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b'Episode Notes
All the Busy Bees by David O\'Hanlon
Check out the new scary book at http://UncleHenny.com
Music by Ray Mattis
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Produced by Daniel Wilder
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Transcription:
My father was in a secret society in college. I\\u2019m not sure what good it did him, but that\\u2019s why it\\u2019s a secret, I suppose. After college, he went to work for a retail giant and made COO in just a couple of years. Maybe it worked out pretty well. That kind of meteoric rise doesn\\u2019t facilitate a lot of father-son communication. He still made sure to let me know he cared. His secretary would call to tell me goodnight on his behalf, for example.
I think it was my twelfth birthday when I realized he always called me \\u2018Rugrat\\u2019 because he had forgotten my name years before. The morning commute meant hearing him walk out of the house about the time I got up for school. He worked late every night and usually got home as I was turning off my light. I\\u2019m not even sure I remember what he looked like or if I\\u2019ve just constructed some amalgamation of Sonny Crockett and MacGyver to save on the therapy bill. I decided I wouldn\\u2019t be anything like him when I grew up.
And I\\u2019ve succeeded.\\xa0
My studio apartment was the size of a motel room. The wallpaper didn\\u2019t match anywhere and was peeling like a bad sunburn to reveal festive patches of mold. Other amenities included my neighbor\\u2019s radio\\u2014since the walls were as well built as a gingerbread house\\u2014and a soothing whistle created by the ill-fitting sheet of plexiglass in the cracked frame of my only window. I also had the most social cockroaches in the world. Those little guys snuggled with me in bed and shared my food with the loyalty of a labradoodle and I didn\\u2019t even have to pay my slumlord the four-hundred dollar, non-refundable, pet deposit. That\\u2019s called a win.\\xa0
I watched one of the females dragging an egg sack under the fridge. I wasn\\u2019t even sure how roaches had sex and was in the middle of googling it when the knuckles my hit door. I got up and tried to check the time on the microwave, but it just blinked the same seven seconds it had since I plugged it in. I found it on the curb and it was probably there for good reason. The radiation leaking out reduced the heating bill though, so another small victory for Chuck Beyers.
I opened the door and found a man in a cobalt suit that looked expensive and smelled cheap. He was paused mid-knock and lowered his hand with a sneer.
\\u201cCharles Beyers?\\u201d\\xa0
\\u201cThat\\u2019s me.\\u201d I leaned into the hall and looked both ways.\\xa0
On one end, a kid pissed on skinhead graffiti and down the other I found my geriatric neighbor, Jerry, heating a meth rock in a lightbulb. I looked back at the man and squinted a little. He was tall and lean with a narrow, vespine face. He held a leather briefcase just below a twinkling cufflink.\\xa0
\\u201cHow did you make it up here without getting mugged?\\u201d I asked.
\\u201cYour neighborhood is full of scavengers,\\u201d the man answered calmly.
I pursed my lips and nodded. \\u201cYeah, that\\u2019s kind of the point I was making.\\u201d\\xa0
\\u201cScavengers know to move when the predators come through.\\u201d
There was no bravado when he said it. It was just a cold, hard statement of fact that made my ass pucker and my stomach knot up. He asked to come in, so I showed him to the folding lawn chair that counted as my furniture. He sat his briefcase in the chair and turned to me, his hand disappeared into his jacket and my life flashed before my eyes. It was a disappointing show, to say the least. Then he pulled out an envelope.\\xa0
\\u201cMy name is Richard.\\u201d He wiggled the envelop.
\\u201cFor me?\\u201d
\\u201cNo, Mister Beyers. I just find reading my mail more enjoyable in a stranger\\u2019s shitty apartment.\\u201d He didn\\u2019t even blink, let alone smirk. He just wiggled the envelope again.
I took it gingerly and flopped onto the bed. It felt funny, not like a normal envelop but more like an old dollar bill. It was the kind of envelopes you bought when you ran out of ordinary things to blow money on. At least, I guessed it was since I hadn\\u2019t used an envelope since 2004. Inside was a letter from Arrant Extirpation Solutions.\\xa0
\\u201cWhat is this?\\u201d

It was all in the letter. Dad was the majority shareholder in AES and, when he died the week before, it all became mine. I guess I should\\u2019ve been upset about his passing, but he wasn\\u2019t any less available dead than he had been alive. Still couldn\\u2019t remember his face, just his bushy mustache. No loss. Plenty of gains.
