“Sure,” I say as I stand.
“I’ll be right back. I need to grab a couple more things. If you would, please strip down to your undergarments.” He stands and walks out of the door in the back of the room. Other than when I came in here and the deputies left, the door by the bed is the only one used.
I head over to the bed and strip down to my jailhouse-provided undergarments. Simple white cotton bra and panties. Nothing fancy or even comfortable, for that matter. As I finish folding my bright orange suit, he walks in with a couple of strange looking tools.
“Hop on up and we’ll strap you down and get started.” I get on the bed as instructed and he starts strapping my arms down to my side in the cuffs I didn’t notice before. He also straps my feet together at the foot of the bed. Odd that now shit is starting to get scary.
“You…you are the Bee Keeper, aren’t you?” My stomach is twisting in so many knots. I’m half afraid of what he’ll say. I feel a tear slip out of my eye as I turn to face him.
“Do you know why they call me that, sweet Angela?” he asks, as he wipes a tear from my temple. It does no good—it’s quickly replaced by a constant stream.
“No,” I attempt to say past the sobs trying to come out softly.
“I keep bees for a hobby. I do love honey straight from the comb, don’t you?” he asks as he hooks an IV into my arm.
“I’ve never had honey before.”
“That’s truly sad, Angela. All children should be able to have honey.” He turns to me and all I can see is a discolored silhouette through the tears that have gathered in my eyes.
“Wha–wha–what are you going to do to me?” I hate asking, I want to appear tough and brave, but I know this is going to be bad.
“In every bee colony, Angela, each worker is assigned a particular job. In the honey bee colony, because their lives are so short, each worker does a different job at different times during their life. The bumble bees, on the other hand, have much longer lives, and because of that, they have one job to do and one job only. Humans, in general, live in a honey bee type colony. That’s okay for the surface, but when we dig a little deeper, we find there is one thing that motivates all that we do. For some, it’s love, either giving, receiving, or sharing. For others, it’s accumulation, whether it’s material possessions, people, or even experiences. But for me, I always seek the truth.”
He turns his back to me, adjusting things on the side table. What, I don’t know, because he’s blocking my view. And though I’m crying because I’m scared, there’s this level of serenity. I’m not fighting my restraints. I’m not pleading and begging. Hell, I’m not even screaming and cursing his very existence. I’m just passively laying here crying because I’m certain that this is going to go horribly wrong.
“Angela,” he says, turning around and crouching so we’re eye level, “I want you to be extremely honest with me in all of your answers. This will go so much easier on you if you are. So, please, for your sake, don’t lie to me.” His hazel eyes search my face a moment more before he stands and turns away.
“Shall we begin?” he asks as he slips on gloves.
“Let’s start with something simple and benign. What’s your full name?”
“What? I gave you this earlier.”
He moves closer to me and a flash catches my eye. Focusing on it, I can see a scalpel in his hand. He makes a shallow slice to my arm, right above my elbow. Blood beads to the surface, creating a red line before welling up enough to cause a small drip. I see this first before the sting sets in. It’s like an exaggerated paper cut, stinging bad enough to make me gasp.
“The fuck man?!?”
Another slice. I struggle now. Not that the pain is excruciating, it’s still just stinging and the urge to rub is more annoying than the actual pain. “What are you doing? What do you want?” Another slice.
“Simply answer my questions. Anything other than the truth to the question will result in another cut, Angela. So, my question was: what’s your full name?” He says all this with patience and quiet regard, as though this is a normal occurrence and he has all the time in the world.
“Angela Michelle Fawkes. Fuck, that stings!”
“Tell me the circumstances of your birth.” He must see the confusion on my face and he holds up his hand to stop me. “I’m asking for knowledge of how you were conceived, how you were born, where you were born, the date, your parents’ names, if there were any complications with the birth or immediately afterward. The typical stories that moms tell their children.”
