. So smug and self satisfied, so convinced of their infallibility. Now they'd been brought down by their own shortsightedness, by not doing one of the few things that homeowners' associations were legitimately supposed to do--maintain the community's infrastructure.

No one chased after him, tried to stop him or even spoke to him, and he felt good, strong as he strode away from the house and through the disintegrating crowd. He could smell the smoke, and he was glad the wind was fanning the flames.

He hoped the fire consumed Calhoun's house. Especially that evil boardroom and its horrid wall of ever-changing words.

Article Ninety.

He had the feeling that if that could be destroyed, all would be well.

What about the Stumpies ?

They would probably be killed--unless one of the volunteers in the house rescued them--but Barry found that he could live with that. They had already given most of their lives for the homeowners' association, and he had no doubt they would willingly sacrifice the rest if it would put an end to the excesses of the organization once and for all.

The people who only moments before had been trying to congratulate him were fleeing, running back to their homes in order to gather valuables or fight off fires. A fight broke out near Calhoun's flagpole. It was a free-for-all. Barry heard a loud, inhuman screech behind him, and he turned to see a well-coifed woman go down, shoved by an angry man in a suit and tie.

"Mr. Welch! Mr. Welch!" That despicable little toady Neil Campbell was running after him, without his clipboard for once, and Barry stopped to face the association flunky.

"I can help you," Campbell said breathlessly.

"With what?"

"Anything! I'm at the board's service! I'll be your right hand man!

Any investigations you want conducted, any houses you want kept under surveillance, any--"

"Neil?" Barry said.

"What?"

"Eat shit and bark at the moon."

Barry turned away, unable to keep the smile from his face as he walked purposefully out to the road. A pickup barreled by and seconds later rammed into a Jeep. From somewhere down the hill, a car alarm sounded.

Flickering flames could be seen through the trees, and the smell of smoke was everywhere.

Burn, baby, burn, Barry thought.

Still smiling, happier than he'd been for a long long time, he jogged up the lawn toward the road. Where the Suburban waited that would take him to Cedar City. And Maureen.

epilogue The insurance company had paid off on both the house and the property, taking the burned land off their hands. Barry had no idea whether the company planned to sell the lot as is or put up a new house and rent it out. He didn't care. He never wanted to see or think about Bonita Vista again.

They were moving on.

The red Acura hugged the curves as Jim J. Johnson drove through downtown Willis and onto a side street that wound up the ridge. Barry reached for Maureen's hand and squeezed it.

"This is the most remote neighborhood in town," the real estate agent said, turning onto a narrow dirt road that passed through a copse of scrub oak, pinion pine, and juniper. "They're still on the sewer system, but there's no cable out here. Strictly satellite dish." Two empty lots separated by an abandoned half-finished A-frame popped up on the right. A one-room log cabin was set far back from the road on the left.

"See what I mean?"

They looked through the car window at an old dented trailer, two duty kids fighting over a spraying hose in the yard.

"Like I said, I'm not sure you'll be happy here," the agent told them.

"You look like the kind of people who would appreciate more, shall we say, refined surroundings. Now we have a gated community here in Willis, a new planned neighborhood with two manmade lakes and a private golf course. The views are spectacular, the best in town, and strict zoning ordinances ensure that you'll never have to put up with trashy neighbors. What do you say I

drive you out to Rancho de Willis and let you see for yourselves?"

Barry stared out at a poorly constructed patio attached to a rundown shack, saw a child's broken Big Wheel lying upside down in a patch of weeds.

"No," he said, looking at Maureen.

She smiled.

"This will be perfect. This will be fine."