by Wiley Cash
“What’s the name of the committee?” Richard asked.
“It’s made up of some people you may know,” Guyon replied. “Some you may not. But all of them are committed to this cause. We need to take our city back.”
“Some of the most powerful men in the city have made donations,” Epps said.
“Money or men or—” Guyon stopped speaking, moved his lips in silence as if searching for the best, perhaps safest, word. “Materials,” he said. “They’ve volunteered legal expertise, exerted influence in the mayor’s office, assisted with security, called on the governor.”
“It’s more of a civic group than anything else,” Epps said. “Just concerned citizens.”
“Just concerned citizens,” Guyon echoed. “The best of Gaston County.” He paused. “Would you be interested in joining us?”
“It would send a powerful message if the owner and operator of McAdam Mills were to contribute,” Epps said. “Men in this town think an awful lot of you and your business.”
“An awful lot,” Guyon said.
“I suppose I could make a donation,” Richard said. “If that’s what you have in mind.” The blood that had stagnated in his heart slowly disbursed itself.
Someone threw open one of the windows in the hallway behind Richard. He turned at the sound and saw a colored waiter trying to whisk smoke through the window with a white napkin. The smell of burned cakes floated out to the porch. The waiter looked at Richard through the open window.
“Sorry, boss,” he said.
Guyon raised his brows as if the three of them had narrowly missed being caught doing something they should not have been doing. He motioned for Richard to follow him. The three men walked across the porch and down the steps into the yard. They stopped by the hawthorns that ran along the side of the club in great, wild clumps. The three of them stood in the shadows. The lighted kitchen windows above them cast glowing yellow squares onto the wet grass. The shapes of people moved back and forth through the squares. The windows were open and Richard heard loud but muddled conversations coming from the kitchen above.
Epps pulled a flask from inside his coat and unscrewed the top. He offered it to Richard, who took a pull and passed it toward Guyon, who waved it away. Richard returned the flask to Epps, watched him take a long drink, and then another.
“A donation is a fine gesture,” Guyon said.
“A fine gesture,” Epps repeated.
“But, McAdam, we need a little something more from men of your station, of your prominence in the community,” Guyon said. “I’m not talking about anything grand or overly complicated here.”
Epps took another swig from the flask and nodded in agreement. He passed it to Richard. He took a long drink and returned the flask to Epps.
“Just a few men,” Epps said. “If you can spare them. Just a few men who’ll lend us a hand keeping order around the village.”
Guyon looked at Epps as if he’d said something he shouldn’t have.
“We’re not talking about violence here,” Guyon said.
Epps looked incredulous. “Of course not,” he said. Richard realized that his head was too foggy and warm with whiskey to know whether or not Epps’s reaction was some sort of act. “Of course not,” Epps said again. “No violence.”
“Just a friendly presence,” Guyon said. “A good show of good people—mill people—to let the Reds know they’re outnumbered.”
“I’ll talk to my supervisors on Monday,” Richard said. “I’ll see if we can spare any men. Of course, it can’t cut into production.”
“No,” Guyon said. “You can’t lose money on this.”
“Money’s what this whole thing’s about,” Epps said. “No need for anyone to lose money.”
“And only contribute any funds you feel comfortable contributing,” Guyon said. “You may have seen a few of the ads placed in the Transom by the Council of Concerned Citizens of Gaston County.” He smiled, raised his eyebrows. “Those don’t come free, or even cheap.”
“One hundred sixty dollars or fifty cents an inch,” Epps said.
“The same price as anyone else,” Guyon said. “It’s costly, but it’s important that we disseminate the truth about these Bolshevists. The thing is that half these millhands wouldn’t know a damn communist from a cockroach if it weren’t for people like Fred Beal.”
“That’s right,” Epps said. “Most of them didn’t know a thing about unions before Beal.”
“Take this Ella May Wiggins woman, for instance,” Guyon said. “The one who accosted Senator Overman.”
“Claire said something about her being a singer,” Richard said. Epps laughed, took a swig from the flask, and passed it to Richard. Richard took another drink.
