My mother, tired from tethering my sister for three hours, requests lunch. We decide on a micro brewery and order a round of honey beer. It’s very strong, but we’re still worried about the ants so we prefer it that way. To be safe, my sister and I order our mother another beer.
When we get back to the apartment the ants have evolved. They can fly now and the bigger ones look like the flying monkeys from “The Wizard of Oz”. I take hold of the umbrella and begin to swat, but this does little to deter their kamikazi assaults.
Satisfied from the honey beer – and unaware of the developing frenzy – my mother SKYPES my father, who is worn-down from hosting the painters. My mother discusses the Texans.
“Moun’ta-Vid’eeoo,” she says.
My father tells a story about how he prepared lunch for the painters but ran out of pickles. He had to “drop everything” and go to the supermarket. “And Stella was barking,” he says. “I’ve been so busy.”
“Moun’ta-Vid’eeoo.”
Meanwhile, the ants are implementing a strategy of some kind. With my umbrella, I’m defending their aerial attacks, and my sister is using a paper towel to sweep up the dead ones with her foot. I throw her a rolled up newspaper which she uses to squash the cavalry. But the red wave continues, and soon, I feel them on my skin. My sister and I are tamping down with great ferocity, but it looks like we’re participating in an ancient tribal dance. We’re making little progress too. My mother and father continue their strange conversation: “Moun’ta-Vid’eeoo,” she says, but she hasn’t grasped the danger she’s in, and my father, perplexed by the demands of the painters, sinks his face into his hands.
Finally, I yell, “we’re losing ground”. The ants are trying to steal my mother’s passport. When I strike the table with my umbrella a few books fall on the battalions below. My father notices this for some reason.
“What’s Michael doing?”
“Exercising,” my mother says. And then she speaks loudly out of the side of her mouth, “he’s got a little belly. Moun’ta-Vid’eeoo.”
“I’m just overwhelmed,” my father says. He needs to end the call, he explains, because the painters have requested coffee. When he cuts out, my sister escorts my mother to bed. She immediately falls asleep. My sister and I decide to eat at this organic restaurant across the street. We assume that our mother’s current state of intoxication should keep the ants away.
The waitress is a pleasant pig-tailed Argentinean. She draws pictures of the menu items we can’t translate. After dinner we make room for hulking vodka drinks and talk about our mother’s laugh. That we both have her laugh is one of the few things we agree on. When we return to the apartment, the ants have assembled into a mass that resembles a giant hovering bean bag. At this time, my sister is less nervous about the situation. Drunk, she joins my mother in bed, leaving me alone to face the most perilous flying ant insurrection in recorded history.
**********
RETURN to Title Page
CONTINUE READING: VIII. The Flying-ant-likeness of Dudley Moore
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