“She had sex…OW!” He slices my arm again. “What do you want me to say? She never really talked—OUCH, would you stop! As I was saying, she never told me, I just assumed she had sex at a young age and that’s how I came about. Jesus!” Another slice. I look down at my arm to see several bleeding lines, more than I thought.
The words trip out of my mouth as if saying them at a normal rate will cause him to cut into me again. “Um, she never said anything about having problems while pregnant, only that her dad threw her out for being a slut and she stayed with some friends until I was born. It was the county hospital. She said that I was born in the ER because she thought that she had to wait until her water broke, by the time that happened, I was almost here. That was April 12, 1998. It was really late at night or super early. I don’t remember which. My mom’s name was Mary Elizabeth Fawkes at the time. I don’t know who my biological father is. Honestly, I don’t even know if she knew. She said that we were removed from the hospital the next day. She said that she had to walk five blocks to get to her friend’s house.”
“Thank you, Angela. Now, how did your mom die?”
“She had a stroke. She was at work at P3 and she just keeled over.” I keep glancing over to his hand that holds the scalpel, and then shifting to his eyes. They still hold such warmth and compassion, as though we were discussing a bad day at work. How the hell can he stay so cool when he’s cutting into a person willy-nilly?
“P3?”
“Yeah, yanno…” I don’t really want to tell him, it felt like cussing in front of a preacher…just wrong. He should know anyway, there’s only one P3 anywhere, because only in Hartford…—slice—“FUCK! That fucking hur…”—slice—“MOTHERFUCKER!!! Are you enjoying thisssss…” I finish that statement in a hiss because my arm is on fire—wet, but on fire.
“You will learn to answer my questions, Angela. There will be no judgments here, regardless of what you say, as long as you’re honest. That burn is salt water being used to cleanse your cuts. It refreshes your memory that this isn’t meant as a pleasant experience. Now, what is P3?” He’s calm and still seemingly quiet and gentle. It’s starting to frustrate me.
“You know you can just go fuck yourself, Jack! AGHHHH!!!” I scream as he slices two deep wells in my abdomen. He does all this with a little eyebrow raise. At that moment I decide to just not answer him. Fuck him, he can’t cut me if I don’t answer. I can’t lie if I don’t say anything at all.
“Angela, you need to answer the question.”
I glance at him quickly, purse my lips, then turn and look at the generic painting on the wall. He just stands there in silence. A minute passes. Then two.
“If that is how you want to play, Angela, then this is how it will go down. For every minute a question goes unanswered, I’ll add a slice. Once we reach five minutes, I’ll start adding two per minute. I’ll add an extra cut per minute at each five-minute interval.”
And he does.
Each one burning my skin. Each, nothing more than a sting, but collectively my skin starts to feel like it’s burning off. Add in the moments when he washes me down with the salt water, and the stinging becomes this agonizing, frustrating pain.
I try, in vain, to remain mute. I promise myself that I will remain strong and persevere through this. I promise myself that he will not break me. In ten minutes, he has me whimpering. I lose count of time once we get to the twenty-minute mark. At some point, he starts ba
thing me but instead of relief, it feels like my skin is peeling back from my body. He has to be bathing me in lemon juice. By this point, I am sobbing and begging for relief. Words fall from my mouth in such a jumble, I can’t make sense of it. I just know that I’m dying and no one cares. Time eludes me. My teeth are surely cracking from chattering so hard. Distantly, I hear him calling for a small break.
He drapes me in warm things. It’s soothing and killing at the same time. I don’t want the weight of it on me, but it calms my chills. At least I’m not crying anymore. That stopped a while back.
He leans close to me on the bed and offers me a sip of something through a straw.
“Angela, please. Don’t be so stubborn. I just want to get the truth, there’s truth in you that you don’t realize is there. I have to get it out. What’s P3? I truly do not know this place,” he says so quietly near my ear.
“Pete’s Pussy Palace. She was a cocktail waitress. She worked there the whole time that I can remember. Never a dancer, just a server. I don’t remember when she married Jeremy. I barely remember when he left. She married Phillip the year before she died. I was twelve. She started getting sick around that time, which is why he always made sure to cook her meals for her. He seemed like a good guy, except he didn’t want to share his money with her. Her job paid all the bills, which is why we still lived in that shitty apartment.”
