Gordon Announced My Canal Fine Beside The Floodgate Shed

Gordon Pike waited until twelve neighbors had gathered before he pointed at my shed.

“One hundred dollars a day,” he said. “For blocking community access.”

He held a clipboard high enough for the people behind him to see. His voice carried across the canal. Even the man washing his screens stopped to listen.

I was sixty, a white woman with a broad face, pale freckles, and gray hair cut straight below my ears.

After thirty-one years as a floodgate operator, I had retired with sore knees and a habit of checking the tide before making plans. I still kept the little drainage gate behind my home working under a written service agreement.

It was October in Saint Augustine. A cool rain had left the shell road white and damp. I wore my old work coat and carried three pieces of polished sea glass in its pockets.

My thumb found the green piece.

“Show me the line,” I said.

Gordon smiled toward the neighbors instead of answering me.

Gordon was a white man of fifty-eight with pink cheeks, smooth silver hair, and a navy vest that strained across his middle.

He had become president of our small canal association in March. Since then, our plain dock had become a “waterfront arrival point,” and our annual picnic had become a “coastal lifestyle event.”

My shed remained a shed. That seemed to bother him most.

“The blue markers show the access path,” he said.

Two short posts stood beside my steps. Their paint looked fresh. Between them lay a line of crushed shell that ended against my shed wall.

“Those posts used to stand farther east.”

“Storm damage can confuse people.”

“I know where my shed stood before the storm.”

Someone gave a small laugh. Gordon lowered his clipboard.

“Willa, nobody wants to embarrass you. You tended gates. You didn't write the development plan.”

I had written shift reports through three major storms. I had logged water levels while people much louder than Gordon shouted for me to open gates against a rising tide.

I had learned to let them finish.

“Is that an approved fine?” I asked.

He tapped the paper. “Notice of violation. Hearing next Thursday. The committee will confirm what everyone can see.”

“Then you haven't fined me yet.”

“You can argue over words at the hearing.”

“I intend to.”

Across the road, Pilar Cruz leaned against her fence. She was forty-four, Cuban American, and a land surveyor. She looked from one blue post to the other with the quiet interest she usually gave crooked fence work.

“What survey are you using, Gordon?” she asked.

“The neighborhood map.”

“Which one?”

“The map, Pilar.”

She nodded once. It was not a nod of agreement.

My neighbor Ruth stood with a casserole dish under her arm. She had been taking it to her daughter's house when Gordon called everyone over.

“Could we just go around?” she asked.

“That rewards obstruction,” Gordon said.

The real path had always curved east around a cabbage palm. After the storm, fallen limbs had blocked that bend. Gordon's crew had hauled them away. Then the new posts had appeared beside my shed.

I had noticed. I had also been replacing a worn gate seal, helping Ruth dry her porch, and waiting for Gordon to answer my email about the posts.

Silence was not the same as consent. I knew that from gate controls, too.

“What happens if your committee agrees with you?” I asked.

“You remove this eyesore within ten days. At your cost.”

“The shed holds the handwheel and the stop boards.”

“Modern waterfronts have attractive utility enclosures.”

“Does your map show where the water goes?”

He sighed for the crowd.

I took his notice without folding it. Two sheets. No survey attached. No book and page for an easement. Just a thick black line drawn across a copy of an old sales map.

I knew another line existed. In my desk lay a red folder with two deeds and two tax bills. Gordon had seen the house deed when he bought next door. He had never asked about the smaller bill.

Before the storm, I had also photographed the survey pins while clearing leaves from the gate approach. The pictures included a ruler, the shed corner, and the date on my inspection card.

Good operators recorded the starting level before touching a wheel.

Gordon handed me a second envelope.

“So you understand the expense of delay.”

Inside was a $4,800 removal estimate. The attached sketch showed my shed crossed out and a wide walkway running down to six proposed boat slips.

At the bottom, in neat blue print, stood two words I had never heard at an association meeting.

Pike Landing.