Mata Hormigas
The mother, who was also known as the wife, went to the drug store in the rain to buy ant poison. Before she left, she asked the daughter, who was sometimes called Eden, if she wanted to accompany her. The mother thought that maybe she could talk about the daughter’s life on the drive over, whether it was true that she was failing geometry like the son had suggested over dinner, and whether she was doing more than letting the boyfriend, whose name was Nick, but whom the father called that no good asswipe, touch her breasts.
"You’re buying ant poison, right?" the daughter asked. "To wipe out untold numbers of ant families and societies?" The tiny stud in the daughter’s nostril glinted like a taunting, infinitesimal smiley face.
The mother nodded. "That’s about right, smart mouth," she said, using another name she often used when addressing the daughter.
"It seems like you can take care of that yourself," the daughter said, turning her face away. To the mother, it seemed like the rude movement of the daughter’s head left a mark in the air, as if in spray paint.
"Fine," the mother mumbled. She grabbed her coat, slid her feet into the orthopedic shoes she had starting wearing more and more lately, and started out the door.
"How ‘bout bring back some chips," the husband shouted after her.
"Okay," the mother, who was also the wife, answered.
At the drug store, the mother strode quickly to the back, her wet shoes making a slight screeching sound against the floor. She knew exactly where the ant poison was. She knew exactly where every item was. She could have been on one of those game shows where she had to race through the store blindfolded and complete her shopping list.
At the cash register, the mother handed the ant poison and some money to a young Indian girl with shiny rings. "When it rains," the girl sighed, "the ants come out." She handed the mother her change and a little plastic bag full of the ant poison and smiled. "Have a nice day."
"I know the ants come out," the mother said, putting the change in a secret pocket in her purse. "I’ve lived here thirty years."
As she was leaving, the mother walked past a man, who was also known as Bert Bentley, whose job it was to polish the floors with a large buffing machine. Bert Bentley had also once been known as the mother’s high school boyfriend, as the man who took off her panties in his truck after eating pizza. The mother, who also used to go by the name girlfriend, nodded at the man who was now a floor buffer, and the man looked down at the floor to avoid her eyes.
When the mother got home, she struggled with the keys in the rain and darkness. The large drops of water streaked down her glasses, obscuring her vision, until she had to take them off. Through the window, she noticed the daughter, who was occasionally dubbed that little bitch, sitting in front of the television, mere feet away from the door, not bothering to help. When the door finally opened, the mother came in and stood for a full twenty seconds for a dramatic effect, the rivulets of water running from her plastered-down grayish hair to her chin.
"Thanks for your help," the mother said. The daughter held a Sassy magazine over her face, the cover girl teen star smiling maniacally where the daughter’s head had previously been.
The mother went into the kitchen and opened the box of ant poison, pausing for a second to read the instructions. On the box, there was a picture of a giant, exaggerated ant, belly-up.
The father, also known as the husband, came out of the bedroom when he heard the door open. He scratched his head until a tuft of hair stuck up, and entered the kitchen, where he stood behind his wife as she placed tiny, clear drops of ant poison on little square cubes of cardboard, each of which read in microscopic print: MATA HORMIGAS.
"What kindja get?" the husband asked. He pulled his pants up as a sign of concentration.
"Does it matter?" the wife said, pushing the cubes of cardboard into the corners of the kitchen counter top. The ants ignored the cardboard and wandered around the counter and up toward the cabinets in wide, exploratory lines.
"Mata hormigas?" the husband said, incredulously. "What, you can’t get ‘em with directions that aren’t in Chinese?"
"That’s Spanish, asshole," the daughter mumbled from beneath the Autumn Lipgloss section of Sassy. "It means ‘Kills Ants.’"
"Hey, smart mouth," the father said. "You want me to come over there?"
The daughter didn’t say anything and kept her face hidden behind the magazine. Like her father, she had tufts of hair sticking up, only her hair was considered a style, and she had many more tufts.
