Honey

“So when’s something going to happen?”

Tom shrugged at me so I shut my mouth. We waited and watched a little longer and nothing did happen. Katelina lounged against the old oak tree just out of conversation range, rolling cigarettes and smoking like she was completely indifferent to the situation while the rest of us sat on the old wooden fence in the sun and staring at the row of ramshackle wooden boxes in the field.

It was getting warm and it was silent aside from Tom reaching into the esky to grab another tinnie and cracking the thing open with a hiss. Well, silent except for the bugs but we’d long stopped hearing them anymore. So it was just the bugs and the four of us on the fence and Tom with his tinnies and Katelina smoking cigarettes by the tree in her skinny black jeans and her cowboy boots and nothing was happening.

“You know, Kottie absolutely cracked the shits with me when I told her last night,” I said to anyone who would listen.

Steve snorted and shook his head, laughing at me. “You only told her last night? Jeez, no wonder she’s pissed,” he said.

I shrugged. “Yeah, I know. I was just waiting for the right moment. She was all on about the money and how it was such a stupid idea,” I replied. “She went right off about it . . .”

“You told her we were saving the world, right?” Tom said and I wasn’t really sure if he was joking or not.

“Yeah, I told her that,” I said.

“Good,” he said, taking another mouthful of beer and squinting at the boxes. “That’s all she needs to know.”

“I’m not sure she was convinced, though . . .”

Actually, I knew she wasn’t convinced. She’d said as much the night before.

“You know, honey,” she said to me, “I think that has to be the most stupid fucking idea I’ve ever heard.”

Dakota didn’t shout and she didn’t use ’honey’ as a pet name.

“I suppose it was Tom’s idea? And you all just went along with it?” she snapped at me from the other side of the kitchen. She was standing at the other side of the dining table and her face was lit up all yellow from the old retro light shade dangling from the centre of the room. She looked tired and angry.

Sure, it was bad timing on my part but she’d already made plans for the following day for us to go shopping without asking me and that’s when we were all going to drive up to Tom’s dad’s property to get it all set up. I had to tell her.

I sighed. “It was all of us. It was our idea. We all came up with it.”

“But Tom would have started it!” she said.

“No, we all started it.” I had to stick with my guns, regardless of the truth. “You know, we’re saving the world . . .”

“How are you saving the world?” Her eyes narrowed.

“Well, the bees are in decline . . .” I started. “You know, think globally, act locally . . . It’s perfectly logical . . .”

“You were all drunk!”

“But we’re not drunk now, and the way Tom explained it . . .”

I saw her face light up. Sprung. “Did you just say, the way Tom explained it?”

“Like I said, it was all our idea . . .”

“Tom doesn’t have a sense of logic, drunk or sober. Tom only cares about the sound of his own voice. I told you not to fucking listen to him and now you’re going to waste all our money on one of his stupid, fucking . . .”

“Hang on, Kottie, this is my money, might I remind you? This is my venture . . .”

“Brad, honey,” she hissed and I felt myself go cold despite myself, “you promised me that we’d go to Thailand next year!”

“This isn’t my Thailand money! We’ve already paid the deposit and I’ve still got plenty saved up. I mean, when we start seeing returns it won’t matter anyway . . .”

“See! I told you it was just another one of Tom’s money-making schemes and he’s going to rip you all off again. And what about your plans to go back to school next year? Huh? All you’ve been saving up so you can work part-time . . .”

“C’mon, Dakota, that’s not fair. I only said I was thinking about it!”

She crossed her arms and raised her chin, making darker shadows in the yellow of her face. “You know, honey, it’s not like Farmville, did you boys consider that?”

“What?” I couldn’t help laughing at that. “I’ve never played Farmville.”

“Bullshit!”

“Yeah, ok. I played it once to see what the fuss is about but I never said it was going to be like Farmville.”

“Only once?”

“Ok, once or twice, but I haven’t touched it for, like, months. Go on,” I pointed at the laptop through in our dining-room-cum-study, “check and see! My crops and shit will all be dead. You‘ll see!”

“This isn’t about Farmville, Brad. This is about what a stupid idea this is. About what a waste of money this is. I mean, saving the world? What the fuck . . . ?”

She could hiss at me all she wanted to, but I knew, deep down, we really were saving the world. The financial returns we’d get for it were just a bonus; we were actually getting out there and making a difference and we knew that from the start. Tom explained it all perfectly. And yes, we were kind of drunk but not drunk enough that it didn’t make sense the next day. Not drunk enough that we’d forgotten about it like all the other stupid conversations we’d had together for years. Dakota didn’t know what she was talking about. I’d only been with Kottie for a year; I’d been with my mates forever.

