Rock
By
Katrina Parker Williams
Copyright © 2011 Katrina Parker Williams
All rights reserved.
A publication of Step Art Designs
Rock
2334 Words
The year the United States entered the War, Buford Tee Jefferson opened the Nickel and Dimer in Jones County. He purchased a run-down piece of property, located near the route of the New Orleans and Northeastern Railroad to build his juke joint. He wanted to attract the colored railroad workers and saw mill employees who had money to spend. It was a place the coloreds in Jones County could go that would be free of the raucousness and bawdiness of the barrelhouse crowd at the Hankering in Wayne County, a place to let off some steam without having to trudge twenty or more miles to the Hankering.
Buford Tee offered his prime whiskey at the Nickel and Dimer and hired local colored talent to perform for the patrons. Those that wanted a little more action could make their way to the Hankering, freely doling out money on the crib girls for their services, the crib girls happily obliging.
A year later the Eighteenth Amendment was passed, prohibiting the manufacture and sale of alcohol. It was now the law of the land, but it proved difficult to enforce. The Volstead Act solved this problem. When people in the county heard that everything from whiskey to rum to beer was being banned, they vehemently protested against the law, chiding that it violated their civil rights and infringed upon their personal liberties. If they wanted to drink, they felt it was their God-given right to do so. They also argued that if they could die for the country in the War, then they damn sure should have the right to take a drink whenever the notion hit them.
August thought the new law was going to put a dent in his whiskey-making business, but it actually gave it a boost, many residents stocking up on liquor just in case the ban would render the county completely dry. The sheriff of Jones County, Sheriff Coffield, never enforced the laws banning alcohol in his county, allowing August to continue his enterprise without interference.
As soldiers returned home from the War, they were surprised to learn that alcohol was banned in the States. They were angry, particularly, because alcohol was sold unreservedly overseas and they could indulge freely while on their tour of duty. The soldiers couldn’t believe the evangelists and prohibitionists, that they had risked their lives for, had taken away a freedom they believed was guaranteed by the Constitution, something that helped them keep their sanity during the War, many coming home from the War addicted to the intoxicating brew.
Many colored soldiers made their way.to the Nickel and Dimer, dressed in their military uniforms, to knock back a few bottles of whiskey, tell some war stories, and gamble. The crowd welcomed the soldiers like they were colored celebrities. One soldier, in particular, Hezekiah Bennett, nicknamed Rock in the War because he had a head shaped like a rock, all lumpy and dented, bragged about how he saved a whole white infantry unit, telling the story with zeal, other soldiers refusing to recant their war stories, wanting only to forget the whole experience, the nightmares and flashbacks paralyzing them to the point they couldn’t acclimate themselves back into society.
“At daybreak, you see, we were starting our advancement,” Rock narrated, holding a whiskey bottle in one hand and a soldier’s smoke in the other.
“Yeah, and what happened then?” one patron asked, listening intently to his tale.
“The enemy forces were closing in, you see,” Rock added.
