Sean Scanlan ~ Clodhoppers: A Reminiscence

Enterprise, Alabama, 1978:

The sales­man behind the glass counter hand­ed my dad a hand­writ­ten receipt and a few dol­lars, then looked down at me. “Well kid­do,” he said, “in a cou­ple of years you’ll fit into a grown-up pair, like those Wolverines you want­ed.” I did not reg­is­ter the insult because I was think­ing about ants.

They were ful­ly water­proof, so the man had said. And this fact remind­ed me of some­thing I need­ed to know. The acorn-brown boots were shiny, and they felt heavy enough to be real boots, like the Wolverines on dis­play. Carefully, I walked out of the store hold­ing the box to my chest, just below my chin, like an enor­mous bible. The man called them clod­hop­pers, a word that stretched across the shoe store like a rain­bow. Just before we got to our sky-blue Pinto, I fig­ured out what I needed.

“Can I go back and ask the sales­man a question?”

“Go ahead,” said my dad. “But don’t take too long. The car’s hot.”

When I had the right words, I opened the door. “Excuse me, mis­ter,” I began, “um, can you tell me if my clod­hop­pers are antproof?” The sales­man put down his cig­a­rette in an amber ash­tray and smiled.

“Well, that’s a good ques­tion,” he said, smoke com­ing out of his mouth with each word. “I know they’re water­proof, so that’s some­thing. I don’t know about ants though.” Holding my breath, I stood per­fect­ly still. The man nod­ded. “You know,” he said with a hint of opti­mism. “I’ll bet that if you laced them real tight and had good socks, I’ll bet not much could get through.” He paused and took a quick drag. “They’re tough clod­hop­pers, is the main thing.” I barked a quick thanks as I ran out of the store.

We drove in silence through Enterprise, a small, sun­baked city a lit­tle over an hour away from the Gulf Coast. I knew we were on Main Street because we just passed the Boll Weevil Monument and would soon turn east. The lady in the mon­u­ment held a mas­sive brown bug the size of a foot­ball. Boll wee­vils were tiny though. I’d seen photos.

Eventually, the build­ings gave way to green fields, and in a large clear­ing, the green-brown heli­copters were prac­tic­ing tak­ing off and land­ing at Fort Novosel, where my dad was an engi­neer. I tried to urge the car to go faster. In a few more min­utes, I would be able to see the fire break, which meant we were close to our trail­er park.

My room was between the bath­room and my par­ents’ room. Our trail­er was sim­ple and small, like the pre­vi­ous ones. It was tem­po­rary, like my idea of home. School was too. So I didn’t wor­ry when kids slot­ted me as an Army brat. I wasn’t Army. We were a General Electric tech rep fam­i­ly brought in to fix some engine prob­lem on the Sikorsky Black Hawk. I wished I could fly one. Wished we lived on the base. Wished we didn’t have to move every year. Never leav­ing a place also ter­ri­fied me.

My plan had occu­pied me for weeks. Now that the day was here, how­ev­er, I had some doubts. The laces on my clod­hop­pers were tight, maybe too tight. Did I have the right num­ber of socks? During today’s final plan­ning, I for­got lunch. And I for­got to change out of my best shirt. I start­ed to jog because the trail was just up ahead. The ants weren’t far.

A month ago, I’d moved from Tennessee to Alabama: same heat, but dif­fer­ent trees, dif­fer­ent dirt, dif­fer­ent insects. Nobody could tell me about the ant hills. Honestly, stick­ing my foot into an ant hill had been my goal since I first saw them.

After I climbed through the open­ing in the barbed wire, a few of the small­er ant hills came into view. Some were just small cones of dirt, but twen­ty steps down the trail, there was a small clear­ing. Here, the ant hills were much big­ger. Some were mon­strous, up to my waist. From anoth­er plan­et. I knew it was sil­ly, but I want­ed to talk to them, to ask them ques­tions. How many live in your hill? Are there dif­fer­ent neigh­bor­hoods in each hill? What do you eat? And most impor­tant­ly: do each of you have souls?

The best ant hill was next to the fence. It wasn’t the biggest one, but I loved how it was set apart from the oth­ers, and there was space to walk around it. Sometimes I would wan­der on the motor­cy­cle trail up the steep face of the fire break, try­ing to find the biggest one. My par­ents warned me that the motor­cy­cles could not see a small kid and might run me over. “I always stay on the safe side of the fence,” I told them. “I would nev­er walk on the motor­cy­cle trails,” I said, mak­ing my voice get low and my eyes big.

The sec­ond-best fea­ture of my trail­er park was the fire break: a wide, tree­less stripe of land. As if some­one had cut a path through the pine trees with a giant lawn­mow­er. In place of the pines, there were green prick­er bush­es, giant ant hills, and pow­er lines. The break stopped the fires, they said, but I couldn’t imag­ine how. It filled my vision. Probably a mile wide.

