Calamine Butter

I rubbed honeysuckles all over myself, my body and legs and arms and face, thinking that it’d attract bees. Bees don’t know the difference between a human being rubbed with honeysuckle and real honeysuckle, so it wasn’t such a great idea at the time, anytime really. I learned pretty quick that there aren’t no shortcuts in life, and even if there were I’d be the last to find one. Butter and this pinkish stuff by the name of Calamine lotion is what’re suppose to put on a bee sting, to help with the healing process and stop scabs from breaking out all over, and the itching, that can drive you round the bend, back sometimes, too. My grandmamma used to rub Calamine and butter onto my arms and face, on account as they were the most often places I got stung. She was always saying ‘hold still’ and ‘stop fidgeting, will you?’ whenever she had to salve me up after I got stung by bees, mostly when they didn’t stay put in the peanut butter jar or slid out, out from under the lid. Now that I think back on it maybe I should have read up some on bees in the National geographic instead of making crazy eyes at the deaf girl and eating jaw-breakers and black-balls, which I did lots of when I wasn’t firing off matches or rubbing our dog’s head real soft but fast underneath the porch stoop when it rained real hard.