The Music of Bees

by Eileen Garvin

  Harry didn’t say anything, but he was thinking that Marty was right. He was nothing special. What kind of life was he going to have with his associate’s degree and living out in the burbs with his parents? The economy was in the toilet, and there was nothing about Harry that would set him apart from the thousands of other unemployed guys his age. So why not do it?

  It was a decision, he understood, after thinking about it all those months in jail, made out of self-loathing. It was careless and hurtful, to his parents certainly, but also to himself. You couldn’t just stop trying. You had to believe in something. And if you didn’t like yourself, how could you expect anyone else to?

  Now Harry looked back at the chaos on Fir Mountain Road. He knew Jake would understand if he could explain it to him. Alice would get it too. Maybe he would be able to tell them sometime. In the meantime, he knew what needed to happen next, and this time his motivation was clear as day. It was love.

  The truck driver, standing with his back to the road and shouting into his cell phone, didn’t notice Harry swing himself up into the cab. He didn’t hear Harry throw the truck into gear. By the time the driver turned around, Harry had gained speed and was heading back up the long hill into town.

  Harry knew this act was a violation of his parole. He understood he would likely end up back in jail, this time for a minimum of two years. Alice and Jake would find out that he was both a liar and a felon. He would break his mother’s heart all over again. But he did it anyway. Harry, who was uncertain about most things in life, who questioned every decision he made and thought of himself as a grade-A dumbass, knew unequivocally that this was the right thing to do just then. Even if it only delayed spraying by a day or two, it would make a statement. Alice and Jake would understand that he had done this thing for them, for the bees, because he could.

  And when he crossed the Hood River Bridge and paid the toll, the attendant didn’t even glance up from her screen as Harold Courtland Stokes III crossed the river and headed up into the great dark woods of the Gifford Pinchot National Forest in a stolen semitruck full of pesticides.

  Far up Highway 141, Harry pulled the big truck into the clearing where his uncle’s trailer once sat. He cut the rumbling engine and rolled down the window. He felt the breeze blow across his face, and his body relaxed. The sweet little hollow was now devoid of trash and broken glass. Gone were the tattered “No Trespassing” signs and bits of pink insulation. No sound of loose siding banging around in the wind. He heard the rush of the whitewater highway running behind the clearing. He heard the keen of an osprey fishing over the river eddy. He leaned his head against the door and looked up at the tall dark trees. He thought of the secret lives of creatures this forest held within its heart. He thought how nice it would be to get down from the truck and disappear into those woods forever.

  How much time passed? He couldn’t say. It felt like a lifetime and it felt like minutes before Harry heard the sound of an approaching vehicle. He looked in the mirror and saw what he’d been waiting for—the sheriff’s Jeep with its flashing blue-and-red lights. He sighed and climbed down out of the truck. His heart felt heavy. His heart felt light. He walked toward his future with his hands held up in surrender.

  * * *

  • • •

  The Hood River County Courthouse was a large, imposing building with neoclassical columns, an ornate façade, and a large mural depicting the harrowing journey of the Oregon Trail—white settlers battling prairie fires, flooded rivers, and snowy mountain passes to reach the verdant, supposedly empty farmlands of Oregon. When first painted in the 1950s, the mural had depicted settlers fighting hostile Native Americans. It had been edited in the 1980s to show members of the Wasco and Wishram tribes welcoming their new white neighbors. That wasn’t the whole truth either, but it leaned in the right direction. Local tribes had been curious and helpful when the first whites came. In return they had been misunderstood, abused, and eventually robbed of their lands.

  The courthouse builders had clearly anticipated a wilder West and had constructed ample jail space in the courthouse basement. The only other time it had been as full was a day in 1942 when the county had jailed local Japanese-American residents before sending them on trains to internment camps around the country. That chapter of local history was not presented in the mural either.

