Kenny Dyer-Redner














The Brave Ants














The Brave Ants

            When I hit my brother in the temple with the cast iron frying pan, he just fell. He did not resist in any sense of the word. Even his skull, the flesh just collapsed. He did not even make a sound. Just down, no struggle.
            After it happened, I dropped the frying pan and walked outside the old house. It was our house, the one we lived in as kids. It was used as storage now.
            He was back there in his old room, crumpled on the tan carpet, and he was most certainly dead. I did not need anyone to tell me that. I did not need to check his pulse or lean in close to feel his breath on my cheek. No, there would be none of that.
            I sat on the concrete steps of the porch. There was a huge crack that started on the bottom step and led up to the second. I sat with my elbows on my knees. I looked at it, the crack.

* 

            When me and my brother were kids, maybe when I was 8 or 9, and he was 9 or 10, we put firecrackers called Black Cats in the crack because there was always these giant red ants that crawled out. Fire Ants, I think.
            We thought, maybe, that we could blow those red ants to hell. We put in one firecracker after the other and lit the fuse and waited for the red ants to die. But, they didn’t die. Those red ants started sending out their soldiers and pretty soon the front steps were crawling with those bastards. They were all over, and the more ants that came out on the porch the more fire crackers we lit. He had to toss them on the porch because we no longer had the luxury of sitting there and calmly placing those little bombs in their home.
            We were alone when we did that. We were alone a lot, more so than kids should be, I think.
            I sat there for awhile, thinking about those brave ants. I also thought about my brother, mostly when we were kids.

*

            One time we found a dead water snake on the road. It had been run over by a car. My brother picked it up with the end of a stick. He held it out, the snake dangling, lifeless, and he said, “Hit it.”
            So I picked up a stick, positioned my body just right, swung, and hit that goddamn snake. Its long body rippled from the violence, and we laughed.
            We took turns and pretty soon the snake started to come to pieces. I don’t remember, but there was probably dusty snake guts on our clothes, our skin. We destroyed that snake.

*

            We were alone then too.

*

            Another time, maybe when I was 4 or 5 and he was 5 or 6, we came home from school and our grandma was upset because the goat from next door had eaten her flowers. I remember her saying, “That damn goat ate my flowers.”
            Later that day, we kept our eyes out and sure enough we saw the goat over by grandpa’s tool shop. My brother said, “Come on, let’s get him.” We ran outside, grabbed our favorite sticks and ran up to the goat.
            He was just standing there, looking at us. And then my brother stood on the side of the goat, reared back with his stick like a spear and threw it into its side. I stood on the other side. I brought my weapon over my head and slammed it down over the back of the goat. I still remember the vibration of the stick as it connected with the goat’s spine. The noise, the feeling, it jarred me and there was a moment there, when I realized that I may have hurt the goat.
            But I didn’t want to stop. I didn’t want to say “No,” because I could disappoint my brother. It was an odd feeling, hitting that goat, spearing it, pretending to kill it.
            It had nothing to do with courage.

*

            Sitting there on the porch of our old house, I thought of these things. I thought of my brother, back there, in the room. Maybe there was blood leaking out of his ears now, his nose. Maybe he deserved it. I believed he did, for what he did to me, what he made me do when we were young. I don’t know, though.
I didn’t want to go back in there and look at him. So I thought of him as if he was long gone. The way you think of others that have died in the past.

*

           Another time, my brother had bought a sling shot and we took turns trying to shoot the black birds that rested on the barbed wire fence. We kept missing. But, I felt my aim getting better, and I kept getting closer and closer. Then, I pulled back on the sling shot, let a small rock loose and knocked down a bird.
            “Yes!” I said, “I got one!” Then we ran over where the bird had fallen. Lying on its back, we looked down at the bird. It was not dead. It laid there moving its beak, opening and closing. Its eye, a perfect circle. I shouldn’t have looked at its eye, but I did.

*

            I thought about that bird, stood up and looked in the direction of my brother. I walked in the living room and looked about.
            Random bits of items. VHS tapes, clothes, a barbell with weights, CDs, a basketball trophy, a dresser, an upright piano.
            I looked at the door to his room. There was a sticker that read, “The Few. The Proud. The Marines.”
            I stood there, in the middle of the living room. I wanted to go in the room and look at my brother, but I knew that it would only make me feel bad, so I just stood there.
            After a bit, I sat on the bench in front of the piano. I played the middle C key and let it linger. Then I played a C chord.
            The piano was out of tune. It sounded harsh, grating.
            I stood up, walked outside and stood on the porch. The sun was up high overhead. I looked at the crack in the porch again.
            Those poor, brave ants, I said.
            I descended the steps, walked out of the driveway to the dirt road. I left the heavy front door open. I walked east and wondered how long it would be before someone found my brother. What would people say? How long before they figured out that it was me?        
            I pushed these thoughts out of my head. I didn’t want to walk on the road, so I crawled through a barbed wire fence and walked through an alfalfa field.
            I thought of the piano. The sound of the keys.
            Overhead a hawk soared and a black bird darted up and down, attacking the hawk. I stopped, squinted, and watched this.
 


















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