Stupid Ants

“Get yer thumb outta yer ass and water those goddamn horses boy!” my daddy yelled as he rode around the corner of the barn and found me not working.

 I didn’t see him coming. Sloppy sloppy stupid I should have been watching better. I knew he would be back soon but I let myself get distracted by these stupid ants. Why do I like messing with ants so much? Do all kids like playing mad scientist god with insects? I shot up from the ground and started running as fast as my 11-year old skinny legs could propel me. Sweat was already pouring off my curly brown haired scalp from being in the direct sun all afternoon and it was winding its way into my eyes making them sting like fire. No time to stop and dry them...he's already angry with me as it is. I covered the distance from the ant hill to the garden hose spigot before he could get off the horse. It’s much less likely he will grab me if I have the hose running and I’m on the way to the first water trough. It had been almost impossible lately to keep them full since it had been in the 90’s the last few days.

I turned on the water, grabbed the end of the faded green hose and started making my way to the first trough at a half speed clip being careful that the coils didn’t kink up along the way. I just needed to get to the first stall before he closed the distance to me and he would probably lose interest...probably. I darted a glance at him and he was off his horse limping as fast as he could on an intercept course that would put him between myself and the first stall. Daddy had gotten drunk and shot his pinky toe off years ago while taking shots at tin cans on a fence when he was younger. A seemingly minor injury if not for the fact the bullet had passed through his calf on the same leg before assaulting his littlest piggy. As he had gotten older it seemed to pain him more and more turning what used to be a hero into a villain. At least in my opinion.

“Come here!” he said. He had to grind the words out through his teeth because he was clenching his jaw so hard. That’s bad bad bad. Decision time...obey and he grabs me for sure or stay the course. If I can make it to the trough he may decide interrupting me from watering isn’t worth taking out his anger on me.

“I’m gonna get it done Daddy” I stammered out. I hated how my voice trembled not because of too much pride but because I wanted him to think I was a man. Even when he was terrifying I wanted to please him. Focus! The hose was getting heavier as I stretched in farther and farther. It didn’t seem fair that the hose felt like liquid magma was flowing through it instead of the cool clear water that was supposed to be. That’s what happens when a garden hose is left out of the shade, the water left in it heats it up in the sun like the blood of a huge prehistoric snake.

A few more steps please God please. In seconds that felt like minutes I made it to the trough and thrust the hose at it like a hunter spearing his kill. The water started pouring in and I saw the trough was nearly empty. This is bad, this is bad, this is bad. I looked at Daddy again and he was only a few steps away now. His shirt was unbuttoned and he was drenched in sweat. His Magnum P.I. mustache sat perched atop his tightly stretched lips that were turning white. I had seen this expression many times before and resigned myself to being grabbed. Nothing I did could turn this thing around now. The combination of heat, pain, and somewhat justified anger with me had put Daddy’s mind in the place where only two things could bring it out...a good old fashioned grabbing or……..a witness. A witness!!!

Far in the distance I could see dust rising up from the long gravel road that led from the highway to our farm that sat in the middle of our family crop land. In under a minute someone would be coming around the curve in our driveway and be able to see us. It was one thing for me to see his true face but I knew he wouldn’t risk showing it to anyone else. 

“I’m getting it Daddy see?” I said in one last Hail Mary attempt to de-escalate the situation. 

It failed. He was in front of me now forcing me to look up at him. He is soooo tall. I know it’s coming so I braced myself for impact. He reaches out and grabs my shoulder with his left hand while pushing me up against the fence that I have the hose passed through. It’s a metal fence made up of a square grid that stood taller than my head but not as high as his. The metal was hot from the sun's rays it had been exposed to all afternoon. I know this because Daddy used his right hand to push my face into the metal grid. For a brief instance I debate about what hurts more, the pressure from his hand grinding my face into the metal or my cheek being seared from its heat.

Oh my crap it’s the heat one.

    You see that’s what is truly amazing about Daddy when he gets like this. He can hurt me just up to the point where he feels safe it will not leave evidence but still extract just enough pain to satisfy whatever price his rage tells him is due.

    “Are you fuckin’ stupid boy? Tell me if your stupid because that goddamn water trough is almost empty! You want to go all day without water!”? Words can hurt...but having your face pushed up against hot metal hurts more. As he is asking me about how dumb I am, which is the usual question during these little father-son talks we have from time to time, I look past him to the road. There it is, 30 seconds out, my dust cloud. Now if I were still a little kid I would have yelled “Look Daddy!” immediately in order to make him see the oncoming threat of discovery...but I was man now. A man holds out until the time is right even if that means being hurt. Part of being 11 is to know what it is to be a man. If I yell now he will see the truck and know his time to inflict pain is limited, forcing him to get his fix by increasing the amount of hurt he can get out of me in a shorter span. So I wait…

    “Answer me damn it!” the words don’t mean much when you compare them to his boiling red eyes. That’s where the message really is, that’s where it always is. Yield to me and I may stop...that’s what’s always there. There is something instinctual about the weaker submitting to the stronger for both parties, like a code built into the bully’s DNA that says mission accomplished when that submission is given. But in the seconds that he growls these words he lets up slightly in order to let me speak and I take the relief to look at him and wait...and wait a second more. No submission this time old man.

    “Look Daddy” the words are deformed a bit from the pressure that remained on my face but nevertheless he understood them. He looks around without letting up on me and sees the truck rounding the corner and only then am I freed. In that second the situation is completely diffused as he transforms into the “normal man” that everyone knows and makes his way up to the truck as it comes to a slow halt in front of our house. One of Daddy’s buddies gets out of the truck in the only way an overweight man in too small a space can get out, by sucking in and leaning. 

    “You got me a beer or what asshole?” he says to Daddy who laughs right back and says “Yeah it’s in yer ass”. It's at this point that I decide it's ok to breathe easier. My feet are cool and damp...too cool and damp. I look down to the water overflowing from the trough. Oh well feels good anyways, time to move on to the next stall anyhow. My face was already starting to feel better and I was enjoying my small victory of not giving him the satisfaction of once again admitting how stupid I was so he would back off. 

When I get done I bet I can drown those ants with this hose.