Queen of the Bees

Short Fiction

The notebook paper was folded tightly and stuffed in an old cigar box with a bunch of other junk from my childhood—a N.I. GAS mechanical pencil I found by the gas meter, a small magnifying glass, a rusty skate key, a tiny acorn, four silver dollars, my first pair of glasses from second grade, and a red Swiss Army knife.

I pocketed the knife and unfolded the paper carefully. On it, written in my cramped, childish handwriting, was my name, June B. and a numbered list entitled, “Bee Facts.”

1.????Bumblebees are relatively docile, but they will mount an aggressive attack when provoked.

2.????Bumblebees are capable of stinging their prey repeatedly, unlike honeybees, which die after inflicting one sting.

3.????Ounce for ounce, bee venom is more deadly than cobra venom.

And, my personal favorite:

4.??????Bees fart.

I remember looking this information up at the library so I could drop my newfound knowledge casually into conversations with my Uncle Jimmy. I figured he’d be pretty impressed with my genius. Unfortunately, on account of the “the incident,” as my mom likes to call it, I never got the chance to share my research with him.

Uncle Jimmy’s my mom’s younger, and only, brother. He had been in and out of our lives for as long as I could remember, but the summer of 1972, he came to live with us after he got kicked out of the army. I don’t think my mom necessarily invited him, but he ended up staying most of that summer.

My mom was and still is a nurse, and I think she figured having Jimmy around meant she could take some extra shifts at work. I, on the other hand, had mixed feelings about the arrangement. I had just finished fifth grade and was looking forward to having the summer to myself now that I was 11. Lucky for me, Jimmy was what you’d call a hands-off adult figure—meaning he did his thing and was content to let me do mine. Depending on mom’s work schedule and Jimmy’s carousing schedule, we’d see each other for breakfast or dinner some days, but mostly we just circled in and out of each other’s lives in our drafty little house at the end of McDonald Road.

Even though it’s a small house—just a black-and-white tiled kitchen with one tiny bathroom by the door; a dusty living room filled with mismatched furniture and overflowing bookcases; and two small bedrooms (one yellow, one blue)—we could go days without even seeing each other until bedtime. My favorite feature of the house is a large pass-through closet with a porthole window overlooking the side yard and, further down, the creek and some scrubby apple trees we called the orchard.

The house itself had perpetually peeling white paint, a saggy front porch across the front, and two big old oak trees in the yard that prevented much grass from growing within a 75-yard radius. I used to wonder why anyone would plant oak trees so close together like that, but Jimmy said they were probably planted by a forgetful squirrel about 150 years ago, “and squirrels aren’t known for their botany skills.” He has a point.

After Jimmy came, I gave up my room (the blue one) and slept in that closet between the two bedrooms on a creaky old cot with a nightstand me and Jimmy made out of an old wooden crate. It’s a pretty good nightstand if I do say so myself. I used to keep the adjoining bedroom doors cracked so I could hear mom’s soft snores and smell the cigarettes Jimmy smoked in bed while, like me, he read himself to sleep.

Sometimes, late at night, I could hear Jimmy tossing and mumbling in his sleep. If it went on too long, I’d go in there and touch his face with my finger—just enough to stop him from being restless, but not enough to wake him. One time, though, he sat bolt upright, and I yelped and dropped Mr. B, the old bear I slept with, and dashed back to my cot, my heart pounding so hard I was sure my mom would hear it in the next room. The next morning, Jimmy was already out, and Mr. B was sitting in my chair at the kitchen table.

Although my mom used to nag Jimmy a lot about “getting off his ass and finding a job,” it wasn’t bad having him around. He fixed lots of stuff around the house, including the flat tire on my bike, the washing machine, and the holy roof of our old falling-down garage, where he set up a little repair shop, fixing people’s cars, lawnmowers, dirt bikes—pretty much anything with an engine, Jimmy could get running again. Sometimes people paid him money; mostly they paid him in beer.

This is probably as good a time as any to say that even though he wasn’t much of a role model, my Uncle Jimmy is not a bad person. I’m sure he feels bad about what happened and the fact that I am probably scarred for life or whatever. I think he wanted to be useful, but he was probably what my guidance counselor at school called “unmotivated.”

I will say my mom is still pretty pissed at him, and it’s been five years. She’ll probably talk to him again eventually. Just to be safe, I never told her about the book Jimmy mailed me for Christmas that year. It’s an antique encyclopedia called The ABC and XYZ of Bee Culture by AI Root. It was first published in the 1800s, though mine’s a reprint. Still, it’s pretty cool, and I still look at it sometimes.

The first week of vacation that summer, me and Jimmy were hanging my hammock between the oak trees, and I noticed all these holes in the ground that, it turns out, were bee nests. Like I said, not a lot of grass grows under those trees, but there was enough to hide the nests until you were almost on top of them. Looking more carefully, I could see we were basically surrounded by dozens of fat bumblebees flying in and out of those holes like early-morning subway commuters.

