Wrong Turn

There are no cardinal directions in the cities of the southern Piedmont.  The hills vehemently resist straight lines, forcing roads to meander like rivers.  You could turn at the Waffle House onto a street heading south – five Publixes later, you’ll find yourself at a Waffle House northwest of where you started.  

Most development is private, self-contained subdivisions with roads that wind into cul de sacs.  Instead of an orderly grid, maps resemble a watershed of little tributaries curling off from larger waterways arcing off from even larger ones.  A less charitable person might say they look like scribbles by a manic toddler.  

If this weren’t disorienting enough, the hills tightly ration the views, revealing only tiny fractions of the landscape as you move through it.  There are no expansive vistas of the strip malls that lay ahead; only myopic glimpses of the strip malls you’re currently passing.  There are no notable geographic features that break through the maze and anchor someone in their surroundings: no coast line, no large mountain, no especially wide river – just the relentless roll of the hills.    

No one has a sense of direction in these places.  People know the routes from their subdivision to their office park, their preferred strip malls, and the subdivisions their friends live in.  They may know a few alternate routes if there’s traffic.  They know the particular sections of these roads they drive on; they don’t know where the roads start or end.  They know how long it takes to get somewhere; they couldn’t tell you where somewhere is in relation to anywhere else.  They may be intimately familiar with a stretch of road ten miles away but have no idea what’s folded into the hills just down the street from their home.  They probably assume there’s a Waffle House.  They’re probably right.  

People can go back and forth like this for their entire lives, seeing only their own little slivers of the sprawl and nothing else.  As long as they don’t take a wrong turn one day, everything will be fine. 

A wrong turn is where our story begins.  Tucker “Tay” Evans was two minutes into his 40-minute commute.  It was still dark out on a chilly January morning.  He’d turned left out of his subdivision and was a half-mile down Skokel Ferry Bridge Rd. when a large stag leapt out directly in front of his car.  He swerved left, narrowly missing the car in the opposite lane, and steered into the first turn-out he saw.   

He found himself on Old Skokel Ferry Bridge Road.  Tay had driven past this road almost daily for twelve years, but he’d never turned on it.  Shaken, he drove for a couple minutes until he’d collected himself.  He started looking for a subdivision to turn around in, but then he saw a sign at the 4-way stop up ahead.  It was Wanda Bridge Ferry Rd.: the road he normally turned on to take him to the highway.  What luck!   He turned right at the intersection and resumed his normal commute.  

Tay zoned out listening to a rant about hanging chads on talk radio and squinted into the sunrise.  It wasn’t until he’d reached the third or fourth stop light that he looked around and realized he didn’t recognize anything around him.  There was a Kroger with a slightly different brick pattern than he’d seen before, a two-story Bank of America (two!?), and of course, a Waffle House.  The road at the intersection wasn’t one he recognized.  When the light turned green, he pulled into the Waffle House to ask for directions.

“Pardon me,” he greeted the smoker-faced waitress at the counter and inhaled the overpowering grease fumes.  

“Hi, sweety.  One for breakfast?” she replied in her gravelly voice and gestured toward a stool at the counter.  There were only a couple of diners this morning. 

“Actually, I’m hoping to get some directions.  I think I took a wrong turn.  I’m trying to get on 45.”

“45?  You’re a long way from there, honey.  You new in town?”

“No, I’m from here.  I just took a wrong turn on my way to work.”  He saw her skeptical look.  “Honestly.  And I can’t be that far from 45.  I’m only twenty minutes from home.” 

“Hmmm.”  She glanced back toward the open kitchen.  “Rodney!  Come ‘ere a minute!”

“Wha?”  Rodney called back from the kitchen.

“Just come ‘ere!” Rodney scowled and plodded up to the counter.

“Ok, whatcha need?”  He asked, visibly stoned.  

“This poor gentleman here’s lost.  He’s trying to get to 45.”

“45?”  Rodney balked. “You’re a long way from there.”  He scratched his chin.  The waitress left to refill a coffee at the table across from the booth.   “I guess the quickest way would be to take a right on Glenns Bridge Rd. at the next light, then uh…take it all the way down until you hit Glenns Ferry Rd. – but don’t turn on Glenns Ferry.  Turn at the Publix right after the light.  Then drive through to the other side of the parking lot, and take a left.  That’ll put you on Glenns Highway.  Straight shot from there.”

“Uh, OK.  Thanks.”  Tay had never heard of any of these roads.  

“Uh-huh.”  

On his way out, the waitress yelled “If you get lost again, come back and see us!”  He waved in acknowledgement.

He turned onto Glenns Bridge, repeating the directions over and over in his head.  He turned off the radio during a rant about steroid use in baseball so he could concentrate.  After he passed a third Wal-Mart, he started worrying that he hadn’t seen Glenns Ferry yet.  At the next intersection, he looked at the sign and realized he was no longer on Glenns Bridge.  The road he was on now was called Faybridge Ferry Crossing.  He was late for work now.  He slammed his hand on the steering wheel and pulled into what turned out to be another Waffle House.  

He had roughly the same exchange as the first Waffle House with another smoker-faced waitress and a short-order cook named Ryan.  Ryan advised him to take Faybridge to the SR 17 bypass and then take that to 45.  Should only be about forty-five minutes, depending on traffic.  Tay groaned, but at least these directions sounded simple enough.  

He never made it to the SR 17 bypass.  Faybridge turned into Perry Ferry Rd. after four Zaxby’s and a Captain D’s, and now it was almost ten a.m. 

Twelve hours later, Tay had no choice but to turn into his fifteenth Waffle House of the day.  Rex advised him to take Pituitary Ferry Rd. to Smidge Bridge Rd. until it joined the Old Veterans Highway.  Right before he left, he asked what town he was even in.  

“Unincorporated East Belle’s Ferry,” Rhonda answered placidly, like this wasn’t the cruelest joke anyone had ever told Tay.  He’d never heard of this town in his entire life.  Still, he laughed hysterically all the way back to his car.  

How far Tay made it into this new route is still debated to this day.  Some say he took another wrong turn at Broken Bridge Road and ended up at the bottom of the reservoir.  Others believe he somehow ended up two states over and started a new life there.  Some people swear he’s still out there in the greater metro area, trying to find his way home.

Those same people will tell you to be wary when you go to a Waffle House in the early hours of the morning.  They’ll tell you to watch out for a man dressed in business casual who leans into your booth from the one behind.  No matter how distraught he looks, if that man asks you for directions to highway 45, tell him sorry, you’re not from around here.  Don’t offer to put it in GoogleMaps; it’s useless against the hills, anyway.  

If you do give him directions, don’t be surprised if there’s static when you try to play your Spotify once you’re back in your car.  Don’t be surprised if a talk radio host voice suddenly cuts through the static, ranting about hanging chads.  Don’t be surprised if you miss that turn you’ve taken a million times on your way home.