Congratulations! You're a completist. [Introduction]

Monday, May 20
Cuttacaloosa, Louisiana

In the swelter of the swamp -- in the fresh batch of springtime muck just beginning to steam with the accumulated heat of long Louisiana days -- in the roots of the oak and cypress and in very ashen frond of their Spanish-moss beards, in the jeweled red eyes of gators and the million iridescent wings of gnat-swarms that hung like glittering spirits over pool of stagnant water -- in all of these, poison waited to be born. [Toxic Wastrels]