It all started on a stinking hot late-summer night. We were all at Troy’s place, sitting on his balcony in the heat drinking beers and Katelina was sitting on the hammock swinging idly in a little black singlet and swigging straight bourbon from a 500ml bottle between cigarettes.

It was nice just sitting there, talking shit with the guys. That was what summer was all about, even before we were all legally allowed to drink and smoke. It was like the old days.

“You know,” Troy said at one point, “this is really, really nice beer. What beer is this, Tom? ’cause this is really, really nice beer . . .”

“Honey beer,” Tom replied. “It’s honey beer. Enjoy it while it lasts.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, it’s honey beer. Made from honey. It’s not going to be around for long.”

“Wait, wait, wait,” Steve said, shaking his head. “I think I’m, you know, missing something here. What are you on about, Tom?”

“Honey,” Tom repeated, the word heavy in the thick night air. “Honey, my friend. A rare commodity, soon enough. I mean, you haven’t heard?” he asked, looking around at all of us; Katelina exhaled a long puff of smoke and shrugged. “The bees are leaving us,” he said finally with a flourish of his hand.

“Oh yeah! I read something about the bee population decreasing the other day. Freaky shit, that is,” Steve added, but I could see Tom was on the brink of one of his grand speeches. “They say that . . .”

“But Steve, it’s not just the bees are decreasing in population,” Tom cut it, “this is not a case of a lessened birth rate or increased mortality rate of our fuzzy little black and yellow friends. No. The bees, my man, are disappearing. And no one knows where they’re going. The bees, they know their power, they know we rely on them to pollinate our plants, our food crops. This is not just about honey, this is about the food security of the world . . .”

“Wait a minute,” I said, knowing full well this was about to get fun, “what are you saying? That the bees are sabotaging us?”

“Not in any malicious way,” Tom responded. “No, the bees sense things are about to get bad: for us, for them, for everything. Global warming, pollution, increasing, unsustainable demand . . . the bees, they can feel this and they want out so they’re just . . . leaving us . . .” he shrugged, his voice tapering off into the sound of the crickets to let the gravity of the statement have its full, dramatic impact. Tom was always the best speaker of us all.

“Kinda like the dolphins?” Steve laughed. “So long, and thanks for all the fish . . .”

“Ah, but the dolphins aren’t really the smart ones: it’s the fish that are leaving us. You honestly think the fish numbers are so depleted because of over-fishing? We’ve been working towards the better management of fish stocks for decades now; the numbers should be increasing, not decreasing. It’s the fish that are leaving us, just like the bees.”

“That’s ok,” Steve shrugged, “we’ll make like the Japs and eat the dolphins then.”

“Yes, Steve, but what do dolphins eat?” Tom asked in response.

“Plankton?” Troy guessed.

“Dumbfuck,” Katelina called from the hammock. “Whales eat plankton. Dolphins eat fish.” She narrowed her black eyes at him, her perfect eyeliner like razor cuts around her lids and for a moment I wished her gaze was trained on me instead despite her withering remark. God, I could remember those eyes, the way they’d roll slightly up and her red lips purse as she reached back to undo her bra . . .

“Oi, Brad,” I heard Tom call, “what do you think?”

“I don’t really think I want to eat dolphin. I mean, if there’s still KFC, who cares?”

“But there is our next problem!” Tom declared as Katelina went back to swinging herself on the hammock. “Let’s think about this: if disappearing bees are decreasing our plant-based foodstock and the fish are leaving our ocean-based foodstock depleted by their absence, what’s next? Which food do we all rely on globally?” He waited for a response, looking around at the rest of us on the balcony. “Well, it’s not beef. A billion-odd Indians aren’t going to touch the stuff and pork, ham and bacon -”

“But Dad! They’re all from the same animal!,” Steve chimed in, “Yes, Lisa, a maaagical animal!”

“ - are out for the Jews and the Muzzies. Lamb is pretty prevalent but not everyone eats it, some people eat goat instead. But poultry? Everyone, pretty much everyone on this great big planet of ours eats chicken or duck or some other kind of fowl. We all eat it. So it makes sense,” Tom declared, “We are, ladies and gentlemen, facing the end of civilisation. We are about to witness the global starvation of the human race. The birds are next.” He pointed his finger in the air for added emphasis but we were all already chewing the point around in our fuzzy, drunken brains.

“What about bird flu?” I suggested.

“Yeah! Bird flu, and there was swine flu as well, and equine flu,” Troy added.

“But who eats horses?” Steve said.

“The Italians eat horse,” Katelina called out. “Used to, anyway.”

“You kidding me? Since when do you walk into an Italian restaurant and order horse lasagne? Horse-lovers pizza? Horse marinara?”

