Fast Eddie, King of the Bees: 1

by Robert Arellano

  The sound of rapid pulse overflowed in my ears. An instant message in full-screen type burst onto the monitor: DC IS SEALED.

  “Well, Eddie, you’ve always known that you’re somebody’s son. Aren’t you dying to see where it is that you come from?” That’s when I got a pinch from Lincoln. Trembling, I held the penny an inch from my iris. On the face, I could make out the levity of a president’s etched determination. It was there in his furrowed forehead, the rakish angle of his bow tie, in the furtive whorls of his goateed chin and scalloped scalp—almost a Mohawk, now that I looked closely. Abraham Lincoln: proto-punk. “Show your cards, make up your mind: a dead-end surge or long-lost find. Choose your move ‘fore I grow old. What’ll it be, E? Flush or fold?”

  With downcurled mouth, Abe seemed to speak, his profile facing East, back towards besieged Dig City; I read his lips: Free the Bees. I touched index finger to mouth in a brief, baffled vigil; somewhere down there back where my body was supposed to lie: the lobster. Her kiss had split my bottom lip. There was blood on my fingertip. All my children were ready to be released.

  “ARE YOU SURE YOU WANT TO DO THIS?”

  I flipped One Cent and hit Enter. The pop of a porcelain starter’s pistol. The feculent flora of fresh ordure. A great, tumbling, gushing tide of sepsis. I trusted that my new eyes, beady, mounted on pedicels, would show me where to go.

  Robert Arellano was born in Summit, New Jersey to Alicia Maria Belt y de Cardenas and Manuel Enrique Maria Ramirez de Arellano. Fast Eddie, King of the Bees is his first print novel. As the alias Bobby Rabyd, Robert Arellano created the Internet’s first interactive novel, Sunshine ‘69, published by Sonicnet in 1996. Experience the digital narrative at sunshine69.com. Robert Arellano lives in Cranston, Rhode Island and teaches hypertext fiction and Cuban studies at Brown University. When touring and recording with Bonny Prince Billy, Robert Arellano uses only Gibson guitars.

  Marek Bennett grew up in Henniker, New Hampshire and studied at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island. His works include the serial sci-fi comic Quasar Blasters and an illustrated history, The Squirrel Wars.