I stepped off the private jet with Richard in tow. A withered old man leaned on a cane a midst a sea of suits.\\xa0
The old man held out a veiny, liver-spotted hand. \\u201cErwin Squire. It\\u2019s a pleasure to make your acquaintance.\\u201d\\xa0 \\xa0
\\u201cLikewise.\\u201d I shook his hand, which was suspiciously cold and moist like a piece of raw chicken. I rubbed my palm on my secondhand jeans. \\u201cThe letter you sent didn\\u2019t say much. I\\u2019ve been asking Richard for more details.\\u201d
\\u201cGood luck with that.\\u201d Erwin\\u2019s rasping laugh made me jump a little. It was like one of the alley cats back home hacking up a steel wool hairball. \\u201cI don\\u2019t employ Richard for his conversational skills. He glares at people and they do what I want. It\\u2019s a more efficient method than asking. You\\u2019ll be riding in the Bentley. I hope it is too your liking. Your father was a picky bastard.\\u201d
\\u201cWe don\\u2019t have to worry about that from him, sir,\\u201d Richard said over my shoulder. \\u201cChuck has no standards. Shall I ride with him?\\u201d
Erwin nodded and swept a hand towards the burgundy car. The driver stepped out and opened the back door as I approached. I hesitated and then slipped inside the car that cost more than my combined lifetime income. The backseat seemed to melt as I leaned against it and I sighed pleasurably.\\xa0
\\u201cDoes it meet your tastes?\\u201d Richard asked as he dropped into the front seat.\\xa0
\\u201cOh yes. It\\u2019s just fine.\\u201d I watched the chauffeur shut my door and slip back behind the steering wheel with the grace of a dancer. \\u201cI\\u2019ve never ridden in a car like this.\\u201d
\\u201cColor me shocked.\\u201d Richard took a pair of gold-rimmed aviators from his jacket and slipped them over his frigid eyes. \\u201cI don\\u2019t want you to get the wrong impression about me, Chuck. For starters, I hate calling you that. Not because it is informal and, thus, unprofessional, but rather because it is the stupidest name ever. I loathe it.\\u201d
\\u201cBlame my father,\\u201d I said with a sympathetic shrug.
\\u201cI do. Moving on, you are now the majority shareholder in AES. This also entitles you to a place on our board of directors and the professional assistance of myself\\u2026 a fact that I find almost as distasteful as your name. I do not like it and I am sure that you will not either.\\u201d
The car pulled away from the airplane and found its place in the convoy leaving the private airfield. Richard turned slightly on his hip to face me.\\xa0
\\u201cYour father was a mean spirited, go-getter. He set his sights on something he wanted,\\u201d he made a finger-gun at me and fired, \\u201cand then he took it. You\\u2019re not that kind of a man.\\u201d
\\u201cIs that a good thing or a bad one?\\u201d
Richard\\u2019s eyebrows raised in though and he turned back around. \\u201cNeither, I suppose. Not every dog can be a fighter, Chuck. Sometimes a mutt\\u2019s only good for a bait dog.\\u201d

I thought about what my sociopathic secretary said over the next forty minutes. I fought the urge to ask when we\\u2019d arrive and just stared out the tinted windows as rural Arkansas passed by with little to offer. I wasn\\u2019t sure what AES did or how my father even learned of the company from his office in Cincinnati. Richard was an odd one too. His terrifying, monotone voice had the slightest hint of an accent\\u2026 maybe Eastern European. Definitely one of those countries Bond villains come from. Then there were the cars and class of Erwin Squire. Thanks to my ex-girlfriend, I had seen enough Toby Keith videos to know these guys didn\\u2019t belong in the trailer-hood.\\xa0
So, what the hell were we doing in Arkansas?
I was somewhere between self-realization and reliving a six-month-old argument with my former boss at Hamburger Hamlet when I noticed the factory in the distance. I watched as the vehicles made the turn in sequence. Fascination is the only word that comes to mind at what I saw next.\\xa0
The cars wove through a series of concrete barriers like the news shows outside of foreign embassies. We approached a twelve-foot high fence and two guards armed heavily enough to give GI Joe a boner immediately after. The car shook as it rolled over a cattle guard that Richard said was for bomb inspections.
We continued down a long path and more of the facility came into view. For the most part, it looked like any factory from the city\\u2014except for the black glass tower rising up from the middle. It wasn\\u2019t a tower in big city terms, but the six stories of shimmering darkness stood out in the flat wasteland of eastern Arkansas the same way the surrounding bean fields would have marred the complexities of beautiful, downtown Cleveland.\\xa0
The cars pulled into designated parking spaces in the lot under the tower like synchronized swimmers. No movement was wasted as each vehicle halted and its crew disembarked to prepare a line of defense all the way to the elevator. Richard personally escorted me there and we waited for Squire to join us. The old man ambled inside, his cane clicking gravely against the imported macassar flooring. I stepped in and then Richard attempted to but was met by the tip of Squire\\u2019s cane squarely over his heart.
\\u201cCecil was a little too hard on the brakes today.\\u201d Squire aimed the walking stick and jabbed the button for the top floor. \\u201cI want that handled and then I want you to join me and Mister Beyers in the board room.\\u201d\\xa0
I wasn\\u2019t sure what to say and just stuffed my hands in my pockets. Something about Squire was more unnerving than the viciousness'