He stared at the lined paper. Ever since they'd moved here, he'd had a scene from the movie Funny Farm stuck in his brain. In the film, Chevy Chase moves out to the country because he wants to write a novel, and in the initial tour of the new house with his wife, he finds a perfect room for his studio where there's a bird cheerfully chirping on a branch outside the window. Later, he's sitting at his writing desk in front of his typewriter and a blank roll of paper, completely blocked, and this time when the bird chirps happily outside, Chase throws a cup of hot coffee at it.
That had been Barry's greatest nightmare, that he would be unable to write in these gorgeous surroundings, and even today, as he sat on the porch, pen in hand, there was the small nagging fear at the back of his mind that he wouldn't be able to come up with anything, that the creative juices wouldn't flow.
But he needn't have worried. As always, he had no problem tapping his imagination, and soon his pen was flying, describing the feelings of a young boy forced by his psychotic sister to eat cereal made from the bone dust of their cremated mother.
A woman walked by on the road in front of the house, and he caught her eye and waved. She gave him a thin smile, waved back, then hurried on, obviously eager to be away from him.
So much for small-town friendliness.
He looked at her retreating back. Now that he thought about it, the sociability quotient of their neighborhood seemed to have gone down over the past week or two, the dinner invitations they'd received upon first arrival no longer extended. He wasn't complaining--they had friends here now: Ray and Liz, Frank and his wife, Audrey, Mike and Tina Stewart--but still it was odd, and he wondered why it had happened, whether they'd broken some unwritten code and made some hideous social faux pas, or whether their newness and novelty had worn off and everyone who wanted to meet them had done so.
The woman rounded a bend in the road, disappearing behind the pines, and Barry looked down at his notebook, flexed his fingers one more time, and resumed writing.
The weather changed quickly, as it often did here in Utah. He'd been sweating in the June heat, then suddenly thick white clouds blocked the sun, and there was a measurable drop in temperature--a full eight degrees according to the Sierra Club outdoor thermometer Maureen had installed on the wall next to the door. The sweat cooled on his skin.
If what Ray said was true, July would bring the monsoons, and then they'd really see some schizo id weather. Barry was looking forward to it. As a native southern Californian, his exposure to different seasons had been through movies, books, and television, entirely secondhand, and it was nice to finally experience for himself the vagaries of Mother Nature.
He broke off for lunch some six pages later, his right hand starting to cramp. He felt good about what he'd written this morning. If it went this well every day, he'd be able to write for six months out of the year and take the other six off. Or crank out two books a year instead of one. Probably the latter. Writing was a notoriously fickle and unstable business, and no matter how well he was doing, there was always the possibility that he could be stone cold in a year and find his fiction unsalable . It was the nature of the beast, and even if he hadn't had a borderline- obsessive work ethic, he would still feel the need to strike while the iron was hot.
But inspiration wasn't that consistent, and although there were days when he finished twenty clean pages, there were others when he eked out only a single paragraph that more often than not had to be rewritten the following day.
This morning had been productive, though. Walking in side, he dumped his notebook on the dining room table and went into the kitchen, searching for something to eat. He opened the cupboards, looked through the refrigerator, but the house seemed to be devoid of snacks and he was too lazy to actually make anything. He finally settled on an apple, chomping it as he walked downstairs. Maureen was in the bathroom, but on the table next to the computer were several stamped envelopes addressed to the IRS, entreaties on behalf of her clients no doubt, and he called out between bites, 'Hey! You want me to take these letters out to the mailbox?'
'Go ahead!' came the muffled response.
Anxious to be walking, on the move, doing something physical after sitting on his butt all morning, Barry tossed his apple core into the wastepaper basket, picked up the envelopes, and headed outside. At the mailbox, he flipped up the red flag and opened up the rounded metal door to drop off Maureen's outgoing correspondence.
But he saw immediately that the box wasn't empty. Today's mail had not yet been delivered, so there were no bills, no letters, no postcards.
But there was an unstamped envelope bearing his name and, in the upper left corner, the printed initials 'BVHA.'
Bonita Vista Homeowners' Association .
He ripped open the envelope, angry before he even knew what was in it.
There was no form this time but a typed note on letterhead stationery.
He read the message. Read it again.
Dear Mr. Welch, It has come to our attention that you have been using 113 Pinetop Rd.
as your place of business as well as your primary residence. Bonita Vista is a strictly residential community and all commercial or business activities are prohibited. No homeowner may practice his or her occupation on any of the Properties.
The Board has only recently learned of your specific situation, and after careful review we have determined that as per the Bonita Vista C, C, &Rs you are required to secure an alternate site at which you can conduct your writerly vocation within thirty days of this notice.
If you have any questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to call me at 555-7734.1 would be happy to assist you in any way I can.
Sincerely yours, Boyd R. Masterson Committee Chair The paper in his hand was trembling, he was so angry. Barry shoved Maureen's envelopes into the mailbox and shut the door.
Writerly vocation.
In his mind, he was revising and rewriting the letter: a pointless exercise but one that he often did when confronted with adversarial documentation. Too many people in this world were unable to compose an effective missive, and it always gave him a boost to realize that his opponents were not as adept at composition as he was. It diffused the threat somehow, gave him, at least in his own mind, a psychological advantage.
There was the sound of a vehicle coming up the road, and he looked up to see a red Jeep rounding the corner and starting up the hill. It was Mike Stewart. Mike worked in town at the Cablevision office and was obviously on his way home for lunch. He gave a honk and a wave as his Jeep passed by. But something in Barry's demeanor must have alerted him that something was amiss, because a second later Mike braked the vehicle and coasted back down, stopping in front of the driveway.
'Anything wrong?' he called out.
Barry walked up to the Jeep, holding out the letter. 'What do you make of this?'
Mike reached out the driver's window and took the paper from his hand.
He started to read, then snorted. 'Those assholes.'
'You know anything about this rule?'
'No, but that's only because it doesn't apply to me. If they say it's in the C, C, and Rs , you can bet your mama's cooze that it is.'
'But don't you think this rule was probably made to keep people from selling stuff out of their house, or setting up some sort of manufacturing unit in their garage, or doing things that would disrupt the neighborhood? I mean, I write, for God's sake. I type. That's it. It doesn't harm anything. No one would even know I do it if I
hadn't told them.'
Mike sighed. 'You're probably right, but these are letter of-the-law guys. Intent doesn't mean shit to them. They're just into throwing their weight around and enforcing their rules, and the more infractions they find, the more people they can crack down on, the happier they are. They're grateful you slipped through that loophole and they could pounce.'
'God damn it!'
'You know,' Mike said, 'it's my goal to win the lottery. There are quite a few empty lots up here, and if I won,
