C: Chapter: 1974

1974

My big sister Alice screams and yells from the backyard. It sounds like
she's getting killed so my father gets off the couch and looks out the
window. "Shit," he says. He puts his cigarette in the ashtray and walks
outside. I follow and slide the glass door shut behind me. The porch
concrete is hot under my feet. Alice jumps all over the yard, her hands
like two white bats as she swats at her rear end. Her friend Jamie
stands off by herself. She has her head turned around as far as it will
go so she can get a look at her own fat behind. It would be funny if it
wasn't for the low moaning I can hear between Alice's screams.

The sliding door starts to open but closes again right away. Without
looking I know my mother is on the other side of the glass, her arms
crossed and her face blurry. I concentrate on the yard.

My father grabs Alice by the arm, making her stay in one spot while her
legs and feet pump away. For a second she's quiet, filling up with air
so she can let out another howl. When it comes - "Ants, ants, ants!" -
it makes my skin crawl. My father lifts up Alice's shirt and in one
fast move pulls her shorts down, showing her butt to the entire world.
From the porch I can see the red dots on her skin and I'm embarrassed.
Alice won't even walk out of the bathroom in a towel. Instead she
always takes her clothes with her and gets dressed in the bathroom, the
door locked.

Alice stops hopping and pulls her shorts back up. Jamie quits looking
for ants on her own butt and watches my sister and father. As usual she
is standing with her mouth hanging open. I don't like Jamie.

"Goddammit!" my father yells, "Hold still!"

"Let me go!" Alice yells back. She gets loose from my father and runs
for the house, Jamie right behind her. She pushes me out of the way
while my mother opens the door and lets the girls inside. The door
shuts but I can still hear Alice crying through the glass.

I walk out into the yard, towards the clubhouse, where my father is
poking the tall grass and yellow dandelions with his shoe. He does this
slowly, like something might jump out at him.

"Sonofabitch," he says, crouching down in front of an ant pile so full
and alive with ants that it looks like boiling fudge. Part of the ant
pile is hidden behind the weeds and a piece of plywood. The plywood is
half-buried in the ground, and the ants have pushed their dirt right up
against it so that it forms a wall.

"Fire ants," my father says to himself. I'm pretty sure he doesn't know
I'm behind him. I get ready to run at the first sign of trouble, but my
father stands, sees me, and smiles like he does when he's getting the
belt or putting mousetraps in the garage. He walks past me towards the
rear of the clubhouse where he keeps his lawnmower and a rusty old can
of gasoline. He comes back with the can, fiddling with the cap that is
almost impossible to get off. The trick is to have someone hold the can
while you press on the cap and twist.

I don't usually kill bugs, which crunch or ooze or stink when you
squash them, but these ants are bad. They deserve to have gasoline
poured over them for biting my sister and making her scream and hop all
over the yard. When my father gets the cap off I move in closer, but
stay out of sight so he won't tell me to go away.

I hear crying from inside the clubhouse just as my father starts
pouring the gas. It's so low that I would have missed it from the
porch. I check the hard dirt in front of the clubhouse door. There are
no ants, so I make my way to it slowly, just in case. I look
inside.

The floor of the clubhouse is covered in ants, long lines of them going
from one end to the other. Some of the ants are bunched together in
patches as big as saucers. Two old chair cushions sit on the floor, one
to the left and the other right by the wall where the ants are coming
in. That must be where Alice was sitting. The top of her cushion is in
motion as the ants carry cookie crumbs back and forth, over the edges
and down to the floor. They make such perfect lines that it looks like
the cushion stuffing is leaking out. I hear the crying again and look
up.

My little sister is sitting on the army cot we keep in the clubhouse.
She's backed into a corner, her knees up to her chin and her hands
grabbing the two-by-fours that support the walls. Our eyes meet, and I
lift a finger to my mouth so she'll be quiet. I don't see any ants on
the cot but I don't want my sister to start yelling. The ants can't
hear, I think, or maybe they can. For now they only seem interested in
the crumbs.

My father moves around the yard, splashing gasoline onto the grass. The
smell is everywhere. "Take that," he says, "And that." I could yell for
him but I'm afraid of the ants and what they might do. They might head
towards me, take my toes for candy. I look down at the floor again.
Even with the big patches of ants, there's still space to walk on. I
could walk between the ants. I get mad at Alice and Jamie, who didn't
say my little sister was still in the clubhouse. They should be out
here right now.

Something hits the outside wall so hard that my sister loses her grip.
The noise scares me into motion. I put one foot between a stream of
ants and run on my toes into the clubhouse, my arms out in the air
while I try to keep my balance. Soon I am right in front of the cot. My
sister has grabbed hold of the walls again. I have to pull her fingers
loose so I can pick her up and run. I don't look down. I already know
my feet are covered in ants.

My father comes from behind the clubhouse just as I get outside. He's
holding the bottle of lighter fluid he keeps hidden under a
cinderblock. I drop my sister and check my feet. There's just one ant,
small and red with its head moving back and forth. I flick it off and
walk to the house. My little sister slides the door open and goes
inside, but I stay on the porch. I have walked through the ants without
getting bitten, but I'm worried they might be spreading into the grass,
following me. I can see them if they come onto the concrete.

My father pushes at the ant pile with a stick. There are so many ants
streaming between his legs that it looks like he's peeing backwards. He
moves sideways with the can of lighter fluid in his hand, the same
stuff he puts on the barbecue grill. The lighter fluid lights up fast.
If you're not careful it will burn your eyebrows off. We're not allowed
to play with it, either, even though the cap comes off a lot easier
than the cap on the gas can.

My father squeezes until the can makes a farting noise, then throws it
next to the gas can by the clubhouse. That must be what hit the
clubhouse wall. He steps back and trips on something. For a second I
think he might fall onto the ground, which is surely filled with ants
trying to get away from the gas and the lighter fluid and the stick my
father has been using, but he stands up straight and lights a match.
When he throws it, there's a whoosh, some black smoke, and then
fire.

"There's a queen in there somewhere," my father says, "She won't get
out this time. No siree, she won't." He looks over at me, the smoke
hiding his feet and the fire spreading across the grass towards the
clubhouse door.

Behind me I can still hear Alice, or it might be my little sister. In
front of me I picture the clubhouse exploding like something on the
television. I picture an ant with a crown on her head cursing my father
as she flies through the air in flames.