The Bootleggers

by  denny bastian   2012

Burpee was a bootlegger, so was his brother Lee.  I know Burpee was not the name his mother gave him but that’s the only name I ever heard anyone call him.  I never did ask why.  The two of them were throwbacks to the hillbilly era.  Each wore the same brand of khaki work pants, dirty and faded, held up with wide red or black suspenders over heavy checker shirts.  Both were as skinny as fence posts.  Partially pulled over his rather large ears, Burpee wore a bright orange oversized hunter’s cap indoors or out, summer or winter. Neither held a regular job nor wanted to; they lived off the land so to speak.  They shared a small vegetable garden between their two houses which they most often neglected.  Somehow enough of the garden survived each summer to provide a few carrots and potatoes for stew.  They shot deer in or out of season to fill the freezer and the profits from the bootlegging business provided the rest of the income needed to survive. They drank almost as much product as they sold. 

Each had a one bedroom house on a dirt road out in the county about a blocks distance from the main highway.  They lived on the same piece of land about 100 yards apart from each other.  Even though the brothers were born less than one year apart and grew up being more like buddies than brothers during their younger years, that would not be the case in later years.  Being bootleggers in very close proximity to each other, understandably there could be tension between them.  After all they were competing for the same customers and a limited number at that.  Most people that lived in the county travelled to the city every day to work where they bought their liquor supplies at the government store where the product was much cheaper than purchasing from a bootlegger.  However there were those times, usually weekends, when emergency supplies were called for because no one wanted to drive the 30 miles to town just to pick up a few beers.  That left Burpee and Lee the only game in town. 

Neither home enjoyed indoor plumbing.  A well travelled path led to a common outhouse set back 50 feet to the rear of their property.  Neither home contained much for furnishings.  Each had little more than a cot to sleep on, a wood stove for heat and cooking, a beat up old fridge, a mismatched collection of strong wooden chairs for customers, and a worn out metal and laminate kitchen table which was always covered in empty beer bottles and overflowing ashtrays. The linoleum on the floor was worn away in places exposing the cheap spruce wood floors below; especially around the table where heavy boots shuffled back and forth during raucous laughter at oft repeated stories while chugging back beer.  In the kitchen on a wall opposite to the wood stove and near the door, was mounted a wide wooden rack containing several rifles, no doubt at least one fully loaded so went the rumour.  The rifles were intended of course for storage and display but somehow intimidated none-the-less.

My little white house on the hill was less than a football field away from the boys.  I like everyone else in our county ignored the illegal goings on. After all, they didn’t seem to be hurting anybody.  Every once in awhile the RCMP, knowing full well that something illegal was going on, would pull a surprise visit on the boys.   No doubt an angry housewife or righteous lady in the community would have tipped them off.  They were always too late.  There was a very good reason for the RCMP lack of success.  One so called luxury item that the boys kept in their homes was a telephone and they had many friends who would warn them.  By the time the cavalry arrived, the booze was well hidden in the woods.  It was not my habit to purchase bootleg beer on a regular basis but there were occasions.   I never once purchased from Lee.  There was no significant reason for this except that whenever I went to buy it was Burpee’ kitchen door that happened to be open.   I tried to sneak quietly away before Lee noticed me.

 Burpee sold quarts; never in pints which he referred to as “baby beer.”  Most often I purchased one half dozen quarts and immediately left for home but there were a number of times I, at the urging of Burpee, sat down to drink one with him and share a few stories.  I recall that on one of those days on a beautiful, sunny, Saturday afternoon that a middle aged, redneck, fisherman named Ralph Mason drove up to Burpee’ house leaving his wife Muriel out in the car. He asked Burpee for a dozen quarts.  Burpee went to his bedroom at the back of the house and came back with two 6 pack cases and set them on a chair.  Mason paid him and had started to pick up the cases when Burpee asked him to sit down and drink one with him and me.  Ralph said, “Aw, what the hell,” and traded one of his warm beers for a cold one Burpee kept in the fridge.  Ralph had told several long winded stories before Muriel, obviously getting impatient with the wait, started blowing the car horn.

Ralph looked out the door and shouted at her to “quit getting your knickers in a knot.”  He’d be out in a bit.  This apparently didn’t satisfy Muriel for she kept right on honking the horn.  Ralph leaned out and told her to knock it off.  A few honks later Burpee went to his rifle rack and pulled out a shotgun.  He loaded a round and marched with purpose out to the car.  Muriel quickly locked the car door as if that might save her and sat in wide eyed horror, shaking like a leaf. Burpee walks to the front of the car and yells at her, “Ralph told you to shuddup, didn’t he?  Now shuddup!”  He fires a loud, reverberating shot over the roof of the car which causes Muriel to unlock the car door and run off down the road screaming while Ralph stood at the kitchen door laughing uncontrollably before sitting back down for another cold beer.  Burpee served a few months in jail for illegally discharging a firearm but was soon back trying to gain back the business he had lost to Lee while he had been away.

Of course, Lee was not appreciating his brother efforts to lure his new customers away.  They had several heated arguments over this as well as a couple of drunken fist fights.  Usually no one got hurt in these fracases because both men would be to drunk to aim their punches well anyway.  Most often they would give up after falling down several times and simply go home to their respective houses however on one occasion that was not the end of it. The two houses were barely 100 yards apart with bedroom windows facing each other.  Burpee went home and loaded his shotgun, stuck it out his bedroom window and shot away taking out Lee’s bedroom window and leaving a scattering of buckshot holes all over the side of his house.  Lee, not to be outdone, loaded up his shotgun and did the same. Several shots more from each of them left quite a mess on the walls of each of their homes.  What’s worse, they both were arrested and served time in jail once again for illegally discharging a firearm in public.

Fortunately no one ever got hurt in these incidents, not even each other.  I myself was a safe enough distance away that, despite the occasional gunshot, was generally unaffected by the crazy goings on.  However there was this one incident that affected me directly.  Unbeknownst to me at the time, Lee had been on an extended booze bender to the point that he had been suffering from the DT’s (delirium tremors).  Early in the evening my wife and I were sitting in the living room watching Don Messer’s Jubilee when a loud and panicked banging was occurring on our porch screen door.  “What the hell is that?”  I said jumping up anxiously from the couch.  I cautiously opened the kitchen door and looked across the porch to the screen door.  Lee was standing on the other side with crazy eyes, wet from head to foot, hair flying loose in every direction, and waving a huge butcher knife in his right hand.  “They’re coming Denny,” he yelled. “Lock your doors, they’re coming!” Then he left.  I locked the screen door.

In the end, no one ever actually got hurt from a Burpee and Lee escapade.  Not really.