this would've put us back another month. I'd heard through the grapevine that you could volunteer, that you could work off your fine instead of pay it, and I approached the board and they said okay. I was assigned to pick up trash on the roads and in the ditches for a week.'
'And that was it?' Barry asked.
'Not exactly. On Saturday, the last day, I was told to help clear dried brush from one of the green belts and I found out for the first time that there were ... gradations of volunteers. There were people like me, who were assigned specific tasks for a specific amount of time, and there were people who weren't trying to work off anything.
They were just volunteering to help out, and they could pretty much do whatever they wanted to on whatever needed to be done.' He licked his lips. 'Then there were the indentureds and I'm pretty sure that's what Greg is. They're the ones who've lost their homes but owe so much that even that doesn't cover it. They pretty much sign away their lives, forfeit their rights and are at the association's beck and call until their debts are paid off. They supposedly live together in a bunkhouse somewhere, although I still don't know where that is.
I've never asked.'
Barry was expecting more, but apparently Mike was through. 'That's it?' he said. 'There has to be more to it than that. You were at the gate that night. You saw them. Greg and the rest of them were like robots. They looked like they were drugged or hypnotized or something.'
'It's not that,' Mike insisted. 'I can't explain it, but there's nothing truly coercive involved, no magic or drugs or brainwashing or anything. They really can walk away if they want to, although I have no doubt that they'd have their asses sued off if they did. But they're in so deep to the association that they stay. They'll do anything to get themselves out from underneath mat rock.' Another of those looks at Tina. 'Anything.'
'But--' Maureen looked at Barry. '--they all seem to be... mutilated in some way. There's something wrong with all of them. They're missing ears or fingers or hands.'
'Volunteering is not the only way to pay off debts,' Tina said through tight lips.
That was as detailed as either of them would get, and Barry wasn't inclined to push them further. There was something else there, but while Mike and Tina were being evasive, it was out of fear, not malice, and he understood their apprehension. Mike, in particular, had to walk a thin line. Although he worked for a national corporation, his office was in town. And while he disagreed with and resented the association, they pretty much left him alone. It was not in his best interest to rock any boats.
After some innocuous chitchat that allowed them all to depressurize a bit, Barry and Maureen finally took their leave, making tentative plans to play tennis with the Stew arts next weekend.
They returned home to find Maureen's garden gone.
They'd only been away for a few hours, but in that time someone the volunteers?
--had not only torn out and disposed of every bushel vine, sapling, flower, and vegetable that Maureen had planted but had packed down the dirt and placed in dozens of dead and dying manzanita bushes.
'What is this? Maureen asked incredulously.
The land on the north side of the house looked like a cruel parody of the property as it had appeared when they bought the house, as though a blight had descended on native shrubs, killed most of them off, and left a few weakened specimens in its wake.
'Guess what?' Barry said. He pointed toward the screen door.
A pink sheet of paper.
'Oh no.'
Maureen reached the door first and ripped off the form. Barry read over her shoulder. They were being fined for noncompliance with regulations and would also be charged for the labor and materials supplied by the gardening enterprise, which replaced the offending plants with acceptable local vegetation.
''Acceptable local vegetation'?' Maureen fumed. 'They stuck some dead twigs in the ground!'
'Don't worry. We're not paying it.'
'That's not the point. They destroyed my garden. My tomatoes still had blooms, and another batch was about to ripen. I had zucchini that was ready to pick.'
'I wonder if there's some sort of grievance committee, someplace we could go to complain about an action like this.'
'Fat chance.'
'They should have to take responsibility for this. We were told specifically, after that first time with Barney, that we were allowed to have a garden and to landscape our property.'
'That's not all. Look.'
He read the line to which she was pointing. It stated that all flowers and house plants had to be removed from the inside of the residence within forty-eight hours. Otherwise, additional fines would be imposed. The amount was unspecified.
They were both agreed that no changes would be made; their plants would be neither moved nor removed. Since the inspection, they'd been tilting dining room chairs and placing them under the doorknobs in order to discourage intruders, but Bill and his buddies had somehow found a way to unhook a chain latch and throw back a keyless deadbolt, so this extra precaution probably hadn't amounted to much. Still, Barry vowed that tonight he would also duct tape the edges of the doors. At the very least, it might tell them if someone had broken in while they were sleeping.
Maureen decided to walk through where her garden used to be and see if any of her plants had been spared. Barry went inside. He had an idea.
He was pretty sure that Maureen would not approve, so he waited until she came back in and told her that he was going to walk around the property and do his own inspection 'Our homeowners' insurance might cover this,' he told her. 'So after I look around, I'm going to take some photos and call them to file a claim, see what comes of it.'
She thought it was a good idea.
He did intend to take pictures and file an insurance claim, but he also had more immediate plans. From underneath the bottom deck where he stored their gardening implements, tools, and leftover renovation materials, he found what he was looking for: a large cardboard box.
Using a pair of clippers, he raggedly cut off one side and then placed it on the ground, and painted a short, crude message. The only color of paint they had was white, but against the dark brown of the cardboard, the letters stood out and were clearly visible.
Barry positioned the sign at the base of a scrub oak, using a large rock to hold it in place, and walked out to the street to make sure his message was legible and could be read by passing cars.
FUCK THE HOMEOWNERS' ASSOCIATION
It was legible all right. He grinned. This would show those bastards.
He'd be fined, but it was worth it to him to make sure that they were aware of his defiance, that they knew he was willing to take his dissatisfaction public.
Besides, he'd just throw the fine notice in a drawer with the others.
He walked back inside, still smiling, and got the camera out. He took pictures of the damage from different directions, then, just for fun, took a picture of the sign.
He was cheered up for about ten minutes, but then he started thinking about all the time he'd wasted on this crap, all of the hours spent worrying and responding and thinking and brooding that could have been used for more productive purposes, and suddenly, he no longer felt so good. His thoughts turned to those creepy old men of the board and the futility of fighting against such entrenched institutionalized power.
Maureen was lying on the couch, watching the Home and Garden channel, mourning her lost plants. She, too, seemed drained. She'd been all fired up after their nighttime inspection, ready to go to war with the entire world if need be, but subsequent harassment had taken its toll, and now she looked positively beaten down.
Was any of this really worth it?
Maureen must have been thinking along the same lines because she sat up, using the remote to mute the television's sound. 'Maybe we should move,' she said.
He didn't respond.