What I real­ly want­ed was to under­stand. To feel a break­through. The ant hills were made of dirt, but when I got very close, I noticed that the dirt was dif­fer­ent from the dirt on the motor­cy­cle trails. Each hill was made of tiny red-brown ball bear­ings that were dark­er than my clod­hop­pers. The red ants made the red-brown dirt into dirt balls. They pushed the balls around all the time. How did they make them? Red ants were very small, and there were so many of them. Huge ant hills but tiny ants.

My dad said they used their four front arms to sim­ply roll the dirt into balls like they were mak­ing giant snow­balls. But Lacy said they used their spit to make the dirt balls. One kid at school said he burned ants with his mag­ni­fy­ing glass. I said, “Yeah, I always burn them.” But that was just being tough. I would nev­er burn an ant.

I took a breath and slow­ly pushed my right boot into the soft brown ball-bear­ing dirt up to my ankle. They seemed to move in and out of the holes more slow­ly now. After some time, they seemed to under­stand a new thing had hap­pened to their hill, and they came pour­ing out of their hill from top and bot­tom, scram­bling toward my boot. They stopped near it. I held my breath.

During the times when I was just get­ting my plan togeth­er, I would slow­ly shove a stick in the base of the hill to see how they would react. Never once did I sur­prise them. They always react­ed the same way, and I always wait­ed until the last sec­ond before pulling the stick out and drop­ping it, blow­ing on my hand to make sure none of the ants had jumped. During recess one day, I said to my friend Marcus and some oth­ers, “I’ve nev­er been bit­ten by an ant, not once.” Then I added, “But I have been bit­ten by a snake.” This was true, though the foot-long gar­den snake didn’t break my skin. That snake was back in Illinois. Maybe Missouri. I remem­bered feel­ing good telling the snake sto­ry as I stared at the ant-burn­ing kid.

Then my right foot start­ed to tin­gle. This sen­sa­tion, I guessed, must’ve been from the heat or the tight laces. Another pos­si­bil­i­ty: I was imag­in­ing the tingling—I had real clod­hop­pers on—and I had planned this all the way. The sales­man had even giv­en me the answer. But my foot was now hot, and they were scram­bling all over. Maybe the heat was com­ing from the ant hill. Yes, that was it. I could feel the sen­sa­tion turn­ing hot­ter. Suddenly, the heat took on a new char­ac­ter­is­tic. It was sting­ing. I knew heat, and this was not a smooth sen­sa­tion like hold­ing a mug of hot choco­late. It was not pos­si­ble that the ants could get inside the water­proof and antproof boot. Even as I thought this, I could see ants going into the boot­lace eye­lets and around the edge of the tongue. But I was pro­tect­ed. Ants were quick­ly crawl­ing near the top of my antproof clod­hop­per. Even though I had stud­ied them and had exper­i­ment­ed with the stick, I had not expect­ed them to move so fast onto me.

I leaned over so that my face was a few inch­es from my knee and saw a few ants on my shin above the cuff of the boot. My bare skin. And that’s when I yelled and jumped away from the ant hill. I took a right and ran on the trail. The fence open­ing was up ahead. The unmis­tak­able sound of a motor­cy­cle caught me by sur­prise. Dead in the mid­dle of the trail, I stopped. The hor­net-sound­ing engine was get­ting clos­er, but I could not tell if it was approach­ing from the right or left as the bush­es were over my head. The sound got loud­er and loud­er. The revving was everywhere.

The trail was filled with tight turns, but right here, near the fence, it was straight. I knew the motor­cy­cle would be going fast, and if it hit me, I would explode. The whin­ing engine got loud­er. Without think­ing, I start­ed run­ning toward the fence open­ing. There was no way for me to know how close the motor­cy­cle was, but then I remem­bered some­thing. Quickly, I dove off the trail just as it screamed by. I tum­bled through a bush and end­ed up on my stom­ach right between two large ant hills I knew about. My hands and chest hummed from the impact. I stayed on my stom­ach for a moment. Then, whis­per­ing a ques­tion to the ant hills, I got up and start­ed walk­ing slow­ly. I walked inside the fresh tire tracks. As the motor­cy­cle sound dis­ap­peared, I could once again hear my own breath­ing and the insects buzzing and click­ing. The open­ing in the fence was in view.

The road at the edge of the trail­er park was blind­ing com­pared to the browns and greens of the trail. I had a stitch in my side from run­ning, and still there was a long way to go. I walked to catch my breath. There was no way I could look down at my boots or my scratch­es. More sen­sa­tions came. I saw small coins of light. My foot was alive again, still burn­ing, and now my shins and knees were start­ing. My feet pro­pelled me until I tast­ed pennies.

“Calm down,” my mom said to me. I held my side and bounced up and down on the kitchen floor.

I tried to speak but only sput­tered “okay.”

“What hap­pened to you?” she asked. “Is it your side? Why are your arms bleeding?”

“I need dad,” I final­ly said.

“He’s with Lacy,” she said. Without anoth­er word, I leaped out of my trail­er and ran to num­ber 81. His door was open, and again I tried to speak. But only some wheez­ing came out. Lacy laughed. He always laughed at me. I didn’t like that, but I liked him any­way because dad was more fun with him around. Lacy was tall and very thin with a short beard. He didn’t have any kids. I called him Mr. Lacy. My dad and Mr. Lacy had the same first name, but I was not allowed to call an adult by their first name. Still hop­ping and flap­ping my arms, I blurt­ed, “How did they get into my clodhoppers?”

