To the zebra who wanders loose in our suburban neighborhood. It ambles up and down the streets like he belongs among their English countryside names. He’s not intimidated by Northumberland or Buckingham Street, and definitely not scared of the HOA president Mary Ellen who knows my grass is an inch too tall and everyone can see my trash can from the street.
We can all tell Mary Ellen does not approve of the zebra’s strident stripes, but she can’t catch him even in her sensible neighborhood patrol shoes. He’s not quite a pet, and she’s momentarily confused. She sits on her porch and goes through her Guidelines binder for hours.
Only solid colored doors and pets under 30 pounds are allowed, two per house – pets, not doors.
She bullhorns the guidelines at 6:00 AM each day, like an alarm or a threat. None of us other mothers know which direction she’s going in. The zebra doesn’t adhere to HOA rules and eats Mary Ellen’s grass to the dirt while she’s sleeping.
We guess that she’s on the HOA board so she can mother the neighborhood with rules because her adult child is trying out something called estrangement. That simply means he’s wandering around a different subdivision, perhaps one in real England. She doesn’t know where. She still reminisces at the bus stop like Rupert is 6-years-old because he was born in a leap year and is perpetually stuck at kindergarten, incidentally when she last kind of liked him as a person.
When Rupert graduated college, she left rose-scented letters on his trampoline (she was grandfathered in, but none of us can have one) for all the birthdays he’d miss when he left for good. However, she didn’t weigh them down enough and they drifted into the neighborhood, progressively sad monogrammed notes floating like back-to-school leaves.
Please don’t leave, Rupert.
You can keep a ferret in your bedroom, Rupert.
I don’t care if you ever shower, Rupert.
Spoiled milk and a purple bedroom door are all right with me, Rupert.
Please live here forever, Rupert.
Love, Mom.
She sends a nasty email to all of us about the zebra.
Who brought in the zebra? Your neighbors are trying to keep the area nice. They don’t let wild animals loose on our streets. Respectfully, Mary Ellen, HOA President
That’s her everyday state, hall monitor turned Lane and Court one-woman police unit. Mary Ellen is sad and mad and someone needs to suffer for her son leaving and the jaunty zebra arriving. There is no Mr. Mary Ellen to contain her. We wonder if that makes Rupert leaving her house more difficult. We also wonder if he’s buried under her petunias, but she always assures us he died of natural causes.
I’d always planned on having a petting zoo at one of Rupert’s birthday parties, but only got the opportunity every 4 years.
She tells us this at the first Book Club after her darling son moves away, carefully curated with loose leaf tea and no “loose” books.
Wouldn’t your kids have enjoyed that?
She pleads as her tea cools and the delicate china cup rattles in her equally-delicate, manicured hand.
We sit uncomfortably, trying not to ask the loaded question.
Did you lose your zebra, Mary Ellen?
When no one can catch the zebra, a letter arrives in our mailboxes. No zebras allowed. Or lions. Or tigers. Or bears. Everyone knows none of those animals belong in the suburbs and the zebra is only a fluke or a moot point. We are fascinated by the striped hoofed interloper who tests our sidewalks and tests her patience. Mary Ellen handpaints a zebra example on the letters with a red circle and line drawn in angry red Sharpie, in case we don’t understand her calligraphy words.
By Tuesday, the zebra is caught and returned to its owners who live in a caravan and aren’t ruled by an association. The HOA bylaws are forcefully rewritten to bar all zebras, after an emergency meeting called by Mary Ellen. The nearby zoo has plans to beef up their cages, just in case. Our cul-de-sacs and courts are suddenly much less exciting.
Mary Ellen’s son has a birthday, in a small English town. She makes him the talk of the next Book Club, like he still lives in her house with his ferret and her eggplant-colored door. He is a doctor now who searches for disease cures, the zebras of illnesses she tells anyone who will listen at the pool and the pickle ball courts too.
After dinner, when the smells of summer hot dogs still linger, she sings Happy Birthday, Rupert loudly on her porch. No one writes her up for a noise violation. She wanders the neighborhood, leaving mailbox warning notes about bird excrement on sidewalks and stuffed zebras left in the rain. Each note is held down with a homemade birthday cupcake so they won’t blow away to England.
