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Two men sitting at a bar.
HAROLD
When I spoke to my guy in Arizona, he said you were the man, the man. Never saw a man so determined and fearless. That’s what he said. Like you had some sort of vendetta against bees. And I asked myself, “What would make a man have a vendetta against bees?”
BEE BOUNTY HUNTER slams shot glass down on bar. HAROLD jumps.
BEE BOUNTY HUNTER
Bees took everything I owned.
Following the pictures, the hook was easy to make, but the string was hard to find and I had to make my pole out of a skinny pipe instead of flexible wood. I dug my fingers in the dirt of the park for worms. Other squatters steered clear of me, disgusted looks on their faces. I stabbed the worms through their bellies, twisted them back on themselves and the stabbed them again, to be sure they would stay on the hook.
“That was cute, Typo.” Eek whispered in my ear. “You got all jealous.”
Immediately I stiffened, hunched up my shoulders, and lifted my head up with all the strength of pride I could muster. “I did not get jealous!” That wasn’t a lie, you know. I wasn’t jealous of Eek’s popularity, or how children remarked how ‘cool’ that ethereal axe in her translucent head was, or how ‘wicked’ the smoky drops of blood wafting from where the weapon splintered the skull, or how I had to wait in the Train Station–absorbing smells from sweaty travelers even as they avoided me as if I had been carrying a plague–while she played and joked around with kids who adored her. Why would I be envious of someone who did not constantly have to feel pain despite being more dead than I am? They adored her because despite being most definitely not alive, she was also most definitely full of life.
For my part, no wounds technically marred me. Yet my ‘birthmarks’, the tears through my flesh, also oozed constantly. Unlike Eek, I felt the pain. Unlike Eek, the blood did not drift into nothing. It stuck to me as a constant reminder of my fate.
Why would I be jealous of someone who was better than me in every way? Ridiculous.
Eek swooped around in front of me and smiled hugely at me, “But I’m jealous of you. You’ve been dealt a bad hand but you always work so hard and you helped a lot of other people in bad circumstances.”
Well, zombies anyway. I fixed my eyes on Eek’s and told her that that was a load of monkey dung.
But Eek had one last gambit: The pout. Her eyes, despite their immaterial nature, seemed to water. Her body, despite not truly having one, quivered. She clasped her hands together and stared sadly into my eyes until I cracked a smile.
“But thank you anyway,” I relented and with a whoop Eek swooped around me one more time and flew ahead into the city.
THAT PONY FOR SALE: IS IT WORTH AS MUCH AS MY DEAD GRANDMOTHER?
Dear bird will you hold me in your square bracket arms before running across I-198 blaming your ancestors, before dinner is ready. This skin you gift me—it’s beautiful. This song that left you is full of light. The war is over. We can eat off deluxe paper plates again. Next week Korean tongue twisters. This week calming music and perpetual miscommunication—soft goals for old dreams. Our ancestors too were snoring, making room for children here, stringing up their prescription-strength prayers with pale afternoons spent walking up the mountain, gathering fragile grasses in their hearts. Listen bird, I can be patient. Pray you weave me a hearth from the center of your sleep. The island of trash in the ocean can wait. This molten hold on stale things, their comforts, their first cousins, murmuring promises to the night grasses about being tall thistles and net-productive. Dear bird I watched you run across the road. Your fitted fear, your spotted tail.
