Whiskey & Ashes, page 31
Pantha gave a small nod from her desk, silently approving.
Ezekiel reached for her hand, gave it a squeeze. “When your name’s in the paper next, I hope it’s for something bigger than a picture pass.”
“I’m counting on it,” she said.
And for a brief moment, the room held its breath not in fear, but in quiet resolve, a family drawing strength from each other beneath the flicker of oil light and legacy.
Bristol, July 1916 – The Night of the Storm
The storm rolled in with a fury that shook the windows and drummed against the roof like fists demanding entry. From the back porch of the Gouge home on Spencer Street, the family watched in uneasy silence as Little Creek swelled below them and the streets turned to rivulets.
Pantha stood with her arms crossed, her shawl drawn tight against the damp air. Eula and Lillian huddled beside her, eyes wide as the lightning cracked above the ridgeline. Young Irene leaned against the railing, chin resting on her hands, mesmerized by the swollen streets glowing under gaslight reflections. Orde paced restlessly, muttering about the wires and generators at risk downtown.
From his vantage point, Ezekiel could see the road to the rail yards already glistening with runoff. Downhill, the clustered buildings near the saloons and meat market began to blur in the storm’s smear. A single gas lamp flickered near the depot then went dark.
“It’s rising fast,” Zeke muttered, stepping out beside his father, raincoat slung over his shoulder.
“We’re high enough here,” Ezekiel said quietly. “But the market? The saloon?” He shook his head. “Those boys’ll be sweeping mud till Christmas.”
Elmer gave a low whistle, squinting into the curtain of rain. “You know, Zeke,” he said with a half-grin, “this might be the first time I’m glad you’ve got your own place. No cellar to flood unless Lucy’s been hiding one.”
Zeke gave a tired smile, but his hand tightened on the porch rail. “Doesn’t mean I’m not up to my neck in it. I’ve got more to lose now. More to stand for.”
Ezekiel glanced at him, approving, then turned back to the drowned streets. “It’ll pass,” he said. “Storms always do, the damages that come after those last longer.”
The Morning After the Flood
The scent of mud and soaked wood lingered in the morning air as Ezekiel stepped over a slick plank laid across the back alley behind the First and Last Chance Saloon. His boots landed with a soft squelch in silt left by the receding water. The door to the Gouge & McKinney meat market was ajar, warped from the moisture, and one of the saloon chairs sat cockeyed on the curb, half-covered in river muck.
Inside, a clerk was already scrubbing the floorboards, sleeves rolled high. “Could’ve been worse,” the young man muttered. “She only came up to the knees.”
Ezekiel nodded, though his eyes were on the sidewalk where the flood line had dried into a dirty brown seam across the stone. He knew the damage wasn’t just physical. The saloons had shuttered early, and whispers were already spreading.
By noon, word would reach City Hall. By supper, there’d be fresh headlines in the Herald Courier about flooded vice and liquor creeping too close to church doors. As if God himself had sent the waters to wash them out.
He walked slowly toward State Street, pausing where the muddy waters had lapped up to the foundation of the Wine & Liquor Co. and the Cash Grocery. His mind turned to October the deadline for legal sale in Virginia. The plant’s pause in spring had only bought them time, not favor. And now, this more scrutiny, more calls for cleansing from the temperance crowd.
Across the street, a trolley car rattled to life again, its wheels groaning against wet tracks. He watched it pass, then turned toward home, already picturing Pantha’s face when he told her the cellar might not be salvageable.
“Time does its own washing,” he murmured. “But it don’t choose what to spare.”
The trolley rattled past as Ezekiel made his way up the hill toward Spencer Street. Beneath one arm he carried a folded copy of the Herald Courier, the front page already speckled with water from where the ink had run just slightly.
Pantha met him at the door, her sleeves rolled and apron dusted with flour. “Was the damage worse than we feared?” she asked.
He stepped inside, handed her the paper. “Depends who you ask.”
She read the headline aloud, brow furrowing.
“Bristol Has Cloudburst – Many Persons Homeless
Flooded Vice District Struck by Wrath of Heaven?”
