Carter and Missy Jones sat on the weather-beaten and ragged front porch of their one-story, unpainted, clapboard home along the tracks that used to run busy with trains. The heat of July was oppressive and anything that moved kicked up dust. So most things stayed still. But the neighbor’s light-brown mutt trotted away from them across the tracks with a purpose known only to it.
No one knows why it’s called “Vesuvius,” but Vesuvius once had a train station, and people used it. Those days are gone, as is the station. The coal trains pass through now and then making their house shake as if a volcano were erupting. Both of their sons were long gone, having left the slowly dying town for better chances.
The older one was able to get a scholarship and headed off to a small college. He was now some sort of scientist or engineer doing “research.” He had spent his young days around the tracks and sidings and buildings trying to understand what it was all for and how it worked. Eventually, he decided it was no longer important because there was an entire world to see.
The younger one had been inspired by the local Baptist church and its dynamic preacher. He saw everything in life through the eyes of God and everyone was sure he would grow up to be a preacher himself. To him, every sound, occurrence, and sign was from God, and the Devil had to be kept at bay. The younger found his voice, his height, and his good looks, and travels around the South preaching revival and offering hope in exchange for meals, a place to stay, and gas money from the offering.
Carter thinks they are both doing good in the world, contributing, in their own ways. He had spent his life working at factories or businesses that would operate until they no longer did. He was never fired; only “laid off.” He did not have a trade or “craft” because he could do anything. It kept food on the table and a roof over their heads. And that was good enough.
The boys would come back to visit old Vesuvius on holidays when their lives slowed down. The older would always berate the younger telling him that he was peddling fantasies and that he didn’t understand the way the world worked. The younger would tell the older that he needed to find Jesus. All of this would upset Missy.
On July 4th they had a barbecue in the back yard. Carter and Missy loved good, simple food and were known for it.
As they sat at the picnic table out back with far more food than they could possibly eat, “Bonnie” the grossly overweight neighborhood chocolate lab came by and sat next to the table looking up expectantly.
Missy said, “Well, here comes the local moocher.”
The older remarked, “Dogs will always want to eat, and you have trained this one to come by what with all the scraps you give it.”
The younger responded, “She feels like she’s missing something, and only food can fill that need. It’s why she’s so fat. She’s like a person.”
“Fat?” asked the older.
“Missing something.”
“Nonsense. You’re anthropomorphizing,” retorted the older.
“I don’t know what that means, but you could learn something from Bonnie.”
Bonnie, of course, would just look back and forth to whoever was speaking hoping for a tasty treat.
“People think they’re empty and fill themselves with all sorts of things. Including wild beliefs,” said the older, looking at Bonnie to agree.
“People are empty and will search for anything to fill their lives until they find the right thing,” the younger responded.
“Because they don’t know any better.”
“Wrong.” (He would have said “Bullshit” but the younger didn’t use that language.) “They know themselves quite well. They just don’t admit it.”
“Quit your barking and eat!” snapped Missy.
Bonnie remained hopeful and Carter slyly offered her something when no one was looking and his boys were blowing off steam; and she gathered it greedily.
That was back on the Fourth of July. Now, Carter and Missy are on the front porch watching the neighbor’s light-brown mutt crossing the tracks in the dust with a purpose known only to it.
Dispatches from the Imperial Capital 
methinks the dog is seeking fulfillment at many tables, tracks or not.
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