Rant: The Oral History of Buster Casey

she got sick. The viewing, with all of them dressed up and so somber, it looked like her junior prom. But no one was dancing. Or smiling. Or laughing. Everyone gloomy and dressed in black…

Okay, it looked exactly like her junior prom.

11–The Bees

Echo Lawrence (Party Crasher): Get this. Independence Day, one year, the whole Casey clan goes out for a picnic. A barbecue with marshmallows and seared animal flesh. All the aunts and uncles, all the cousins, an acre of Caseys sprawled on blankets or folding lawn chairs, eating corn. Everybody hugging everybody, shaking hands.

Even al fresco, the generation that controls everything, that owns it all, the adults sit at a picnic table. Everyone else, in the dirt. The adults a little shuffled since Esther and Hattie and Bel died, but mostly the same.

That sunny day, first one bee, then another, buzzed the adult table. The old grannies waved them away. Then the table was covered. The adults were coated in bees.

Sheriff Bacon Carlyle (Childhood Enemy): The county medical examiner was asking: Did any of the deceased handle bees lately? He's wanting to be told: Did any of them work with beehives? Something he called 'swarm attractant' would explain the attack.

From the Field Notes of Green Taylor Simms (Historian): Nasonov pheromones. A plastic vial the size of your little finger exudes the bee attractant equivalent to five thousand honeybees fanning and scenting the air. Apis mellifera, the common honeybee, follows the scent and seeks out any cracks or openings in which to create a new hive.

Swatting at these bees will prompt them to exude the «alert» pheromone, which attracts additional bees to attack. Because their primary predators are bears, the attacking bees focus on the eyes, nose, and open mouth of the aggressor—any feature that occurs as a dark opening, including the ears, the bees will swarm. Any carbon dioxide the victim exhales will make the attacking bees more aggressive.

Swarm attractant itself has a pleasant, faint citrus smell. Almost undetectable to humans. Because nasonov pheromones are so potent, the preferred method of storage is to place the plastic vial inside a sealed glass jar, then secure the sealed jar inside a deep-freeze.

Shot Dunyun (Party Crasher): It was like a cloud blotting out the sun, a big black fucking storm. Humming. In the middle of a nice sunny day, it starts to rain. But instead of water, it's raining bee stings. No shit. It's pouring down sheer pain.

Echo Lawrence: People were running for their cars, screaming until their mouths were filled with bees, choking on bees, stung and smothered to death. By the time the county vector control could intervene, Rant's Uncle Clem was dead. So were his Aunt Patty and Uncle Cleatus. His Uncle Walt died in the hospital.

Shot Dunyun: The FBI shitheads who asked about Party Crash nights, after Rant died, those agents loved the bee story. They couldn't take notes fast enough.

Echo Lawrence: Relax. Nobody called it murder. Not yet.

Shot Dunyun: How weird is that? It was like something from the Old Testament: the Killer Bee Picnic, the Mouse Shit Attack, the Plague of Fleas, and the Deadly Spider Hat. The next Thanksgiving dinner, with seven oldsters dead, the rest of that generation stayed home. The oldest Caseys turned over the adult table to their middle-aged kids. Siege ended. Baton passed.

12–The Food

Echo Lawrence (Party Crasher): To make time stand still— what sand mandalas are to Buddhist monks and embroidery is to Irene Casey—eating pussy was to Rant. He used to wedge his face between my legs and slip his tongue into me. He'd come up on his elbows, smacking his lips, his chin dripping, and Rant would say, 'You ate something with cinnamon for breakfast…' He'd lick his lips and roll his eyes, saying, 'Not French toast…something else.' Rant would snort and gobble, then come up with his eyes shining, saying, 'For breakfast, you drank a cup of Constant Comment tea. That's the cinnamon.'

From just the smell and taste of me, he'd nail my whole day: tea, whole-wheat toast without butter, plain yogurt, blueberries, a tempeh sandwich, one avocado, a glass of orange juice, and a beet salad.

'And you had an order of fast-food onion rings,' he'd say, and smack his lips. 'A large order.'

I called him 'the Pussy Psychic.'

Bodie Carlyle (Childhood Friend): In the time it took most folks to sit around a table, say a blessing, pass their food, and eat it, eat a second helping, help themselves to pie and coffee, then drink another cup of coffee and start to clear the dishes, in that same stretch of time, the Casey family might take only one bite. One bite of meatloaf or tuna casserole, and still be chewing it. Not just eating slow, but not talking, not reading books or watching television. Their whole attention was inside their mouth, chewing, tasting, feeling.

Echo Lawrence: Get real. Most guys are keeping score with every lap of their tongue. Every time they come up for air, they're clocking your pleasure. And, lick for lick, you know this had better balance out with the pleasure you give them back. So, lick after lick, you never can relax and get off, not when you know that meter is always running. Every lick an investment in getting licked back.

Even guys who hate bookkeeping and doing their taxes, guys who could only shrug if you asked their savings-account or credit-card balance, they'll compute the exact number of laps their tongue's done around your snatch. And the payback they have coming. The sexual equivalent of clock watchers or bean counters.

That's every guy—except Rant Casey. He'd stick his tongue into you and years could pass. Mountains erode.

Edna Perry (Childhood Neighbor): Christmas dinner in England, when you find a clove in your food, it means you're a villain. Automatic. If you find a little stick of a twig, you're the idiot. No arguing. And if you bite into something and find a rag of cloth fabric, folks will know you're a slut. Imagine that, being branded a slut, right there at Christmas dinner, but Irene Casey swears she read this in a book.

Echo Lawrence: One time, face planted between my legs, Rant surfaced for air, picked a pubic hair off his tongue, and said, 'What happened today? Something bad happened…'

I told him to forget it.

He licked me and rolled his eyes, licked again, and said, 'A parking ticket? No, something worse…'

I told him to forget it. I said nothing had happened.