The husband looked into the empty plastic bag. "Where’s my chips?" he asked, with a smile, one side of his face drooping.
"Goddamn it," the wife said, slapping her forehead, which made no sound. "I forgot."
"That’s okay," the husband laughed. "I knew you would."
Late that night, the wife let the husband climb on her and bounce around. She felt guilty about forgetting his chips. As she lay there fighting the tickle of his chest hair curling up into her nostril, the woman thought about Bert Bentley buffing the floor and climaxed.
*
The next night, the wife accompanied her husband to a party for his co-workers. Like the drug store, the wife knew exactly what the house would look like, and exactly which people would be there, and exactly how long it would be before everybody got drunk and went to various bedrooms to fuck or else got bored and hid some pretzels in their pockets and drove home. The wife and the husband had known these people for years, and were used to running into them at restaurants, where they had to stop eating their baked potatoes and turn their heads and crane their necks, and shout "Well, hello! What are you doing here?"
"Do you think Eden is responsible enough to watch Evan?" the mother asked, as they pulled onto the street. "Last time he almost lost a finger, remember? Who ever heard of a teenager letting a seven year old play with a damn shovel."
"Oh she’ll be fine. She better be," the father said. "Besides, we won’t stay long."
Dead leaves and acorns crunched under the wheels of the car.
The husband looked at his wife’s shapely legs, the flesh bouncing as they went over a bump. He kind of wished she would go back to dyeing her hair, but she had become convinced the dye was making her hair fall out.
"You look nice," he said.
The wife pulled her skirt down as far as she could. "Do you think this dress is too short?" she asked, even thought it was a dress she had worn hundreds of times to hundreds of these parties. Before he could answer, the mother wondered, "Maybe I should call them right now, just to check in."
"Naw," the husband said, noticing the little indentations of cellulite in the side of his wife’s thigh. "Hey, did I tell you I bought a coffee shop today?"
He was talking about his cyber self, who was himself but also a guy named Rick Jenner.
It was a computer program, or something like that. Alternate identities or simulated lives. The wife didn’t really understand. It started with the daughter playing it, and then the mother read something in a magazine which warned parents against the dangers of it, something about possible Internet predators, or molestation. Or something. The mother had asked the father if he would supervise. When the wife said, "You can at least handle the high-tech stuff," the husband decided to check it out.
"Oh, honey. It’s nothing," the husband said. "She’s just got an avatar named Phoenix who runs a commune."
"An avatar?" the mother asked. "A commune? Like the Manson family?"
"No. Like they recycle everything and grow potatoes and restore the ozone layer," the father said. "It’s pretty neat."
It was pretty neat until the father, who was also the husband, became avatar Rick Jenner, and started riding a motorcycle and purchasing real estate. It was pretty neat until he got a girlfriend, who was also known as *Star 620*, but who wasn’t known as his wife. It wasn’t neat at all when *Star 620* began to ride behind Rick Jenner on his motorcycle, clinging to Rick’s waist, and making out with him on the beach.
It certainly was the opposite of neat when the wife came in one afternoon with a sandwich and the husband was fucking *Star 620*. A redhead with black, lifeless eyes moaned and bucked under Rick Jenner, grabbing his pixeled pony-tail with her cyber hand.
"Jesus. What are you doing?" the wife asked, trembling such that the slices of bread vibrated with a soft, doughy frequency.
"Nothing," the husband said. "It’s just my computer girlfriend."
"You’re screwing a girl robot?" the wife asked. "You can do that?"
"Oh yeah, but it’s nothing. I mean, come here. You can do her too."
"No thanks," said the wife.
"You sure?" the husband asked. "You want me to create an avatar for you?"
"No thanks," the wife repeated, leaving the sandwich on the top of the desk, just above the computer, where it would grow stiff and hard.
