The Humming of Bees

by Cath Barton

I ain’t never been in a gambling place before, honest. I’ve walked past that place down the High Street so many times and never even thought about it, I don’t even know its name, but then today I’m hanging out with my friend Shirl and she ups and says we should go there. 

“Okay”, I says, “you go but I ain’t going, ‘cos what’s the point of wasting your money like that”, and she says I’m chicken, and I’m not having none of that from her, so I goes in after her.

And she walks up to this one-armed bandit and starts pushing in the money and heaving on the handle and I just stands there with my mouth open and I was never going to do it, honest, but all of a sudden the money just starts flooding out of the thing and I’m like “What!” and I know I have to do it too.

I start slow, and the machine’s  kind of humming like bees, but then it gets louder and faster and it’s like when you put the needle in, nice and gentle and then you get the buzz only there ain’t no money flooding out for me and Shirl’s running out of the place screaming and I’m there on my own with no money left in my pockets.

That’s when this lad comes up to me. “What’s up doll?” he says, and I’m not wanting nothing to do with him but he’s saying stuff I can’t hear properly and I’m saying “What?” and he’s walking out the door. He turns and he kind of winks and I gets up and follows him and I dunno where we’re going but I need a drink, I need a drink badly, so I follow him ‘cos what else am I going to do and sure enough he goes in a shop and he’s buying cans and, I can’t help myself, I’m grabbing one from him and I’m gulping down the beer and next thing it must be later ‘cos I’m lying on a bed next to this huge poster of some boy-band ...

... I’m hearing the humming of bees again and I shakes my head about ‘cos maybe it’s this tinni something come on in my ears like my Dad gets. Then the lad’s there and he’s putting his arm round me and I push at him, but only a bit, and he’s sort of stroking my hair and I’m liking it, only no way am I going to tell him.

“What is it doll?” he’s saying and I’m shaking my head to get the bees out and I don’t feel good and I’m running to the loo, ‘cos I do have some self-respect. That’s what Marnie talks about, Self Respect, like it’s in big letters, only then she starts on about God and I ain’t going there.

Any road, the lad and me, well, we get talking and he tells me his name’s Craig and he gets some tea, it’s nice, and he says he can get some stuff but we got to go down that gambling place again to get some cash.  So we set off only I see my Dad coming down the road and the humming’s happening in my ears, and it’s buzzing bad and Dad’s yelling and he’s yanking at my arm and Craig ain’t there no more and I wish I’d never gone in that place with Shirl.

I just wish.

Cath Barton is a singer, writer and photographer from Wales.  Her stories have been published here and there, notably in “Fractured West”, “Short,Fast,and Deadly” and the anthologies “100 Stories for Queensland” and “Eighty Nine”.