"Well," he said, "that was something."
I put down the rag. "You want a glass of water?"
"I might need something stronger, but water will do."
I brought him a glass, and we stood in the yard while he told me what had happened. The meeting had been properly called, and a quorum had attended. Bev moved to remove Patricia from the presidency. The vote did not happen immediately, because Patricia asked to address the members and the chair allowed her to speak. For eleven years she had organized the holiday decorations, negotiated small landscaping bills, and kept association gatherings running. She was not wrong that much of that work had been useful.
According to Dale, she reminded the room of every service she had arranged. She mentioned Bev's rides to church, the convenience of the lights, the shared pressure washer, and the money saved by not renting an outside storage unit. She described me as the man who had arrived after a decade of community life and swept those arrangements away because he wanted every inch of pavement for himself. It was a familiar account, but this time she had to say it before people who had seen her mower, pool tile, and lounger displayed beside the supposed community equipment.
"Half the room went quiet," Dale said. "Not because they thought she was right about the driveway. Because we liked what she gave us. We really did."
He looked at the glass in his hand. "I used that cart for three years. I knew it was sitting in somebody's garage, but I never once asked who gave permission. I decided not asking was the same as not needing to know."
"What did you say?"
He stared at the grass. "I stood up. I hate speaking in meetings, but I stood up. I told them I had a garage and a driveway too. I told them that if I spent a winter with my sister in Arizona, I wouldn't want to come home to find a calendar taped to my door."
He stopped and shook his head at himself.
"That's all I had. Bev said yes. Then Okafor said yes. After that people started talking about how the arrangement looked from your side. Not from Trish's side, not from the cart's side. From yours."
The motion passed fourteen to three.
Dale told me the remaining officers were instructed to review the association's property arrangements, verify which shared items actually belonged to the association, and withdraw the unsupported notices concerning my driveway. The board would arrange lawful storage for the decorations and the cart. Patricia disputed the process and said she would consult an attorney, which she was entitled to do. The members nevertheless had made their decision under the bylaws as Dale understood them.
"Did she say anything afterward?" I asked.
"She said we'd regret it. Then she left."
He drank the last of the water. I expected him to smile, or to say it was over. He did neither. He looked down the street toward his house and said, "I think I've spent three years enjoying something that made other people miserable. I didn't mean to. But that's not much of a defense, is it?"