Beekeeping

“Matty! Get the hell in the car!” Roeper’s rolling up his window, dressed in the beekeeper’s duds he’s been wearing since Scranton. “We gots to GO!”

Met him in Phoenix six months back. Traded a pigmy billy goat to ride shotgun with him on his jaunt across the country. Loaded his Malibu with deli meat, Pop Tarts and orange soda that afternoon before heading east, Billy the Goat in the backseat, chewing through our seatbelts. What was gonna be a two-week trip spiraled into a partnership as we found new ways to make money.

“Liquid Gold.” Roeper makes his case over oats at a truck-stop diner outside Honey Grove, dousing his bowl with the bottle he stole. “Little buzzers are droppin’ like flies, worldwide.” He shakes the empty honey bear over his spoon, winking. “It’s a damn global calamity.”

Next thing I know, we’re trading Billy to a beekeeper in Scranton for his hat, suit, veil, gloves and a smoker.

“You ever done this before?”

“Hell yeah.” Roeper climbs into the coveralls for the first and final time. “Used to poach my neighbor’s near Show Low. Stung me to high hell. Nice to have the suit.” He zips it up and smacks his chest. “Always use protection.”

Now he never sheds the damn thing. Sleeps in it, wears it on every tour in every city, from the White House to Rockefeller, like a goddamn storm trooper.

Comes in handy in the middle of the night. That’s when we get to work. He gives me no warning, just pulls off the shoulder and shakes me awake.

“Matty.” The veil over his face stinks, stained with halitosis. “Here, for good luck.” It’s tradition. Before every heist he feeds me spoonfuls of honey. To be honest, it’s gotten ugly. He puts it down like water.

“That’s enough,” I tell him, “You’re eating our profits.”

“It’s all profit,” he reminds me, honey dripping from his chin.

Out in the night to my left is a sea of white boxes. Hives. I get goosebumps every time, all over my body, every stinger buried in my skin a little antenna broadcasting my fear to the rest of the race. Before we get to it, I bundle up. Flannel on flannel, two pairs of jeans, socks on my hands and a ski mask.

Plan’s always the same. Roeper collects the combs, sprays ’em down and I load ’em up. Fill the backseat, coated in plastic, then he smokes the car before we take off. We harvest at truck stops. Keep the kit in the trunk.

That’s where we find trouble.

Sun wakes us early, glaring hot. Summer’s got the same smell across the country, and here we are, sucking breakfast from our fingers in a campsite outside Tulsa, when we hear it, like a chainsaw leveling the forest, closer and closer. Then darkness.

BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ

Roeper takes off running. “Get the hell in the car!” He’s rolling up the windows. “We gots to GO!”

I trip and hit my head, sticky sweet with blood. Next thing I know I’m overtaken, carried away. High above camp, I look down through the trees. They’re swarming the car, building a hive, reclaiming what’s rightfully theirs.