By Brett Hainley<\/p>\n
Greg King sat at the back of the Home Owners Association meeting. He wouldn\u2019t be there at all, except that his friend, Eunice Waller had called him asking him to sit in, so they\u2019d have a quorum. Greg had given up on the Yaupon Lakes Community Association long ago, and had no plans of bothering, now.<\/p>\n
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 \u201cperfect plan\u201d developed by an angry retiree whose life centered on his neighbors\u2019 faults.<\/p>\n
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\u2019t live in a better neighborhood. Yaupon Lakes was nice, and the retention pond that served as their \u201clake\u201d 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\u2019s family-friendly atmosphere.<\/p>\n
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. \u201cMove to adopt without reading,\u201d he said when Albert called on him.<\/p>\n
\u201cCan we do that?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYes.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOh, um, do I have a second?\u201d Five people in the crowd said, \u201cSecond.\u201d The motion was unanimously carried. Greg sighed happily that he wouldn\u2019t have to waste ten minutes listening to Arbor Johnson, the secretary, struggle through the small-typed minutes prepared by the management company.<\/p>\n
Eunice leaned into him. \u201cYou were always better at this. You should be up there.\u201d 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\u2019d had to fight uphill all the way. An organized group, mostly original residents, opposed every action he\u2019d attempted and tried to impose rules and practices that Greg found repugnant. When they\u2019d 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.<\/p>\n
Until Eunice called. She had asked him why he\u2019d 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.
\nJohn Sharp, who was in charge of Deed Restrictions Enforcement, was going on and on about \u201crenters\u201d. There was something odd in his tone when he said the word that caught Greg\u2019s ear. He leaned over to Eunice.<\/p>\n
\u201cDoes he mean \u201cminorities\u201d?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHe means \u201cblacks\u201d,\u201d she said, her voice tight, \u201cbut I\u2019m sure he\u2019s thinking \u201cblacks\u201d.\u201d When John moved on to a tirade about certain residents painting their brick in bright pastels, she leaned back to Greg. \u201cHe may also mean \u201cwetbacks\u201d.\u201d<\/p>\n