bee charmer

dana.

equal parts bewitched and bedevilled.

a three alarm fire doubling as a six car pile up.

they ask, "why do good girls like bad boys?" but good girls like bad girls, too.

there is freedom and wind, and a dark oily undercurrent in a friendship with a haunted bee charmer.

she bent down on a knee to throw her arms around kato's neck. struggling a little against her pregnant teenage belly. her skirt too short. her liner too heavy. she was still the prettiest hard girl i knew.

her arms encircled his furry neck, her face moved in for the inevitable lick. the one he's given her since we were tiny girls.

his jaws opened too wide for a kiss, canines flashing...

my mind either ratcheted down to a gear drowned in honey or whirred like a hummingbird. either way, in that nanosecond before everything changed, i saw-

the new years eve five years earlier when kato was our babysitter. my dad and her big sister left us in his care. we made a party for them, as a surprise, sandwiches and crepe paper and triscuits with spray cheese. but they came home coked up and keyed up and pissed about the mess. dana thought it was funny but i was heartbroken.

the thanksgiving dana sneaked me a whole cherry pie because my dad wouldn't let me eat. we hid in her room, ate the whole thing, then made recordings of ourselves as a spinal tap style british rock band named 'voltage'. our hit single was 'grab one, down one, get yourself around one.'

the christmas her dad caught us breaking into the basement window, drunk at 3am. dana, defiant. her dad, a bitter drunk, fourteen years sober notwithstanding. her dad, an aspirin swallowed dry. he pulled her by the hair and sunk a cowboy boot into her ass. she laughed. she willed herself to laugh.

my ears kicked back in before my brain. dana's boyfriend screaming. she, down on both knees now, covering her blood soaked face.

i put an arm around her "you okay?"

she swats it away. "get me a paper towel."

sweet unlucky bedevilled girl. a paper towel against all that destruction? i don't think so.

on the rush to the hospital, all she said was, "don't put kato to sleep."

but we did.

and she never fully forgave us.