Pantha sighed. “They’ve gone and blamed the weather on your whiskey now?”
He let out a dry chuckle. “Not the first time. Won’t be the last.”
Later that afternoon – The Office at State Street
The back room of the Wine & Liquor Co. smelled faintly of vinegar. Water soaked crates were still drying on the loading dock. Ezekiel sat behind the desk with the newspaper spread before him. Sams and McNabb, his trusted partners, leaned over his shoulder.
“They printed that nonsense?” Sams asked, jabbing the column. “‘Flooded vice and liquor creeping too close to church doors… as if Providence sent the waters to cleanse.’”
McNabb muttered, “It’s pulp sermonizing, but folks read it.”
“They do more than read it,” Ezekiel said, tapping the desk. “They believe it.”
Zeke, just in from a muddy walk to check on the Arlington stock room, hung his rain-spotted hat on the peg. “The Virginia Post Office flooded too,” he said. “Funny how nobody’s calling that a judgment.”
The room went quiet for a beat, then broke into low, bitter laughter.
Sams crossed his arms. “The dry law crowd will twist this into a revival. They’re already knocking on courthouse doors again.”
McNabb added, “That depot’s barely drying and the League’s setting up their next march.”
Ezekiel closed the paper and stood. “We were clean before the rain. We’ll stay clean after. Keep the records tight. Pay the men. But don’t fool yourselves this wasn’t just a flood. It was a forecast.”
He turned toward the back window where the sun was finally pressing through the overcast.
“They don’t just want the saloon shut. They want the name scrubbed clean from this town ours included.”
That Evening – Spencer Street Parlor
The lamp burned low as Pantha laid aside her needlework and reached for the paper again. Elmer was writing in his journal maybe new syrup receipts or bottling designs. Eula and Lillian had just finished drying the last of the dishes. Irene was curled in the armchair with a book, and Orde, shirt half-untucked, leaned in from the hallway, catching fragments of grown-up talk.
Zeke came in late, kissed Lucy’s cheek, then joined his father by the fire. She was growing with child due at the first of the year.
Pantha looked up from the paper and commented to the room. “They’ll say whatever they must. But we know the truth.”
Zeke nodded. “Still if we stay in business past October, it won’t be just a matter of permits. They’ll come for the rest of it too.”
Ezekiel didn’t argue. He just stared at the fire, the edges of the newspaper curling in his hand.
Then, with a thin smile: “I’ve lived through war, saw railroads rise from wilderness, and built a name in stone and copperplate. I won’t let a muddy street and a few ink-stained sermons rewrite what’s been written in sweat.”
Pantha reached over and smoothed the crease in the paper. “Then let them write what they will. We’ll keep our own books.”
The family sat quiet for a while, each listening to the steady tick of the mantle clock, the world outside drying and shifting, one storm at a time.
Late Summer 1916 – A Quiet Reckoning
The windows of 909 Arlington Avenue stood open to catch what little breeze the August night could spare. Crickets stirred in the hedgerows, and a lantern glowed low in the front room where Zeke Gouge sat in his shirtsleeves, ledger open, but untouched. Across the parlor, Lucy’s sewing had been set aside her hands now resting over the slight swell of her belly.
“You’re doing it again,” she said gently.
He looked up.
“Thinking too loud,” she smiled, eyes kind but tired. “The numbers will still be there in the morning.”
Zeke closed the ledger, but not the thoughts. They pressed in harder at night.
“The plant’s winding down,” he said finally. “Orders stopped this week. We’ll have to halt production entirely before October. We’ve got enough stock to sell through next year if the lawyers keep the hounds at bay, but…”
He let the sentence hang and Lucy shifted. “And after?”
Zeke rubbed the bridge of his nose. “There’s always retail. Business is good in Bristol. There’s talk of new buildings going up, even with war rumors spreading. Grocery, dry goods, machines, even soda fountains. People still buy we just can’t sell liquor.”
He stood and crossed to the open window, looking out at the town lights blinking like fireflies in the haze. “I don’t need it to be liquor. I need it to be mine. Something I can hand down, if this world still makes room for that.”
