The Angels' Share

by James Markert

  The crowd in the whiskey trees hadn’t diminished since the fighting, though the protestors had stopped chanting and the KKK had evacuated.

  William wanted them all gone. They’d outstayed their welcome.

  He looked at Asher’s grave, where Sanscrit’s boots dangled. Then he watched his father, the intimidating way he swung his arms as he walked. William still had questions about the night of the accident. Why was Henry in the car?

  William gave the barrel a coaxing nudge and Barley did the same. His father’s hands were thick fingered and big knuckled. How many men had those hands killed?

  “Look.” Barley pointed to Black-Tail, standing on hind legs.

  They watched the barrel disappear into the opening on the side of the aging house. They headed for the door to reconnect with it inside, and Black-Tail darted in with them, skittering toward the back wall and hiding in the ricks.

  William made sure the barrel stopped at the appointed spot at the lift. Barley moved toward where the squirrel was hiding. “William, grab that broom over there.”

  He grabbed it and followed Barley down the center row. They stopped at the far wall. There was a six-foot space between the last rick and a sunlit window.

  “Come on out, Black-Tail. Done past makin’ plans for your funeral.”

  Black-Tail appeared at Barley’s summons, stared for a moment, and then darted between his legs. The squirrel clawed against a loose board and then backed into a corner. Barley approached with slow steps, stomped on the loose board, and Black-Tail sprinted out the open door.

  “That was easier than I thought.” Barley knelt down, wiggled the loose board. “William, reach me that hammer.”

  He grabbed the bung hammer and handed it to Barley, who had his hands inside the floor prying the board up, nails and all. A wave of angels’ share emerged from the subfloor.

  “There’s something down there . . .”

  They pried up the next board. Together they cast it aside. Light from the window shone toward the opening they had created. “It’s a barrel. Holy smoke!”

  They hastily ripped up the next board. It was definitely a barrel, resting on a rick inside the subfloor. They took another board up, and then another, until the opening was large enough for William to slide under the main floor. He looked up at his father. “Do you think?”

  Barley took off running. He returned a minute later with a small, dented tin cup. “Bust it open. Use the hammer. But be careful!”

  William was so careful his hands shook. He tapped it lightly at first, then put more muscle into it. The top board splintered. The smell of bourbon was strong. Barley was practically salivating as William pulled the stave back. The inside was blackened to near tar and rich with aroma. He pulled another stave free and peered inside. “There’s bourbon in here, Father!”

  “How full?”

  “Looks like about a third is left.”

  “Do you believe this? Your grandfather hid a barrel before Prohibition.”

  William thought on it. “It’s been aging for . . .”

  “About fifteen years.” Barley smiled large. “What are you waiting for? Dip the cup!”

  William gave his father the first sip.

  Barley nosed it, then nosed it again. He closed his eyes and took in enough to coat his tongue. “It’s Old Sam, alright.” He opened his eyes and they were wet with emotion. “But better. Smoother. Richer.”

  He handed William the cup. William nosed the bourbon. The note was strong, the vanilla and caramel tones distinct but not overpowering. He also smelled hints of spice and fruit. The oaky scent was more noticeable than anything he’d tried before.

  The first taste burned but went down smooth with an abundance of flavor, and he instantly wanted more. The next he took in a gulp and didn’t regret how it lit his eyes on fire.

  “He always wanted to age a batch for ten years. I never had the patience.” Barley shook his head. “He went and did it anyway. That’s why the angels’ share never left—”

  “Dad. There’s more barrels.”

  Barley gripped the next board in line and pulled until the nails bent. He yanked again and ripped it free. Together they did the next board in two pulls. There was another barrel nest-egged in a rick beside the first. From there they used their hands and feet, the broom and hammer, kicking and pulling and nudging and prying board after board.

  Samantha arrived first, thinking all the noise meant they were in danger, that the ricks had collapsed. Polly arrived with Annie and Peter. Johnny hurried in with the entire Browder family, and John Swell showed with a bilge hoop still in his hand.