  Jake waited in the courthouse basement with the other men from the incident on Fir Mountain Road. He didn’t know any of them, but it was easy to tell who was who. The guys who had started the fight sat together glowering at the rest of them. Jake sat as far away as he could with the PSU students and a guy named Casey who said he had worked with Alice. Casey sat on his hands, as if trying to keep his khakis from getting dirty.

  “College boy,” one of the older men sneered. His squat nose sat crooked in his face, and his collar was torn.

  Casey paled but then turned back to Jake, his face brightening.

  “I was live-tweeting the protest,” he said, his voice low. “And it was totally blowing up Twitter! We got retweeted by a reporter with the Associated Press out of Los Angeles and Reuters in New York.”

  Casey said his video of the attack on the protesters had been shared by people all over the country before deputies had confiscated his phone and laptop.

  Jake craned his neck around the room. He hadn’t seen Noah, Harry, or Yogi since Ronnie had handed him off to another deputy. The guy didn’t fingerprint Jake or take his picture. He just asked Jake to sign a piece of paper confirming that he had been processed through the county jail for disturbing the peace.

  Jake had refused, his anger bordering on rage. The deputy had hauled him out of his chair and belted him into the front seat of the van, repeating the process in reverse at the jail. Then they bumped him roughly up the stairs into the building. The whole thing felt like an assault.

  “I’m not signing that. I shouldn’t be in here at all. And you banged the shit out of my chair. Plus, your guys left my dog out there.”

  “Suit yourself,” the deputy said, and pushed him down the hall into the cell. Jake yelled that he’d sue for ADA discrimination, but the guy just walked away.

  Jake felt sick thinking of Cheney. He didn’t have a tag on his collar. Maybe Harry, wherever he was, still had him. He couldn’t bear losing Cheney again. He thought of Amri too, who had been in that clusterfuck because he’d invited her. Was she okay?

  The guy who’d sneered at Casey was glaring at him now. He looked Jake up and down and smiled meanly. “Freak,” he spat.

  Jake felt a wildness surge through him. He’d forgotten all about his chair. He’d forgotten to worry that people might be staring. How must he look to this guy: shaved head, Doc Martens, anarchy shirt, and wheelchair. There had been a time he might have cared what a guy like this thought of him. It seemed so preposterous now. He 100 percent did not give a fuck. Yeah, this is me, he thought. He felt his voice in his throat, and it climbed to a shout. He threw his head back and laughed with an unhinged kind of joy. The guy shrank back. He left Jake and Casey alone after that.

  * * *

  • • •

  Alice demanded to use the phone.

  “I want to call my lawyer,” she told the sheriff’s secretary. Denise had herded all the ladies into the courthouse staff room. There were only about twenty of them, and she said it seemed impolite to put them in the basement cells with all the men. Alice knew Denise from 4-H years ago. They hadn’t exactly been friends, but they’d been friendly enough.

  “Come on, Neesie. You can’t just keep us in here all day.”

  Denise shook her head. “Sorry, Alice. You’ll just have to wait for Ron. I don’t know what they are going to do with you all.”

  Alice sat back down with a woman from Riverkeeper named Kate and put an ice pack on her jaw. The college students were all sitting cross-legged on the floor talking about their weekend plans and seemed no more worried than
if they were waiting for the bus. She guessed they had more practice at this sort of thing.

  So much for a peaceful protest. She thought of the big orange truck and its driver. She glanced at the clock on the wall. It was past noon. The truck would have finished Osaka’s orchard by now and probably the next two down the road. Her heart sank. She thought of the guys from the beekeeping association who had showed up for her. And sweet Doug Ransom with his daughter. The Mexican-American Workers Union too—people who picked fruit in the orchards and bore the brunt of injury from the chemicals used. It was like none of them mattered, she thought. Money wins again.

  She thought about her remaining hives. The large-scale use of SupraGro would inevitably poison whatever her foragers brought home. She could try feeding them, though she didn’t think the surplus sugar water would discourage their collecting instinct. Perhaps some might survive the summer regardless. Like her dreams, the bees now faced extinction. She would guard what she had left. It was all she could do.

