All of the rumors had turned out untrue. He was afraid when he moved to the small town that he would be dealing with hostile, unfriendly neighbors. Especially in the current political climate: what would these small town people think about this computer programmer from Mountain View who had moved out here for a cheap house and an easier pace of life? Would they resent him for being a carpetbagger? But he instead had found that the people had a live and let live attitude, and that he was now paying a quarter of the rent for a nice house with a yard, and he could drive his Subaru Outback into town and enjoy the charming downtown and patronize small businesses. He could stretch out a Saturday morning drinking coffee at the nearby diner, with a waitress that called him "hun" and didn't mind him camping out.
There was one thing that he was still curious about: every day as he went into town, off the of the highway, there was a small, one lane dirt track disappearing up into the hills. That by itself wasn't unusual, what was unusual was that the road was usually busy, and sometimes even clogged, with freight trucks coming and going, sliding by each other on the narrow track before turning into the highway. And sometimes he could see a pall of smoke far away, in a small crevasse in the hills. Something was being made in that secret valley, but what?
So that day at the diner, feeling happy and sated from all those cups of coffee and a large cinnamon roll, when his waitress asked him, in her customary way, whether there was anything else he needed, he decided to ask the question that had been bothering him since he moved here:
"Okay, I know this is kind of random, but what is up with that hidden canyon on the highway out of town? What are all those trucks doing there all the time?
Instantly, the soft susurrus of friendly chatter and gossip, and the clattering of silverware against plates, ceased. The waitress was looking at him with hostility. Everyone in the diner was looking at him with hostility.
A man got out of his stool where he had been drinking coffee. A man in his 50s, a bit heavy set, wearing old denim and a plaid shirt. Not quite wizened, but a little past middle aged, a local man who really was called "Buck" and who worked in some type of building train. A man that on any other day he would have seen as a folksy regular, but where he now felt very small, hunched down as this man looked at him and drawled, in a way that was halfway between menace and the scolding of a usually gentle grandparent:
"Son...there are some things it just ain't neighborly to ask too many questions about, do you understand?"
He could feel his throat clenching and burning like he had just had a shot of
everclear as he replied:
"Yes...I understand...perfectly..."
And with that, people turned around and went back to their conversations and meals, the conversation going back by stages from a hum to a roar, and the percussion of forks on plates building to a loud rhythm. People seemed to ignore what had happened, but when his waitress brought him his bill, he could see the lingering suspicion in her eyes. And when he left, he could feel Buck's eyes drilling into his back.
He had learned his lesson. He started tuning out, ignoring, what was happening up that dirt road out of town. Maybe a lesson for us all.
Hidden Valley Ranch Dressing ™: Don't Ask Questions