Act 2, Scene 25: “Blow Back”

The new neighbors move in. And no Dodge Magnum stationwagon appears. Only a minivan and Buick. All is well.

S delivers homemade Toll House cookies to welcome the newbies to the neighborhood. TRL and S meet the 5 year-old boy and 2 year-old twin girls. Together with C & E and the three month-old across the street, they now have their own neighborhood daycare center.

TRL shakes hands with Al. They good naturedly check each other out. Al works from home. So does TRL! So does N from across the street, TRL informs Al. The men now have their own little office park. A real neighborhood infrastructure is being created.

And then several days later, sabotage. TRL is working in his office upstairs. He hears the high whine of a leaf blower. He looks out the window. Al’s head is bobbing behind the tall green fence that separates the properties. And then TRL sees leaves being kicked up and over the fence. Onto TRL’s property. Can’t be helped, decides TRL. He is a kind man, after all, and wants to give his new neighbor the benefit of the doubt.

But the leaves are now coming from under the fence. Al is blowing the leaves off his property and onto TRL’s lawn.

TRL seethes. This is a declaration of war. An undercover war, like the US funding of the contras.

TRL muses over payback. Throwing weed seeds over the fence to take root in the Evil Neighbor’s lawn? Erecting an addition to the fence to raise it 20 feet high? Channeling the chipmunk tunnels toward the neighbor’s backyard, rendering it the Vietnamese Cuchi tunnels of suburban living? This violation of suburban etiquette demands a response. This shall not stand, mutters TRL.