by David Ryan
The beekeeper had taken the can from him first thing.
They know me, you see, he said. Twenty years. Only been stung twice.
He chuckled. The sun was hot where he stood, the lawn yellow and patchy around them. A comb like dried papery skin hung by the tree and swarmed with them. Their thick yellow stuff was daubed around it.
It looks like a wound, he said. Don't it? Like it's dead and they¹re just flies. I tell you what: You know just as well that ain't true.
The other man lay on the ground underneath the hanging hive, prone and hog-tied with kite string. He saw the stone a couple of feet off in the grass. The grass itched his cheek. The stone was red and wet where it had struck his head. A few dying ones crawled twitching by his face. There were cold-dead ones, too.
The beekeeper probed his foot at the man¹s chin. Look at me, he said. You¹re a stranger. They will get you. They might badly. But the beekeeper did not know this: He had never spent too much time with strangers, only with his bees.
He went over and held his finger to it. He pressed it in. They rubbed loud. See what I mean? he said. He circled the prone man, then went back into the shack.
***
In the kitchen, he turned the gas flame on under a pot of water and waited. He looked out the window and saw the man¹s legs hitching back and forth, his arc of tied limbs twisting, the arc falling to one side. He could see the man's face now, his neck pounding the side of his forehead into the grass. His mouth was opened wide and his teeth, even from the distance, were yellow and clear. They seemed larger than the beekeeper knew they were; they seemed like horse's teeth.
He took his time tidying up the room, and when the kettle boiled in the kitchen, he poured the hot water into a mug. The water bloated the bag inside, thin string dangling over the lip down to a yellow tab stapled at the end. He took a spoon and pushed the air from the bag. He smeared a small ant by the sugar jar, then worked it from his thumb. The window was steamed and he wiped his hand across it, creating a swipe of vision where the prone man was clarified and disintegrated by the exchanges between the print of his hand and the steam and in this window the prone man was not a man at all, but a torso, a smear, a neck, stripes of face.
The beekeeper got out the suit. He had not worn it in years. He put the meshed hood on, then the jacket, then the pants. He used the spoon to take the bag out of the mug and wrapped the string around and strangled black tea from it. Then he put on the gloves and went out.
Now how¹d you like I did it to you? he shouted from the back porch. He waved. He crossed the lawn and knelt by the prone man¹s head. Three welts were already raised on his chin and cheek, each with a white aureole, a thick hair-like proboscis still centered in the one beneath his eye.
The beekeeper shook the can, leaned over and sprayed it close to the man¹s face and scalp so as to avoid the bees.
How'd you like it? he repeated.
The bees, agitated, rubbed loud.
The beekeeper sprayed until the can sputtered and was used up. The prone man¹s cheeks and eyes and lips and wound were wet with it. The beekeeper picked the stone up from the lawn. He stood back and threw it at the hive. He walked to the porch, leaving the stranger coughing on the lawn.
It went on like this for days.
______
David Ryan
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