“Phillip is Phillip Allen James, correct?” he asks.
“Yes. Mom felt he was the right guy for her. I never thought so.”
“What happened after she died? Meghan put in her notes that you alluded to Phillip raping you. Did he do that?” I can’t bear to look him in the eyes and I pinch my mouth shut. I hadn’t talked about it in years. I don’t want to remember, let alone tell this strange man about it. Talking about it only makes my skin crawl.
“Angela, please don’t do this again. I really don’t want to start this back up.” I look at him then, and his expression is so sincere. Tears leak from my eyes and run down into my hair. The lump in my throat is so great, I can’t speak even though I want to. The last time I’d talked about it was at school and the counselor accused me of doing something to warrant it happening. Jack’s brows pull together in the center and his lips thin. His disappointment is obvious.
He makes a cut between my pinky and ring finger, and my sweaty hands make it an instant inferno that itches like a motherfucker. He makes another one between my ring finger and middle finger. By now, I’m beginning to sob, but it loosens up the knot in my throat.
“Please, Angela. There’s no need to be so stubborn. I’m not judging you. I’m not condemning you for the action of others. I just need to know that when I ask you questions you’ll give me honest answers. And I can’t move on until I know. So, I’m only going to ask you this one more time. Did Phillip Allen James rape you after your mother’s death?”
“Two months,” I croak out, then try to clear my throat. Jack takes pity on me and gives me another sip of water. “Two months after my mom died, Phillip came into my room one night. Maybe he was drinking, maybe he wasn’t. I don’t know. But he came in and told me that I was the woman of the house…” My voice breaks, tight with emotion and pain. “He told me that I needed to please him, so he…he…” Sobs steal the rest of my words, they wrack my whole body. The memories of the disgusting way Phillip touched and used my body wash over me.
“He raped you?” Jack asks simply, and all I can manage is to nod. He sits quietly next to me until I calm down, my sobs turning to sniffles and the occasional hiccup. He doesn’t cut into me for not completely answering his question. For that, I’m grateful.
“Let’s skip ahead to the night that you stole the car. Go through the events as they happened for you. I’ll stop you and ask questions as I need to.” He’s sitting in one of the chairs from the dinette set. He must have pulled it over during my breakdown.
“It was around three weeks or so ago. I was bored and roaming around the club district when I saw one of those luxury sports cars. You know the ones that cost more than most people make in a year? Yeah, one of those…” I let the memory of that day draw me in.
I walk down Church Hill Avenue—funny name for the main street in club district. The street is lit up like Christmas, fairy lights are hanging from trees, and the thumps of the different music can be heard through the buildings. Occasionally, music spills out with people when doors open and partygoers leave one club before staggering to the next. Everyone ignores me, which suits me just fine. I don’t have any place to be, I’m just roaming around because I’m bored.
It isn’t like I have anything in my apartment to entertain me. I sleep on the couch because I don’t have a bed, and I eat on the floor. Some lessons your mom taught you never leave. She always said to never eat in the bed, that the crumbs invite bugs. I could burn my building down and there would still be bugs in the charred mess.
I know the clubs on this street. I’ve partied in most of them. Stolen from a few others. It’s an odd mishmash of high end and low brow down here on Church Hill Avenue. The few that are top dollar are the ones that you have to have the right look to get into. They are the ones without a line. Just drive your car to the curb in front and someone pulls it away for you as someone else holds the door open.
I’ve stolen inside one once. The upstairs bathroom window wasn’t latched very well. At least, that’s my side of the story. The things I saw in there made anything I see on the street calm. Well, except for that time I saw a guy get stabbed in the alley.