“She’s a linthead that can carry a tune,” Epps said. “But she’s no professional singer. That’s fake news one of the papers started. She’s no better than the rest of them.”
“She works at American in Bessemer City,” Guyon said. “It’s a nigger mill, and she’s trying to organize them there. She’s trying to get niggers to join the union.”
“And that’s what the Reds want,” Epps said. “They want niggers working alongside whites. Want them competing for the same jobs.”
“We’ve got a couple of men inside the union,” Guyon said. “Word is that the local strikers don’t want to be integrated, but the union in New York is pushing back, sending down a colored organizer next week. Going to try to rally colored workers from other mills to join the strike.”
Epps took a drink. “If he comes to Gastonia, it’ll be the last trip south that nigger ever makes,” he said. He passed the flask to Richard.
“But take this woman,” Guyon said, “this Ella May Wiggins. She gets up there onstage during the meetings and works them up and sings hillbilly songs and colored music and all kind of filth. And the whole time you know she wouldn’t have a thought in her head if it weren’t for Beal. He’s the brains of this whole thing. These hillbillies wouldn’t be picketing or marching or striking if he hadn’t shown them how to do it.”
“She’s got a whole brood of kids who live with niggers over in Bessemer City,” Epps said. “Something like ten little kids, all of them bastards.”
“She’s not the virtuous kind,” Guyon said. He nodded toward the clubhouse. “Not like these fine women here tonight.”
“No, she ain’t virtuous,” Epps said. “She’s loose. The kind of woman who’ll let a man get away with anything. Just a nasty woman.”
“That’s a shame for children to live that way,” Richard said.
“But she gets up onstage and talks about how her boy died because of the mills,” Guyon said.
“As if the mills kill people,” Richard said.
“Kid’s better off dead,” Epps said. “She’s got too many. Wouldn’t hurt if another two or three of them said good night.”
“At least he’s out of his misery,” Richard said. “Sounds like she couldn’t take care of him.”
“She doesn’t take care of the ones that are still living,” Guyon said. “Instead she gets up onstage and sings and runs wild with communists. She might be at home with those babies if it weren’t for the union. It’s all Beal’s doing.”
“And what can you do about him?” Richard asked. He was still holding the flask, but when he turned his hands out to question Guyon, it slipped from his grasp and fell to the grass. He bent down and the world seemed to move with him. He felt around the damp earth, unsure of how many drinks he’d taken, relieved to find that the cap was still on the flask once his fingers closed around it. He stood, removed the cap, and took another drink, felt the last of the whiskey trickle into his mouth. He passed it to Epps, who gave it a shake to assure himself of its emptiness before slipping it back into his coat pocket. “You really think some newspaper articles are going to scare these communists?” Richard said. “Or change the strikers’ minds?”
“We’ll do what you have to do when you kill a snake,” Epps sai
d.
“And what’s that?” Richard asked.
“We’ll lop off its head,” Guyon said.
“And what about this woman?” Richard asked. “This singer. A snake with its head cut off can still bite you.”
Epps smiled. “I reckon we’ll just have to cut out its tongue.”
Chapter Eight
Katherine McAdam
Saturday, May 25, 1929
The band had already left the small stage and the guests had just been served their entrees when the ballroom doors were thrown open and Richard walked inside. As soon as she saw him Katherine knew that he’d been drinking. He was accompanied by Hugo Guyon and a fat, ugly man Katherine had never seen before. Guyon and the other man stopped just inside the doors and scanned the ballroom as if searching for available seats.
Richard walked toward the family’s large round table, where Katherine and Claire sat with Paul Lytle and his mother and father. Richard made a grand gesture of stooping to kiss Claire on her cheek, then he moved around to where Katherine sat and kissed her on top of her head. He pulled his napkin from the back of his chair and took a seat. Katherine caught Claire’s eye across the table. It looked as if her daughter was trying to blink back tears.
