Bumblebee

“Bumblebee Kevin? Haha. Yeah, he’s a dangerous mother fucker.”

Some dude at Apex

This is the first of hopefully many loosely tied together “chapters” of my “novel” about my time “working” at a company called Apex Logistics. There isn’t much of a coherent plot and I’ve changed the names to protect the innocent or something. Hope you guys enjoy and any feedback is greatly appreciated, even if it is bad feedback!

Bumblebee was a unique, frustrating, and dangerous person. His real name was Kevin, but one of our main manager’s name was also Kevin. This naturally led to some mild confusion and frustration in conversations. Kevin — the first Kevin that is, the dangerous one — would nearly kill someone with a tug or dollies (as a typical day at Apex would entail). So a conversation would go something like this:

“That fucker Kevin. He almost killed me” someone would say.

Another person would say, “Kevin? Manager Kevin? Did you upset him somehow?” (Manager Kevin used to be a fucking Navy Seal. While he was a man of short stature and was middle-aged, everyone collectively knew not to even think of fucking with Manager Kevin if you valued your life even a little bit. Manager Kevin was probably so dangerous, he could kill you without you even being aware of it, which doesn’t sound that bad really.)

“No, the other Kevin.”

“Oh, that Kevin. Yeah, he’s dangerous.”

Kevin, being unique/strange, frustrating, and dangerous was mentioned a lot at Apex. Since loading and unloading airplanes involves heavy and possibly dangerous equipment anyone who is remotely dangerous comes up in conversation a lot. It’s like keeping them at the forefront of your mind somehow made the workplace safer as you’d always be on the lookout for dangerous people. Since we were always talking about Dangerous Kevin (because he was dangerous) and Manager Kevin (because he was a manager), conversations would always be slightly confusing even if context clues did help quite a bit. Did Kevin do something good or managerial? Probably manager Kevin. Did Kevin fuck something up or almost kill someone? Probably Dangerous Kevin.

Kevin also drove a Camaro. An obnoxious yellow Camaro with two hideous black stripes down the center of the car. He apparently really liked Camaros. He wore a Camaro hat to work everyday. He had a Camaro shirt. He was always dressed in yellow and black clothes to augment his hat/car scheme. As I described the car you might be thinking “Hmm, that sounds like the Camaro that was a transformer in that movie.” And you’re right. And that transformer’s name is Bumblebee.

One fateful day, a conversation went like this:

“That fucker Kevin. He almost killed me” someone would say.

And the other person would say “Kevin? Manager Kevin? Did you piss him off or something?”

“No, Bumblebee Kevin.”

“lol Bumblebee Kevin? Haha. Yeah, he’s a dangerous mother fucker.”

And just like that a legend was born. I mean the legend always existed and was well-known as one of the most legitimate job hazards at Apex, but now he had the name of a hero/villain: Bumblebee.

As with all perfect nicknames it turned out to be so obvious and fitting that everyone quietly wondered why it took years to actually discover. Bumblebee. It fit in so many ways. He constantly wore yellow and black which made him appear very bee-like. He was also dangerous; the yellow and black color on bees and wasps are nature’s way of warning other animals that this fucker right here is dangerous. The same was true for the Apex Logistic’s very own Bumblebee species. His car was a transformer named Bumblebee. And when driving a tug he would buzz aimlessly around the ramp, somehow mimicking the complex but randomly-appearing flight paths of the insects that shared his name. If you got too close as he was “buzzing around” you could end up seriously injured as well.

My own first encounter with The Bumbles (as he was sometimes called) was right after I was hired. Me, Butch (the general manager), Kevin (Bumbles), Larry (the Elf Guy), and Nate (some random dude) were standing outside, just standing there doing absolutely nothing. Everyone was talking and I was there listening as I was The New Guy. There were a few moments of silence in between conversations where people just, ya know, stand there and look around aimlessly. Admire the subtle patterns and textures of the concrete. Ponder the wear patterns on your coworkers’ boots. It was in this silence that Kevin looked over at Butch and started a “conversation.”

He said “You never said ‘thank you.’”

Butch didn’t realize he was being talk to as we were just standing there looking around. Finally he noticed and replied with a simple “What?”

“You never said ‘thanks.’” Kevin then does his awkward smile sort of thing. It’s like a smile of someone who knows a joke was made but doesn’t understand it, except he always has this look on his face. There was an awkward silence — while only a few seconds — that seemed to drag on for an extended period of time.

“Thanks? For what?” Butch didn’t seem amused.

“I…I came in and worked extra last night. You never said thanks for me doing that.” He said all of that with a few sporadic stutters all while having that stupid, awkward smile on his face that he permanently seems to have.

“I never said thank you? What the fuck, Kevin? I said thank you like five or six times already. What else do you want me to do, suck your dick or something?” Butch has a way with words by the way. More on that later.

Kevin’s slight stupid smile turn into a real fully-fledged stupid smile. I wondered what the fuck this awkward kid with Camaro hat was all about and once again, little did I fully understand the greatness right in front of me. The myth, the man, the legend: Bumblebee.

Like this story? Read another chapter in the series about Papa Johns Pizza.