The Last Ballad(102)

Chapter Eleven

Albert Roach





Friday, June 7, 1929



Jealousy nearly split Albert’s heart in two that sunny afternoon as he and Tom Gibson stood on the sidewalk and watched hundreds of old boys march by in their Confederate battle grays. The crowd of bodies swelled around the two men, nearly pushing them off the curb and onto the street, where the veterans—most on foot with canes in their hands, some seated on the backs of convertible automobiles, the rest standing atop garlanded flatbed trailers—paraded down Trade Street beneath an early summer sun, the bodies of the marchers and the shapes of the cars and floats hardly registering shadows on the blacktop below.

Estimates were that 150,000 people had flocked to Charlotte for this four-day celebration of Confederate valor, and Albert believed that every single one of them stood alongside him. Aside from the smell of the asphalt where it radiated beneath the veterans’ boots and the vehicles’ tires, Albert’s nose caught the smoky-sweet scents of cigars, the reek of sweaty bodies pressed too close together, the whiffs of hot dogs and chili, homebrew, and popcorn.

“There he is,” Tom said. He raised a hand and pointed across the street. Albert looked and saw O. Max Gardener in a suit and tie and black stovepipe hat standing on the other side of a battle-flag-swathed barrier. Dozens of official-looking people surrounded him. “It’s a pretty important day when the governor comes calling, ain’t it?”

“I reckon it is,” Albert said, but seeing the governor only made him feel worse. He’d never fought in a war, had never done anything that anyone could view as heroic. Albert Roach knew he was the last person who would warrant a visit from the governor.

It didn’t help things that Chief Aderholt had suspended him again—this time for drinking on the job—and try as he might, Tom’s little speech en route to Charlotte hadn’t helped either.

“Let’s just have us a nice time,” Tom had said from behind the wheel. “Do a little drinking, get away from Loray and that goddamned strike.”

Tom had been drinking when he’d said it, had been drinking since the moment he’d left home and picked up Albert. He’d driven with a Mason jar of white lightning tucked between his legs, and he and Albert had passed it back and forth until it was empty. Albert may have been sad standing there on the sidewalk as these heroes passed him by, but at least he was drunk, and that was better than just being sad.

Although Albert still had another week left in his suspension, he carried a pistol holstered beneath his jacket. Watching the soldiers march and hearing the bands play and seeing the red, white, and blue crepe paper strung from cables above the street made him want to retrieve his gun and fire it into the air in celebration. But he knew that Tom, who’d had even more to drink than Albert had, would be irritated by the attention.

It had been nice at first. The day was bright and warm, not yet hot on this first Friday in June. When they’d arrived the streets had been busy, but not quite as full as they were now, and they’d strolled along the sidewalk taking discreet sips from the Mason jar.

But as the streets had filled and the parade began, Albert found himself forlorn, as if his own disappointment would suffocate him if he didn’t do something. He ate two hot dogs all-the-way and a candied apple covered in peanuts, but none of it made him feel any better.

“You didn’t miss a damn thing not going to the war,” Tom said during the ride back to Gastonia after the parade. The setting sun bronzed the waters of the Catawba River as they crossed the bridge into Gaston County. “All I did in France was drink and whore, and hell, you can do that here in Gastonia.” He laughed, looked over at Albert, slapped him on the leg. “Shit, Roach,” he said. “Come on. You need to liven up. Let’s find you a drink or a girl, one.”

Albert turned and looked at Tom. Tom had his window rolled down and the sunlight poured across his face. At forty-four he was two years older than Albert, but he was also taller, thinner, and had all of his hair, and his wife was pretty and petite, with a sweet voice. Although Albert had only met the woman on a handful of occasions, she did not seem like the kind of woman who would yell or hold a grudge. Albert pictured his own wife, Eugenia, at home, sitting at the small, greasy table in the too-warm kitchen, an apron tied tight around her neck and waist, her breasts and stomach pushing against it. In the next room, little Cicely screamed from her crib. He wasn’t ready to go back there after having what should have been a grand afternoon.

“Let’s get that drink,” Albert said. Tom looked over at him and smiled. “Maybe find a woman too.”

“Now you’re talking,” Tom said.



Miss Grady Moore’s tavern was just a few miles south of the bridge over the Catawba, an old house in a thicket of woods that could not be seen from the road, but everyone knew it was there, the law included. That’s how Albert and Tom knew how to find it. They were welcomed not as officers of the Gastonia Police Department, but as mere citizens who needed to unwind.

Albert followed Tom through the front door and into a room off the kitchen whose windows had been covered over on the outside with pine boards. It was dark and musty; an old Edison phonograph in the corner spun a tinny, whiny song. They took a table by the dusty fireplace. Several other tables sat scattered around the room, mismatched and broken chairs pushed up under them. Naked bulbs hung overhead. A man and a woman drank and talked quietly at a table in the corner. The man had pulled his bowler hat low over his eyes. The couple didn’t look up when Albert and Tom entered, so Albert didn’t look their way after he’d taken a seat.