It had been years since Wendy last attended the annual rubber duck race. On race day, six thousand rubber ducks were packed like canned corn in the bucket of a large John Deer. A crowd of the very young, and the very old, gathered and waited eagerly for them to be dumped into a wide steady river. Wendy and the person next to her were the only watchers who defied both age groups. To the casual observer, Wendy defied much of the small town that was surrounding her. The soles of her pumps were worn down from cemented sidewalks, and were unfamiliar with any ground this rural town had to offer (turfs like her aging parents’ alfalfa field, now overrun by dandelions). To look at Wendy, she didn’t appear to be a girl who would know how uncomfortable a sensation getting hay in your bra was. Nor did she look like the sort of person that would recognize a Fox Snake when she saw one. But Wendy had returned home.
The city mouse returned with a boy. Not her boy. Just a boy. Wendy had one weekend to show him everything. One weekend to tease him with anecdotes from her childhood. One weekend to share half of her nature with him.
From the train station (a city away) they drove into town. With two kilometres to your nearest neighbour, and three notable automotive plants within close proximity, pedestrians have always been an endangered species in this place. The difference now is that economic struggles have created a noticeable tension. More than once that weekend Wendy and Boy would catch a retired man looking at his General Motors car, thinning his greying hair with his hand, and muttering something along the lines of, “Just like the Irish. They make their whole life about the potato, and then the potato fucks up.”
Before entering town you meet a welcome sign with the slogan “A GREAT PLACE TO GROW”. The word “POT” has been spray painted onto the end, and never corrected by an apathetic municipality.