“Excuse me for stepping out,” Richard said. He didn’t seem to notice that no one had said a word since he’d appeared. The waiters had offered a choice of pheasant or steak, and Katherine had ordered Richard a steak. “This looks delicious,” he said. He reached beneath the table and gave her fingers a discreet squeeze. She hoped her hand felt as lifeless and sick as her heart.
“It certainly does look delicious,” Mrs. Lytle said. She, like Katherine, had ordered the pheasant, and now the woman stared down at her plate and set about picking at her dinner as if she’d never finish it.
“Where have you been?” Claire asked her father from across the table. Beside her, Paul was clearly watching Richard’s plate to gauge when it would be acceptable to cut into his own steak.
“Yes, Mr. McAdam,” Paul’s father said. “We’ve missed you.” He set down his silverware and passed his napkin across his mouth. He took a sip of water. “I thought you might be out there in the rain, trying to fix my car.” He winked at Richard, whose eyes were locked on the table. “I was about to go search for you and show you how to use a wrench.” He laughed.
“No,” Richard said. “Quite the opposite. I was outside, very much hoping to be seen.” He cut a hunk of steak and put it into his mouth. He chewed it slowly, glanced at Katherine, and made a grotesque face meant to show that he couldn’t believe how good the meat tasted. She tried to smile at him, if for no other reason than to keep up appearances in front of the Lytles. Earlier, while Claire and Paul had orbited the ballroom, dancing and greeting guests before dinner, she’d been locked in a dry conversation with Mr. Lytle about the differences between growing rice and cotton, instead of speaking to her friends or spending time with Claire. And then this business with the burned cakes and the things she’d overheard.
“Those men there,” Richard said, using his fork to point across the room to where Guyon and the fat stranger had finally found seats at a table, “those men who came in behind me are going to pay for the car that was damaged today, Mr. Lytle. So there’s no need to worry about it.”
“I wasn’t worried about it,” Lytle had said. “I didn’t damage it. And I know Percy Epps. I would’ve had it taken care of myself.”
Richard set his silverware down on either side of his plate. His mustache was shiny with the steak’s blood, and Katherine saw that his face was flush with color. He turned and stared at Mr. Lytle.
“That’s not my point,” Richard said. “I was just telling you that it’s being taken care of.” He turned back to his plate and cut into his steak. “Hugo Guyon’s the superintendent at Loray. A big man in this community.”
“Never heard of him,” Mr. Lytle said. “But I believe that if this superintendent were better at his job, his people wouldn’t be rioting. The car wouldn’t have been damaged in the first place.”
“It’s an outside element,” Richard said. He smiled, popped another piece of steak into his mouth. “It’ll soon be gone.”
Katherine looked across the table at Mrs. Lytle.
“I love your dress,” she said. “You always look so lovely.”
“Thank you,” Mrs. Lytle said. “You look exquisite in that gown.” She looked to her right, over her son’s plate, and spoke to Claire. “You both do. Do you ladies shop together?”
Claire smiled. It was the first real smile Katherine had seen her give since Richard had disappeared earlier in the evening.
“We have been, recently,” Claire said. “Since I’ve been home.”
“And we’ll go more,” Katherine said, smiling at Claire. “Now that you’re home, we’ll go more. Perhaps more than we should, I promise.” Claire smiled back at her.
“Yes, quite often,” Richard chimed in, attempting to join in on the joke.
“There are so many wonderful stores in Charlotte,” Katherine said. “Perhaps on your drive home—”
“There are quite a few nice stores here in Gastonia, as well,” Richard said.
“Of course,” Katherine said. She leaned back in her seat and settled her eyes on her pheasant.
“Of course,” she’d heard Mrs. Lytle say.
