That Little Devil

A Short Story by Scott Semegran

The shower of dirt clods hit the ground like tiny meteors. Rogelio reloaded his little hand with more clumps of dirt, dropping a few extra in his shirt pocket, and climbed up the side of the ditch to a superior vantage point. When he reached the top, he surveyed the makeshift battlefield that lay in front of him across the rocky bed of the ditch. An armada of plastic soldiers, miniature tanks, and grounded airplanes were poised for battle, waiting for Rogelio's inevitable onslaught, stranded in strategically frozen positions in the loose dirt.

Rogelio raised his clinched fist over his head. And in a matter of seconds, he managed to demolish every miniature representation of war with a few quick flicks of his wrist, and a war cry for added effect. Examining the damage from his dirt bombs, the thought of reconstructing what he had just destroyed for the third time made him uneasy. But he descended the ditch wall anyway, grabbed his empty bucket, and began filling it with the defeated soldiers and their artillery.

"I defeated the Arabs again," he boasted. "They are no match for me and my nuclear bombs, even with Nazis on their side!"

He filled his bucket with a dozen soldiers at a time, smoothing over the cratered dirt as he collected them, preparing the ground for a possible reenactment of his triumphant siege of the ditch. It took him a little longer to collect the toys than to destroy them but he patiently picked up each piece, counting and sorting them as he dropped them in the bucket. Victory was fun. But the loss of just one toy would be a major defeat. As boring as the cleanup process was, Rogelio convinced himself that it was a necessary component to war.

After filling his bucket, Rogelio found a smooth place to sit and performed his ziplock burial ritual for all the dead soldiers. He sat the bucket in the dirt, pulled a wad of ziplock bags from his pocket, and placed each dead soldier in its own body bag. He zipped the bags shut and lined them in a row. When he reached the last two soldiers in the bucket, he noticed he only had one body bag left. He stuffed both soldiers in it and placed them last in line. He stood up and saluted the dead.

"You were brave soldiers," he recited, his hand stiffly saluted to his forehead. "I was going to send you home to your families. But instead, I have one bomb left so..." He pulled the last dirt bomb from his shirt pocket.

"Die! Die! Die!"

He pummeled the row of dead soldiers with his dirt bomb. Some of the body bags flew from their peaceful place and the clump left a small crater in the ground.

"That was cool!" he chirped.

He emptied the body bags of their contents and filled his bucket with the soldiers. When he was finished, he reached into his pocket, pulled out a candy bar, sat down, and devoured the candy.

*****

"You see all the ants, George? Look! A whole line of them, zillions and zillions of ants!"

Rogelio kneeled down on one knee and jabbed at the ants with a twig. The line of ants broke at the middle, a few scattering here and there with pieces of leaves and paper on their backs, and resumed their frantic march toward their mound. Rogelio continued to jab at them, crushing a few in the process.

"I wonder what they're doing?" he asked.

Rogelio discovered their mound a few feet from where he was kneeling. The ants jammed their materials into a pinhole-size entrance at the top of their home. The army of ants stretched back up the dirt incline of the ditch wall. He sat puzzled at their ingenuity.

"How do they know how to stay in line? How do they know how to do that, George?"

George didn't respond. He sat under an overhang of roots and dirt, a natural structure built by years of runoff that flowed through the ditch during the Texas rainy season. Rogelio could only see George's feet from where he sat in the dirt.

"George?"

Rogelio stood up and looked for his backpack. He had placed it down before his toy war and forgot where he had placed it. Looking around, he found it on an overturned, rotten tree trunk. He grabbed the bag, unzipped it, and pulled out a can of hairspray and a disposable lighter.

"Let's just see how smart they are. What do you think, George? Do you want to see how smart they are?"

Rogelio kneeled next to the ant mound, took the cap off the hairspray, and released a line of chemical adjacent to the ants. He sprayed carefully, just far enough away from the ants to appear stealthily deviant. The ants persistently continued to haul their materials. When he finished spraying his line of chemical, he tossed the can to the side.

"Let's just see how smart they are!"

He held up the child-proof lighter and ignited it. He lowered his hand and placed the flame into the line of chemical. The ants scurried frantically, sensing the eminent doom from the heat of the flame. And in a flash, the dirt floor lit up in a small blaze. The fire consumed the chemical and engulfed the ants. The fire scorched the dirt for a few seconds then petered out with a snap and a fizzle.