They coughed a lit­tle and put down their cigarettes.

“Let’s fig­ure this out,” said my dad.

“Where did they go?” I asked, qui­et­ly now. “I saw mil­lions of ‘em, and they were all over my leg.”

“Probably still inside your boots,” said Lacy. This made me want to cry, but I resist­ed. If Lacy was right, that meant they were not only inside my clod­hop­pers, but they were also inside my socks, next to my skin. Biting and chew­ing and rolling, mak­ing my foot into lit­tle balls of skin. I bit the back of my hand. I had seen a cow­boy do that on Gunsmoke when they pulled a bul­let from his leg.

Lacy laughed again and said, “Sit here and let’s take a look at your new boots.” My dad unlaced the right while his friend did the left. They exchanged looks as they worked on my triple knots. Nobody said any­thing for a few min­utes. Low buzzing insect sounds filled the trail­er. Experience was a word I had heard a few times, but its mean­ing remained fog­gy. Pain surged from my foot up to my knee then back down. Coins of light flashed even though my hands cov­ered my eyes.

The two worked silent­ly until they peeled the socks off. “Ah, ha,” said my dad. The air on my right foot felt good for a few sec­onds, but the burn­ing rushed back in. I removed my hands to look. The left was nor­mal, but the right was an angry red with many raised bumps. It seemed to pul­sate and swell with each breath. My dad pinched the remain­ing ants one by one from my shin, ankle, and toes. The burn­ing sen­sa­tion was now sharp, nee­dle-like. On the small table between them, Lacy took a pock­etknife and sliced open sev­er­al cig­a­rettes and put the tobac­co into a glass.

“What’s that?” I asked.

“Making a poul­tice,” said my dad as he blinked the smoke out of his eyes. “It’s a lit­tle tobac­co and some beer. The chem­i­cals in the tobac­co will take care of the sting.”

“It’ll take a few min­utes,” Lacy said. Both men wore sleeve­less under­shirts with stiff slacks and wing tips.

I gulped down some water and looked out the open door at the sil­ver pow­er line mon­sters. They propped my right foot on a chair. I couldn’t see any ant hills from here, and I couldn’t decide if I was angry at them or thank­ful. They mur­mured some­thing I couldn’t make out.

“Can I have some of that?” I asked, point­ing at the beer cans on the table.

“A sip won’t hurt him,” said Lacy. “He’s had a tough one.” My dad pressed his thin lips togeth­er, so they almost dis­ap­peared. They gave me half a glass. It was cold and bit­ter. But it had bub­bles, like soda. After a while, I felt the poul­tice begin to work, dulling the burn. Both the beer and the tobac­co mix­ture smelled ter­ri­ble, and the shreds looked like ants. But I ignored it, leaned back, and looked at them and the open door. A minute passed as they smoked. My plan, I just then decid­ed, wasn’t that bad after all. But I was miss­ing some­thing. Was it my shirt?

The com­bi­na­tion of the open door, the two men, and the world past the door­frame made my insides heavy. The still heat vibrat­ed every­thing. For a sec­ond, I thought this is what it’s like to be an adult and have it all fig­ured out. I tipped my chair back on two legs like Lacy was doing. Then I fell back­wards with a sharp thwack. I didn’t say any­thing as I lay there on the floor, still in a sit­ting posi­tion. They helped me to my feet and asked if I was okay. They looked at each other.

Lacy went to the fridge and brought me a gin­ger ale, and my dad said, “Better go on home.”

As I walked back to my trail­er, I heard birds laugh­ing from far away, from under­wa­ter. My legs felt heavy; the road burned the soles of my bare feet. My mom looked at me and shook her head. Most of my scrawny body was smeared with sweat and dirt. There were long scratch­es on my fore­arms and knees, and my right foot was flecked with tobacco.

“Well, get in here,” she said, “and let’s put you in the tub.” Her reac­tion and the steps tripped me up. The gin­ger ale made a wet cir­cle on the ground. Then I got up and said, “I’m sor­ry about my shirt. I’ll get it tomorrow.”

“And your new boots?” she asked.

“Back with them,” I said.

“But hon­ey, why did you take them off?” she asked.

Through my sobs, I mum­bled some­thing I’ve said many times in my life, “When can we just move away?”

~

Sean Scanlan is an asso­ciate pro­fes­sor of English at City Tech, part of the City University of New York, where he teach­es the per­son­al essay and lit­er­a­ture. In addi­tion to edit­ing the online human­i­ties jour­nal NANO: New American Notes Online, he has pub­lished essays in Iowa Journal of Cultural Studies, Style, Modern Language Studies, American Literary History, and communication+1. He recent­ly pub­lished “The Mariana Trench is Not Blue” in Five on the Fifth, and The New Territory will pub­lish his non­fic­tion piece “The Survival Merit Badge” in 2025.