By Brett Hainley

Greg King sat at the back of the Home Owners Association meeting. He wouldn’t be there at all, except that his friend, Eunice Waller had called him asking him to sit in, so they’d have a quorum. Greg had given up on the Yaupon Lakes Community Association long ago, and had no plans of bothering, now.

To be fair, Yaupon Lakes was not insane like some of the subdivisions where his friends lived. Deed Restrictions were modest, and mostly agreed with city ordinances on the subject of home care and responsibility. This had more to do with the vision of the developer, fifty years ago than the current board, but still, it was nice to be allowed the liberty of planting his yard the way he wanted and not according to some “perfect plan” developed by an angry retiree whose life centered on his neighbors’ faults.

Eunice sat down next to Greg as Albert Parks called the meeting to order. She was a handsome black woman dressed in conservative style. She owned a small, successful string of salons, and Greg often wondered why she didn’t live in a better neighborhood. Yaupon Lakes was nice, and the retention pond that served as their “lake” was well-maintained and beautiful, especially since the land around it had been deeded to the city as a park, but urban encroachment had been seeping into the neighborhood for a while, and the surrounding district did not reflect Yaupon’s family-friendly atmosphere.

Al read announcements and called for a reading of the minutes. He sounded like a fifth grader forced to read the morning roll call at school. Greg raised his hand. “Move to adopt without reading,” he said when Albert called on him.

“Can we do that?”

“Yes.”

“Oh, um, do I have a second?” Five people in the crowd said, “Second.” The motion was unanimously carried. Greg sighed happily that he wouldn’t have to waste ten minutes listening to Arbor Johnson, the secretary, struggle through the small-typed minutes prepared by the management company.

Eunice leaned into him. “You were always better at this. You should be up there.” Greg smiled gratefully at her and shrugged. He had been up there for three years. During that time, he had beaten a budget shortfall into submission and raised community activity in the Association, but he’d had to fight uphill all the way. An organized group, mostly original residents, opposed every action he’d attempted and tried to impose rules and practices that Greg found repugnant. When they’d forced through a payment policy that seemed more about punishing people for hard luck than it was about the financial health of the Association, Greg had resigned. He walked out of the meeting and never looked back.

Until Eunice called. She had asked him why he’d resigned back in the day, and when he told her he was tired, she had respected that. It would have been rude of him not to do her this little favor.
John Sharp, who was in charge of Deed Restrictions Enforcement, was going on and on about “renters”. There was something odd in his tone when he said the word that caught Greg’s ear. He leaned over to Eunice.

“Does he mean “minorities”?”

“He means “blacks”,” she said, her voice tight, “but I’m sure he’s thinking “blacks”.” When John moved on to a tirade about certain residents painting their brick in bright pastels, she leaned back to Greg. “He may also mean “wetbacks”.”

Greg shook his head and wondered how his neighbors had regressed so far. Had they always been this racist? He remembered an event during his own tenure where he had heard Arbor talking to a woman who wanted to volunteer. Arbor had sounded like she was talking the young woman out of the idea without actually telling her she wasn’t welcome. Greg thought, at the time, it had been just because the woman was so young, but she had been of East Asian descent, and now he wondered if that had been a factor. He was thinking how to buy a house from the home owners association that he was involved in.

Louise Fletcher, who always added, “not that one,” when she introduced herself, as if anyone would confuse the mousey little brunette with Nurse Ratched, was reading off the slate of nominees. This was why a quorum was needed. Nineteen residents had to be in attendance for the nominations to next year’s board to be valid. Greg noted two open At-Large positions, and silently noted that they’d managed to alienate that many people.

Al called for nominations from the floor, and Eunice stood up. “I nominate Greg King for President!”

“You can only make floor nominations for the two open At-Large positions,” Al corrected her.

“No,” Greg heard himself say.

“What?”

“Any position on the Board is subject to floor nomination.” He caught Al’s eye. “Read your by-laws.”

Al looked for support to the representative of the management company. She shrugged and nodded. “All right,” he surrendered, glaring at Greg, “Greg King for President. Is there a second?” A surprising number of voices were raised to second the nomination. Al said something else.

“Sorry?”

“Does the nominee assent?” Al said, sounding like he was reading from a foreign language phrasebook.

Greg considered it for a moment. Did he really want to be dragged back into this mess? Did he have a right not to do what he could? He sighed. “Yeah. Okay. Sure.”

The meeting was adjourned soon after. Greg bit his tongue and didn’t inform Al that he just needed a second for adjournment, not a vote. Outside, he lit a cigarette and stood talking to Eunice for a moment.

“I hope you didn’t mind,” she said.

“Mind?”

“When I nominated you. I was afraid you might think I tricked you into coming just for that.”

“That’s fine.”

“Good. I’ll see you next month for the vote.” Greg had the oddest feeling she had something up her sleeve.

“Yeah, bye.”

More people filtered out, on the way to their cars. Some stopped and congratulated him, shaking his hand. “I haven’t won yet,” he’d say, distractedly. He was trying to focus on a thing he heard. It was small and high, jus on the edge of hearing. Greg tried to locate the source.

Al came out with his wife, and they both started to berate him for “calling them out.”

Greg said, “Excuse me,” and walked past them to the hedge that grew next to the community building. He lay down on his stomach so he could see the little kitten, just barely weaned, sitting alone in the hedge and whining piteously. “Hey there stranger,” he said. “Would you like to come home with me?”

The kitten strolled out of its hiding place and walked right up to Greg, as if it had been waiting for his invitation. Greg stood, stroking the kitten’s forehead with one finger. He waved to the Parkses, and walked home.