by Todd Borg
Paco took Spot’s collar, nodding.
“Spot, you stay with Paco. You understand?” I said. I knew that the words were pointless, but I hoped that my tone would give Spot a sense that he should not run.
I pulled on my jumpsuit, stepped each foot into a plastic bag and taped it up around my pant legs. I tore a small opening in another bag and pulled the bag over my head, positioning the opening around my eyes. I taped that bag around my shoulders and chest and had Paco add tape where the plastic came down my back. I tore a smaller opening at my mouth, stretched a dust mask over my head, and taped the edges of the mask to the plastic bag on my head.
My swim goggles covered my eyes. I taped them in place.
Last, I put bags over my gloves and had Paco tape the edges around my sleeves.
“Do I look like the creature from the black lagoon?” I said through the dust mask.
Paco stared at me just as he would if he saw me playing the monster in the movie he’d never heard of. But he didn’t react.
“Remember not to let go of this hound’s collar?”
He nodded.
“I don’t know how long this is going to take me, so be patient. And even if I slip and fall, don’t decide to come and help me, okay?”
He nodded again.
I picked up the buckets and lids and shovel, and turned and walked toward where Paco had pointed.
The first nest didn’t look like much as I approached. Just a mound of dirt with a reddish coating. But when I got closer, the mound seemed much bigger, maybe 12 inches high, and the reddish coating turned out to be swarming ants.
Street was right. These ants were crazed with frantic movement. These were ants on steroids. They all seemed to be in a mad rush, racing around and over each other and in and out of many tunnels leading into the dirt mound.
I set the buckets down nearby, checked that the funnel was still properly positioned in the first one, and got my shovel ready. Nothing I could possibly do with the shovel could accelerate their already-panicked movement.
I was wrong.
I plunged the shovel into the soft ground, levered it, and tried to raise up a pile of ants and dirt. I wanted to lift it up and dump it into the bucket funnel in one smooth movement. But I jerked, and the shovel came free in a jerk. The pile of ants and dirt flipped up into the air and showered down on me.
My goggles allowed for only limited vision. I had to point my head at something to see it. I bent my neck and looked down at my jumpsuit. What I saw was no big deal, probably fewer than a hundred ants racing over the fabric. But their intensity was disturbing.
I looked back down at the nest. The pheromones were obviously working. The ants had exploded in movement. If any of them had gone into safety mode and retreated underground, I would never know. All I saw were thousands of ants moving at a sprint. They came up my shovel, swarmed over my plastic baggie-booties and up my pant legs. I remembered what Paco had said. Fire ants can chew through anything. My skin was already twitching in anticipation of the coming assault.
I ignored that thought and began shoveling.
I got a scoop of ants and dirt into the funnel. Then another.
I’d barely gotten any down the funnel, and already ants were rushing back out.
I kept shoveling. Ants were rushing out of the nest. It was like watching the world’s biggest army sprinting toward a naive and ill-equipped invader. There were so many that the hundreds, or thousands, of ants already crawling up me seemed like a minor event. But when I again looked down at my legs, it was frightening to see the hoards preparing to breach my jumpsuit fabric, ready to plunge on through the openings they were no doubt chewing, and devour me.
I tried to brush some of them off, then stuck the shovel back into the earth, and dumped another scoopful into the funnel. It looked like it was all dirt and no ants. Yet ants kept crawling back out of the funnel. I stopped thinking about the proportion of dirt to ants. Either I’d get a bunch of ants or not.
I felt the first sting on my back. There wasn’t even any opening in the back of the jumpsuit. So either they’d chewed through, or they could sting through the fabric. I hadn’t thought about that.
Another sting on my back. Then a sting on my right thigh.
I shoveled faster. Ants and dirt flew.
Somebody shoved a burning needle into the top of my leg at the underwear line. The ants were going to get me where it would really hurt.
I took a moment and rubbed the fabric over the sting, back and forth hard. The ant or ants were inside my pants, but maybe I could squish them from the outside.
