Prologue:
I wanted to be a beekeeper as far back as I can remember… beekeepers are a different type of breed. In Arizona, where I grew up, they were the absolute coolest man. They lived life on the fucking edge. They got pussy 24/7… I’m talking sixty-two hours a week man. They got tattoos of birds, threw bags of dog shit at the police, over-tipped at Chinese restaurants… they did whatever the FUCK they wanted. They kept bees for christsakes.
Drug-fueled orgies. Candy dishes full of ecstasy, viagra and prilosec. Piles of money. Drunken motorcycle races through Tuscon. Gallons, I mean GALLONS of fresh honey everywhere…. those were the good old days. But that’s all beehind me now….
Chapter 1: Here We Bee Again
I got my first beekeepers outfit the day before my ninth birthday. My old man got it at a garage sale for three bucks. It was the best day of my life. That’s a pretty big deal coming from a guy that’s bungee-jumped off the Space Needle, free-based in the Louvre, and had sex with a woman that looked like Wolverine (not Hugh Jackman… Wolverine).
That outfit. I wore it fucking everywhere: School, the zoo, old man Carruther’s house… EVERYWHERE. I slept in it. I showered in it. I even tricked it out: laser beams stitched into the elbows, scratch-n-sniff zippers, and two custom-made badass patches. The one in the front said: “Who’s in Charge Here?” and the one in the back said “I Bee!”
My parents didn’t want me to have anything to do with beekeeping. In fact, they were dead-set opposed to it. Mostly because their parents died from bee attacks and they knew how dangerous a job it was… and a little because they had hoped I’d follow in my father’s footsteps and sell homemade meth to rodeo clowns. But I had a talent. That much was obvious. By the age of thirteen I was taking care of over 80 colonies in my parent’s backyard. I was harvesting twenty pounds of liquid gold by eighteen. That’s when the money started rolling in… and that’s when things really started to get sweet…