Wednesday, November 27, 1996, 4:50 p.m. -- still a beautiful day in the neighborhood.
From a second-floor window in the home of Mr. Charles Van Wormer, a security camera records the moment, as it records all moments, around the clock. One takes nothing for granted in a beautiful neighborhood. The price of clean living, like the price of liberty, is eternal vigilance.
The camera documents a smooth, uncracked street pouring into smooth, white driveways, every driveway leading to a two-story brick home, every home like the one beside it. Each comes with a square of the greenest grass, inserted with a tree of one variety and size. Everything is as it should be. All's well on Justina Court.
Now look again: There is a black man in the yard next door. And he isn't going away. He lives there, and his name is Mr. Joseph Sybille, and on this day before Thanksgiving, he is shoveling sand into the low spots of his lawn. It is slow work; the minutes slowly, blandly go by.
5:01 p.m. -- Here comes Mr. Van Wormer, pushing his mower across his lawn for the second time in a week. He follows the usual pattern, starting on the grass between his driveway and Mr. Sybille's, careful not to miss a blade. Side by side they work, two homeowners keeping up their property, a model of the kind of civic responsibility and ethnic diversity enjoyed in our suburbs today.
5:03 p.m. -- Mr. Van Wormer finishes the center strip and turns to the small patch at the end bounded by the curb, the sidewalk and the driveways. Mr. Sybille, coming up his own driveway with a wheelbarrow full of sand, pauses to have a word. The camera is far away, but Mr. Sybille seems to be greeting his neighbor (as in, "Good evening to you, Charlie"), and his neighbor, stepping toward him to turn the mower around, seems to respond in kind (as in, "A fine evening it is, too, Joe").
But according to Charlie, this is what Joe really says: "Hey, motherfucker, you've got grass on my sidewalk."
And according to Joe, this is Charlie's reply: "Blow me, nigger. I'll kill you."
At which point Joe reaches again for his shovel, a clean, green lawn being the mark of civilization and of civilized men.
Because boxwood hedges do not retain their box shapes; because grass grows and leaves fall, and some people do not mow, rake, edge, trim nearly enough; and because these weirdos typically live next door;
Now, therefore, they, the worried people, did one day form a more perfect union. First Colony became "a master-planned community." On the Sugar Land prairie, it was dedicated to the proposition that all people shall live identically. The founding document was the Declaration of Restrictions.
Article IV, section two: "No activity or use shall be permitted on or with respect to the Property which is determined by the Board to be obnoxious."
Regarding hogs, there shall be none in First Colony. "No more than two (2) normal household pets may be kept in Residential Units." There shall be no clotheslines visible from the street, no lawn jockeys in the front yard, no plastic flamingos, birdbaths or Big Wheels. No "decorative appurtenances" or recreational equipment in view at any time. Regarding mailboxes, "residents must use standard mailbox designs."
Regarding trees, each homeowner shall maintain one tree in the public easement. All streets have been assigned a specific type of tree. "Homeowners are required to have that type of tree."
Regarding home improvements, brick is the approved building material. Yellow or orange brick is forbidden. As for paint, "it will be necessary to verify that the color is on the Approved Paint Chart."
Regarding any of your property, the homeowners association may assume responsibility for the maintenance of it, either because you make the request, "or because, in the opinion of the Board, the level and quality of service being provided is not consistent with the community-wide standard of First Colony."
Regarding the financier of this work, it is you, homeowner.
Regarding your free will, if you choose not to pay, the association may foreclose on your residential unit.
"I think of First Colony as a very pleasant, livable community," said Lynn Morris, director of the homeowners association. A place where children can grow up in safety and joy. A place, most importantly, where property values are protected. "A community," said Morris. She liked that word.
To maintain the sense of community, residents of First Colony are encouraged to rat on one another to the Compliance Director. Doing so is considered an act of civic duty. Hostility is a problem in First Colony only when openly displayed.
This brings us to Charlie and Joe, who between the two of them have pretty much demolished the whole beautiful First Colony picture.
Joe is a 49-year-old black draftsman; Charlie a 53-year-old white mechanic. They are alike in all the ways that keep lawns clean -- fastidious, methodical, obsessive -- and share, too, a capacity for murderous rage.
Joe weighs 140 pounds and wears pressed white oxford shirts and a little calculator as a wristwatch. Growing up in the Third Ward, he says, he always found a way to take care of the bullies. He describes himself as an "easygoing guy" and claims strangers are just friends he hasn't met before. But he also says he hasn't a single friend who knows him well. His vision of a good neighbor is "someone who doesn't intrude on the privacy and solitude of another."
