“Why are we doing this?” he said. “It’s simple. Because we can.”

He bent down and in one swift motion scooped up a huge handful of anthill. Then he pulled down the neck of my Batman shirt and dumped the anthill on my chest.

The ants swarmed me, biting, tickling, crawling all over my skin. They bit my chest, they bit my stomach, they bit inside my belly button. They crawled down my pants and into my underwear, gnawing on me. All the while Rob Louis pinned me down, his knees on my thighs, his hands on my wrists. I couldn’t fight him off, I couldn’t move. All I could do was scream.

So what did Kent Knoll do? He scooped up another handful of anthill and dumped it in my mouth.

I know Kent had to have gotten bitten—Rob Louis too, probably half a dozen times each. But I don’t think they cared. I don’t think a few ant bites were too high a price to pay to see me suffer.

Rob Louis let me go, and I rolled over and vomited dust and mud and ants. I yanked my Batman shirt off and swatted the ants off my naked chest, which was fat and pink with big swollen mounds all over it. I yanked my black shorts off and even my underwear. I swatted ants off my ass, off every part of me.

Kent Knoll and Rob Louis just stood there and laughed. They thought it was the funniest thing they’d ever seen in their lives.

No one came to help me. Who would have? We were behind the house, with trees and a fence between us and the nearest neighbors. I doubt anyone even heard me screaming. If they did, they probably figured it was a bunch of kids laughing, having fun, doing whatever it was that kids were supposed to do.

I ran out of the backyard, naked and ant-bit all over, my clothes in a ball under my arm. I sprinted nude through the neighborhood, crying the whole way, wailing like some shitty little kid.

Later that day when Murphy found out, she snuck into Kent Knoll’s house and dumped a bag of Skittles into his fish tank, killing every last one of those expensive imported pets. Word was Kent was real upset about it.

“I did it for you, brother,” she said, and socked me in the arm.

It was a hollow victory. I was feverish, sore, and on Benadryl. I nearly called an ambulance on myself.

You know what Mom did when she came home from wherever she was? It was nightfall when she hopped out of some stranger’s car, lit cigarette in one hand, an open Bud Light bottle in the other. Mom was barefoot, her shoes lost to time or some field somewhere, and she stumbled up the porch steps. The door swung open, and Mom burst into the room, laughing.

Then she saw me on the couch, all swollen up and moaning.