You're not old enough boy. Jesus Christ, you're only ten years old!" my Grandfather hollered at me and maybe he was right. Maybe I wasn't old enough, but I was fifteen, not ten, and I had been watching my father and grandfather hunt Old Joe for seven years and I knew full well (maybe too well) how elusive and dangerous Joe was, and what a cold hearted bastard too. But finally my grandfather warmed up and gave in. I, Little Billy Boy No Longer, was going to get a crack at Old Joe.

Yes, I was frightened, but fear is something that a man—if he is to be great—must chew up and swallow (as one would a steak taco) and heave a hearty belch of defiance into the air and say, "Fear. Ha! I know not of thee."

The morning of the hunt, I awoke early, almost a full our before my Grandpa Fred knocked on my bedroom door. Wake up, Billy Boy," he said. "The early bird gets Old Joe . . . let's go Goddamn it," he mumbled as he headed down the stairs for the kitchen.

I swear I had scarcely eaten a thing all week I was so excited about Old Joe. I had seen Old Joe before this, but only briefly. Old Joe was much too quick to allow anyone to get more than a split second look at him, but I pictured what he would look like face to face; me with my weapon in hand and him, armed only with his dexterity, his cleverness and a mean streak three quarters of a mile long.

Breakfast that morning, I remember, consisted of my grandfather's special buckwheat flapjacks coated with butter and thick maple syrup, golden hashbrowns, crisp fried bacon and scrambled eggs, all drenched in my Grandfather's famous "greezy" gravy.

"Eat up now, Billy Boy," my grandfather said. "You can't expect to face down Old Joe on an empty stomach. By God, he'd rip that empty yella belly a yours to shreds!"

My father nodded in agreement as he surveyed me closely, perhaps questioning the wisdom of letting his only son, yet a boy, take on the sport of men."

"Jesus Christ, Billy Boy," Grandpa Fred bellowed belligerently. "Don't eat so much. You gotta stay hungry. You think Old Joe isn't going to take one look at your overfed yella belly and say: 'Now there's one overfed yella belly!' He'll cut yah in two!"

I rolled my eyes which earned a look of disapproval from my father. He dropped his flapjack-laden fork to his plate and pointed a finger in my direction. "You listen to your Grandpa, Billy," he said. "Do you think he doesn't know what he's talking about?"

I stifled my reply.

"Do you think he hasn't seen what Old Joe can do to a man's spirit?"

"He'll crush yer spirit, boy," Grandpa Fred chimed in. "Look at Boyd Beemis's boy, Bob. He came over here on a mornin' just like this, lookin' to squash Old Joe. Actin' all brave and mighty. By the time Old Joe got through with him, Boyd's boy Bob wished he was dead." Grandpa Fred's face twisted and contorted. "Joe crushed Bob's spirit, boy, and there's nothin' sadder.... goddamnit." His voice trailed off into an incoherent mumble.

Making sure to get a full meal, yet stay hungry is not a task easily accomplished and consequently I went into the bathroom and threw up my breakfast. I didn't vomit just because I was trying to follow my Grandpa Fred's contradictory advice. No, I threw up because I realized for the first time that morning, that I would be the one sent to kill Old Joe.

Grandpa Fred and my father had finished with breakfast and my mother had been called downstairs to clear the table and wash the dishes, which she did gladly, having not yet learned her role in modern society. She was content to take care of her men, her hunters.

"You be careful, Billy," my mother said to me. "You listen to what your father and grandfather tell you. Do you hear me?"

"Yes, ma'am," I answered.

My grandfather pulled me aside. "You been pukin', boy?"

I couldn't deny it.

"Why if Old Joe catches a whiff of your puke breath he's gonna come at you a-huffin' and a-puffin' and he's gonna drill a hole right through your friggin' head!"

My grandfather's face was very red as he said this and I hoped that his time had come.

"Easy, Dad," my mother said. "Save it for Old Joe."

"Ah yes," my grandfather said, calm now and savoring the thought of Old Joe. "You got that bait ready, boy?"

I was proud that I was being trusted to cary the bait, but I was careful not to be over confident. Grandpa Fred said that this would just piss off Old Joe even more. I went tothe cupboard and brought out a pickle jar filled with sugar. The pickles were gone of course, but their dill fragrance still haunted the jar and when mixed with the sweetness of the pure white sugar, you had a concoction that drove Joe absolutely nuts.

"Set out a plate of pickle sugar and you just wait, boy. Old Joe'll be a suckin' and a slurpin' that pickle sugar down faster than you can say, 'Holy Mother a God, there's Old Joe! Now where in the hell did he come from, that no good such and such' . . ."

Grandpa Fred was right. He'd seen it many times before and I would see it too, soon enough.

"Yah ready, Billy?" my father asked me. "I'm sorry—Bill."

"Yes, Daddy, I'm ready," I answered. "I'm sorry—Dad."

This was it. The hunt was about to officially begin. The three of us men, us hunters, headed up the stairs to get Old Joe.

