Only the Females Sting

For Shirley Jackson

During the first day of summer and the longest day of the year on June 21, 1974 at Newark High School in Newark, Delaware, the four students found each other on the grounds of the school that remained vacant otherwise. All black graduates, aged eighteen, they had completed the exercises for graduation exactly ten days ago on the football field.

“The Yellow Jacket Buzz wrote a bee-utiful piece about our advancing into the college realm,” Velle Haddon announced.

“Did you just say ‘bee’ as in ‘buzz, buzz, sting, sting?” Carl Clarksboro asked.

“Yes. So?”

“The yellow jacket isn’t a bee. It’s a wasp,” he said matter-of-factly, straightforwardly, bitterly. “And you’re going to New Sweden in the fall….” he said wistfully.

“So what?” Velle Haddon asked. “They’re both yellow and black and only the females sting.”

“Okay but they’re two totally different species,” Clarksboro drove home the point.

“Let’s have a challenge….It’s something I heard our ancestors actually tried decades ago” Sedona Michelle Robertson interjected.

“Whoever can stand the most stings from the yellow jacket hive near the back of the school, they are the winner.”

“I’m allergic. I’d probably die. I’m out,” Velle said.

“Oh, c’mon Velle. It won’t be so bad.” Velle remembered her inhaler had just been filled.

“Alright. I’m in. It’s nothing like the little thrills in life.”

“That’s the idea. You’re going to have to sustain as many stings until you are overwhelmed and actually expire,” Clarksboro mentioned.

“This is sick!” Shouted Tillerson “Till” Bison. “What you’re talking about is murder!”

“Relax, Till. Nobody’s going to know about what went on here. We’re going to just say that whatever happened was an accident or something. You're going to be a creative writing major, you’ll be able to make something up,” Clarksboro explained.

“You won’t run to the cops either, we’ll just say you were an accessory,” Michelle Sedona replied.

Bison looked at Clarksboro and Sedona Michelle. His eyes wild, he stepped towards the both of them.

“Goddamnit, I’m not part of any of this,” he asserted.

Velle moved closer to him.

“It’s okay. We can make this into a summer time ritual. We’ll be able to see who can take the most stings,” Velle said.

“You’re all crazy!” Bison began to run and remembered that Clarksboro had the keys to the car. Bison’s house was about twenty miles away.

“Jesus….” Bison said with great exasperation. “I’ll walk!”

“You won’t!” Sedona Michelle said moving towards him and kissed his mouth.

Bison broke from her embrace. “Alright, fine, but I swear to God if anyone dies out here, the blood won’t be on my hands.”

The four of them ventured to where the hive stood. The massive thing should have been knocked down ages ago, but it remained. The humid evening still had some time for sunlight to seep through the trees.

“Alright. Someone’s gotta touch it. Velle. You look game,” Clarksboro assigned the young woman a possible vicious fate.

Velle picked up a rock and tossed it at the hive. She missed. She then picked up a stick and moved it. A swarm came out of the nest. They surrounded the quartet but none of them sustained any stings.

Sedona Michelle, Velle, Clarksboro, and Bison felt the flying insects crawl all over them. “They’re males. They’re all males!”

“Imagine that….We're about to revive a summer solstice ritual and we come up with an all-guy nest,” Clarksboro retorted.

“But…it’s abnormal,” Bison observed.

“So is being a homosexual, but that’s cool if you swing that way,” Clarksboro replied.

“They should be dead. They need a queen and workers. This is impossible,” Velle noticed.

“Did knowledge just kick in for you? How’d you figure that?” Clarksboro asked.

“I have some learning in me. I just can’t believe we’re not getting stung.”

As the swarm of male yellow jackets circled them, they began to hold hands and sing their alma mater, the buzzing a constant musical noise drumming in their ears, their noses, their mouths….