Chapter: Fire Ants

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. &;quot;Shit,&;quot; 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 - &;quot;Ants, ants, ants!&;quot;
- 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.

&;quot;Goddammit!&;quot; my father yells,
&;quot;Hold still!&;quot;

&;quot;Let me
go!&;quot; 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.

&;quot;Sonofabitch,&;quot; he
says, crouching down in front of an ant pile so full and alive with
ants that it looks like burnt cinnamon candy, still boiling away on the
stove. 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.

&;quot;Fire ants,&;quot; 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. &;quot;Take that,&;quot; he says, &;quot;And
that.&;quot; 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.

&;quot;There's a queen in
there somewhere,&;quot; my father says, &;quot;She won't get out
this time. No siree, she won't.&;quot; 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.