I kept shoveling dirt into the funnel.
The next time I dug the shovel into the ground, I hit the mother lode. My shovel plunged into a soft spot, and when I brought it up, it was as if I had scooped into solid ants and no dirt.
I was ecstatic even as I was repulsed. The shovel was alive, a softball-sized scoop of solid, swarming, angry ants. I plopped them down the funnel and went back for more.
Another sting burned into my neck near my adam’s apple. I ignored it. And dug another, even larger, scoop of raging ants.
Two more stings as I dumped the ants into the funnel. Hot needles in my stomach and butt. The ants had put out the word that they didn’t need to get inside my suit. Just fire their poison darts through the fabric. Another sting higher up on my groin. I started doing a dance of sorts. Jumping up and down, trying to shake off the ants.
Kept shoveling. Dumped them into the funnel. Jumped up and landed hard to jerk the ants off me. Shoveled again. Jumped and landed.
The bucket was nearly full. Mostly dirt. But a lot of ants.
I dropped the shovel. Picked up the bucket and banged it on the ground to shake the ants off the funnel and down into their new, temporary home.
I peeled off the duct tape that held the funnel in place, and pulled it out of the smokestack vent pipe that protruded from the bucket lid. Ants swarmed up my arms. I wrapped pieces of screen over the vent pipe opening and taped it in place. Then I put the funnel into the second bucket and continued shoveling.
The ants were endless. The stings more frequent.
A hot needle stabbed me in the side of the neck, just below my ear. I swatted at the pain. Ants flew off my plastic-bag mitt and landed on my goggles. I saw them crawl across my field of vision. But I didn’t care. I had my treasure, and I was still alive.
I continued shoveling until the second bucket was full, and I repeated my process of removing the funnel and taping screen over the pipe opening.
I held up the buckets to see if the little window screens were succeeding at keeping the ants inside. Ants swarmed over the outside of the buckets, but it seemed that none of them was emerging through the screens.
I took the shovel and buckets and ran away from the nest. Stopped and banged the bucket and shovel on the ground to try to leave excess ants behind.
Another hot needle into the back of the knee. It was the worst sting, yet. Like a soldering iron going through the skin into the joint itself. I grabbed at the area and rubbed it. The pain intensified. Maybe I’d gotten a bunch of stings at once. I bent the leg, straightened the leg, shook the leg. It felt like I had a wound into which someone had poured boiling sulfuric acid. I’d have to have the leg amputated at the nearest clinic. No time to even go to the city hospital.
I did some vigorous jumping jacks, then sprinted down the plant rows, away from Paco and Spot.
It was a mistake. Spot got excited and pulled free from Paco.
When I saw him come running, I set the buckets down, then dove onto the ground and rolled over to try to rub off ants.
Just as fast, I was back on my feet and running farther away when Spot caught up to me.
He jumped onto me in play as I knew he would. I only hoped that the ants were mostly gone so that he wouldn’t be attacked.
I began jerking off my wraps. Plastic bags and duct tape, goggles and jumpsuit.
Eventually, I was down to my ordinar
y clothes, my other gear scattered among the plants.
Spot had that demonic look I’d come to know well. He stood with his body lowered a bit, front legs splayed out, watching me, wagging. He was waiting for my first hint of movement so that he could anticipate which way I was about to run. Then he’d launch himself onto me, knock me down so that we could roll in the dirt and get seriously muddy.
Spot suddenly lowered his head and began chewing at his right front paw. Then he bit at the outside of his elbow.
“Sorry, dude. Collateral damage from hanging around me.” I reached down and rubbed his foot, then saw two crazed ants running up his leg. I wiped all his legs down.
“Let’s move, largeness. We’ll do the wrestling match later. We have an ant assault to plan and execute.”
I pulled an unused garbage bag from my pocket and bagged up the jumpsuit and my torn bags and tape.
Now largely ant free, I called out to Paco as we walked back toward the hothouse.
“Mission accomplished,” I said. “We’ve got a lot of ants.”