“Now what?!” I moaned. “Where am I going to hang my hammock? I thought bees lived in hives, up in the trees, in the woods.”

“Too much Winnie-the-Pooh,” Jimmy said, lighting a cigarette. “Most bees actually nest in the ground. And these guys, they won’t hurt you unless you bother them. Just be cool.”

Blowing out a stream of smoke, he added that more people get struck by lightning than die of bee stings, and, maybe in an attempt to set my mind at ease (which it didn’t), Jimmy also told me the average adult can withstand about 1,000 bee stings, though a child can be killed by 500. Swell. Given my current proximity to stingers, I figured the next thunderstorm would be my last.

That was the thing about Jimmy—he seemed kind of looserish sometimes, because all he did was putz around in the garage and go out with his friends, but he knew stuff, like how to skin a squirrel, or how to make a grilled cheese over a campfire. He was also full of all this random information. Like the fact that rabbits can’t puke. Or that if you cut the head off a sea slug, it’ll grow a whole new body. And apparently there’s a jellyfish called the Immortal Jellyfish that can transform its cells back to its childhood state. Whatever the childhood state of a jellyfish is. I guess it’s good to have options.

And he was right about the bees. Once I was in the hammock, they pretty much left me alone. I felt like we had a mutual respect for each other, me and those bees. Sometimes, when I dozed off, I’d wake up to find them just sitting on me, like little Lilliputians gloating over their giant. Or when I was reading, one or two of them would circle my head and then land right on my book, or even my hand. I studied their fuzzy faces and marveled at their tiny, iridescent wings that, from a physics standpoint, should not have allowed them to fly at all, let alone swoop around like drunk little stunt pilots. Jimmy said a bee beats its wings over 200 times a second, and they have special flight muscles that allow them to hover or even fly backwards.

Up until “the incident,” I was loving everything about that summer—sleeping late, eating whatever and whenever I wanted, putzing around in the orchard or wading in the creek. Every couple of days, I’d ride my bike to the little library in town and get new books. That summer, my goal was to get through all of The Bobbsey Twins and Happy Hollisters books before I went back to school. I was a little embarrassed to be reading such sappy kids’ books, but I loved escaping into those perfect little worlds where everybody got along and all the big kids were sweet to their sisters. I longed for a best friend like Holly Hollister and a responsible older brother like Burt Bobbsey to be sweet to me.?

Most afternoons, I’d wrap my books and some snacks in an old beach towel, zig zag carefully through my bees, and spend the rest of the day lounging in the hammock, reading, sweating, and occasionally dozing off to the lazy jazz of cicadas and the low hum of bumblebees flying around me, like sentries guarding their queen.

When it was time to go in, I’d ease down out of the hammock and tiptoe carefully through the field of tiny mines until I reached the porch. Then, I know it’s corny, but I always wished them a good night, because everybody should have somebody to say goodnight to, even if it’s just bees.

*******************************************************

“So let’s say you’re dumb enough to stand there and get stung by 1,000 bees,” I said one rare night when we were all eating dinner together. “What happens after you get stung one thousand and one times?”

“Dunno,” Jimmy said, “Maybe you just keel over. You’ll have to ask the guy who volunteered for that study and see how he’s doing.”

“What if you’re allergic?” I countered.

“Oh, then you’re fucked,” he said, patting his pockets for a lighter.

“Jesus, Jimmy! Language,” my mom said swatting him. “Quit saying ‘fuck’ in front of her! She’s 11!”

“It’s OK, mom, I’ve heard worse.”

“From who?” she said, glaring at Jimmy.

“Whom,” Jimmy corrected, shoving back his chair. “Gotta go, poker night…” and he was up and out of the kitchen, the screen door slamming behind him.

“I’m working a double tomorrow,” mom yelled after him, “make sure you’re home!

“I swear to God…” she muttered clearing the plates.

“Mom,” I interrupted her train of thought, which probably had to do with her last nerve and Jimmy not getting off his ass to find a job, “did you know one bumblebee nest can contain more than 400 bees?”

“Fascinating,” she said. “Come help me with the dishes.”

The next day, when my mom was working that double shift at the hospital, Jimmy had some guys over. I didn’t say anything, but I felt my mouth get kind of tight, like my mom’s does when Jimmy smokes in the house, and I wasn’t sure if I should stay and keep an eye on things or stay out of the way. They filled the kitchen with their bulky voices and skunky odor, crowding the table with ashtrays, beer cans, playing cards and poker chips. Someone called me “girlie,” which I hated almost more than the way their dull, hooded eyes raked over and then dismissed me. Except for a greasy, skinny guy in a black Judas Priest T-shirt. He called me honey and said I could bring him luck if I sat on his lap. Yuck.

“Hey! That’s my niece, asshole,” Jimmy said, cuffing him on the back of the head. “Show some respect.”

“Oh, I’ll show her something, but it won’t be respect,” he muttered.

“Fitz thinks he’s still in Nam,” chortled a fat guy in a ball cap. “Got a taste for young ones over there.”

