The Committee

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The Elm Street Residents' Committee met on the second Tuesday of every month, in the church hall, at seven o'clock. It had six members, a chairwoman with a small bell, and an agenda of four items. Of these, the first three were dealt with in eleven minutes, whereas the fourth, which concerned the color of the bench outside the hall, took three hours.

The bench had been installed in the park opposite the church eighteen years earlier, and its paint, which had once been green, was peeling. Mrs. Halloran, the chairwoman, read out the proposal: "That the bench be repainted." There was a pause. "In what color?" asked Mr. Tipton, who was the kind of man who always asked. "In its original color," said Mrs. Halloran. "Which was green." "Which green?" asked Ms. Ferrer. "There are at least nine."

A sample card was passed around, and within ten minutes the room had divided into three factions: the first favored forest green, which it described as dignified; the second favored hunter green, which it called "warmer." The third, led by Mr. Tipton, argued that, since no one could remember the original color with certainty, the committee should commission a historical survey. "We cannot repaint history without knowing what it looked like," he said gravely.

At nine o'clock, a motion was made to postpone the decision; it was seconded, then amended, then withdrawn, and then reintroduced as a different motion. A vote was taken and ended in a tie, whereupon Mrs. Halloran rang her bell and the tie was broken by a second vote, which was itself challenged on a point of procedure. Somebody suggested tea. Nobody dared to disagree, and the tea was the only thing the committee completed that evening.

At a quarter past ten, exhausted but still intact, the committee decided to go and look at the bench together, in order, as Mrs. Halloran put it, "to see it with fresh eyes." Six people in raincoats marched solemnly out of the church hall, across the street, and into the park. They stopped. The spot under the old oak tree was empty.

There was nothing there but a rectangle of pale grass and four small holes in the ground. On the tree, a notice had been fixed with a staple: "Dear residents, this bench was removed in March for safety reasons, because the frame had rotted. It will be replaced by a new model in galvanized steel, in a neutral gray finish. Regards, the City Council."

The committee stood in silence in the drizzle. Then Mr. Tipton cleared his throat. "I would like to propose," he said, "that we form a subcommittee to discuss the shade of gray." And, to everybody's horror, three people seconded it.