BIG LIP AND BUTTERMILK HENNESEE (written summer 2004)
This is about two very eccentric young men who lived in Meridian, Texas, while I lived there. Their names were Buttermilk and Big Lip Hennessee. You know that those names weren’t given to them by their parents. How they got the names is a total mystery to me, but that’s how I knew them. The boys were older than me. I would guess they were both in their thirties while I was in High School. Big Lip and his brother Buttermilk weren’t the sharpest pencils in the box. I doubt if they’d graduated from high school. They were two very simple men and I mean that in every sense of the word. Both of the boys were short in stature, but Big Lip had square, broad shoulders and a mustache that was often clogged with snot! Especially during the winter months. Buttermilk was of a slighter build and seemingly might have been a little smarter that Big Lip. Their normal routine was to hang around the mid-town intersection in hopes that somebody would see them, stop and offer them odd jobs. Big Lip and Buttermilk always wore blue jeans, a blue work shirt and work boots.
As far as I know, they were good workers. During the time I was employed at Benson's Food Market… Sherrill Benson would drop by the store to see if all was okay and send me to see if either Buttermilk or Big Lip was standing on the corner. If they were, to tell them to come on over to the back of the store and wait by his pickup truck. Neither brother would say a word, just smile and walk off to execute their orders. Later, I would see Mr. Benson driving off with them in his pickup… headed for his ranch. Sometimes he would take only one, which meant the other brother would go back to his spot on the corner and continue grinning and waiting for someone to pick him up. To my knowledge, the Hennessy boys never got into trouble and always seemed passive and congenial. True, you weren’t going discuss U.S. foreign affairs, or the stock market, but Big Lip would respond to a little small talk, while his brother Buttermilk stood next to him smiling.
My grandmother had a old saying she would use rather frequently to describe a certain type of person. On these selective and auspicious occasions, she’d say, “They couldn’t pound cheese through a rat hole.” Rather crude, but applicable in this instance.
Another bit of surprising trivia was that the boys lived in a fairly nice home located on Main Street. At one point, I believe they had at least one sister living with them. To say that these two young men, who would show up daily and wait for work on the busiest corner in town, were an enigma would be an understatement. Thinking about it now… I wish I’d taken a little time to find out a few things about their background.
Big Lip and brother Buttermilk were nearly always seen together and I cannot recall a time seeing them hanging around town after dark. Somebody had raised them with good manners and morals, I suppose. I did notice that most of the ladies and girls were a might mistrustful of the brothers, but that’s because they triggered the female “mistrust instinct.” You might say they were both accepted and ignored at the same time by most of the town people. I wish I could tell you some funny stories about them, but to me the funniest part of all was their names. All the people from county judges to the mayor would refer to the boys as Big Lip and his brother Buttermilk.
WHY DID YOU DO THAT SAM?
They say the devil dances in empty pockets. Well, I would like to add, he’s known to take a couple of laps in an idle mind too. One summer afternoon my granddad had come home from work for lunch and as he was wont to do… he settled in to take a short forty-five minute “power nap” on the sleeping porch. This lovely room had solid windows on three sides, so it always caught a breeze. After his nap, granddad would return to his office in the courthouse and stay until around 5:30pm. My grandmother would usually take a nap with him.
On this typical weekday afternoon my granddaddy had eaten and was taking his nap I was outside carving a gourd. Now, these gourds grew wild and were bountiful. We would pull a gourd from a vine, cut a hole in the top of the large portion the fiber from the inside and then let the gourd dry in the sun. They were rather popular drinking utensils and convenient to handle. I had a couple of hollow gourds that had dried and after drying they’d become rather brittle so you had to be careful with them. As a matter of fact it didn’t take much of a “rap” for them
disintegrate into a hundred pieces. You could say the story I’m about to tell you was a joke gone bad. Not well thought out.
I took one of the gourds and went inside my grandparents house and stood next to the bed where my grandmother and granddaddy were taking their nap.
After standing next to the bed and observing my granddad sleeping ever so peacefully, I slowly reached over and popped him on the head with the gourd. With a resounding “crack” the gourd splattered like fragments of a hand grenade searching out it’s victims. My grandmother, lying next to him, sat up quickly and exclaimed, “What happened!” My granddad, who was still struggling for consciousness… slowing turned over to identify his would-be assassin. I actually don’t know which of us was more surprised! Obviously, my sweet little granddaddy didn’t know if some heinous bootlegger had crept into his house to do him in, or what. Keep in mind, as county attorney, he had a lot of enemies.
I’ll never forget how calm he remained under fire. Still trying to shake loose from his slumber, he looked at me and said, “Sam?” It was a pitiful scene. He lay there with pieces of gourd in his hair and all over his shirt. My grandmother was looking at me very curiously like I was a “male” Lizzie Borden or something close to it. Then, my granddaddy said something I will never forget. In a normal and reasonable tone, he asked, “Sam, what did you do that for?” At the moment of impact, dried gourd on human flesh, I knew I’d crossed the line. I realized what a family dog must feel like after killing it’s first chicken. I quickly responded with, “I’m sorry granddaddy.” While my words still hung in the air, I knew that was not a sufficient regret or explanation for my bizarre act. Next, I did what any red blooded American would do. I ran! Granddaddy got up, dressed and went back to work.
My grandmother would tell the story many times in years to come. I don't recall my granddaddy ever mentioning it to me again. But he would sit there in his recliner and smile, while grandmother would spin the yarn.
Granddaddy Smith, was a very special person in my life. We were always very close and I respected and valued his council greatly. I still miss him, and I must say, looking back at this incident makes me wonder about the possibility of “demon possession.”
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