“Horse marinara?” Katelina echoed and grinned and I couldn’t help but laugh.

“What about cow flu?” Troy suggested.

“Well, there was that mad cow disease that went around a while ago when we were in school,” Steve said.

“Ok,” I started, “swine flu, bird flu, mad cow disease, whatever: that’s a disease, that’s not populations of things just disappearing. Doesn’t really fit in with the theory, does it?”

“Brad, my boy,” Tom declared, “you are not as stupid as you look!” That made everyone laugh. Even me. “Ok, so we have a situation where the bees are disappearing, decimating our food-stocks -”

“And our access to honey beer,” Steve added.

“- and our access to honey beer,” Tom nodded, “and the fish are following suit. The chickens aren’t too far behind. Why is this? Why, after all these years are they leaving us? Because . . .” he paused again, “they feel unloved.”

We all burst out laughing again. We couldn’t help it. Even Katelina snorted and chuckled, her red lips twitching as she laughed. But Tom wasn’t insulted. No, Tom was as merry as the rest of us and he waited for the kafuffle to calm down.

“Wait, now hear me out . . .” he said. “Ok, why is organic farming and biodynamic farming or whatever so successful? Why does it work? Because it makes sense? Because it’s not harsh? Well, partially. But it’s because it makes the plants and the animals feel appreciated. Why did ancient hunter-gatherer tribes so revere the very animals they caught and ate? Why did they worship the land that gave them their berries and their root vegetables and whatever? Because they didn’t understand the world around them and filled it with primitive superstition? No. They did it to show their respect. To show that they were thankful. And you know what? The world and the plants and the honeybees and the fish and the chickens and everything, they felt loved. Appreciated. That’s what we don’t have in this world. We just don’t appreciate what goes in our mouths.”

“Well,” I added, “I appreciate this honey beer. And I appreciated the KFC I ate before I came over here.”

“But did you? Really?” Tom asked, now sober and serious. “When you went through the drive-through, did you think about the chickens that had been ground up by hideous crushing machines to create your meal? Or the earth that grew the wheat and the vegetables and whatever other shit you had reprocessed and unrecognisable in your food? You guys laugh, you call this hippy-shit or whatever, but think about it: you can explain it through global warming and chemicals and whatever, but at the end of the day it comes down to the same thing. A lack of respect.”

“Respeck,” Steve echoed and we all fell silent for a while, thinking about it and drinking more honey beer. And I found myself thinking about it, thinking about every mouthful, thinking about what actually went into it. I thought Tom was full of shit but I was still thinking.

“Ok,” I said, “so we’ve lost our respect for food and stuff. Now what do we do?” I looked over at Tom and I saw his eyes start to dance and light up and I knew, I just knew he’d have an answer. That was the great thing about Tom: no matter what the problem, no matter how difficult or dark or insurmountable, Tom would always have a plan. Tom thought of everything.

“It’s simple: we make the bees feel loved again,” he answered with a grin.

“And how do we do that?”

“We start up a bee farm,” he said, with bee-houses“.

“Apiary!” Katalina called out, she was swaying now and her legs were astraddle the hammock.

“That’s right: an apiary. We start up our own farm and we fill it with really nice flowers and stuff that bees really love. And then we add fruit trees and other crops that need pollination and we make the bees feel really cozy. And when we have the bees all good, we add chickens and we treat them all nice too: not too many chickens, just enough, and they can walk around and eat what chickens naturally eat and we’ll only take their eggs and kill and eat them when we need to. The honey and the crops, we’ll have excess and we’ll be able to take it to market but we’ll only have livestock as what’s going to cover us. No excess . . .”

“Soybeans!” Katelina moaned from the hammock, lying back with one arm outstretched and her perfect breasts in profile. Her legs were still astride the hammock and she was slowly, rhythmically swinging herself back and forth. “Fuck eating chickens, we’ll grow soybeans ‘cause they’re awesome protein. Who needs to eat chickens anyway?”

And I hoped that was just her being drunk and not a knock at me. Sure, our break-up two years ago was amicable and our friendship was still as strong as ever, but ideological dietary differences were one of the key breaking points between us . . .

“Ok, Kat, soybeans are good but lets start simple. How many of us have agricultural experience?” Tom asked around and we all shrugged.

“My Grandpa had a couple of goats when I was a kid . . . ?” Steve suggested but Tom shook his head rigorously.

“Ok, so no soybeans, Kat, not yet.”

“Alright,” I asked, “so we’re going to show some love for the bees and maybe or maybe not eat chickens, but where are we going to get this farm from?”

“Well now,” Tom said. His eyes were dancing again. “This is where it gets interesting . . .”