"That stinks!" Rogelio whined, standing back and pinching his nose. "Look at them run!"

The army of ants retreated up the incline away from their mound.

"Oh well. Not as smart as I thought. What do you think, George? They're pretty dumb, huh?"

George didn't respond.

*****

"I claim this ditch for Mexico!" Rogelio screamed as the sun began to set. He perched himself on the outer lip of the ditch, surveying the bed and its contents. "I claim this ditch for Santa Anna!" Then he jumped.

He landed in a bed of moist dirt and swung his wooden sword. It was a gift his father gave him on his ninth birthday, the day before his father left and never returned. His father carved it in the garage and branded the name Santa Anna on the side of the wooden blade. His father explained when giving it to him that Santa Anna was the greatest Mexican to ever live and that Texas should still be a part of Mexico today.

"The gringos cheated us," he would say.

Rogelio didn't understand what his father was explaining to him. But he loved the gigantic nature of the story, the grandeur of the name Santa Anna and the link it had to his Mexican heritage. Rogelio believed wholeheartedly what his father said to him on his birthday even though he disappeared the next day.

He said, 'This sword is carved from the wood of the coffin of Santa Anna and it represents the honor and deeds of this great man.'

Rogelio swung it with conviction.

"This ditch belongs to Mexico and I... oww!"

He collapsed to his knees and gripped his right ankle. The height of the jump was greater than he anticipated and his ankle became inflamed. He stuck his sword in the dirt and caressed his ankle.

"George! I need first-aid! Call for the doctors! Santa Anna and his great soldier are wounded. George! I'm surrounded by Nazis and Commies and drug dealers and everything. George!"

Rogelio began crawling on all fours, dragging his foot in an exaggerated fashion, playing up his infliction as if he was in a war movie.

"I'm crawling to you for help. Get out the medicine kit."

Rogelio crawled to where he had left George before the Mexican onslaught, under the overhang of roots and dirt. George, in the dark crevice under the tree, sat motionless and quiet.

"I made it. Bombs are everywhere, planes, tanks, guns, explosions, and I made it. I deserve a medal. I deserve twenty dollars, at least, for my bravery. Do you have twenty dollars to give me for being brave?"

George didn't respond.

"You need to lighten up, George. It's just a game."

Rogelio sat next to his friend George and rubbed his swollen ankle. The adrenaline from the excitement of playing subsided the pain. Soon, he would be ready for a new game, a new war.

"It's getting kind of cold now that it's getting dark. Are you cold, George?"

Rogelio touched George's arm.

"You're cold too, huh? Let's play one more game before I have to go home. I can't stay out too late because my mom will get mad. She doesn't like for me to be out after dark because she says she's afraid of all the gangs and stuff. They don't scare me but... I just don't like to make my mom mad even though I do a lot. She always gets mad."

Rogelio scratched his head as he thought of what they could play before he went home.

"I like playing with you, George, because you never call me gordito. At school, the other kids call me gordito and I hate it. I'm not fat, just big boned. But you don't call me fat."

Rogelio continued to scratch his head.

"I know!" he exclaimed, raising his finger in the air. "Let's play cops and drug dealers! I'll play the cop and you will be the drug dealer. I'll run over there and get my gun out of my backpack and you stay here. Yeah! You stay here and hide and when I jump out, you run over there and I'll chase you. How's that? OK, here I go!"

Rogelio ran to his backpack and pulled out his favorite plastic gun, the one that popped when he pulled the trigger. He squeezed the trigger to check for ammo. It popped loudly. He smiled.

"Are you ready, George? Here I come!"

*****

"Who is he talking to?" Rogelio's mother asked herself as she trudged through the dense forest that lined the perimeter of her property. "Maybe his new friend George?"

She stepped over fallen trees and anthills as she searched for the location of her son's play area. She could hear him in the distance. She raised her hand and yelled for him.

"Mi jigo! Dinnertime! Mi jigo? Where are you? It's getting late!"

She ducked under low hanging branches and foliage, searching intently, knowing how dark the forest got after the sun went down. She thought of headlines for missing children in the paper, children's faces on the back of milk cartons, as she called out his name. She scared herself like that sometimes. She also thought of making cookies for George's mother.