Behind him, Lucy's voice was quiet but sure. “Then you will. One way or another, you will.”
He turned back, smiling faintly. “You believe that?”
“I believe in you,” she said.
Zeke moved to her side, resting his hand gently on the curve of her stomach. “January,” he whispered. “The world might be different by then.”
She nodded. “Then let’s meet it together.”
Outside, the breeze rustled the curtains. Across the ocean, the drums of war grew louder. And in a modest brick home on the Tennessee side of Bristol, a young man counted not just costs but futures.
October 26, 1916 – E. Gouge & Co. Office, West State Street, Bristol, Virginia
The rain had left a dull smear across the windows, and the autumn light slanted in weak and gray. Ezekiel stood by the coal stove, warming his palms while glancing at the front page of The Bristol Herald Courier. The headline shouted what they'd all known was coming.
“ONLY FIVE DAYS NOW UNTIL VIRGINIA WILL BE A ‘DRY’ STATE.”
He folded the paper slowly, as if the gesture might slow the calendar itself.
Across the room, McNabb was oiling the hinges on the back room safe, the task more habit than necessity. W.T. Sams sat with one booted leg across his knee, puffing a cigar that had gone cold.
“So that’s it,” Sams said finally. “After the thirty-first, not a barrel nor a bottle. And yet still no clean line. No national law. Just state by state and feds sniffing like bloodhounds.”
Ezekiel grunted. “That’s what they want chaos. Keep the people confused, the businessmen off balance. Makes it easier to seize and audit.”
McNabb wiped his hands with a rag. “You thinking they’ll still come for the books even after we’re shuttered?”
“They always do,” Ezekiel said. “IRS wants their pound of flesh, even if it’s from a ghost.”
The room fell in to a silence. Outside, a cart rattled by on wet cobblestones. The sound of the wheels echoed like an elegy. There were no more state lines to cross.
Pantha entered quietly from the side hallway, her ledger under one arm. She glanced at the newspaper, then at her husband. “They’ll come to ask again, won’t they?” she said.
Ezekiel nodded. “They’ll ask to review 1915. Then 1914. Then ask why 1913 doesn’t match the grain records from Fish Springs. They’ve been digging since the first seizure. They’ll dig deeper once the doors are locked.”
Pantha’s voice was calm, but steely. “Then be ready.”
He gave her a look of quiet admiration she had always known the cost of this life. Even now, she carried it with dignity.
“I am,” he said.
Sams leaned forward. “You reckon this will hold? I mean truly the state dry but the city wet in spirit? I’ve seen Front Street after midnight. That thirst doesn’t vanish, and people are buying at a frenzy ahead of the deadline.”
“No,” Ezekiel said. “It just goes underground. And with it, every protection honest men had.”
McNabb added, “Which means the crooks make a killing and the taxman still shows up at your widow’s door.”
A soft knock interrupted them. It was Lee Davis, rain-damp and hat in hand. He looked between the partners and gave a respectful nod to Pantha.
“Wire came,” he said, holding out a slip. “Revenue office. Asking to inspect the west bond room again. Says it’s ‘routine pre-closure verification.’”
Ezekiel didn’t even take the slip. “Tell them Thursday at Noon. And Lee, bring your own witness.”
Lee hesitated. “They’re bringing their own as well.”
“I’d expect nothing less,” Ezekiel said grimly.
He moved to the desk and opened the middle drawer, pulling out a well-thumbed copy of the state’s enabling act and the latest IRS bulletin. He laid them side by side.
“I’ll be damned if they catch me sleeping. We may be closing but I’ll close it clean, on my terms.”
Pantha placed her ledger beside his. “Then we close it together.”
Mid-November 1916 – Spencer Street, Bristol, Virginia
The afternoon sun slanted warmly across the ledger on Pantha’s desk. She adjusted her spectacles and made a final notation “Lease signed, 522 W. State Street – Pepsi Bottling Works, November 14.” She let her hand rest for a moment on the name.
