Coleman clutched the passenger-door frame with both hands. “Why are you driving so fast?”
“Because I can’t wait to see if my breakthrough technique works!”
The sports car found a parking space in the dirt, and Serge raced around to the trunk. “Coleman! Get out here! I need you to carry some stuff!”
“Can I rest first? We just got here.”
“Rest from what? You’ve just been sitting there the whole drive from Tallahassee.”
“It was tiring.” He reluctantly climbed out. “And why did we have to go all that way just to turn around and come back here?”
“I had to go to the nearest big city because there’s no place around here that carries what I needed for my X-Treme Gruntinator,” said Serge. “Because nobody’s ever thought of it! . . . Hold this . . . and this . . . and this . . .”
“It’s getting heavy.”
Serge slammed the trunk. “Stop complaining and follow me.”
They marched a few hundred yards to the same spot as the day before. Their stakes were still pounded into the dirt. Serge ignored them and went to work with a posthole digger.
Coleman sat on the ground and pulled a flask from his pocket. “Where’d you get this idea anyway?”
“I went on the Internet to study the techniques of bona fide sixth-generation grunters and found all these great video clips.” Serge rammed the digger deep in the hole and dumped out another clod of dirt. “The guys were regular Mozarts. Their secret was a deft touch with the rooping iron that produced a specific-frequency metallic wheezing sound. I realized my quest now required dedication to arduous effort, until I thought: ‘Bullshit on effort. I just want success. That’s America!’”
Serge dumped a final lump of soil and tossed the digger aside. “Hand me that box.”
“It’s heavy again.”
Serge ripped the container open sideways. “This is the key to the whole operation.” Insulated wires dangled out the tip of a long insulated pole. At the other end was a high-tech oval bulb.
Coleman grimaced as he knocked back a slug of bottom-shelf bourbon. “What the heck is that thing?”
“Nature enthusiasts and the U.S. Navy use hydrophones to listen to majestic whales or enemy submarines, depending on which lifestyle they signed up for.” Serge wrapped the bulb in thick Mylar and sank it five feet into the ground. “Most hydrophones today are passive and just listen, but this is an active hydrophone. It puts sound in the water. Like those old war movies where ships ‘ping’ to find subs.”
“Who wants to do that?”
“Whoever just up and feels like making the water noisy. Again, another not-thought-of opportunity like gold in the streets that everyone walks by.” Serge filled in the hole around the device. “Basically the same principle as those underwater speakers they use each year in the Keys for their annual scuba diver concert.”
More boxes were opened. Serge pulled out a hefty battery pack and amplifier. He intricately connected them with a series of cables that led through the leaves to a lawn chair.
Coleman raised a hand. “But this isn’t water.”
“Precisely,” said Serge. “Any scientist knows that solids conduct sound even better than liquids.”
“Really?”
“Think of those old western movies where Indians put ears to the ground so they could hear the hoofbeats of horses miles away that told them the White Man was about to shit on the whole program.”
“I get it,” said Coleman. “Like the time when I was with you, and I was like super stoned, and you said that if I put my ear on the rail of some train tracks, I could hear the locomotive coming. So I tried it, and you were right!”
“Except you don’t do it when you can also see the locomotive.”
“Good thing those people were there to drag me off the tracks.” Another slug of bourbon. Coleman’s neck suddenly swung sideward. “What the hell was that noise?”
“Just more rustling in the leaves.” Serge settled into his piece of patio furniture as a familiar pair of men emerged in rubber boots and crusty jeans.
The locals set down brimming pails. “You fellas havin’ it another try?”
“I never heard the words ‘give up,’” said Serge.
“Good for ya.” Then they noticed the scientific pole sticking out of the ground, along with the rest of the equipment and all the wires. One of them tugged at the end of his beard. “Whatcha fixin’ on doin’?”
“Get ready to witness history.” Serge grabbed the end of the last cable, opened a laptop on his legs and plugged it in.
The locals glanced at each other and grinned—a computer and a lawn chair?—except it wasn’t condescension, but more like amused reaction to watching a likable child do something silly. “So whatcha got cookin’ there with that fancy thang?”
“Might want to stand back,” said Serge.
“It gonna hurt us?”
“No.” Serge tapped the keyboard. “You might damage the product.”
And with that, the ground began to come alive like a deep-toned tuning fork.
Two pairs of rubber boots high-stepped it in reverse. They recognized the sound—just never heard it coming up from beneath. And at such volume. “Lord above! What in the name of creation?”
Serge continued tapping the keyboard. “I downloaded some high-end equalizer software, plus the worm-grunting Internet videos, then enhanced the audio. Behold . . .”
“Jesus, Mary and all the saints!”
The entire forest floor became a living canvas of earthworms. And caterpillars and centipedes and snakes and moles and everything else unmoored from its natural bearings—like during the midday total eclipse that hit the Okeefenokee Swamp straddling the Florida-Georgia line on March 7, 1970. Serge added that last detail. “It was televised. You can look it up.”
“Take your word for it, mister.”
Then came the predators: swarms of birds, and smaller mammals as the food chain went into overdrive.
One of the old grunters pulled a Colt revolver and fired it in the air, scattering the wildlife that threatened Serge’s harvest. “Never thought I’d see so many dad-gum earthworms if I lived to be Methuselah!”
“Your own pails are already full,” said Serge. “So why don’t you grab a couple of ours?”
“You brought up the worms,” said Beard number one.
“They’re rightly yours,” said Beard two.
Serge shook his head. “We’re visitors, and it’s about respect. This is your home.”
“But it’s a national forest open to the public.”
Serge looked over twin appearances that suggested long lives of abiding devotion to the land. He repeated himself with emphasis. “This is your home.”
“Well then, let’s fill ’em on up before the little buggers change their minds.”
“He’s Willard,” said the other, bending down for worms. “I’m Jasper. Hope you fellers worked up an appetite, ’cuz you’re gonna have the best meal south of the Mason when we get back to the ’stead.”
“That’s awfully nice,” said Serge. “But it’s really not necessary.”
“Won’t take no for an answer,” said Willard. “You folks got a thirst for some mountain dew?”
“Not really,” said Serge. “Soda’s just empty calories.”
“Naw!” Jasper laughed. “We’re talkin’ canned heat, John Barleycorn.”
“You mean the classic album by Traffic?” asked Serge.
“Sheet, man, I’m talkin’ moonshine.”
“Hell yeah!” shouted Coleman.
“Down, boy.” Willard hiked his overalls. “I say that one’s got some spring in his paws.”