My mother smiled knowingly to herself as she scrubbed and toiled over the pots and pans that Grandpa Fred had mindlessly left for her to scrub and toil over, but such was her lot in life. "Those guys," she chuckled out loud.

We went up the staircase and down the hall past my bedroom. The door to my room was open and I looked in half expecting to see Old Joe in there, perhaps sitting at my desk with my catchers mitt on one of his powerful legs.

"Wanna play catch, Billy Boy?" Joe would've asked.

Instead I saw my room empty of anything menacing, filled only with my possessions and mementos that seemed so childish and insignificant now that I was about to become a man.

"What the hell you lookin' at, boy?" my grandfather asked. "You want that Old Joe should catch you off your guard? And shut up too."

"Billy," my father said, looking hard at me. "Do as your grandfather says, shut up."

I flipped them both off behind their backs.

"Hey Mr. Billson, your wussy son, just gave you the bird," I thought I heard Old Joe say right before he broke off into a fit of violent cackling.

We were at the end of the hallway now. The bathroom was on our right but I dared not use it. Maybe later there would be time, after, you know, Old Joe.

My grandfather lead the way through my father's study to the attic door. My father followed next and then me. Three generations of hunters armed and ready for whatever dangers might come our way.

"You got that bait, boy?" Grandpa Fred asked me. "We're gonna need it."

"No shit," I mumbled under my breath.

"Good boy, Billy," my grandfather commended.

My comment was lost on him, but my father had heard it.

"That's a smart mouth you got there, Bill. You know Grandpa Fred is just trying to look out for you, you know, teach you a couple things about life in the hopes that you won't go through it being such a wuss." He paused. Grandpa Fred had reached the attic door and was heading up the stairs, oblivious to my father's scolding, which I'm sure he would have enjoyed listening to and participating in. "Do you know," continued my father, "what nasty and horrible thing is up there in that attic, Bill?"

"Grandpa Fred?" I asked.

"Beside Grandpa Fred!" my father shouted.

"Old Joe?" was my second guess.

"No shit."

I followed my father up the dark staircase, pickle sugar in one hand and my weapon in the other. When we reached the top of the stairs, Grandpa Fred was already looking around cautiously among the clutter of the attic.

The attic was one big room spanning the length of the house with the slanted walls doubling as a roof running diagonally up to meet a point in the center. My father and grandfather could only really stand up right in the length-wise center of the room. The room was illuminated by morning light shining in from the one window at the far end. "I can feel 'im boys," Grandpa Fred said to us with a gleam in his eye. "Billy, the bait, boy, the bait!"

I knew the importance of my task. Me, Bill Billson, was setting out the bait that would bait Old Joe. After I had filled the cap of the pickle jar with sweet pickle sugar, I set it in a clutter free space in the middle of the attic floor and crouched behind a large empty appliance box to wait.

"I remember," whispered Grandpa Fred, "Old Joe's Pappy, Mean Martin. Whoa, now there was a feisty S.O.B., by God!" Grandpa Fred chuckled reminiscently. "I got that bugger in a box downstairs. He's right fine to look at."

"How about Mad Mabel?" my father suggested, getting caught up in the folklore and legend whose product was the beast that we were here to kill today.

"Mean Mad Mabel! What a cutie—but mean! I got that pretty lil' number hangin' from the rearview mirror of my Gremlin."

It was true, Mad Mabel was hanging from the rear view mirror of Grandpa Fred's hideously ugly Gremlin.

"Marvelous Mean Mad Mabel," Grandpa Fred sighed.

Just then we heard a sound that we were afraid to admit that we heard and were afraid of.

"Grandpa, is that Old Joe?"

"Shut up, Billy Boy, don't you know nuthin'?"

I was beginning to think that maybe I didn't know anything. It was starting to look that way and the last thing I wanted to do was to put the hunt in jeopardy. . . or did I?

"BBBBBBZZZZZZZZZZZ."

It was unmistakable now. That was Old Joe buzzing like a buzz saw or a door buzzer or one of those gag hand buzzers that buzz when pressed against the palm of your hand. It was Old Joe's trademark buzz and it had more Zs in it than the alphabet.

"Did you put that bait out, boy?" Grandpa Fred begged.

"Yes," I whispered, pointing to the cap filled with pickle sugar.

"He's a good boy," my grandfather said to my father. My father nodded in agreement as they both looked at me with such looks of total pride and acceptance that I though I would be sick again, but I did not want to make Old Joe any more mad than he already would be.

"Jesus Christ, will you look at that!" My grandfather cried, pointing to the pickle sugar and fondling his swatter expectantly.

"It's Old Joe," he whispered.

And indeed it was Old Joe, bigger than I had ever dreamed. He sat, fierce and feisty atop his mountain of pickle sugar, rubbing his front legs together. His composite eyes were in a pickle sugar trance. And he was huge, my god, about twice the size of a penny!

"Well, Billy," my father said. "There's Old Joe. Go get 'im."

"Me?" I asked clutching my swatter. "Why me? You two have been tracking Old Joe and his clan for thirty years. He's yours."

"Goddamnit, Billy Boy," Grandpa Fred yelled quietly. "This is your chance to prove yourself."