*
At the party, the wife and husband moved around, flapping their lips, drinking wine out of plastic cups, as they watched other people flap their lips and smelled the old wine on their teeth. These people, who were also called co-workers and, who, with some lenience, could also be called friends, screamed and laughed and threw back their heads. They moved in large circles, absorbing other people into their circles, and creating new ones.
The husband worked at a shipping company where he was responsible for sending and receiving items in large boxes. In some sense, the party was a lot like work, because people moved into and out of different rooms, only here they were carrying lighter loads. The husband and wife knew almost everyone there, but when some stranger stood in front of them with an arm around one of the familiar co-workers, the husband shot out his arm and shook the unfamiliar hand briskly, and introduced the person to his wife, whom he called "M’wife."
They talked about the weather. They talked about work. A woman admitted to a bikini wax and breathed the words into the small of the wife’s neck. The husband took a drunk co-worker’s keys and was cursed at. Two people got drunk and threw up in the bathroom, and everyone else ate more cookies and pretended it didn’t happen.
Everybody asked about Eden and Evan, and the mother and father did their best to be evasive. "Eden was just shy of straight A’s this term," the mother said, not telling them that Eden was a little slut who introduced her father to *Star 620*. "Evan’s trying out for Little League," the father announced, wondering whether his son would ever seem like more than a meathead. Other people told the wife and husband about their kids, and the wife smiled and the husband made sounds of interest.
On the drive home, the husband laughed. He put his hand on his wife’s knee.
"That sure was fun."
"Sure was," the wife answered, imagining what it would be like to be taken by Bert Bentley in the co-worker’s bathroom, and whether or not he would buff her entire body until it shined.
When they got home, the daughter and the son were standing in the kitchen, staring at the ants. The ants had begun to notice the drops of poison and stopped occasionally to drink. Sometimes five ants would form a circle around a drop like at a dinner table. However, once they finished drinking, they went on their way, seemingly unharmed. There were more than before, and they formed organized lines, marching with determination from the cabinets to the counter.
"That stuff you got doesn’t work for shit," the daughter said.
"Hey, smart mouth," said the father. "Watch it."
"Yeah, watch it," the brother teased Eden.
"Just give it time," the mother said. "They’ll start to disappear."
*
The next morning, the husband mowed the lawn. He walked back and forth over grass that was one inch high, pushing the lawnmower with its unceasing silver blades, until what remained was grass that was one-half of an inch high. The wife had talked to him about this.
"You’re obsessed with cutting the grass," she would say. "It doesn’t need to be cut for at least another few weeks."
"What, you want to draw bugs? Mosquitoes? You let it get too high, and that’s what you get," the husband said.
"I know, but you are cutting it too much. You go down to the roots sometimes. You’re gonna kill the whole damn lawn. That’s probably what’s driving the ants inside."
The husband would not listen, and he cranked up the lawnmower to drown out the wife’s voice. The wife walked away toward the house, her middle finger raised behind her. She didn’t care if the neighbors, also known as busybodies, saw it or not.
Inside the kitchen, the daughter stood staring at the counter top. The mother came up behind her.
"What are you doing?" she asked her daughter. From behind, with her hair newly dyed pink, the daughter looked to the mother like a large exclamation point.
"Watching the ants eat the poison. You know, there are already only half as many."
It was true. The remaining ants had grown lethargic, and though they continued to drink from the poison, they no longer maintained their determined lines and often left themselves out in the open, near the sink, alone and vulnerable. Sometimes they drank drops of water from the sink, as if to dilute the poison.
"Good," the mother said. "That means it’s working." Outside, the husband pushed the lawnmower past the kitchen window and little flecks of grass sprayed the glass and stuck there.
"Mom, will you help me with my math?" the meathead son called out from his bedroom, which was decorated with footballs and basketballs.
"In a minute!" the mother shouted. She stood for several minutes behind the daughter, wondering if she should try and touch her, put her hand on her shoulder. Or something. Ask her about her boyfriend.