Paco stared at the buckets as I approached, his trepidation obvious. Behind the little screen windows, ants swarmed. When I got close, he stepped away. He couldn’t have had a more dramatic reaction if I were carrying a bucket of rattle snakes.
At the Jeep, I took two of the extra large lawn-and-leaf bags and set the buckets inside of them. I figured that if I enclosed enough air with the buckets, the ants wouldn’t suffocate during the ride back to Tahoe. If any ants got out through the screen-covered bucket windows, the bags would help contain them. I was scratching at my stings as I put the bagged buckets into the Jeep.
By the time we were all loaded into the Jeep, we hadn’t seen a loose fire ant in thirty seconds or so.
“You get stung?” Paco asked as we drove out the long dirt road.
“Me. Not at all. Did you?”
“No.” Paco said. Gradually he relaxed as we headed back up into the Sierra.
FORTY
Back in Tahoe, we drove over to the Harrah’s parking lot and transferred our precious weaponry into the back of Diamond’s old pickup. As Spot and Paco once again squeezed into the front, I hoped that Salt and Pepper hadn’t seen us drive the Jeep into the basin and followed us to Harrah’s.
I drove over Kingsbury Grade and down to Carson Valley, watching the rear view mirror the entire time. I saw no blue pickups. But that was no guarantee that we were safe.
Before we drove to Diamond’s house, we went back to the hardware store and got a few sundries we’d forgotten including two electric leaf blowers that claimed to produce 240 mile-per-hour air streams.
Back at Diamond’s I called Street.
“We’ve got ants and peppers,” I said.
“And you’re still alive,” she said. “Always a good sign.”
“Now we want to brew up some pepper spray, and I wondered if you could give me some tips.”
“I study bugs, remember? What would I know about pepper spray?”
“I don’t know. But you’re a scientist and a smart person. I wouldn’t know how to begin. You might. Got any helpful ideas?”
“Well, all I know about peppers is that the hot ones, the chili peppers, all have a chemical called ‘capsaysen.’ It’s spelled C-A-P-S-A-I-C-I-N.”
“Paco made sure we were well protected when we worked around them,” I said. “Even so, just having them close makes your eyes and nose sting. Quite amazing to think that a plant can be so potent.”
“Capsaicin is a serious irritant for lots of animals, so the presumption is that the chili peppers evolved this chemical adaptation so they were less likely to be eaten by animals.”
“You mean bugs,” I said.
“Yeah. Bugs and larger animals. Although, I seem to remember reading that birds aren’t affected by chili peppers. Most animals having grinding teeth and they chew seeds up, destroying them. So it makes sense that capsaicin would be off-putting to animals. But birds can’t chew, so many seeds go through them without being ruined. And, appropriately, capsaicin was an evolutionary adaptation that didn’t bother birds.”
“Ah,” I said. “The bottom line is that whatever traits help a pepper to produce and disseminate seeds are traits that carry on to future generations.”
“See?” Street said. “You could be a scientist.”
“I couldn’t stand the tedium of focused study. Unless I could make a science of studying your attractiveness.”
“You’re talking about sex again,” Street said.
“Why would you jump to that conclusion?” I said. “I’m talking about the science of your romantic aura. The beauty of your line and form. The poetry of your cadences.”
“Like I said, sex.”
“If you insist,” I said.
“Anyway,” Street said. “Commercial pepper spray manufacturers have perfected the techniques of how to collect and concentrate capsaicin. Maybe they’ve even synthesized it. Homemade spray would no doubt be much less potent. But you could probably make something effective. The trick will be keeping the capsaicin in solution.”
“How would you do it?” I asked.
“I would probably just grind up the peppers, strain out the juice, and mix the juice with an emulsifier.”
“What’s that?”
“Something that holds it in solution. Think of how oil and water don’t mix. An emulsifier like detergent will suspend grease and oil in water and allow it to wash away.”
“You think I should mix ground-up peppers with detergent?”