  By that time William and Barley had ripped up every board alongside the wall, from corner to corner like an excavation site. Father and son stood side by side wearing goofy smiles and sweating profusely.

  Barley looked up at Samantha. Then they all stared at the barrels, exposed like a row of dead soldiers. Fifteen barrels in all, and the bung holes all pointed to high noon.

  “Old Sam. He hid them. He left a note.”

  Samantha’s eyes glistened. “What does it say?”

  “Read it, son. Go on. Read it out loud.”

  “It says . . .” William paused for a chuckle. “‘The Prohibition agents can go dangle.’”

  They all either smiled or started laughing, but then Samantha said, “That’s it?”

  “Signed Old Sam McFee.”

  While the adults shared the fifteen-year-old bourbon, Johnny was sneaking a shot of Old Forester into each new Coke he poured. He’d begun an hour before dinner, so by the time the chicken and mashed potatoes had settled in his stomach and the plate of blueberry cobbler was placed before him on the table, he could hardly keep his head up.

  William helped Johnny from the table before anyone noticed his condition. Or maybe they had noticed but were too intoxicated to care. Even Father Vincent, who had joined them, was slurring words, laughing as he retold the story of Barley firing a gun in church.

  “And you know what he says to me,” said Father Vincent, ruddy faced. “He says thanks!” John Swell laughed so hard he started coughing. Max, who wasn’t Catholic, didn’t see what was so funny. Father Vincent explained, “He was supposed to say amen! When I say, ‘The Body of the Christ . . .’ when I say, ‘Corpus Christi,’ you say . . . ?”

  Max said hesitantly, “Amen?”

  “Yes, my son. Not thanks.” Father Vincent slapped his leg and almost fell over.

  Polly was drinking Old Sam but taking her time with it, and so, along with William, was the most sober of the group, excluding Annie and John Swell’s boy, who were on the floor playing cards. Mr. Browder was passed out on the couch with an empty bottle of Ghost wedged between his thighs. Carly leaned her head on Max’s shoulder and hummed out of tune.

  Barley stuck his hands out toward Father Vincent, as if waiting for Holy Communion. “How do you say ‘Kiss my big chunky butt’ in Latin?”

  Without hesitation Father Vincent punched Barley’s nose. Then the men drunkenly hugged, which made it okay for everyone to guffaw. Barley had been paid back for interrupting mass and putting a hole in St. Michael’s stained glass window.

  William got a smile from Polly as he half dragged Johnny to the stairs. He motioned for her help, and together they walked his brother upstairs to his bedroom. They plopped him on the mattress and Polly tucked him in. She walked around the foot of the bed and held her hands out to William, who leaned down and kissed her lips, enticed by the taste of bourbon on her breath. She kissed him harder.

  “William, have you seen Johnny?” Samantha called from the bottom of the stairs.

  They both froze. Polly bit William’s lip to stymie his laughter.

  He pulled his lip free with a pop, which made him laugh. “He’s in bed, Mom.” Polly licked his left ear; the right one was still bandaged.

  “What are you doing up there?” Samantha asked.

  “Johnny isn’t feeling well, Mrs. McFee,” Polly said, her neckline flushed. “W
e helped him up into bed.”

  “Thank you, dear. William, come on down. Your father wants to make a toast to your grandfather.”

  “On our way,” William said.

  Polly tiptoed to kiss his lips. “Later?”

  He nodded, kissed her back. “Yes, later.”

  Barley grew paranoid as the night drew on. By nine o’clock he began rushing people out the door, and for the most part the guests were too intoxicated to be offended. Father Vincent was only halfway finished with his third piece of cobbler when Barley took his plate.

  “You can stay in one of the cottages tonight, Father.” Barley walked him to the porch. “You’re in no condition to drive back to the church.”

  Father didn’t object; he was still looking at his empty hand where the cobbler plate had been. Carly aided Father Vincent out the door.