"Well, what are you waiting for?" the daughter suddenly asked, turning her head again like an angry smear.
The mother sighed and disappeared to help the son, who was also called Little Leaguer and Champ.
The daughter stayed and watched the ants. One ant was already dead. She blew on it to see if it would come back to life. A second ant, known as the helper ant, came and nudged the first ant. After a minute, the helper ant lifted the first ant and carried it a half an inch, the same distance as the ground from the blades of grass outside.
The father buzzed past the window outside and waved down at the daughter, who ignored him.
Finally the helper ant abandoned the body of the other ant, and crawled back towards one of the little drops of poison. Eden’s eyes filled with another kind of clear moisture, which was sometimes referred to as tears, and she grabbed the cardboard square – and all the other squares – and began to lick the drops off, one by one.
*
Nick, the daughter’s boyfriend, arrived late to the hospital. He didn’t know or understand what was going on, and he got lost finding the waiting area where Eden’s parents were, even though he was given directions by the desk nurse.
"Is she okay?" he asked, after he came around a corner and found the parents and brother sitting, reading magazines.
The family looked up at Nick, who was also known as the guy wearing a tee-shirt which read Crotch Parachute.
"Oh great," said the father. "Who called the no good asswipe?"
"No good asswipe," the son echoed. Though it pleased the father to have his opinions supported, he slapped the son on the back of the skull for propriety. There was no sound.
"I did," the mother answered. "He had a right to know." Then, looking at Nick, the boyfriend who fondled her daughter’s breasts after eating pizza, she said, "Eden ate ant poison."
"What? Why would she do that?" Nick asked, placing his hands in his pockets and making a soft jingling sound.
No one knew the answer to his question, so the parents and meathead son collectively shrugged in dismay and went back to their magazines. Nick sat down on a plastic chair next to them and played with his rings.
After some time, the family was called in to see the daughter.
"I think I better wait here," Nick said.
"Suit yourself," the father mumbled.
The family gathered around the bed in which the daughter lay. They looked at the tubes and the beeping machines, and they stared at the daughter’s white face which was framed and exaggerated by her pink hair, as if by a punk halo. The mother finally took the opportunity to pat the daughter’s foot through the thin, patchy hospital blanket covering her foot.
"We love you, sweetie," the mother said. Instantly the daughter awoke and drew her foot away.
"Why would you do this?" the father asked, his eyes pink with concern. Secretly, in his fat, 50 year old heart, he longed to go home to something he understood. To the lawnmower, to his wife’s aging but familiar body. To his chips.
The daughter turned her head like a sad, leaking boat towards the machines and watched the recorded rhythm of her heart, and imagined what it would take to navigate those waves.
"Nick is here," the mother said. "He came to see if you were okay."
"Like I care," the daughter said.
"Hey" – smart mouth, the father started to say, but thought better of it. Suddenly the doctor, who was also known as a Type A risk junkie and a weekend golfer, came in the room and stood at the foot of the bed. He cleared his throat and silently flipped through Eden’s chart.
"What does ant poison taste like?" the brother asked, breaking the silence, but was ignored by everyone.
"Looks like your daughter’s going to be fine," the doctor said. "We pumped her stomach, and there should be no residual damage. There might, however, be some problems down the road with the baby."
The parents’ mouths opened a half an inch in shock. Then the father ran as fast as his 50 year old legs could take him out into the waiting room. The mother and son listened to the sound of the boyfriend’s tennis shoes squeaking on the shiny hospital floor as he fled from the father.
"Oh, Eden, how could you be so incredibly stupid?" the mother asked. She felt the sadness soak her like rain, and she wondered at the same time if it was possible that *Star 620* was carrying her husband’s cyber baby, and whether it would be born with a pony-tail of tiny pixels.
Eden stared at the machine with her heart beats, and didn’t answer. The girl, who was also now a mother, closed her eyes.