“I’ll give him a taste of my fist if he doesn’t zip it,” Jimmy said shuffling the cards, and the other guys laughed while Fitz sneered and winked at me over his beer.

“Perv!” I spat and stalked out the door, letting it slam behind me. Outside, I noticed Jimmy’s Swiss Army knife stuck blade first into the soft wood of the porch railing and plucked it free. Pausing only for a second, I also stole a beer out of the cooler before picking my way carefully across the yard to the hammock. The bees, only mildly stirred up by my light steps, resumed their regular routines, and we all settled into the rhythm of another lazy late afternoon. I drank the beer quickly, belched, and, more than slightly buzzed, floated in and out of sleep, waking occasionally to the bellowing laughter, whoops, and profanity wafting out the windows and across the yard. I wished my mom would get home, but then again, I was hoping she’d miss what was happening to her kitchen.

A couple of the men left, more came back, and the gravel driveway slowly filled with grimy trucks and growling motorcycles. I could hear bottles clinking and cans being tossed in the hard-packed dirt. The bees, still hard at work, seemed to drift higher and higher, circling and surveying, the pitch of their drone rising, falling, then stopping like a held breath before beginning again.

I must have dozed off again, because I woke suddenly to silence. The sun was almost down, the bees were still. I wrapped the towel around me and turned my head slowly toward the house. My glasses were askew, but I could see lumpy shadows on the porch, grunting and muttering. The fat guy in a baseball hat was bent, puking over the railing. And another skinny shape, standing in a black T-shirt, was swaying slightly and peeing at the bottom of the tilted steps.

I tried to sit up, but too fast, and the hammock tilted crazily, creaking on its ropes and threatening to flip me into the dirt. I yelped and put one foot down, reminding some nearby bees I was still there. The sun was even with the treetops, and tiny wings glinted in the golden light as the bees rose gently, circling me in halfhearted challenge. I froze and held my breath.

“Heeeey, girrrrl,” the man slurred softly, stumbling and turning toward the oaks. “Whatcha doin’ out here? Gotcherself a nice hammmik there to lay on…looks so comfy, got room in there for me?”

He was still holding his crotch, only he wasn’t peeing, he was stroking himself and shuffling toward me. I was trapped in my hammock, frozen in horror and disgust, not knowing but also knowing exactly what was happening.

I thought of Jimmy’s knife, currently unreachable in the back pocket of my cutoffs. Shit.

“Gross! Get out of here you weirdo! Uncle Jimmy! Uncle Jimmy!” I yelled, still struggling to sit up and free the knife. Fitz cackled, pulling and rubbing harder on his crotch. “Jim’s a pussy, ‘din you know that? Fucker’s passed out DRUNK onna floor, owes me hunnert, no, more than hunnert dollars, and Ouch! FUCK! Sonnava BITCH!!”

I watched wide eyed as his oil stained boots scuffed clumsily across one, two, three more ground nests, and the bees rose in waves to confront the afront, stinging his bare arms and neck, swarming his chest and head, rising in furry as he flapped his hands, his ridiculous dick now waving side to side as he flailed and stumbled, stirring up still more nests until the harmonious hum of angry bees melded with his screams and he fell, trapping bees beneath him as still more swarmed over him.

The commotion drew the attention of more drunks who in turn got drawn into the attack when they stumbled outside to see what was happening, and pretty soon the yard was full of screaming idiots, flapping and falling all over themselves, trying to get away from clouds of furious bees. Just about then, my mom pulled up, took one look at the situation, reversed back down the driveway, and drove to a neighbor’s house to call the police.

As for me, I stayed right where I was, in the hammock, wrapped in my towel until everybody left and the dust settled. Jimmy, who was passed out on the kitchen floor, missed all the excitement, but he got hauled away with the rest of them. I think we might have been the only two who didn’t get stung that night.

The next morning, I got up early and ventured outside. The air was heavy, and the light had a green cast as the rising sun met mounting thunderheads. The yard was a mess, full of bottles, beer cans, shirts, mismatched shoes, and…glitter?

No.

It was bees. All around the oak trees and across the yard, I could see the sparkling wings and bright stripes of my bees, their tiny bodies crushed and mutilated, the air still and silent.

“Oh no,” I wailed. “My poor bees.”

I heard my mom push the screen door open behind me just as a white-hot needle of pain seared into my ankle.

“SHIT!!” I yelled as the venom jolted across my foot. I hobbled in a circle, trying to outrun the agony. “FUCKFUCKFUCKINGFUCK!”

“June!” my mom gasped wide eyed from the porch. “Language!”

“Bee,” I panted. “Stung me. Hurts so much!”

“Well come inside, let’s put some ice on it,” she said. “Hurry up.”

Off in the western sky, the dark clouds roiled, and I saw distant lightning.

“I’m so sorry,” I whispered, tears blurring my vision. The thunder rumbled gently, as if in reply. Then, stepping carefully, I limped back to the house, ducking onto the porch as more lightning flashed and the first fat, heavy drops hit the dusty ground like small explosions.?