Pepsi. It wasn’t whiskey. But it was something. They had also leased out on State Street to the Bristol Chero Cola Company. They would be tenants, check that would come in regular as a clock, and a symbol that maybe this chapter wasn’t all ending it was a beginning too.
Ezekiel entered from the next room and shut the door behind him more gently than usual. He’d been doing that lately. Moving slower. More careful. As if the weight of what they’d built and what they’d lost had finally settled onto his shoulders.
“They signed it,” he said simply.
Pantha didn’t look up. “I know. I watched the pen touch the paper.”
He smiled a little and crossed to the stove, stirring the coals. “Lee thinks it’s a fine tenant. The business is clean and straightforward. Hell, maybe we should’ve bottled soda to begin with.”
“Too much sugar,” she said dryly, but her eyes twinkled.
He sat beside her and stretched out his legs. “We still have 520 State. I told Zeke he can open a shop candies, cigars, maybe bottled drinks if the law allows. Clean trade.”
Pantha closed the ledger softly. “Retail is in the Gouge blood more than whiskey ever was, and it doesn’t bring the revenue agents to your door.”
“Not yet,” he said. “Give them time.”
They sat quietly, the kind of silence only long-married people know the silence of shared understanding. From upstairs, the clink of tools echoed faintly. Their son Zeke had commandeered the attic room as Orde would not give him back use of the old carriage house. Zeke by moving to his own house forfeited his rights to it according to Orde. Lately, he’d been absorbed with an idea of something about an electric steering mechanism for motorcars. He had sketches pinned on every wall and a makeshift gearbox mounted on a table.
Pantha tilted her head toward the ceiling. “He’s still working on that?”
“He’s close to something,” Ezekiel said, proud despite himself. “If the boy ever sticks with one idea long enough to finish it, we may end up with an inventor on our hands.”
“He’s your son. He’ll finish.”
Ezekiel rubbed his hands together. “I think I’m finally ready for a slower kind of business. The kind with receipts and hours and customers who don’t whisper behind their coats. I’m tired, Pantha.”
She stood and smoothed her skirt. “Then let’s be tired together and let Zeke carry the fire forward.”
He looked up at her. “You always saw further down the road than I did.”
“That’s because you were always building the road,” she replied.
A Week Later – 520 State Street
A striped awning flapped gently in the autumn breeze. Inside, the shelves were half-stocked licorice whips, peppermint lozenges, little jars of pickled peaches and cider candy. Cigars in the glass case. Sarsaparilla bottles in the back cooler. Elmer had made a deal with the bottling works to produce his own soda under a private label for the store. It was Zeke’s store but it was a family affair.
Ezekiel adjusted the “Open” sign on the door. It felt strange not to smell whiskey or hear the groan of barrel staves but it also felt… clean.
Lee stepped in with a grin. “I told some of the fellows down at the depot. God willing you will have foot traffic all day.”
Ezekiel offered him a bag of hard candy. “Samples for the passengers debarking off the trains. Tell them there’s more where that came from and send them our way.”
At the far end of the counter, Zeke leaned on the display case, scribbling in his sketchbook, a blueprint barely visible beneath his elbow. “Got a name for that contraption yet?” Ezekiel asked.
Zeke didn’t look up. “Nope. But I’ve figured out how to reverse the wheel resistance at low speed.”
Lee raised an eyebrow. “That sound important?”
Zeke smirked. “It will.”
Ezekiel smiled. “It always starts with an idea.”
For one brief moment just a breath in the long storm of years it felt like peace.
December Evening, 1916 – Spencer Street Parlor, Bristol
The Christmas tree twinkled faintly in the front parlor of the Gouge home, its silver tinsel and ribboned candles casting a soft shimmer on the polished piano and lace-curtained windows. On the mantle, tucked between evergreen sprigs and red velvet bows, stood the framed portraits of Walter and Mollie ever young, ever present.
Ezekiel sat quietly in his armchair, one hand resting on the folded newspaper across his knee. The headlines blared in his mind louder than the phonograph playing softly from the hallway.
"J.L. Casper Freed From Federal Prison"
"Police Think Illicit Sales Are Increasing"