  * * *

  • • •

  Jake didn’t ask any questions when the deputy called his name and led him out of the basement.

  The door swung shut behind him, and Jake looked for Alice but didn’t see her. The only other person in the lobby was a man Jake had never seen before. He stood and walked toward Jake. He was a trim man with a kind face, shoulder-length hair, and a white shirt and blue tie. He extended his hand.

  “Hi, Jake. I’m Ken Christensen,” he said. “I’m Amri’s dad.”

  They shook hands.

  “It’s nice to meet you, circumstances notwithstanding,” Ken said. He held out a manila envelope.

  “Here’s your phone and wallet,” he said. “They gave them to me at the front.”

  “Thanks,” Jake said. “Is Amri in there?”

  Ken shook his head, and Jake breathed with relief.

  Ken sat down on a bench and pulled out a yellow legal pad. “Did she tell you I was a lawyer?”

  Jake shook his head. “She said you were an old hippy,” he said without thinking.

  Ken laughed, and Jake saw that he had the same dark green eyes as his daughter.

  “I’ll have to give her hell for that,” he said, smiling. “Anyway, Amri called to say her friend had been arrested and might need representation. The intake clerk said you and everyone else were charged with disturbing the peace. Want to tell me what happened?”

  Jake explained about the Watershed Alliance, the sit-in, and the attack from the gang of men.

  Ken’s face grew somber. He jotted notes down as Jake talked.

  “Sounds to me like there’s potential for assault and battery charges,” he said.

  “Alice is the one you really need to talk to,” Jake said. “She probably got arrested too. Otherwise she would have bailed me out by now. Alice Holtzman. I live with her.”

  “I’ll be right back,” Ken said.

  He went back inside and returned a few minutes later with Alice, who looked pleased.

  “Young Amri has rescued us, then? I guess I must have made a great impression on your new friend.”

  Jake felt his face turn red and didn’t speak.

  Outside the courthouse, they found Amri sitting on a bench under a cherry tree exploding with pink blossoms. She held Cheney’s leash loosely, and the big dog was leaning his full weight into her knees like he had known her forever. Amri smiled when she saw Jake, and he felt the world crack wide open.

  “Hi there,” she said, standing.

  “Hey,” Jake said.

  Cheney yawned, wiggled his rump, and shoved his head in Jake’s lap like he’d just seen him five minutes ago.

  “Thanks for taking care of him. And for calling your dad,” he said.

  “Well, Cheney kind of found me in the ruckus,” she said, scratching his ears. “Anyway, that’s what friends are for.”

  Her green eyes shone, and Jake’s heart felt too big for his body.

  Amri sat next to him in the back seat of her dad’s Subaru while Ken talked to Alice about the protest as they drove back to the fairgrounds. Jake was intensely aware of the proximity of his arm to Amri’s arm on the seat. He felt the magnetic force of her nearness like the electric charge that pulled pollen to a honeybee. When the car hit a bump and his arm brushed hers, he felt a jolt run through his body.

  By the time Ken dropped them off at Alice’s pickup, the story was all over the news. Peaceful protesters had been attacked by a vigilante mob in the Hood River South Valley during a sit-in to protest pesticide use on local orchards. By nightfall, thanks to Casey’s live-tweeting, the story had gone viral. Within two days, Stan Hinatsu had fielded calls from reporters in Seattle, Los Angeles, New York, London, Paris, and Berlin. The Hood River story emboldened other small towns around the country to speak out, and within a week, SupraGro was under fierce attack.

  At a gathering the following week at the watershed offices, Jake sat next to Alice and listened to Stan recount how SupraGro, not admitting any formal connection to Fred Paris and his goons, had agreed to pay restitution to the people injured in the attack on Fir Mountain Road. The company also said it was reassessing its contract with Hood River County.

  “It looks like we have made them hit the pause button. You all did this together, folks! You should be damn proud of yourselves,” Stan said.