"Wuss," said Old Joe.

This was my gut-wrenching feeling from that morning coming true. Me, Bill Billson, was being sent in TO KILL OLD JOE.

I slowly crept up to the spot where Old Joe sat, making sure to keep out of his sight. I slithered and slid my way along the dusty attic floor and gradually, after what seemed like five minutes, I was within two feet of him. I glanced down at my watch. It had only taken three minutes, but time has no meaning in the world of the hunter and the hunted, the baiter and the baited, the prey and the guy who stalks the prey: Old Joe and me. I could hear Old Joe buzzing happily as he gorged himself on the pickle sugar that I had given him, almost as a gift, and now I was about to give him another gift; the gift of death. But why wasn't Old Joe moving? Why weren't his insectual instincts telling him to move his bug ass? I raised my swatter into the air not having time to answer such questions. Later, I would know the answer.

"Move, Joe," I thought to myself. Joe did not move. Was he tired of fighting? Was he giving up? This could not be.

"Ahem," I cleared my throat loudly hoping to startle Old Joe.

Nothing. Joe just sat there wolfing down granule after granulated granule.

"Get 'im Goddamnit!" my grandfather shouted.

I had forgotten those idiots were still behind me.

"Strike 'im down, boy!"

"Wuss," said Old Joe.

But how could I do it? Here was this legend, this old folk hero, this old... Joe, whose family had been walking on my family's clean counter tops with their dirty little feet for generations. This vile creature who took pleasure in buzzing abruptly around our bedrooms late at night banging his buzzing body boldly into the glass of closed windows. Maybe he was thinking of a female Joe? A Joette and a little deposit of maggots in the carcass of a dead cat? I don't know.

Kill.

I was gripping my swatter tightly at this point and I was ready to squash that little son of a bitch, but he just would not move.

I wasn't sure why I did what I did next, until later, but I threw my swatter to the ground and made a dash for the attic window.

"No, Billy. Don't do it!" my father shrieked.

"A plague on both your houses!" I shouted as I flung the window wide. "Be free, Joe!"

"Sucker," said Joe as his buzzing quickly disappeared.

Grandpa Fred bellowed angrily, "How could you?" He started to cry. The old man was breaking down.

"Billy," my father looked at me very seriously. I knew he would understand. I knew he would see the justification behind the foolish act I had just committed.'

"Yes, Dad."

"You idiot!"

But I remained defiant. I had done the right thing.

"No, I am not an idiot. Can't you guys see how stupid this is? So what if we had killed Old Joe today or Old Joe had taken a dump on our potato salad tomorrow, there'd still be more like him. We'd still have to eat that potato salad?" I asked of them.

"Could you eat that potato salad?" I begged.

"Why can't we live together and share life and love—insects and men, together. Hell, there's enough potato salad for everybody!" I was excited and proud with what I had just mindlessly blurted out.

"Maybe he's right, Fred," my father said looking down at the ground and then to Grandpa Fred. "Maybe there is enough potato salad. . . for all of us."

"Of course I'm right!" I said as I slammed my hand down on the window sill to emphasize my righteousness.

The sound my hand made as I slammed it down onto the window sill did not sound like the sound of a hand slamming down onto just a window sill. There was another sound that went with it that could best be described as the sound of a hand slamming down on a window sill, right on top of Old Joe. My grandfather and my father looked at me with bulging eyes and gaping mouths as I looked at the palm of my hand. There was Old Joe, squashed flatter than a buckwheat flapjack, in the palm of my hand. He had been sitting on the window sill listening to my speech. He had wanted to be friends, but now it was too late. Now it was too late to save either of our worlds.

I looked down into Old Joe's tiny smashed eyes; "I'm sorry, buddy," I said to him as a tear rolled down my cheek. The tear fell and splattered on the carnage that had once been Old Joe.

"Yeehaa! Good work, Bill," my grandfather shouted. "You squashed his insect ass! Don't wash that hand, boy."

"It's gonna be tough to mount that sucker, Dad," my father had observed on closer inspection of my hand.

"We'll frame the old son of a sea cook," Grandpa Fred suggested.

"Good idea," my father replied, but was distracted suddenly, "Hey, what was that noise?"

I hadn't heard anything. I was numb.

"I'll be damned if that doesn't sound like that old bastard, Jim Jack Cockroach," my Grandfather said. "I'd recognize the sound of those scufflin' little, disease-spreadin' feetsteps anywhere."

---

I don't think I'll ever understand the world of men, even now that I am Big Bill Billson. Man's world is filled with conflict, social unrest and political strife to be sure and the world of insects is no better a place. I knew it, and Joe knew it too. We could have been friends, Old Joe and me. We both wanted it, yearned for it, and we were so close to it we could taste it. As my grandfather and father were basking in the glory of the hunt and dipping their fingers into the blood of Old Joe as ancient tradition requires, I walked over to the jar of pickle sugar. I squatted down and dipped a finger into the sweet pickle sugar and brought it up to my lips . . . and it tasted like . . . pickle sugar, and I knew right then and there that the world of men really does suck and I wanted no part of it.