I know better than to try to get into one of those places. I also know not to approach any of the people who visit such an establishment, because half of the time, talking to one will result in getting arrested on some bogus charge. But tonight, just sitting in front of P3 is this brand new car. It’s like the love child of a luxury car and a sports car. I hadn’t stolen anything in months. Rarely do I steal for pleasure. Most of the time, it’s something I will sell in order to keep my apartment. But tonight…my fingers itch so bad. Tonight I want to feel the power of such a machine as that in my hands as I drive, pretending I’m someone important.
Stealing it is easier than I imagined it would be. The alarm isn’t set so the door jimmied open without too much fuss. I sink down into the leather, new car smell surrounding me. I reach down under the dash and into the steering column and pull out the wires. Touch the two I need together, and I pull away from the curb without a single glance.
I love the thrill of stealing. The thought that this time could be the time I get caught gets my heart racing and my palms sweaty. But after five minutes or so, I know I’m in the clear. The city lights become fewer and fewer the further from the business district I get until finally, they disappear altogether. After driving around in the suburbs and interstate surrounding Hartford, I drop the car off, about twenty miles from where I picked it up, in Ableton. I’m sure at some point, Ableton was its own city, but now it’s a middle-class suburb. I find a quiet, dark, dead-end street and pull the car halfway down in front of a house. I kill the engine, lock the doors, and start hoofing it toward home. It’s 3 AM, everyone is asleep even if it is Friday night. Most of the schmucks that live down this way work in the factories, and for the past decade or so, they’ve gone into 24/7 production, so I don’t have to worry about getting caught.
I know that leaving it here will result in it getting taken in because no one that lives in this neighborhood can afford this fine piece of machinery. It’s the least I can do for the owner. I might be a thief, but I’m not stealing it, merely borrowing it for a little while, imagining how the other half live. I decide that they live mighty damn sweet.
I walk for several blocks until I get to Montrose Boulevard. Luckily for me, the 6B line is at the stop, so I hop right on and ride the bus for an hour and a half until it gets to Clairmont Avenue, which is only a few blocks from my apartment. By the time I crawl onto my couch to sleep, it is already 5 AM.
“Shit, I was tired, but I ha
d such a great time. Everyone should own a car like that one.”
“So, you steal this expensive car and take it for a joyride? What did you expect to happen when it was discovered?” Jack leans forward in his seat, his elbows on his knees. His eyes are all over my face, constantly moving, constantly assessing. I really doubt I could lie to him and get away with it.
“Honestly? I didn’t think about it. Normally, my thefts are well planned out with contingencies in place. This was purely a spur of the moment thing. Obviously, one I’m regretting with every fiber of my being, but at the time, it was pure joy.” I turn from him; he’s too intense and my soul feels exposed.
“Did you look in the glove compartment or anywhere while you were in the car?”
“No”—he slices my right cheek—“I don’t think so.” I squeeze my eyes shut, I can’t look at the scalpel. In my mind, it’s a bleeding, gory mess with my blood dripping off of it.
“Think harder, Angela.”
He cuts across the mark he just made. The first thing that pops into my head is “hot cross buns” and it gives me a case of the giggles. They bubble out of my mouth before I can stop them. “I think I’ve lost my mind,” I manage to say between giggle fits. He’s moved to the foot of the bed and I feel the cuts he places on the soles of my feet, but I’m beyond caring.
“Angela, you’re not crazy. This is normal behavior.”
Something wet hits these fresh cuts on my feet and if I wasn’t strapped down, I would be jumping up off the table. “JESUS CHRIST! What are you doing, dousing me in vinegar or lemon juice?” I know I’m shrieking but there is excruciating pain in my feet.
Instead of answering me, he starts bathing me from foot to head. My screams are so loud that I’m certain they can be heard in the next state. Before he gets to my face, my voice has gone hoarse from overuse.
He wraps me in the warm blankets again, calling for a small break. This time he leaves the room, through the door by the bed. I don’t know when he comes back, but when I come to, I’m shivering and my teeth are clacking together again. My brain is feeling very fuzzy. It takes me a moment to notice that my blankets are gone and that he’s back, sitting in that chair by my bed.
The Bee Keeper Page 3
