Buddha Boy
KYLE HAMPTON died today, May 23rd, at 10:25 a.m., from a bee sting. Well, from complications stemming from a bee sting. He was 11 years old and a damn inquisitive little kid. In fact, it’s probably what killed the poor guy.
Kyle had lived in East Tennessee for most of his young life. An orphan from the age of 2, when his parents died in a tragic car accident, he had been in 4 different foster homes since. Most recently, he had been living with Karen and Lee Foster, ironically, in a suburb of Cleveland, TN.
“He was just into everything. His mind went a mile a minute. I mean, Lee and I couldn’t even keep up with him. One second he was asking if they used real plastic in plastic surgery. Next, he was trying to figure out a cure for cancer or a way to stifle the rotten smell in the air around the pulp mill. Kyle was just a real thinker. Too much so, I think.”
Karen spoke to us across a vat of sausage gravy she was preparing in the kitchen of the Rebel Drive-In.
“I was lucky I could get Mel to cover my shift so I could go down to the hospital and identify him, poor little guy. If he had been in school like he was supposed to be, none of this would have happened. He liked to skip. Stay back at the house and study things on his own. Said the teachers couldn‘t teach him anything. I guess today, he just went a little too far.”
Seems young Kyle had captured a large bumblebee and was trying to dissect it’s stinging nodule. Probably to develop a serum to combat the poison.
“Evidently he was highly allergic. We had no idea. The child services people don’t tell us anything. I mean, I feel really bad about all this, but at least we still have Roxanne and Daggett. Besides, it’s not like he was really ours or anything. And things have been kind of tight lately. Money-wise. But Lee and I will both miss Kyle. He was different.”
Already the owner of a bad crew cut and case of adolescent obesity, Kyle was found by the next door neighbor, Kenny Chatham, lying in the row of box bushes that separate their houses.
“He was swollen up to about twice his normal size. Just squatted there in the bushes. I have never seen anything like it. I mean, Kyle was a big kid already, but today, he looked, well, like a little Buddha out there. And there was this whole patch of bees just circling around him. The buzzing. Humming. It was creepy.”
And all this on the highest holy day in Tibetan culture. The birthday of Buddha. The cost of knowledge, once again, trumping life.
Kyle had lived in East Tennessee for most of his young life. An orphan from the age of 2, when his parents died in a tragic car accident, he had been in 4 different foster homes since. Most recently, he had been living with Karen and Lee Foster, ironically, in a suburb of Cleveland, TN.
“He was just into everything. His mind went a mile a minute. I mean, Lee and I couldn’t even keep up with him. One second he was asking if they used real plastic in plastic surgery. Next, he was trying to figure out a cure for cancer or a way to stifle the rotten smell in the air around the pulp mill. Kyle was just a real thinker. Too much so, I think.”
Karen spoke to us across a vat of sausage gravy she was preparing in the kitchen of the Rebel Drive-In.
“I was lucky I could get Mel to cover my shift so I could go down to the hospital and identify him, poor little guy. If he had been in school like he was supposed to be, none of this would have happened. He liked to skip. Stay back at the house and study things on his own. Said the teachers couldn‘t teach him anything. I guess today, he just went a little too far.”
Seems young Kyle had captured a large bumblebee and was trying to dissect it’s stinging nodule. Probably to develop a serum to combat the poison.
“Evidently he was highly allergic. We had no idea. The child services people don’t tell us anything. I mean, I feel really bad about all this, but at least we still have Roxanne and Daggett. Besides, it’s not like he was really ours or anything. And things have been kind of tight lately. Money-wise. But Lee and I will both miss Kyle. He was different.”
Already the owner of a bad crew cut and case of adolescent obesity, Kyle was found by the next door neighbor, Kenny Chatham, lying in the row of box bushes that separate their houses.
“He was swollen up to about twice his normal size. Just squatted there in the bushes. I have never seen anything like it. I mean, Kyle was a big kid already, but today, he looked, well, like a little Buddha out there. And there was this whole patch of bees just circling around him. The buzzing. Humming. It was creepy.”
And all this on the highest holy day in Tibetan culture. The birthday of Buddha. The cost of knowledge, once again, trumping life.
posted by The Passenger at 6:55 PM
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