HOA Karen Called Cops When I Refused to Give Her Free Gas, Then Went Pale When She Realized Who I Was

There's a tradition in Sundale Meadows now — one I didn't start and can't quite take credit for, though my name is on the banner. Every year, on the Tuesday closest to the anniversary of That Morning (as everyone calls it now, capitalized, like a holiday), the community holds a barbecue at the clubhouse. It's called No Free Gas Day. The name was Devon's idea — he suggested it as a joke at a board meeting, and Priya put it on the calendar before I could object, and now it's official, with t-shirts. The shirts say NOBODY GETS FREE GAS on the front and SUNDALE MEADOWS on the back, and they sell out every year. The proceeds fund the scholarship program. Last year we raised eleven thousand dollars. Mrs. Abernathy, who is ninety now and still insists on making her banana bread for the dessert table, told me this spring that No Free Gas Day is her favorite day of the year, "even more than Christmas, and don't you tell Jesus I said that."

The first scholarship recipient was a girl named Elena Ruiz, whose mother cleans houses in the community and whose father drives a delivery truck — not mine, a competitor's, which I tease him about every time I see him. Elena wrote her application essay about the ice storm: she was twelve that February, and her family spent three nights at the clubhouse warming shelter, and she wrote about watching "the gas station man" back his truck through the snow at two in the morning to refill the generator. "I want to study engineering," she wrote, "so I can build systems that don't fail people." She's at Texas State now, on a full ride between our scholarship and her grades, studying mechanical engineering. She comes home on weekends and works the register at my station. Devon says she's better at the inventory system than he is. I believe him.

Officer Daniels retired two years ago, after twenty-eight years on the force. His retirement party was held at — of all places — my station: we closed the pumps for an afternoon, set up tables in the lot, and half the county came through. The sheriff presented him with a commendation. I presented him with a framed copy of the incident report from That Morning — the one where he'd written, in the narrative section, "Complainant's account contradicted by video evidence; no offense by Mr. Calloway" — and a lifetime card for free coffee at the station. (Coffee, I should note, has never been subject to the free-gas rule. Hendricks himself drank it free for thirty years. Some traditions are sacred.) Daniels got a little misty, which he covered by complaining about the coffee, which made everyone laugh. Officer Reyes — Sergeant Reyes now — took over his patrol sector. She stops by the station every few weeks, and we talk about the old days, and she always asks about Karen, and I always tell her the truth: she's doing intake at the food bank, she's paying her restitution, and as far as I know, she's staying out of trouble.

Luis Ortega's landscaping company has tripled in size since the open-bid process. He won the HOA contract fairly — lowest bid, best references, published for all to see — and the transparency turned out to be good for business: three neighboring communities hired him after seeing how the process worked. He still buys all his diesel from me. Every December, he sends a Christmas card with a photo of his crew, and every December, the crew gets bigger. Last year's card had forty-two people in it. He wrote on the back, in Spanish, "Gracias por no rendirte" — thanks for not giving up. I keep it taped to the register, next to the commendation plaque.

Gloria Chen, my accountant, retired last year and moved to Oregon to be near her grandchildren. At her going-away dinner, she told me that the comptroller clearance letter — the one she'd framed — was the proudest document of her career. "Not because it was difficult," she said. "Because it was clean. Thirty years of accounting, Jake, and your books were the cleanest I've ever seen. Whatever Hendricks taught you, it stuck." I told her Hendricks taught me that a fair price is a kind of honesty. She nodded like she'd always known.

Judge Briggs passed away eighteen months ago, at seventy-two. I went to his memorial service — a packed courthouse, standing room only, with half the county's lawyers in attendance. Carla Jimenez, the DA, gave the eulogy. She talked about his fairness, his gravel voice, his habit of inviting victims to speak at sentencings. After the service, she found me in the crowd — she remembered me, of course — and she said, "Your case was one of his favorites, you know. Not because of the verdict. Because of what he said at the end — about what she broke. He told me later he'd been thinking about that phrase for weeks before your hearing. He said it was the truest thing he'd ever said from the bench." I didn't know what to say to that, so I just thanked her, and we stood there for a moment in the courthouse hallway, two people connected by the strangest of circumstances, and then we went our separate ways.