The hot Mississippi air felt like boiling honey—a clinging hot mass that smothered as it boiled you alive. It was 10 o’clock in the morning and the air smelled of decay and was heavy with moisture. By noon, the crushed gravel and tar street in this new subdivision would start to bubble, adding its sharp chemical tang to the usual earthy tones—the grass lawns, the cow pasture behind the houses, and the nearby mud brown creek inhabited by slithering catfish waggling their way along the surface.
The twelve-year-old boy was on his belly, his feet straight behind him, his elbows planted in the grass, his chin cupped in his hands. His right foot flipped up and down, tapping a fast, erratic beat. He stared at a small mound rising out of the grass a couple of feet in front of him like a miniature mountain. The dirt of the mound had the texture of chocolate sprinkles, but was colored a coppery red. An anthill. Watching for signs of movement, his forehead was creased in concentration and dotted with sweat. His blue eyes flicked to the side as he heard movement behind him and he felt a shiver of recognition between his shoulder blades. He tried not to turn his head.
“You trying to get bit, boy? Them fire ants’ll make you wish you were dead.”
A tall man walked up carrying a gasoline can in one hand and a small shovel in the other. He gave the can a slow back and forth roll, listening to its hollow sloshing sound, and set it down on the ground. He was in his forties with a precise flattop and a dark tan, thin and lean, wearing a tight white t-shirt and faded army fatigue pants. A cigarette was stuck into the corner of his mouth. He took a long drag, not touching the cigarette, and let out a plume of smoke aimed towards the boy lying on the ground. The boy breathed in and held it as the tobacco smoke reached him. His eyes halfway closed, loving the smell of Lucky Strikes.
The man knelt down with one knee on the ground beside the boy, rubbing the boy’s buzz cut hair and then letting his hand rest on the boy’s neck. Just for a second. His head tilted to the left as he looked at the anthill. Using the shovel for leverage, he pushed himself back to his feet.
“Now careful, Bobby, don’t get too close,” the man said. “Get back while I take care of this. This is how my daddy taught me.”
The boy said, “I won’t, Daddy.” He scooted backwards without getting up, his eyes locked on the anthill.
Last week the next-door neighbor had tried to get rid of his own fire ant nest. Mr. Prescott was a small, doughy man, with the bottom-heavy shape of a bowling pin and nearly as white. Bobby had seen him next to a small honeysuckle bush in his backyard. The anthill had grown up around the base of it. Mr. Prescott was shaking the small bush, not as tall as Bobby, whipping it back and forth with his right hand while his left hand perched on his hip. Bobby asked what he was doing. Mr. Prescott looked up and said with some annoyance in a high soft voice, “I figure if I shake this here tree every day, these ants will just get tired of it and go somewhere else. I know I would.” Bobby thought he was crazy, which made sense since his daughter Carrie was touched or something, though kind of cute looking. She tended to stare a lot. But she was fun to tease because she never caught on. Slow. Bobby said to him, “I don’t think that’s going to work, Mr. Prescott.” Mr. Prescott hissed back at him, “Oh, mind your own business, Bobby Jackson. I take care of things my own way, not the way your daddy does. I don’t like killin’ things.” Mr. Prescott looked at him with narrowed eyes and went back to shaking the bush, not noticing that the fire ants were starting to crawl over his shoes. Soon, he would be dancing a jig. Bobby had smiled and stepped back to watch. It was funny.
Bobby’s dad set the tip of the shovel lightly against the mound. He pushed the shovel into the anthill and picked up a clump of the red granulated dirt and flipped it upside down back in place. Without pausing he set the shovel down beside him and snatched up the gas can. As he bent over with the anthill, the red ants boiled to the surface like the foam from a warm bottle of Coke—the ants ran in all directions, circling around the mound, piling up on top of each other forming a new hill on top of the old one. Daddy upended the can and poured gasoline over the wriggling mass. The smell of the gas was oily and vaguely metallic.
The boy raised up on his elbows and looked closer, his eyebrows climbing towards his hairline in anticipation. Between the heat of the day and the fumes of the gas, he felt a brief wave of dizziness wash over him. The boy looked up at his dad and saw him pull a box of matches out of his front pants pocket, take out a match, strike it against the side of the box—a bright yellow pop—and drop it into the middle of the anthill. Orange flames unfolded into the air. Bobby felt the heat against his face like a puff of air.
The man looked at the anthill, tilted his head to the right and squinted his eyes in concentration, and nodded approval. Bobby scooted closer to see what was happening.
The man said, “Mind yourself, boy.”
The boy whispered, “I’ll be careful.” He got close enough to the anthill to feel the flames on his face—little, random finger touches of heat—and saw the ants. The once red ants were now dark and black, curled up and laying in heaps on the surface of the ground, their legs warped and fused. Some ants crawled out of the ground from the depths of the anthill only to crisp and twist into new shapes. Hundreds of ants were locked together forming a lacey sculpture of ash and skeletal bodies. New ants continued to come out of the ground looking to battle the devastating enemy. Pursing his lips and sucking in on his cigarette, Mr. Jackson poured more gas on the anthill. The flames leaped up in a mushroom cloud and the heat softly slapped Bobby in the face. The heat began breaking down the bodies of the ants; the mounds of them started to settle to the ground slumping to the shape of the mound. No more ants emerged.
Bobby got up and stood next to his dad. He looked up at his dad and grinned. The man took a deep drag on his cigarette and blew out a long plume of smoke that mixed with the smoke rising from the mound of charred ants. He looked at his son and chuffed a soft laugh. One corner of his mouth twisted upwards in a half smile. He said, “That’s the best way to deal with ‘em.”
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