  Stan shouldered his way through the celebrating throng to Alice and Jake. He smiled at Alice.

  “So. How about that beer at pFriem?”

  And Alice said yes.

  Jake watched them, but he was miles away. He was thinking about how he had pulled himself into the truck while Alice exchanged contact information with Ken. As Ken drove away, Amri rolled down her window, leaned out, and waved at him. Jake waved back, and as the car disappeared over the rise in the road, he felt like his heart had gone with it, leaving his body empty, like a fickle swarm abandoning the hive.

  26

  Bee Day

  Although when bees commence their work in the Spring, they usually give reliable evidence either that all is well, or that ruin lurks within, if their first flight is not noticed, it is sometimes difficult, in the common hives, to get at the truth.

  —L. L. LANGSTROTH

  Jacob Stevenson had the highest exam score in the history of the Oregon State University Master Beekeeper Apprentice Program—125 percent, counting an extra-credit question about queen rearing. Even before it made the program newsletter in April, he was pretty sure about it. Over the fall and winter, he’d done much of the course work online and attended local bee group meetings toward his certification. The day of the test, his mom drove him into the OSU campus in Portland. It was a Saturday in mid-March. The weather was wild—a spring chinook blowing rainbows and spattering showers down the gorge. He watched a squall bluster over the river, and his stomach did somersaults. However, as soon as he started the exam, he felt very calm. He knew this stuff inside and out because it mattered to him. So, although he was pleased to earn a more than perfect score, he was not terribly surprised.

  Of course, the test only accounted for half of the Master Beekeeper certification program. The second half involved forty hours of community service. For this Jake had partnered with a science teacher at May Street Elementary, agreeing to help the third- and fourth-grade classes develop their own hives. Since January, Jake had been teaching them about the life cycle of the honeybee. Using photographs and drawings, he’d explained about the worker bees, the drones, and the queen. He told the kids how bees turned nectar into honey and about the various threats to a healthy hive—varroa mites, wax moths, starvation, and, most important, human-made pesticides.

  As another part of community service, Jake had helped connect local beekeepers with graduate students who were studying the impact of commercial pesticides on honeybees. After the dustup with SupraGro, OSU’s extension office hosted a gr
oup of graduate students on a tour of the valley. Four students had proposed a study to look at the relationship between local orchard production and honeybee populations. Understanding the symbiotic value of the two ecosystems was a silver lining, Jake supposed.

  On this April day, he sat outside May Street Elementary in the butterfly garden where he and the teacher had decided to establish the hives. The garden was part of the new science building, which was state-of-the-art in terms of accessibility inside and on the grounds. Noah had dropped him off and helped him unload the nucs. Jake wanted to drive himself, but his adaptive conversion Subaru, paid for with a sweet grant from the Mobility Resource, wouldn’t be ready for another week. He couldn’t wait to be behind the wheel of his own car.

  His mentor, Chris, had let him practice in his car, a tricked-out Honda Pilot, after Jake had passed his driver’s test. Jake had driven them both to Portland for a meeting with his support group. When he pulled onto the highway and accelerated up to speed, he felt a rush of adrenaline and screamed at the top of his lungs.

  Chris laughed and punched him in the shoulder. “Don’t wreck my ride, little man!” he said.

  He knew he was early, but he was happy to sit in the sunshine and wait for the kids from Ms. Unalitin’s class. He put a hand on both of the wooden nuc boxes he’d brought and felt the quiet vibration of the bees within. Each nuc contained five frames of drawn comb, honeybees, healthy brood, and a big fat queen. They were already a happy family unit, so transferring the frames would be a quiet affair. Jake could show the kids the capped brood, the uncapped larvae, and the eggs on the frames before he transferred them into the newly painted hives. If they had enough time, Jake would have them look for the queen. Most of the kids would be too nervous to handle the frames, but if any wanted to give it a try, he would show them how to work slowly and carefully, just like Alice had taught him last year.