*
The daughter was discharged from the hospital after three days of observation. She brought home a sheet of instructions which indicated she should rest and drink lots of fluid. She perched upon the couch in the living room, with a Sassy in front of her face.
The mother placed a glass of water with a straw on the table next to her, even though the daughter was perfectly capable of using her lips, as the boyfriend Nick could attest. (Though it would have been difficult for that no good asswipe to attest to anything, as his own mouth was swollen and purple after making contact with the father’s 50 year old fist.) The father placed a bowl of chips next to the water. "These are my favorite," he said.
Sometimes, the brother came into the living room and sat in the chair next to his sister. He watched television, and said nothing when his sister looked up from her magazine to smile at some show. Truthfully, the brother felt somewhat guilty for teasing his sister so much. Sometimes he added one or two of his cookies to the table with the water, the straw, and the chips.
One day the brother and sister were sitting in the living room with the television on. The brother flipped through the channels, but the screen suddenly went gray.
THIS IS THE EMERGENCY BROADCAST SYSTEM. The letters ran across the middle of the screen in red.
The meathead brother began to change the channels, going up and down, but the channels were all the same.
"Look, Eden," the brother said.
"It’s nothing, it’s a test," the sister said, turning the page of her magazine.
"But it always says when it’s a test," the brother said, and he had a point.
THIS IS THE EMERGENCY BROADCAST SYSTEM, ALERTING THE VIEWING AREA OF LIFETHREATENING SITUATIONS, FLASH FLOODS—
The letters stopped. The boy pressed the buttons on the remote, but he could not change the picture.
"Do you think we’re having a flash flood?" the brother said, his voice panicked and high.
"Don’t be a dumbass," the sister said, though she had put down her magazine. Outside, it was pouring.
"Mom?" the son shouted. Both the parents came in from the bedroom where they had been discussing whether or not the daughter should abort her baby. The mother’s eyes were red, and the father’s doughy face was creased with worry.
"Why don’t you let Rick and *Star 620* make the decision, if you don’t want to," the wife had been saying when they were interrupted by the cry of their son.
"What is it?" the father asked. They all stood, staring at the television.
THIS TEST IS ONLY USED IN CASE OF EMERGENCY, the television read.
"They said something about a flash flood," the daughter said. She looked nervously out the window. People were starting to come out of their houses.
"Now hold on," the father said. Since he was late coming in, he insisted on fruitlessly flipping through all the channels.
"Everyone’s outside," the daughter said, getting up.
"Maybe they know something," said the mother.
The entire family got up and opened the door. Outside, the rain was falling in huge, clear drops, soundlessly striking the heads of the people and dripping down onto the streets.
"But if there’s a flood, isn’t that the last place we should be? Shouldn’t we find higher ground?" the daughter asked.
"I don’t know," the mother said, "but maybe somebody else knows something."
The mother began waving at some of the other women. The neighbors saw the wife, whom they knew as the woman who flipped off her husband, and the daughter, whom they knew to be knocked up. One of the women waved at her and shrugged, refusing to budge from under the awning of her house. The husband braved the rain, which instantly plastered down his tuft of hair, and walked over to some men he had once borrowed tools from and shook their hands, trying to act casual. The meathead son ran over to three other boys and kicked water out of the puddles and wondered aloud if everyone was going to die.
Eden stood in the middle of the street, talking to no one, watching the rain fall.
The mother looked around at all the people, whom she thought of as neighbors and busybodies, people whose houses she knew, whose cars and children she knew, and wondered how it was that none of them, not one, knew anything at all.
Elizabeth Eslami received her B.A. from Sarah Lawrence College and an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from Warren Wilson College. Her work has appeared in Apostrophe, Thin Air, The Steel City Review, The G.W. Review, Bat City Review, Weber: The Contemporary West, Coe Review and Beeswax Magazine. Her first novel, Bone Worship, will be published by Pegasus Books in Winter 2010.