Snyder, NY—Billy Bob Buttonbottom, or as he refers to himself these days, William Robert Buttonbottom of Snyder is trying to hide his redneck past. Despite an advanced degree in chemical engineering and a high-paying job as a research chemist at VanDeMark Custom Chemicals in Lockport, Buttonbottom is finding it easier to take the boy out of the country than the country out of the boy.
Originally from Cattaraugus County, as a teen, Buttonbottom started messing around with ephedrine, toluene, salt, kerosene, and a bunch of other components to make methamphetamine. Eventually, he came up with a sweet mix that rocked the entire Southern tier. Taking his pay from Dollar General and a little backing from his daddy, he invested in supplies and equipment and built a respectable lab in the family trailer—the one Uncle John spent summers in when he was up from Florida.
Things were going great—brain cells and teeth were disappearing in Cat County faster than Patron at a Bills tailgate. But one night, Buttonbottom was a little careless and blew up the trailer. After that incident, Buttonbottom’s daddy thought his talents would be better served with proper schoolin’. So he went to the big city, got a degree from the University of Buffalo, and a job at Van DeMark.
Things were going well at his job until Buttonbottom’s redneck past started to surface. When a spectrophotometer, which measures light intensity, went down, he pulled a roll of trusty duct tape from his briefcase and attempted a temporary fix. The solution he came up with was to reinforce and stabilize the cuvette, which holds samples in place. As he got to work, he surprised co-workers with the way he talked through the repairs—in a high-pitched yokel voice: “Well, hell, there it is. That cuvette gizmo’s the troublemaker. Hang on—I’m gonna back this door out a turn, mash this little arm down, and snake some duct tape through there so it quits floppin’ around. Yep… there we go. That’ll hold her together for now. She ain’t pretty, but she’ll run till the parts show up and we can do it the right way.”
Then there was the incident when he was dropping off some reports at the front office. A radio tuned to WYRK was playing “Achy Breaky Heart” at a low volume, and Buttonbottom couldn’t help himself. He grabbed Mrs. Trout, the office secretary, by the hand and proceeded to two-step with her. He went through the Pivot Turn, the Kick-Ball-Change, and only realized what he was doing once he was crossing his feet in Jazz Box. He apologized profusely to Mrs. Trout and exited the office, red-faced.
If he already wasn’t having enough trouble hiding his redneck past, his cousin Bobby was waiting for him outside the plant this past Friday in her 1987 F150. He and Bobby had a thing all through their teens. Buttonbotom once said, when they were together, they were explosive—like a frog with a lit M-80 jammed in its mouth. And on several occasions, Bobby pleaded to have his seven-toed baby.
Yet, like a mullet is drawn to cheap beer at the county fair, he went straight for her.
Buttonbottom doesn’t know how long he can keep up this charade, but he’ll keep showing up at VanDeMark until they send him back home to a simpler life in Cat County of fishin’, Walmart, and bangin’ his cousin.
