Richard Lange - Dead Boys - Stories

BIG MIKE INSISTS I TRY ON HIS RING. I TELL HIM THAT’S okay, but he’s a pushy bastard. He bought it in Reno or won it, which makes it lucky or something. I wasn’t listening; the guy’s stories go nowhere. He wears the ring on his pinky, but it slips easily over my thumb. He laughs to see that and piles lox onto a bagel.

“You’re going to miss me,” he says to the waitress.

Upon his retirement next month, I’ll inherit some of his accounts. It’s supposed to be an honor. This deli, for example. I’ll be stopping in once a month for the rest of my life, pushing flatware and dishes and, say, did I mention our special on toothpicks? Unless I screw up, that is. Which happens. Ask any salesman. Buy him a drink. Greek tragedies, man. One word too many, one wayward glance, and we are up shit creek.

The owner slides into our booth. My read is he’s a little skittish coming out of the box. His hand is soaking wet when Mike makes the introduction. I’m cool, though. I don’t grab a napkin or go for my pant leg. He and Mike pick up where they left off last time, and I put it on automatic. Not that I’m missing anything: golf, golf, golf. It’s a gift knowing when to smile or nod or raise my eyebrows without really having to listen, but I worry sometimes that it makes me lazy.

There ’s a movie star at the next table, some second stringer whose name I’ll never recall. My wife’s the one who’s great with that stuff. The waitress gets the giggles pouring him coffee, and he smiles. She must be new in town. The flickering of the overhead light is killing me, the silverware clatters. I don’t like where my mind’s at. A bomb goes off in my stomach, and everything in it climbs back into my throat. I’m thinking about the movie star’s money. With money like that you could hire people — a whole squad of detectives, bounty hunters, hit men.

“What do you say?” Mike asks me, darting his eyes at the owner, then giving me a look like it’s time I jumped in.

“They raped my little sister,” I reply.

“Whoa. Jesus.”

That’s not what I meant to say, but now that it’s out — “Some motherfucker. Last night. Down in San Diego.”

Rule number one is you do not bring real life into the sales environment; it’s not about you. I know that, and I’m sorry, but I am going crazy here.

THE BEE MAN interrupts me while I’m shining shoes. Every pair I own, and all of Liz’s, too, are laid out on the dining room table. I woke up with a wild hair this morning, and I’ve been at it since dawn. My fingers are black with polish. I’m so far gone, the doorbell gives me a heart attack.

The bee man’s name is Zeus. His head is shaved, and he has a lightning bolt tattooed on his scalp, above his right ear.

“They let city employees do that?” I ask as I lead him down the side of the house to the backyard.

“We’re contract workers. We don’t have to wear uniforms either,” he says. That explains the Lakers jersey.

The hive is in the avocado tree. I discovered it last week when I heard buzzing while watering the lawn. The gardener quit, so I’ve been doing all kinds of extra stuff around here. Bees were so thick on the trunk, they looked like one big thing rather than a lot of little ones. They shivered in unison, and their wings caught the sun. I didn’t get too close. We have the killer variety now, up from Mexico. They stung an old guy to death in Riverside last year, and, I think, a dog.

“Whoa,” Zeus says.

“Are they Africanized?”

“Can’t tell. The killers look pretty much like the others, except for they’re more aggressive. I’ll send a few to the lab when I’m done.”

I thought I read in the paper that they relocated the hives to somewhere they’d be useful, but Zeus tells me that’s too much trouble anymore. He has a foam that’ll smother the whole colony, queen and all, in nothing flat. No sooner are these words out of his mouth than a bee lands on his arm and stings him.

“Hijo de puta,” he says as he and I hurry away. “Those bitches are gonna pay for that.”

LIZ IS DRINKING coffee in the breakfast nook. She uses both hands to lift the cup, wincing as it touches her lips. Her eyes are red and puffy. Neither of us slept much last night. It’s been that way since we heard about my sister a few days ago. Guys laugh when I say Liz is my best friend. They think I’m pulling something high and mighty. Only Jesus freaks love their wives.

“Maybe it’s time for a new mattress,” I say.

She yawns and shrugs. “Maybe.”

“The guy’s here to kill the bees.”

“What’s that, lightning on his head?”

I have to eat something, so I scramble a couple of eggs and toast some bread. I smear mayonnaise on the toast and make a sandwich with the eggs. Liz has an apple and a slice of cheese. I get about three bites down before the phone rings.

It’s my sister, Tracy, and she’s crying. In our first conversations following the assault she was all facts and figures. Yes, it was horrible; yes, she was pretty banged up; no, the cops hadn’t caught her attacker; no, there was no need to drive down, she already had a friend staying with her. This morning, though, she’s a wreck. She can’t get two words out without battling a sob.

Her ex-husband is up to no good, she says, using the attack as an excuse to press for temporary custody of their daughters. Her attorney has assured her it’ll never fly, but she’s worried all the same. She keeps apologizing for bothering me, which begins to piss me off. I throw the rest of my sandwich into the trash and pour myself another cup of coffee.

“We’re on our way,” I say.

“It’s hard, all of this. I can handle it, but it’s hard.”

“Shouldn’t take us a couple of hours, depending on traffic.”

After I hang up, I grab the sponge and start washing dishes. It’s one of those days when normal things feel strange. The soap smells bubblegummy, but when I get some in my eye, it hurts like hell. The window over the sink faces the avocado tree, where Zeus, wearing a beekeeper getup now, is spraying with what looks like a fire extinguisher. The hive is soon covered with thick white foam. Liz comes up behind me and yanks on the waistband of my sweats.

“I’ll drive,” she says.

“I saw an actor at Canter’s the other day. Big guy, dark hair. He was in Private Ryan and that Denzel Washington movie. Went out with Heidi Fleiss.”

“Oh, I know. Tom. . Tom. .”

She screws up her face and stares at the ceiling, folding and unfolding the dish towel. The grass is dying out back, even though I have watered and fertilized. A few bees trail after Zeus as he carries the foam dispenser to his truck. One of them veers off and begins bashing its brains out against the kitchen window with a fury that is truly humbling.

THE FREEWAY IS clear until we get into Santa Ana, a few miles past Disneyland, then it locks up. I punch over to the traffic report. Whichever lane Liz chooses stops moving as soon as she weasels her way into it. She keeps humming three notes of a song she has stuck in her head. My mouth goes dry when I spot flashing lights.

“There’s an exit right here,” Liz says.

“I’m okay,” I reply.

Car wrecks twist me all around. My parents died in one ten years ago now, out there in the desert, on their way back from Laughlin. Big rig, head-on, whatnot. It was an awful mess. My sister lost it. She’d just graduated from high school. She was arrested twice for shoplifting in one week. The second conviction got her a month in jail. I intended to visit, but I was working twelve-hour days selling time on an AM oldies station where the general manager told everyone I was gay when he caught me crying at my desk shortly after my parents’ funeral.