"First of all," Mike told him, "there are no recalls. It's disallowed.
There's no such thing here. Secondly, the annual meeting is coming up on Labor Day weekend. That's when they vote for officers, make amendments to the C, C, and Rs , conduct all that sort of association business. It's when they allow us mortals to see the man behind the curtain."
"So that's our big chance."
"Yeah."
"If I can talk to enough people, get them to propose, second, and vote for a number of different initiatives, we can institute some of our own reforms."
"In theory."
"You don't think it's possible?"
"Let's just say I've been to these meetings before. I know how they go."
"Is it true that on the ballot you can only approve the existing board, there's no other choices?"
"Oh yeah."
"You also have to bring your federal income tax forms to the meeting,"
Tina said. "The ones from last year. That's when we turn them in."
Maureen frowned. "Why is that?"
"It's required," Mike said. "As crazy as it sounds, the courts have upheld this. It's perfectly legal. I would've thought it was an invasion of privacy, but an association can require full financial disclosure from any homeowner who belongs to it. And of course our association does."
Maureen turned toward Barry. "That's how they learned about the precariousness of the Davidsons ' finances, why they knew that an increase in property taxes would force them to move."
Mike nodded. "Yep."
"About Greg Davidson ..." Barry said.
"What?"
"At Ray's party, he said they were going to sell their house and move.
His brother or someone had found him a job in Arizona."
"Yeah."
"But they didn't move. I saw Greg. He's one of the volunteers. I
don't know what happened to Wynona, but Greg was helping to dig the pool and he was at the gate the night of the rally."
Mike and Tina exchanged a look. Barry caught it, but he didn't know what it meant, and suddenly he wasn't sure if he should say any more.
He thought about Frank and Audrey Open my box --and realized that he really didn't know Mike and Tina any better. His gut said they were okay, and they seemed to have all the right ideas, but in Bonita Vista you could never tell.
Maureen seemed to have caught the same vibe. "You don't want to talk about the volunteers."
"It's not that," Tina said. "It's just..." She looked over at her husband.
"We didn't find out about them for a long time ourselves," Mike offered. "And, you're right. They're not something that people talk about. Everyone knows they're there, and they help clear the roads after big storms and| stuff, but we like to pretend like we don't know anything! about them."
Barry shook his head. "I don't understand why you--"
"I volunteered for a week myself."
They were stunned, silent. If Mike had said he'd murdered his first wife and met Tina after his release from prison, it could not have been more shocking, and Barry marveled at how sinister such a mundane concept had become in this wacked -out world.
"I truly did volunteer," Mike said. "I was fined a hundred dollars for violating Article Eight, going outside in the morning to pick up my newspaper while wearing a bathrobe. You're not supposed to appear outside the house wearing a robe. We could've paid the fine, but our refrigerator was going, we'd been saving up for a new one, and 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."