It was simple, Tom explained, and within the week he’d organised to sign over his dad’s hobby farm just out of town. And it was cheap, cheaper once we’d all pitched in our share. Tom found a guy selling his beekeeping gear through the trading post and he’d already set out the plans of where the orchard was going to be and the big greenhouses and the chicken coup. We met up at his place a few days later and he showed us all the sketches he’d already prepared.

“Ok, so the crops are in the greenhouses,” Troy asked, “but how are the bees going to get in? How do they get through the glass?”

“We’ll leave the door open for them during the day,” Tom replied and Troy nodded and smiled.

“Yeah, great idea!”

And I tried to explain that all to Kottie, but she was still angry at me when we went to bed that night, the night I told her.

“This is going to be an absolute disaster,” she snapped, “an absolute fucking disaster.”

“But Dakota, we’re not going to just rock up and be all, Bang! Hey look, we have a farm!” I said as I set the alarm for the morning. She scowled as I set it earlier than usual. “We’re going to take this a bit at a time. We’ll get the bees and the flowers and the fruit trees set up first, little by little. Then, when the bees are happy we’ll get chooks. Imagine having fresh eggs for breakfast, Kottie!”

“Oh, fuck off with your fresh eggs! None of you know what you’re doing.”

“Yeah, we do. Tom’s helped run his dad’s place before - I mean, he knows how to mend fences and that’s, like, half of farming - and whatever we don’t know we’ll just google it. Steve’s brining his iPhone . . .”

“Wait, you are kidding me? Did I just hear right? You boys are pissing in the face of serious agricultural practice and science by googling it on an iPhone?”

“Hang on, it’s not just us boys. Katelina’s in it as well . . .”

Dakota shot up in bed and fixed me with a look like death. “Katelina. Katelina’s involved in all this?”

“Yeah, ‘course she is. And it can’t be a bad idea if Kat’s down with it . . .”

“Katelina. I should have fucking known,” Dakota laughed quietly and shook her head. “Katelina is a fucking headcase!” she shouted. “Katelina has enough money not to care about what happens, this is all a little game for her. She doesn’t care about anything. Anything at all. And you! You! Anything that girl says or does you follow like a little lost puppy dog! Don’t think I haven’t noticed!”

This must have been building up a long time. I’d never heard Kottie shout like that before.

“C’mon, Kottie, please. Please!” I said. I moved to rub her shoulder but she slapped my hand away. “This has got nothing to do with Katelina or what went on before. I mean, we were still at uni then, it was a long time ago, yeah? Dakota,” I said and she sniffed and turned away from me. She was sitting out of bed now and rubbing her bare arms against the cooler night air. “Dakota? Kottie, come on. Look at me, just look at me.” Slowly she turned to face me and I spotted a tear roll down her cheek. “There is nothing between Katelina and me, ok? There was, years ago, when we were still pretty much kids but that was just friends fooling around, ok? Not like us. Not, you know, love,” I lied to her softly and reached out to hold her hand.

“You mean that?” she whimpered.

“Yeah I mean that,” and I pulled her close to me and I really would be lying if I said I didn’t sometimes think of Katelina as we had clumsy make-up sex that I don’t think either of us really felt like.

Afterwards, Kottie sighed and rolled back to her side, muttering, “I’m not convinced. I still think it’s a stupid idea,” but I didn’t care to argue any further. I was too tired. And I had to be up early: I had to go help set up the bee-houses.

And we got the bee-houses set up (Steve had already dubbed one of them the ‘Beehouse of Horror’ and drawn a skull on it) and we planted the five miserable peach trees in the orchard-in-progress. We didn’t know how much fruit trees would cost, so we only could afford five. Katelina wanted cherries but the guy at the nursery said peach trees would be better so we bought them. He might have been ripping us off, but we took him at his word. We were too excited to shop around.

So there we were, the five of us and an esky and five peach trees and a dozen bee-houses, and not a single bee to be seen.

“Hey, Tom,” Troy said, “what if the bees never come? What if they‘re already extinct?”

“Troy, they’re not, but if they were . . . well, this could be a bee museum. We’ll set it up as a shrine to all things bee-like and we’ll charge guests and have a donation tin for some bee-charity that we’ll make up and it’ll still be worth it,“ Tom shrugged. “Or we’ll ignore the bees and just look after chickens.”

“Maybe there’s a bee season?” I suggested. “Maybe they’re not coming because it’s not bee season yet?”

“Maybe there is a bee season,” Tom said absently and jumped off the fence and he kicked an empty beer can across the hard, dry dirt. “Come on, guys. Waiting for bees is boring. Let’s head into town and hit the pub.”

We all jumped down and headed back for our cars by the house, Katelina stubbing out her cigarette with the heel of her boot before falling in with the rest of us.