Bray Road and the Beast

Werewolf hunting started slow traffic and no music in the car. Two couples, arranged to be optimal for horror movie scenarios, as evidenced by House of a Thousand Corpses and Kalifornia, among many others, one of the woman was pregnant, adding to the horror possibilities. Soundtrack a disappointment, took the Literature Professor's car and with a car come certain rules, a shame, it had a 6 CD disk changer and Ozzy Osbourne would have hurt nobody. Beloit came easy, only two hours into the driving, shaggy-haired man who teaches school, but under the placid exterior, a beer-drinking badass armed to the hilt and the closest we could get to the Punisher. An old house full of young cats, beer on the side porch, a small city dying of its own obsolescence, a trip to a bar called the mouse, where harsh language is forbidden. I broke the rule, immediately, with the word "Pussy", unable to get it in my head that, when referring to a glass poured half full to avoid intoxication, this is still a bad word. People who believe in bad words puzzle me. Still, at the mouse, a person can be thrown out at the slightest utterance of profanity. What I find vexing, particular, interesting, and indicating a certain degree of hubris on the part of the establishment owners, is that nowhere is there a sign posted indicating "no profanity". Their chicken and dumplings were designed and formulated to nourish the working class it was here I consumed the largest dumpling I have ever seen, in truth, half went uneaten. The badass lives in a green household his bipolar wife home schools their children they fight and stab each other and make up and are genuinely suited for each other. I once saw the badass kill a man with a number two pencil.
Onward, to Whitewater, a bed and breakfast run by old people who do not understand bohemia or goatees but were charmed that there was a wool spinner on the team and somehow forgave me my metaldom. It was so quiet there that a pin dropping to the floor would have elicited numerous comments on timbre and such, and the insect noises on a cool night were virtually deafening. Victorian houses need LSD and windows that open, neither of which we had, but it was my first bed and breakfast since CA and my sisters wedding and it was so restfull I could barely keep from falling asleep as I walked in the door of the place. At night, we pulled ourselves out of dreamspace and horror novels and books about the Amish for a long drive around a swamp looking for a particular place a werewolf may or may not bee. The iconoclast who loves werewolves had a theory that the Bray road beast inhabits swamps, so a scary drive at night was in order. Then sleep. Then wakefullness, and mystery pancakes, and a lovely moment on the front porch, the first indication of autumn coming....then driving, to a flea market and looking at oddities that give places rusticity. Rusticity, for sale everywhere, including a charming sign that featured a curvy woman in a vintage bathing suit, it read "The may look beautiful, but SOMEONE SOMEWHERE is SICK of DEALING with HER SHIT."
Elkhorn. Not as put-together as Whitewater, brimming with a university, or as beat as Beloit, brimming with a university the locals find alienating, a place of farm implements. Nearby Duvalle, a place of Mexican food and cemeteries, our lost Iconoclast, seeking the wolf, never could find her way especially in the presence of a navigator, but we loved the way she would dead end us in cemeteries. Old graves everywhere, stillness. Surrounded by ghosts so palpable they left circus traces everywhere. Note...when searching out werewolves, do not miss an opportunity to be eaten by Zombies. Bray road, finally, after many detours and another visit to a swamp that was not there. nnnnnnnnoooooooooooo.