"Mi jigo! It's getting late! Please come when I call for you!"

She waited for a response as she called to him but there was none. She continued deeper into the forest. As she trudged farther along, her feet sinking into the dead leaves and mud, she could hear rustling in the distance and assumed it was her son and his playmate. She followed the sounds.

Eventually, she arrived at the ditch and looked down the five foot drop at the dead trees, rocks, and dirt lining the bed. She looked around for her son but did not see him. She heard a rustling and discovered her son playing quite a ways up. He hadn't heard her insistent cries to come home and continued to play his game. She watched as he played, flailing his toy gun about. She smiled as she watched him play.

"Que un diablito," she said as she watched him. She decided to sneak up quietly and surprise him.

She ducked under some branches and quietly made her way towards her son. She watched him play as she got closer, completely oblivious to her and the world. She could hear what he was saying as he played.

"Take that drug dealer! And that!" His gun popped as he fired it. "You're no match for me and my gun!"

She watched as he disappeared into the crevice in the side of the ditch. She heard him continue to talk to George. She quickened her pace while he was in the crevice, hoping to gain some ground before he came back out. And before she could take another step, he emerged from the crevice to the middle of the ditch. But this time, he was wielding a different gun. She noticed that he was examining the new gun. She knelt down and listened.

"Where did you get this gun, drug dealer? I didn't know you were packing."

He waved the gun in the air and dropped his toy gun on the ground behind him. He raised the weapon in front of him, struggling to lift the heavier pistol.

"How does it feel, drug dealer? I have your gun and you are wounded. And I'm going to shoot you with your own gun. Prepare to die, drug dealer!"

His mother snickered as she watched. She thought, 'He'd make a fine actor. He's just like his father.'

"Die!" Rogelio screamed. He pulled the trigger. The gun roared.

Rogelio's mother covered her face and fell on her backside. The blast from the gun echoed in her ears.

When she uncovered her face and sat up, she discovered Rogelio on his back, the gun next to him on the ground. Smoke covered him. His mother jumped to her feet and screamed.

"Mi jigo! Rogelio! Are you all right?"

Rogelio sat up startled and saw his mother at the top of the ditch wall. He saw her face as it turned bright red. He feared she was mad at him again. He jumped to his feet and ran. He ran away as fast as he could. She tried to follow him but couldn't keep up.

"Rogelio!" she pleaded.

She looked at the gun still smoking on the ground. She was too mortified to touch it. She saw Rogelio's backpack on the dead tree. She picked it up and put it on her back. She began to follow him when she noticed a foot at the opening of the crevice. She cautiously stepped toward it.

"George? Is that your name? Please come out. Please come out right now. You have some explaining to do. What are you and my son doing with a gun? A real gun?!"

She hoped George would come out, introduce himself and apologize. But he didn't.

"I'm asking you nicely. Come out now."

She feared the worst. She thought of the repercussions her son would have to face for shooting someone, even if it was an accident.

She stepped slowly toward the crevice. She placed her hand over her mouth as she moved. A rat leapt from underneath George's foot and scurried away. She screamed.

"Oh my god!!"

After catching her breath, she knelt down and looked in the crevice. She found George, dead as can be, wearing an Adidas jumpsuit and sneakers, a baseball hat teetering on his head. His dead body, covered with dirt and dried blood, appeared to have been there for a while. And she saw where the bullet Rogelio fired had blown a hole, still smoking, next to the body in the crevice wall. She knew for sure that Rogelio did not kill George. She gagged as she looked at the dead boy.

She noticed, as she gasped for air, a toy soldier in George's limp hand; one of her son's soldiers. She also saw a syringe stuck in George's arm.

She thought of how her son had been playing in the ditch for the past week. She thought of him coming home and telling her that he had a friend named George and how he didn't insult him like the other kids at his school did. She thought of how happy this once made her feel that he finally had found a new friend to play with. Now she thought of him talking and playing with the corpse he called George.

She fell to her knees and vomited in the dirt.

Wiping her mouth, she got up and climbed out of the ditch. She thought of chasing after her son but decided it would be better to go home and call the police first. Besides, she thought, she needed to pull the dinner out of the oven before it burned.

THE END

This short story was first published in The Next One Literary Journal, Texas Tech University Honors College - Winter 2003-2004