Beware Bees, Bearded Brother

Because hairy creatures have raided their hives since the dawn of creation, honeybees hate hair. The preacher’s face was hairy.

The sign on his car read, “Rev. Thaddeus Isaiah Sichensich, Thunderbolt Of The Deep South,” but we called him Brother Love. His Sunday morning singing and sermonizing radio show, “Don’t Let The Devil Ride,” was more entertaining than enrapturing, and we obliged him when he solicited donations. He wore a white suit, bow tie, stacked heel shoes and a wide straw hat. The huge pewter cross swinging from his neck inscribed an arc just below the scraggly ends of his Old Father Time beard. I tended my bees early, and the sun was a blood-red egg yolk on the horizon when I saw the pious man of the cloth wheeling his long white Lincoln down the driveway.

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“Mornin’, Brother Love,” I said, smoking a hive before extracting honey. “I sho’ enjoyed yo’ program Sunday.” “Bless you, my child, bless you,” he said. Among our sometimes shepherd’s ceaseless salutations were such beatific benefactions as “bless you,” “praise the Lord,” and “amen, brother.” “Hell’s fire” was as far as he went in the other direction, but what happened that day demonstrated his thorough knowledge of vernacular likely to be evoked by that fire. “Harvesting honey, I see,” he said, bending to get a better look as I lifted the hive’s top. “One of our Maker’s bountiful blessings,” he rhapsodized. “Sho’ hope you’ll give me a jar.” Which I’d planned to do ... until I noticed countless squadrons of bees gathering in attack formation, wings vibrating, humming in higher and higher octaves, menacingly drawing themselves up to their fullest extent, as they eyed his holiness’ hirsuteness. “Heavens!” the preacher shrieked, frantically combing bony fingers through scraggly strands. “I do believe one of those little fellows is in my beard! Lawdy mercy! Bunch of ’em’s in my beard, down my shirt, up my britches legs, ooh, ow, #*#*#*#*#*!” The volley of vituperative, venomous vehemence spewing from his mouth as he streaked slapping and swearing toward his car, bee-baubled beard billowing behind, definitely earned him no merits from his Maker that day. Off he flew, cursing and praying simultaneously. The prayers went unanswered as his swarming, buzzing passengers gave their last full measure in Kamikaze suicide stings. Suddenly, the door flew open, and reverend and ride parted ways. Across a cotton field he sprinted as the car eased off in a ditch. “Brother Love, I’m sorry about those bees stinging you,” I said, after pulling the Lincoln back on the road, “Here’s something that’ll make you feel better.” I held out a jar of fresh honey. Sopping with sweat, disgustedly eyeing his ruined shoes and clothes, and fingering the swollen nodules adorning his face, he said, “No, thanks. If I ever wander the wilderness forty years, surviving on honey and locusts like John the Baptist, I’ll just survive on locusts.” From then on, when he visited, I didn’t have to say, “Beware bees, bearded brother.”