“Possibly. But detergent is such a good emulsifier that it might lessen the effectiveness of capsaicin when it hits someone’s eyes or nose. You don’t want a person’s tears to wash it away. Let me grab one of my books.”
I heard the phone being set down. The thud of heavy book. Rustling of pages.
“Here we are. Let me scan down this. A hygroscopic, miscible... I’ll save you the details. It looks like propylene glycol would be the ticket. Problem is getting it.
“Is it a hazardous material?”
“No. It’s found in cosmetics and food and moisturizers. But you won’t find it on the shelf at the store. You’d have to order it from a chemical company. How soon do you want to do this?”
“Yesterday,” I said.
“Then let’s skip that idea. You could probably use denatured alcohol. Rubbing alcohol.”
“Then I’d have a fire hazard. I don’t want that.”
“Good point,” Street said. “Let’s go back to detergent.”
“Which would lessen the effectiveness?”
“Yeah. But if you used a small amount, just a few drops, it might work well.”
“How would you decide how much to use?” I asked.
“I’d probably add a drop or two of detergent to some water, mix that up and then pour it into the pepper juice. Once you mix that up, you would be able to see if your juice settles out into layers or not. If it stays mixed, then you have enough detergent. You can tell how hot the liquid is by touching a tiny drop to your tongue.”
“Hot sauce with a hint of detergent.”
“Maybe you should just buy hot sauce.”
“Sure. But like pepper spray, they are in little containers. I want a lot.”
“Just be careful,” Street said. “You’re doing this with a little boy.”
“You think I’m corrupting his innocent mind?” I looked at Paco. His face was passive.
“Yeah,” she said.
“I’m also showing him how old-fashioned American ingenuity works.”
“You are indeed.”
I thanked Street, and we hung up.
Spot poked around Diamond’s fenced back yard while Paco and I went to work. I opened the single window in Diamond’s garage and fit Diamond’s window fan into it to vent the fumes. Paco found a couple of pieces of wood and used them to prop the garage’s passage door open about ten inches. It was enough to allow for ventilation but not so much that neighbors could look o
ver the fence and see what we were doing inside the garage.
There was a light breeze, sufficient, I hoped, for any chili pepper aroma to disperse.
I fetched Diamond’s blender from his kitchen and brought it, water, and detergent into the garage. We put on gloves and goggles and loaded the first batch of peppers into the blender.
“Stand back,” I said. Paco moved to the other side of the garage, demonstrating a respect of peppers that came from past experience. I took a firm grip on the lid of the blender to be sure it wouldn’t fly off, and hit the button.
It whirred, and the peppers turned to a blurry orange slurry.
I stopped the machine and took a careful look inside. It looked like a fibrous fruit slurpee. Paco came over to look, too.
“What do you think?” I said. “Will that take down a superhero?”
“Over a million Scoville Units,” he said.
Careful not to splash, I poured the orange slurpee through a strainer and into a clear glass. As we looked at the glass, the juice started to separate just a bit, with the top layer getting a little clearer and the bottom layer a bit denser. I visualized all the capsaicin sitting on the bottom, unable to go through a sprayer.
“Looks like it’s separating,” I said. “Street said we should add some detergent to a little water and mix it up. Can you do it?”
Paco nodded. He picked up a water bottle, poured some into a cup, then picked up the detergent.
“Smallest drop possible,” I said.
Paco tipped the bottle just past horizontal, held it without squeezing. A tiny drop began to form. Paco kept it steady. The drop eventually separated and fell into the cup. He stirred until the water got sudsy.
“Now add the water detergent mix,” I said.
Paco carefully tipped the cup and poured the mix into the glass. I stirred until it was frothy. We watched again. The bubbles all rose to the top, but the mix didn’t separate. We repeated the process a couple of times, straining the slurpee into the 5-gallon bucket. When it came time to mix in the detergent/water mix, I handed Paco the portable cake mixer.
Paco was like a surgeon in his precision as he ran the mixer on slow speed, then increased the speed one notch. The juice turned into orange foam. Satisfied, he turned off the mixer and lifted it out.
