Found lurking in rolling miles of grey-green pastureland draped tweedily around every curve of the sluggishly flowing Kalamazoo river, Moresville leaked menacingly from its swampy basin like methane from beneath the brackish waters. A wisp here, in the hand-painted small engine repair sign nailed to the tree in front of a slowly disintegrating house, a waft there in the weed-strewn beach volleyball court outside the Mustang Tavern (Karaoke Wensdays). As Wilmer Braun guided the softly shuddering 1974 Volvo station wagon along the poorly maintained state highway, his wife became increasingly aware of the miasma flooding the car through the vents.
MORESVILLE 4 MILES
Home of the Moresville College Fighting Trojans
Trojans. Dr. Goolsby-Braun wrinkled her nose, a fresh gust of Moresville skittering across her palate. The college mascot was a brand of condom. She could hear the jokes at the faculty cocktail parties already. If there were faculty cocktail parties. Silty visions of faculty hog roasts where associate professors with painted on smiles sipped plastic cups full of watery domestic pilsner from a keg grew more substantial with every passing barn. Of course there would be condom jokes.
“Trojans.”
Dr. Goolsby-Braun started, broken from her reverie by the clipped word from the back seat. She turned, finding her only offspring sitting up and taking in his surroundings with a look of slowly dawning horror. Felipe Goolsby-Braun had spent the better part of his fourteen years in the arid mountains of northern New Mexico. The skinny blond boy was entering his freshman year of high school, and had not been in favor of the move from Albuquerque to Moresville at any point. Once cajoled into the boxy car by equal parts threat and promise, Felipe refused to speak for three and a half days. It had been rather pleasant, all things considered.
“They were a brave and hearty people several thousand years ago.” Dr. Goolsby-Braun was not going to let this opportunity for intergenerational communication slip away from her.
“Yeah, and now they’re a cheap and trusty rubber.”
“Felipe! Please take your mind, and your mouth, out of the gutter.” Lessons were an ongoing part of parenthood, and no opportunity for education should be missed.
“It’s the truth, though.”
“You know that’s not what the sign refers to. You’re being deliberately vulgar.”
The boy smiled, genuinely pleased for the first time in months. He pointed out the window. “So are they.”
Dr. Goolsby-Braun turned slowly, without enthusiasm, wondering what new tendril of Moresville had seeped into the confines of the Volvo. In a muddy field beside the road a flock of grayish sheep stood unconcernedly as one of their own was mounted with enthusiasm by a large ram. Vulgar, vulgar, vulgar. Her head swiveled as the blissfully rutting livestock drifted out of sight. Enthusiasm and endurance. There had been a time…
“Yo, Dad, keep your eyes on the road, huh, Sport?”
With a twitch, Wilmer Braun tore his eyes away from the roadside procreative display and concentrated once again on his driving.
“Just stretching my neck, Felipe.” Wilmer murmured. “All this driving gets me a bit stiff.”
Felipe chortled again. “Stiff.”
A slight blush suffused Wilmer’s already pink scalp, and Dr. Goolsby-Braun wondered briefly if his thoughts had touched on the same wistful terrain as her own. Possibly. Despite his sensitive demeanor, her husband was at his core just a man, and suffered from the basest instincts of his species.