  Barley patted Max on the shoulder. “Time to go.” He found Mr. Browder snoring with his head on the dining room table. He nudged him. Ronald snorted awake, asked if it was morning. Polly offered to walk him back to his cottage and said she was ready for bed. She smiled at William and said good night. He couldn’t tell if that was code for seeing him later.

  After everyone had departed, Barley locked the front door.

  “Barley, what is it?” Samantha asked.

  He turned, kissed her on the lips. “Nothing. Early to rise. We need to start bottling what we found under the floorboards. First thing in the morning.”

  Samantha kissed him back, rubbing the palm of her right hand against his chest, which reminded William of how Polly had touched him hours ago. He knew that work wasn’t the reason Barley ended the party—the bourbon had worn off enough for him to remember his face in the Post. William checked all the doors in the house. When he returned, Samantha had already taken Annie up to bed, and Barley stood with the Machete next to the window.

  “Go on up, William.”

  William stretched out on his bed and stared at the whorls in the ceiling as the wall clock ticked toward the next hour. Every thought returned him to Polly’s lips, the feel of her fingers inside his belt line, and the look in her eyes when she’d said, “Later.”

  His bedroom door opened around midnight. Disappointingly, Barley entered. He wasn’t drunk, but he didn’t look altogether sober. William sat up, worried about the foreboding tilt of Barley’s shoulders and the urgency with which he closed the door.

  Barley sat at William’s desk, placed his rifle next to the typewriter. “Eventually Old Sam ran out, William, but we were in too deep to get out. The Micks were in charge of a distribution system that couldn’t be shut down, not without some blood spilled. Our initial problem was with Tommy; he caught wind of what we’d been doing. And this is where Rose Island comes into play. Tommy loved the place. He had four kids with his first wife, who he divorced and had killed, and Rose Island was where he liked to take them for fun. He had the run of the place, even after closing hours. So any liquor that needed to be hidden, it was stored at Rose Island, in the hotel, the summer cottages, buried.

  “Tommy scheduled a meeting one night for all the thugs and crime bosses we sold to. Capone came down from Chicago. Like I said, Tommy suspected us; we weren’t distributors for him, remember. We were hijack men and runners. But the men in the room that night knew us as distributors because that’s what we were doing behind Tommy’s back. The buyers were surprised to see us all in the same room. Tommy wanted to see their reactions. He wanted it to turn into a bloodbath. He had his men ready to bury all four of us.

  “What I didn’t know was that Fop McDougal had been contacted by Prohibition agents. They’d been following him for months, and to save his own hide he said he could get them Tommy Borduchi. Fop asked for immunity for all the Micks. It was granted—as long as we got them Tommy the Bat and his right-hand man, Big Bang Tony.”

  “Left or the right, Boss?” Sweat spread across William’s brow and he felt clammy. “Why did you just watch him?” He blurted the words as if from a long-dormant volcano.

  “Watch who?”

  “At our old house. In the garage. Tommy beat that man to death and you watched! And then Big Bang Tony, he said, ‘Left or the right, Boss?’ And then he cut Tommy’s cheek.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I was there.” William swung his feet from the bed. “I was seven.” He walked to the window. “You were home early. I followed you to the garage. I looked inside the window and I saw it all. Why didn’t you help him?”

  Barley looked stunned. “Because he’d done Tommy wrong. He lied.”

  “What was his name?”

  “Cranston? Creighton? I don’t know.”

  “You don’t know?”

  Barley shook his head. “And I don’t know what he lied about. We were fresh fish, and Tommy wanted to show us what would happen if we ever crossed him. His way of feeling me out. Checking my loyalty. Letting me know he could end me and my family. I can’t believe you saw it.” He startled. “Tommy said he saw a face up in the window. I didn’t believe him.”

  “It was me. I pushed it way down deep. But it came out in flashes over the years. Came out in gushes of sweat and me flinching every time you gutted a deer. It’s why I don’t like to see things bleed. Saw too much of it on the garage floor.”

