Sauron in the Suburbs

There's often a lull in the air the week before the Fourth of July, with people appending their vacations to the holiday and leaving town early. This year's no exception, and coupled with some cooler weather, it's been a fairly pleasant few days--oh, except for Monday, the day I went to the grocery store and came back home to see one of my problem neighbors in the side yard of the building. I decided to cope with this by giving her a wide berth, so I drove around the block. Avoidance is sometimes the best strategy.

When I came back, lo and behold, she was still in the side yard, sitting on the step with her cell phone. Now, I could have gone in through the other door, but I didn't like the idea of doing so while she was hanging around. You never know, she might decide to walk into the building at the same time I was walking in with groceries, and I just didn't cotton to that idea.

So I decided to take a longer drive, really with no set purpose other than to give her time to clear out--yes, even with perishables in the back seat, a 30-minute drive out of my way seemed preferable to the chance of an encounter. So I drove out Tates Creek Road and into a subdivision I had noticed recently but hadn't visited. Years ago, I had done some copywriting for its sister development, but I had never actually visited this section of it--so call it a semi-professional interest combined with mild curiosity. I used to enjoy going on home tours and was frankly interested in seeing how the neighborhood compared with its sibling across the road.

Nothing, it seems, is without adventure these days, even a leisurely, spur-of-the-moment tour of south Lexington. I pulled into the neighborhood and noted the same large, elegant brick houses and meandering streets I was familiar with in the original development (and used to describe glowingly in advertising copy). It's a neighborhood of cul-de-sacs without any through traffic, a smaller version of its twin on the opposite side of the road. I drove slowly along the main avenue, turned off into one side street, then pulled back on and continued to the place where the street dead-ends next to a field. I was afraid I might have to turn around in someone's driveway until I noticed a final cul-de-sac on the right, just before the dead end.

I pulled in and swung the car around the circle, pausing at the end before pulling onto the main avenue. I was thinking how nice it must be for the people at the end of the street to be living next to undeveloped land. As I pulled out, I saw that a gray pickup truck was coming down the street toward me, going fairly fast.

You know what I was saying recently about things somehow seeming a little out of whack though you're not sure why? That truck coming toward me had that look about it. Partly, I think it was the type of vehicle it was, not something you'd typically see in the driveway of one of these manses, unless it belongs to a contractor or someone who comes to do yard work. Then there was the speed, as if the driver were in a hurry. Perhaps an early evening appointment to cut the grass? Could be, but what's the rush? I somehow thought the driver might be unfamiliar with the neighborhood, as I was, but for some reason was in a hurry. I pulled out of the way, and although there was no turn signal, the vehicle pulled into the cul-de-sac without giving me much room to spare.

Normally, I would have waited to make sure the truck was actually turning before I pulled out, even though there didn't seem to be many other places he could be going, but there was just something a little out of place about that truck rushing down the street, so I decided to get out of the way. I drove back out to the entrance road, where I encountered a jogger in yellow approaching the intersection at the same time I was. I stopped to let him cross, and I may have imagined it, of course, but I thought he looked a little startled. Perhaps my car doesn't look like the typical vehicle one sees in that neighborhood either, but it resembles a Prius to a casual eye, so I don't think it looked that unusual. Thus, though I had been in the neighborhood for only five minutes, that was long enough to have two slightly off-kilter experiences.

Turning left, I noted that I was on Saron Drive and said to myself, "Just add a 'u' and it makes "Sauron" (these myth people and their eternal Lord of the Rings references, you're probably thinking). I would have thought it anyway, but I was unsettled enough by what had just happened to say it aloud. It really does seem to me that I spend my days going from one odd occurrence to another. My neighbor had disappeared by the time I got home, but there was a young man I had never seen standing outside the building next door affecting what I would call a "studiedly casual" manner, so I spent a few minutes parked on the street thinking about everything that had happened before pulling in and starting to unload my groceries. It's a good thing I didn't really have many perishables (except for eggs, and I had nearly lost those when a car suddenly changed lanes in front of me on Tates Creek Road). Nevertheless, my eggs and my paper towels and my produce and I somehow arrived home intact (and not for the first time).

The episode reminded me of one of those Stephen King stories set in a suburb or a small town in which it's the strangeness of events playing out in a very ordinary setting that contributes to the feeling of suspense. Everything looks OK on the surface, but weird little things keep happening to turn normalcy on its head. It's also very much like a dream I had five and a half years ago about horse statues that turned into living horses in front of my eyes. It was the moment when what had seemed inanimate suddenly proved not to be that was so alarming: a sudden spark in the eyes, a slight movement of the head. Once they came fully to life, the bad part was over.