One neighbor had loaned him a hedge trimmer.
Another was missing a socket wrench.
Someone else had given Clark a folding table for a child’s birthday party eight months earlier.
One story became three.
Then five.
Then more.
Every one sounded almost identical.
Clark had asked politely.
They’d agreed.
He’d promised to return the item.
Then weeks or months had passed.
Whenever someone asked for it, there was always an excuse.
Tomorrow.
This weekend.
Soon.
Didn’t you say I could keep it a little longer?
Do you actually need it today?
For years, we’d all treated those experiences as individual annoyances.
Nobody had compared notes.
Until that afternoon.
I looked around at my neighbors and realized that Clark hadn’t just been taking advantage of me.
He had been taking advantage of everyone separately, relying on the fact that none of us considered the problem important enough to discuss.
Now everybody was discussing it.
At once.
And Clark knew he was losing control.
“This is ridiculous,” he snapped. “Everybody borrows things.”
Tom answered immediately.
“Borrowing usually involves giving them back.”
Clark jabbed a finger toward me.
“This whole thing started because Frank got angry over a few gallons of gas.”
