The tall tale of an ant and a little boy

I have a friend named Joshua who is 4 years old and a little worried about red ants.

“They shoot fire,” he said to me the other day, when I had the pleasure of his company for a few hours. “That’s why they call them fire ants.”

Like most of us, Josh is pretty definite about what he thinks he knows, but he’s willing to listen. I explained to him that they call them fire ants because their bite burns like fire.

He wanted to know who “they” were, and I said probably people who had been bitten by them. He nodded and said, “A friend who is also named Josh was bitten and fell off his chair.”

We were in my workroom watching Ernie the cat study the fish swimming around in their tank. He can sit there for what seems like hours as they dart from here to there and then back again. Fish in a tank have no real destinations.

“He thinks he’s watching television,” Josh said.

“Fish-o-vision maybe,” I said.

Ernie suddenly went streaking out of the room, a flash of black fur darting past the dining room table and down the hall and then dashing back again.

“What’s he doing?” Josh wanted to know.

“I’m not sure,” I said. “Maybe he’s mad because he can’t have my fish for dinner.”

“I don’t like fish,” Josh said, making a face.

We took a walk through the morning chill under skies as gray as a widow’s eyes. Wisps of fog laced through the branches of the sturdy oaks and crows cawed an autumn song into the brief dampness of the day. There was a snap of spices in the air. Fall was coming.

“I don’t need a sweater,” Josh said. “I never get cold. Are there fire ants up here?”

We were walking up a trail behind our house, and a distant view was emerging through the fog like a processed photograph, revealing the dark outline of mountains.

“I don’t think so,” I said.

“Tell me a fire ant story.”

I told stories to his sister Nicole, now in art school, and his brother, Jeffrey, in middle school, when they were little people walking with me up the trails of the Santa Monicas on days such as this, that whisper autumn secrets on the lazy breezes. And before them, I told stories to my other friends, Travis and Shana, and before them to my own three kids.

“Once upon a time there was a boy bitten by a red ant,” I began. Once upon a time is always a good way to start a story, because once is where we’ve all been and time is where we are now.

“Where?” Joshua said.

“On his leg, I think.”

“No, where? What city?”

“Oh, uh, Chicago.” It’s where Nicole is attending art school, dancing tentatively on the edges of her future. “When the boy was bitten, he got really mad at the ant. So mad, in fact, that the ant cowered, and you know what?”

“What?”

“The ant apologized! He didn’t mean to hurt the boy. He was just afraid. People do strange things when they’re afraid.”

“A boy at church named Billy pushes me all the time. I pushed him back and he fell down and cried.”

“Did that make you sad?” I asked.

Josh thought about it for a moment. “No,” he finally said.

“Oh, well, anyhow, the boy accepted the ant’s apology and the ant wanted to know if there was anything he could do for him in atonement.”

“In what?”

“To show that he was sorry. The boy said no. It was just good to have the ant around because otherwise he had no one to talk to. He didn’t have any pets. The ant said he’d be the boy’s pet. The boy taught the ant to sit up, roll over and beg.”

“Did he teach him to bark?” Josh wanted to know.

“Ants don’t bark,” I explained.

“They don’t talk either,” Josh pointed out.

“You’ve got a point,” I said. Not much gets by Josh. “To make a long story short,” I continued, “there was a pet day at school, and when the boy brought his ant in a little glass container, everyone laughed like crazy. Whoever heard of a pet ant?”

Josh nodded solemnly. We were back home and he was feeding the turtle Nicole had left in our care. Its name is Toulouse. She also left a parakeet. I don’t know what his name is. Chirp, maybe. That’s all he does is chirp.

“What happened during pet day?” Josh wanted to know.

“Well, then the ant began doing his tricks like rolling over and begging, and everyone was so impressed that the boy won first prize for having the most unusual pet. He was one happy kid. The end.”

Josh never did say whether he liked the story. Kids hardly ever do. They just sit there and listen. But when his mom came for him and they were walking out the door, I heard him say, “Once upon a time...”

Once upon a time.

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Al Martinez’s column appears Mondays and Fridays. He can be reached at al.martinez@latimes.com.