  Barley stood from the desk. “William . . .”

  “And when he got me inside our own cottages? His shirt was off, and he’s got hundreds of scars. ‘Left or the right, Boss?’ Left or the right? You should have seen the way he looked at me. Like he knew it was me up in that window. I was seven.” William stared into the night. “She bit part of my ear off.”

  “I’m sorry.” Barley’s breath moved William’s hair, and then William felt his father’s arms around him. He resisted at first but then turned into the bourbon-scented warmth of his embrace. William pulled Barley against his chest, not worried about what he looked like or what others would think, because none of it mattered. He cried on his father’s shoulder, cried until he’d had his share. Then he sucked in a deep breath. “You were saying?”

  “I don’t remember.”

  “Rose Island. The meeting.”

  Barley wiped his hands across his face. “Doesn’t even sound important anymore.”

  “I want to know.”

  Barley nodded. “There were two undercover agents posing as buyers with deep pockets, new distribution lines from Newport. They offered up their guns before our Bruno patted them down—they had backup waiting north of the Devil’s Backbone. Whiskey was flowing directly from the barrels and everyone in the room had had too much of it. Tommy exposed us. His men moved in with bean-shooters. The doors crashed open and the Prohib agents moved in. It got bloody fast; two agents died. I escaped with two Micks. Tommy got out with Big Bang, and they took Fop McDougal with them. We heard later that Tommy beat him to within an inch of his life, fit him with concrete shoes, and sunk him into the Ohio, still breathing. The agents caught up to Tommy and Big Bang the next day, arrested them. Big Bang got a fast track to the chair. Tommy got life without parole.”

  “Did the agents come after you?”

  “We stayed away from the crosshairs for months to make it appear that we’d gone clean. But Gio and Tad weren’t finished making money, and they weren’t going to let me out so easily. Truth is, I also saw the money that could be made. And we wanted to stick it to the government. Gio took over Tommy’s pharmacies and the bootlegging went on. I made three million dollars during the twenties, William.”

  William’s jaw dropped.

  “If anything should happen to me, your mom knows where it’s kept. Make sure the distillery survives. And you run it.”

  “Dad, don’t talk like that—”

  Barley patted William on the shoulder and headed for the door, but he stopped just before clutching the knob. When he turned, his eyes were wet. “I was drinking that night, William. The night of the accident. The other Micks were dead. I was closing out my last line. My last delivery
. I intended to wash my hands of it all. It was supposed to be easy. It would have been easy. A hundred bottles packed in four fruit crates that fit in the trunk. Except one crate I put in the passenger’s seat. Easy drop on the back porch of a fruit market. In and out. Wouldn’t even have to turn the car off.”

  Barley tightened his jaw. “Henry thought it was funny the way I couldn’t stay in the lane. I was laughing too, because he was laughing. Then we saw Wildemere’s lights coming around the bend. I think I got mostly back in my lane, but I can’t be certain. We blinded each other. Henry stopped laughing, but not until we made impact. Up until then he still thought it was funny.”

  Barley stood in the doorway, nodding, silently coming to terms with what had happened.

  William had cried out his emotions on Barley’s shoulder. Now he was a dried-out husk, a hollow shell. He looked at his father. “He was laughing?”

  “Yes. He was.” Barley smiled, reminiscing. “We were having us a good time.”

  “Did he say anything? About me?”

  Barley thought on it, nodded. “Said you were mad at him earlier. And it made him sad.”

  The lump in William’s throat was instant.

  “But then he danced it all out in the aging house.”

  “I watched him.”

  “I know. Henry said he saw you out the window.”

  “And?”

  “And that’s how he knew it was okay.”

  William wasn’t completely dried up after all. Moisture came to his eyes and puddled there. “Father, why did you take Henry with you? Why was he even in the car?”

  “Because he asked me if he could come, William. He asked me if he could come. And you know I never could tell that boy no.”