4

I was sitting on the back stoop after a bad day at school, when I spotted a huge anthill in the dirt next to the stairs. Something about them made me angry all of a sudden. There were hundreds of them going about their business, day in and day out, doing their jobs, back and forth, back and forth. They never complained, never fell out of line. I wanted to step on them for it. I don’t know why; it was just some primal thing, I guess. Put them out of their misery.

I stomped on a few and watched the panic set in. Suddenly, it was each ant for itself, struggling to flee the pandemonium. I’d upset the natural order.

It felt good.

It reminded me of one of those old monster movies. Only I was Godzilla.

I got out my camera again, and this time, I knew what to do. Watching those art vids on the DVD gave me ideas. So I began shooting a monster movie with me as Godzilla and the ants as the ones who got in the way. Godzilla stomped out all the ants, even the ones trying to escape. It was horrific and because my macro mode made it look cool, in super slo-mo, it was also kind of poetic.

I cut it together on my computer to some Japanese soundtrack remix I downloaded. It came out good. So I wanted to do some more. I started shooting a lot of weird stuff I saw around the neighborhood, just wandering around the overgrown lots and abandoned houses. I’d record them and make up stories about who lived there and what happened to them: Lost his job and life savings. Robbed a bank and is on the run. Drug dealer/crack house raided by the cops. Family one day mysteriously disappeared . . . dead and buried? More likely is they just moved to the burbs like everyone else and nobody ever replaced them. It was as if somebody stomped on a few St. Louis ants, so the rest scattered.

During lunch break one day at school, I noticed that people behaved a lot like ants too—they were just bigger and wore clothes. We stood in line for food, shuffled back and forth to class, accepted our place in the clique order of things.

Every once in a while, someone broke free—dressed differently, skipped class, acted out against the Queen Bees. They’d get stomped for it—by teachers, school cops, bullies. And for those few moments, chaos broke free—students stopped what they were doing and refused to look away. They couldn’t help it.

My camera had a good optical zoom, so I just started filming all this—especially the ones breaking the rules. Hiding behind my camera, I’d see all kinds of things. A couple making out by their lockers. A girl being hassled by Mr. Jamison for dressing too racy. The white kids trying to act black. Black kids crunking in the parking lot. Gay boys and goths getting in each other’s faces. Nerds texting when they weren’t supposed to. Staff cruising the halls looking for trouble. . . .

“What do you think you’re doing?”

I panned my camera to the oversized head of Mr. Jamison, who was staring me down. His one crooked eye was checking out my camera.

“I’m just . . . filming.”

“You can’t just go around filming people here without their knowledge.”

I blinked. “It’s just . . . a class project. For Mrs. Lee. I’m not going to upload it or anything. I can stop. If you want.”

He eyed me suspiciously. At least I think he did.

“If I see that camera again, I’ll take it.”

I nodded, put it away in my backpack.

Ant. Get back in line.

That Destiny Jones watched this go down and saw a way to get even for her phone. When she caught me filming one of her friends at lunch, she walked by and just snatched the camera out of my hands. She turned the camera on me.

“You know the rules: no cameras in school!” she said.

“Give it back.” I tried to act calm.

“Hey, it took me three days to get my phone back,” she said. “I think I can make some videos of my own for a few days.”

“Give it back,” I said again.

“Or what? You can’t tell Mrs. Lee; she’ll keep it.”

“I said—”

She cut me off. “Uh, oh, she getting mad. She gonna turn into a one hitter-quitter!”

Her friends all thought that was funny. One of them piped in. “I wouldn’t fight her if I was you. D here’s a real boxer. She even took out one of them female cops in the ring at the Rec Center last week.”

I didn’t want to fight. I never hit anybody and I wasn’t about to start now. I just wanted my camera back.

Destiny stepped up for a close-up. “Oh, I can see your veins popping with this zoom—”

I grabbed at the camera before she could finish her sentence. Next thing I knew, we were rolling on the ground, holding onto that thing like it was made of gold. Students came running, yelling “Fight!” and suddenly it was a scene from some jailhouse movie. I grabbed at her hair; she was trying to rip off my shirt. The kids loved it, but I didn’t care. That camera was mine—

A pair of hands suddenly reached down and grabbed us both by the shoulder and pulled us up like we were dolls. Both hands belonged to Mr. Jamison.

Shit.

“You were warned,” he said.