The Last Ballad(36)

“That’s why I come out to learn about the union tonight, and that’s why I wrote this song. I ain’t never sung it before, so forgive me if it ain’t no good. It don’t have a title yet.”

She stepped away from the edge of the stage, closed her eyes for a moment to find the melody, imagined herself becoming the girl she’d been all those years ago in the Champion Lumber camp in the hills outside Bryson City. She opened her eyes, then her mouth, and she sang as if it were just she and her mother out there by the fire. It was twilight. Warm, soapy water ran over her hands. Her father was still working up in the hills. The tree that would fall and kill him had not yet fallen. The flu that would drown her mother’s lungs had not yet found her. She had not yet met John Wiggins. Willie had not been born, would not die.

We leave our homes in the morning,

We kiss our children good-bye.

While we slave for the bosses,

Our children scream and cry.



And when we draw our money,

Our grocery bills to pay,

Not a cent to spend for clothing,

Not a cent to lay away.

And on that very evening

Our little son will say:

“I need some shoes, Mother,

And so does sister May.”



How it grieves the heart of a mother,

You, everyone, must know.

But we can’t buy for our children,

Our wages are too low.



It is for our little children,

That seems to us so dear,

But for us nor them, dear workers,

The bosses do not care.



But understand, dear workers,

Our union they do fear.

Let’s stand together, workers,

And have a union here.



She finished her song, caught her breath, stepped away from the podium. She felt someone beside her, felt Sophia’s hand close around hers, felt their fingers intertwine. Sophia lifted their hands together, and when she did Ella’s senses awakened to the noise coming from the crowd: people cheered, whistled and pointed, called her name and chanted union slogans. Flashbulbs popped and illuminated ghostly white faces as if lightning had threaded itself through the audience. Ella’s legs were numb, her feet affixed to the stage. Sophia led her down the steps, the two of them clinging to one another’s hands. Ella followed her into the dark night on the edge of the crowd.

Sophia spun to face her. “That was amazing, Ella. Just amazing. How’d you remember all them words?”

Ella had forgotten about the leaflet in her pocket. She reached for it now, pulled it free. “I didn’t expect I’d remember them,” she said.

Sophia looked at the leaflet as if it were a holy thing. “We’re going to bust this strike wide open, Ella,” she said. “You keep on writing them songs. We’ll organize your colored friends. This will be over before Loray knows what happened.” She smiled, and Ella felt something warm and safe spring up between them.

A man’s voice came from the stage behind her, and Ella turned. The man onstage was tall and thin, his brown hair slicked back in a deep sheen. He wore a dark suit. “That was some fine, fine singing,” he said. “And what a story. What a struggle.”

“Is that Fred Beal?” Ella asked.

“No,” Sophia said. “That’s Carlton Reed. He’s big-time with the party up in New York. He knows his stuff.”

Reed smiled at the audience, put his hands on either side of the podium, leaned forward as if he might leap over it.

“Friends, I’m a reporter,” he said. “And as a reporter I’ve always got my ear to the ground.” He held on to the podium, but now he leaned away from it. “I’ve got to listen to both the rich and the poor, the high—” He raised his hand as if he were measuring his own height, and he looked to his right, south toward Loray. The audience laughed. “And the low,” he said. “I must listen to everyone, or I’ll hear no one.

“And this is what I’ve heard: tomorrow, the high and the rich are coming to kick you out of your homes. The high and the rich are doing their best to discredit you. They scream words like communism and Bolshevism and Lovestoneiteism,” he said, purposefully stumbling over the last word.

Ella pictured Charlie in bed that morning, the angry frustration on his face, the things he’d said about communism and the strike. Charlie was neither high nor rich. He was poor just like her and he couldn’t even read, but he’d trashed the union just the same.

“But you don’t care about Russia, do you? We’re not in Russia, are we? We’re in the United States of America!”

The audience cheered, and Reed took a moment before he raised his hands to quiet them.

“What does Russia have to do with Gastonia?” he asked. “With this strike? I’d say nothing. I’d say nothing at all. But you wouldn’t know it if you read the Gaston Transom-Times.” He laughed. “They’ve even got a few men here tonight, taking notes about what we’re doing out here in this field where we’re talking about equality and workers’ rights. Look around you now,” he said. “You’ll know them right off. They’re the ones in the fine suits.”

“That’s a fine suit you’ve got on, Reed!” a voice from the audience yelled. The crowd gasped and turned toward the voice as if ready to pounce on the man to whom it belonged, but both the voice and the man seemed to have been swallowed by the night.