"Anthill"

Published: April 8, 2010
Two weeks before Labor Day, Raphael Semmes Cody sat with his cousin
Junior in Roxie's Ice Cream Palace. Both were scooping out almond
crunch ice cream covered with butterscotch syrup and sprinkled with
chopped walnuts. Outside, heavy air grown humid from passage over the
Gulf of Mexico and torrid from radiant heat off the Florida Panhandle
had come to rest upon the little town of Clayville. The Alabama sky,
mercilessly clear, offered no promise of an afternoon shower.
Customers entering the Palace plucked at shirts and blouses stuck with
sweat to their bodies.


Sunday Book Review: ‘Anthill’ by Edward O. Wilson (April 11, 2010)
Books of The Times: ‘Anthill’ by E. O. Wilson (April 9, 2010)


"My Lord, it is hot out there," said a linen-clad businessman with a
sigh as he pushed through the door.

A farmer sitting on a stool laughed. "Yeah, hotter'n a bucket of red
ants."

Junior didn't care. He said to Raphael, "I got a great idea. Let's go
see if we can find the Chicobee Serpent." He meant Alabama's
equivalent of the Loch Ness Monster. Over the past century, hundreds
of local people claimed to have seen something very big, snakelike,
and definitely mysterious lurking in the deeper water of the nearby
Chicobee River.

"Naw, that's crazy," Raff — as he was usually called — replied.
"That's just a story people made up. There isn't any such thing as a
Chicobee Serpent."

Junior had anticipated that response. "Yeah, there is. Lots of people
have seen it. You just gotta drift down the river real quiet-like,
don't use no outboard motor or anythin'. Make your boat look like a
floatin' log, or somethin' like that, you know."

"Oh, yeah, if a lot of people have seen it," Raff said, "why haven't
they taken any pictures?"

"Maybe they didn't have any cameras with them. They were just out
fishin'. I tell you what, we'll take a camera. I got one. If we take a
picture, you bet we'll be famous."

"What's it supposed to look like?" Raff asked.

"It's a lot like a real big snake. It curls around a lot. Nobody's
seen the head, just parts of the body."

Raff shook his head. "I don't think so. My parents — "

"Oh, come on, don't be chicken." Junior flapped his arms and made
clucking noises. "What we got to lose? It'd be a lot of fun. We'll
stop along the way and visit Frogman. Maybe he'll show us Old Ben.
Wouldn't you like to see the biggest alligator in the world?"

Raff shook his head again, this time harder. "Now I know you're crazy.
Frogman'll kill us if we go on his property. They say he murdered some
people up in Lownes County and got away with it. I hear if you get too
close to his landing, even when you're just fishing around there,
he'll come out and yell and tell you he's going to kill you."

"Aw, come on," Junior replied. "Old Frogman makes a lot of noise, but
he wouldn't hurt a fly. It'd be real interestin' if we could visit
him. Somethin' to tell people about. Maybe he'll let us take a picture
of Old Ben. It would really be somethin' to show that around."

"Oh, yeah? I hear people disappear on the Chicobee and their bodies
are never found."

"You think Frogman did that? No way. If they suspected him even just a
smidgen, he'd be down at the Clayville Police Station and they'd be
diggin' up his property to look for dead bodies."

"All right, then who did do it?"

"How should I know? Maybe the Chicobee Serpent. Maybe they just fell
overboard and drowned. Their bodies got carried on down to the Gulf.
Or maybe they wasn't really any people at all they couldn't account
for. Maybe all that's just a story."

"I heard Frogman's a pervert," Raff came back. "He does things to
little boys, you know."

"Like doing what?"

"You know, does weird things to them."

"Jesus, Raff, you really stink." Sixteen-year-old Junior, Raff's
senior by a full year, decided to take a more mature approach to his
cousin. He put on an indignant expression and shook his head slowly,
as though surprised at such ignorance. "Maybe you heard somethin' like
that somewhere, but if that was true, don't you think he'd be sittin'
up there in Monroeville Prison right now?"

Raff kept silent, and Junior went on. "Don't be a yellowbelly. We'll
take off first thing in the morning, get to the river through the
Johnson Farm. I know where we can borrow a boat on the floodbank down
there. Then we'll float on downstream a few miles, and pull over at
the Potomo Landing. Be home by supper, no sweat."

"My parents would kill me if they found out. They already think you're
going to get me into trouble. They don't like me to go out with you
anywhere."

"Tell 'em that you and I goin' to spend a day at Lake Nokobee. Say
we're goin' to go fish for bream. They won't give it a second
thought."


OUR ROMANCE WITH ANTS IN PUBLISH IN MAY 2008. WE HAVE CHALLENGES THE
UNDERSTANDING OF ANTS NEST
AND REPLACED IT WITH THE ORDER OF "FLOW" AS ANTS IN FACT ARE MORE
PROCESS THAN STRUCTURE AND DESINTEGRATE FAST WHEN THE ECHOSYTEM NEEDS
IT; OR ARE MADE ON THE SPOT.