Their song conjures those long hot Kool-aid days of Greenville summers. The ecstatic drone of the cicadas provided the reverb as we splashed, tromped and bushwhacked up creeks, following them across neighborhoods, through back yards, through dim, spooky, spiderweb-draped culverts. If we were lucky we’d come upon a bleached empty-eyed animal skull, peering at us just above the water. Magically, no matter what creek we followed, and we followed dozens, they all led to the Reedy River, a murky, musty, rank body of water like no other, a receptacle of oily, rainbow-colored secretions from God knew where. There was talk of a few mythic carp actually surviving in those wretched waters, but I never saw them. At the end of each day we’d traipse home, filthy, foul and mud-caked, our mothers meeting us at the back door, patting us down for skulls and other unappreciated prizes they insisted be left outside.