Katherine now sat alone in the Essex where Richard had left it parked in the roundabout after retrieving it. He’d gone back inside the club to speak with Ingle about his daughter Grace and to tip him and the waitstaff. After the dinner was over and the cakes had been served, the burned tops cut away and discreetly covered with icing, she and Richard had watched the Lytles climb into the limousine, the dent in its hood catching the light like a black crater on a dark moon. Once Richard stepped inside the club, Claire had asked Katherine if it would be okay if she went to a party with friends. Paul would see her home afterward. Claire had promised that she would not be home too late. Although it was already past 11 p.m., Katherine knew how exciting it must be for Claire to have her friends and her fiancé all in town, and she saw no reason that Claire shouldn’t go off and do as she pleased. In a few months she would be a wife. She would have to make much greater decisions than these without Katherine’s blessing. Besides, she thought, I wouldn’t come home either. Not until Richard was asleep and this night and the things of this night were behind them all.
Katherine found herself envying her daughter, not for her youth or her upcoming wedding or for all the life that awaited her, but for her freedom to return or not to return home as she so desired. The old house atop the hill that overlooked the McAdam Mill village would always be there if Claire were ever to want it or need it. And, unless one of them died, Katherine and Richard would always be there too. Unlike them, Claire didn’t have to return at all.
Katherine had left her car door open. She sat with her foot on the running board and looked out onto the damp night, where frogs called to one another from the darkness. The air smelled of wet pine needles. She listened as a few distant automobiles rumbled down Franklin Avenue toward town. She and Richard had now been married for almost twenty-four years, and in those almost twenty-four years she had seen changes she’d never imagined. Even the land around her now had morphed into something brand-new in just the past decade. When Richard first brought her to Gaston County, the very piece of land on which she sat had been part of the Woltz family’s dairy farm. A nine-hole golf course now covered the area that had once been a cow field. She thought of all the new things she’d seen in her lifetime: the record player and the radio she and Richard kept in their sitting room at home, the automobile she waited in now, the airplanes they’d seen fly over the city and touch down at the little municipal landing strip south of town. It made her tired to think of what was to come, to think of what Claire and Claire’s children—her grandchildren, for God’s sake—would see in the years ahead, the years she might not spend on this earth.
The car creak
ed on its axles and she heard Richard open the door and climb in, then close the door behind him. She kept her eyes on the darkness outside.
“Are you okay to drive?” she asked.
“Of course,” he said. “Why wouldn’t I be?”
She pulled her foot inside the car and closed the door.
“You’re not too tight?” she asked. The engine roared to life when she spoke, and she knew that Richard could act as if he hadn’t heard her.
Richard drove the Essex through the roundabout and took the dark lane out to the boulevard. The guests had all left. The parking areas were empty. The wet asphalt shined beneath the Essex’s headlights. He turned east and headed toward McAdamville.
They rode in silence for a few moments. Through her window, Katherine watched the shuttered businesses as they passed them, their lights off and the windows drawn against the night.
“I just spoke to Ingle about Grace,” Richard said. “He’s upset of course, embarrassed really. Especially after the members took up the collection last year. He wants to pay everyone back since he says she won’t be returning to school.”
“That’s unnecessary,” Katherine said.
“That’s just what I told him,” Richard said. Katherine heard a lilt in his voice, as if a smile had come into it somehow, as if this small agreement boded well for the rest of the evening, perhaps for the rest of their lives together. “That’s just what I told him. I told him it was unnecessary.”
He slowed and made the left onto Wesleyan Road. They snaked along toward McAdamville. The sky misted rain fine enough to look like snow, and Katherine could see it only in the streetlamps and the headlights of the few automobiles they met on the road. When they followed the hill down into the mill village, she had the sensation of descending into a glass snow globe. She wondered, if she were to look up, would she be able to spy the clear, impervious dome that had come down over her life?
“And I told Ingle we’d be happy to make another contribution,” Richard said. He hesitated. Waited. Katherine knew he expected her to ask if he’d promised a certain amount. They had the wedding to think of, after all. Business had slowed in the years since the war. Things were changing. The country was changing. It seemed it would continue to do so. But she wanted to help the Ingles, and she was simply too tired to play cautious with Richard. “On Monday I’m going to reach out to a few of the board members to see if we can get something together, some kind of donation, a second collection, if you want to call it that.”