HoneyBucket

They’re digging graves behind the roadshow. Three men with worn shovels and off-kilter wide brim hats dig into the red dust. Another man walks along, setting a stone at the top of each of the open pits. 

I take a draw of the cigarette, wet between my lips and blow out a stream of smoke. I watch them sweating as they dig. But I don’t ask why.

Dropping the cigarette on the ground, I put a blue raspberry sucker in my mouth, and bite the stick between my teeth. One of the men notices me and stops digging. I raise a hand and turn away. 

The long line of honey buckets stretches towards the hills, smelling of sweet cleaner and urine, stewed together in the desert heat. I go back to a new cigarette and take a pull, the sucker still between my lips. 

Coils of barbed wire line a cowboy-style wooden fence, part of which is falling over. A handful of horses lay on the barren ground, in the shadow of the old community house, foaming a bit around their teeth. 

The roadshow is on the other side of the house, I figure so nobody can see them digging the graves.

Old cars glint in the sunlight, lining the empty highway with their multi-colored flags. Tables of jewelry and antique decorations are lined up in the shade of the sprawling front porch. People mill back and forth, examining the tables in their hemp cord necklaces, hoping to see one of the old cars in action, moving up and down the desolate road. 

The cracks along my dry knuckles sparkle with fine lines of blood, and I know my teeth are stained yellow and blue. 

I stoop to the ground, drawing up a single strawflower, bright in contrast to my sticky fingers. 

It’d look good in a little mason jar. 

I crush it between my thumb and index finger, letting it fall back into the dirt. A warm breeze cools the sweat on the back of my neck, and carelessly throws a group of tumbleweeds across the cracked pavement of the road. 

I don’t think I’m going to buy anything. But Mel has been trying to find a place like this for all her 37 years, so I wait. 

A woman with butterscotch skin tosses a bag of junk in the back of a red pickup truck, heaves herself into the driver’s seat and slams the door behind her, peeling out onto the highway. 

I cough on the dirt and exhaust lingering behind. 

A stained reader board filled in with chunky black letters reads Sale and underneath it, One for Five Trade. 

Below the reader board is a sign that reads 250 miles to Nothing, NV. 

Part of the paint is peeling off. 

It goes quiet for a bit, the tables too spread out to hear the conversations. Bugs buzz along the roadway, and I can hear the shovels again, pounding, ringing, pounding into the hard dirt. 

“You want to make a trade?” 

A man stands behind me, white hair tinted brown around the edges, his lips cracked and a purplish gray.

I point at the sign. 

“For five free pieces? Nah, I’m okay.” I adjust the sucker in my mouth, and nod towards Mel’s thin figure, draped in blue scarves and bent over a table of silver spoons. “But I bet she would.” 

He smiles, lips parting to show teeth stained green, kinda like mine. 

“You’re an eccentric group aren’t ya?” I ask, gesturing towards the desolate open yard. The people are still moving around, I watch as one blows red dust off a car.

“We pride ourselves in it.” I catch a sour breath. Raising my eyebrows, I light another cigarette and shove it in beside the sucker. 

“Great.” 

He nods again, eyes moving back up to the sign and down along my body. 

A gecko skitters across the ground between my shoes and his bare feet. 

“What’s the trade?” 

“How ‘bout I show ya?” He sniffs, rubbing his thumb across his nose. I notice the lack of color in his eyes, and the small stains around his mouth. 

“Yessir.” I smile and follow as he wanders past the tables, weaving between overflowing piles of metal clocks and watches, vases and candleholders. 

The breeze stops, and the air is thick and hot, still buzzing with insects. Flies swarm around the horses, their tails flicking them off. We turn the corner, wandering back down the line of Honey Buckets. 

He stops suddenly, and points at the men digging the graves. One tosses his shovel down, taking a swig from a brown bottle. 

“You trade something for us to put in there.” He twists his bony finger in the air, licking his lips with a serpentine touch. “Put something in there, we give you somethin’ for free.”

I pull a wad of wrapper out of my pocket, wrapping up the slimy blue sucker and sticking it in the waistband of my pants. I finger the cig in my mouth and rub my chin. 

“So whaddya say little lady, you think your friend would want to make a trade?” 

I blow out a ring of smoke, peering through the mirage to the graves beyond.

 My eyes have gotten worse as I’ve gotten older, Mel says it’s ‘cause I should smoke herbal instead. Vision ain’t a problem for her. 

“So what do you do with ‘em? Bury ‘em alive?” 

“No, no, no. We kill ‘em first. Then we enjoy them, then we bury ‘em.-” He pauses, licking the stained skin around his mouth again, and holding out a hand for a cigarette. 

I hand him one, and watch him light it. 

He takes a long pull before letting it hang between his thin lips. 

He cracks a smile.  

“It’s like the circle of life. So whaddya think.” He picks the cig from mouth, and rolls it around between his fingers. Unwrapping a green apple sucker, he sticks it below his red and yellow tongue.  

“It’s eccentric.” I chuckle, taking another draw.