He hadn't actually punched anyone. He'd been at the community pool and a board member, a man named Whit Lockwood's golf buddy whose name I didn't know yet, had walked up to him at the snack bar and said, in front of three other teenagers, that Tate's father was the talk of the neighborhood for the wrong reasons, and that maybe Tate could be the one to help his old man let go of the past. Tate had set down his Gatorade. He had looked the man in the eye. He had said, "Sir, my father is doing fine.
My mother is doing better than fine, and you should ask yourself if you're proud of what just came out of your mouth." Then he had walked away. I told him he had handled it better than I would have at his age. I didn't tell him what I was about to do. The next move was the abandoned vehicle claim. It arrived on October 4th in a registered envelope.
Briarwood Glen Estates Homeowners Association versus Sterling Halloran. Notice of abandoned and non-operational vehicle on residential property. The HOA was citing Georgia Code Section 40-11-2, abandoned motor vehicles, and threatening to refer my Mustang to the city for impoundment in 30 days unless I provided proof of current operational status and active road insurance. The Mustang has been on a Hagerty classic car policy since 2018. It has a valid tag.
It runs. The reason the HOA could call it non-operational was because I had been keeping the battery disconnected in the garage to preserve the cells while we finished the chrome work on the bumper and they had decided that meant the car was dead. I made one phone call to my friend Owen Pelletier at Hagerty in Traverse City. He emailed me a stamped certificate of current coverage in 11 minutes. I forwarded it to the HOA portal with a one-sentence cover note.
Per attached, vehicle is currently registered, insured, and operational. Please withdraw the notice. The HOA did not withdraw the notice. Instead, Hadley personally drove past my house at 4:30 the following afternoon when she knew I'd move the Mustang to the driveway for its monthly run. I'd connected the battery.
I'd warmed the engine. I'd taken it down the cul-de-sac twice. She photographed it from the road as I was wiping a streak of pollen off the hood with a microfiber. The next day, the HOA portal had a new violation. Vehicle visibly disrepair, pollen, surface grime, oil sheen on hood.
Confirmed photograph attached. The photograph was a high-angle telephoto shot from sixty feet away. The oil sheen was sunlight on the wax I'd just buffed. A cease and desist letter came 2 days later from a Cumming attorney whose name I'd seen on a bus bench on the way to work. The letter accused me of continuing community blight and demanded the Mustang be removed from my property within 14 days.
The letter had a typo in the second paragraph and listed a Georgia state bar number that, when I checked it, belonged to an attorney who had retired in 2016. I made another note in my phone. That weekend, my son Tate came home from school where he'd been buying a graduation tassel and told me he had run into Bryson Lockwood in the parking lot. Bryson had walked up to him by the back of the F-150 and said, "Bro, just tell your dad to sell the car. My dad's going to make this hurt if he doesn't.
It's going to be mine one way or the other." Tate told him to back up. Bryson laughed and walked away. That night, I sat at the kitchen island with Tate. I made him a grilled cheese with the kind of sharp cheddar his mother used to buy at the DeKalb Farmers Market. I poured myself coffee.
He poured himself coffee even though he doesn't really drink it, because that's what we've been doing the last 6 months when something serious needed to be said. I told him this, "Bud, there is a moment coming. I want you ready for it. I want you calm. I want you observant.