The Last Ballad Read online

  Sophia smiled, reached into a pocket, and pulled out a thick stub of pencil. Ella took it in her hand, thought of how its thickness reminded her of one of Giles Corley’s fingers.

  The truck came abreast of Loray, turned left, and crossed the railroad tracks, headed north as if leaving town. Sophia turned and looked back at the mill, its lights floating in her eyes.

  “We’re going to shut that place down,” she said. “You watch, Ella May. You’re going to help us do it.”

  The busy thrum of Franklin Avenue gave way to small houses and grassy fields. The truck stopped on the side of the road by a simple, newly constructed A-frame. A hand-painted sign that read Gastonia Local of the N.T.W.U. hung above the small porch that sheltered the single door. Behind the headquarters, a white tent housed the commissary. The rumble of the truck’s engine died away, followed by a cough of exhaust and a brief tremble that traveled up Ella’s spine. The noise of the evening rose to meet her. A couple dozen men in overalls and women in homespun dresses stood talking by the building. Others were gathered in the grass around it. Children chased each other and played in the fields. The sound of a guitar came from somewhere Ella couldn’t see.

  “Well, come on, Ella May,” Sophia said. They climbed down from the truck. The driver came around to meet them. Her name was Velma Burch. She was from New Jersey and was a veteran labor organizer. She was only forty years old, but the gauntness of her face and the streaks of gray hair beneath her bell-shaped hat made her seem much older.

  “Ella May’s a singer,” Sophia said, “and she said she’ll sing something for us tonight.”

  “Well, Beal wants them to sing,” Velma said.

  “Who’s Beal?” Ella asked.

  “And she knows a whole bunch of colored workers,” Sophia said. She raised her eyebrows, smiled in a way that made it clear that a secret thing had just passed between her and Velma.

  “Beal’s not going to know what to do with that,” Velma said. “Best tell him about the singing first.”

  “Who’s Beal?” Ella asked again.

  “Who’s Beal?” Velma asked. She widened her eyes and opened her mouth in mock surprise. “Why, he’s the strike leader, right Miss Blevin?”

  “Yes, indeed, Miss Burch,” Sophia said. “He thinks he’s the strike leader.”

  “Yep,” Velma said. She turned back to Ella. “He’s the strike leader all right.”

  The three of them looked toward the field across the road, where a stage had been erected. Poles had been set into the ground and a man on a ladder was lighting lanterns. Dense woods crouched behind the stage. It looked like a cow pasture that was about to be employed for a tent revival.

  “What are you going to sing for us, Ella May?” Velma asked.

  Ella looked down at the union leaflet on which she’d written new lyrics.

  “I’ve been working on the words for a few days,” Ella said. “It’s to the tune of ‘Little Mary Phagan.’”

  “That’s about the girl getting murdered at the pencil factory,” Sophia said. “But she changed the words.”

  “That might not be a good one for a meeting,” Velma said.

  “It’s just the melody,” Ella said.

  “Look here,” Sophia said. She plucked the leaflet from Ella’s hand, held it up to Velma’s eyes, turned it so that she could see the handwriting on the once-blank paper. “She wrote the words on this side.” She turned it over so that the black print that outlined the union’s demands could be seen. “And I wrote the words on the other.” She looked at Ella. “It’s almost like we’re sisters.”

  An hour later Ella stood on the edge of the field, the world around her dark but for the oil lamp that hung above the headquarters’ door.

  To the south, a steady stream of people crossed the railroad tracks and made their way up the road from the Loray village. Cars and trucks sat parked along either side of the road in long rows. Men in nice suits with cameras in hand took notes and snapped pictures of the strikers. Exploding flashbulbs cast long shadows that stretched toward the railroad tracks behind them.

  “Beal likes a lot of media.” Ella looked to her right, found Velma standing beside her, the woman’s jaw moving as she chewed. She held something wrapped in wax paper. “He says it’s free press, even though nothing’s free about it. Everybody knows the newspaper’s tied up with the mills and the government.” She popped something else into her mouth, balled up the paper, stuffed it into her pocket.

  Ella watched Velma chew and swallow, watched her pass the back of her hand across her mouth. A glowing heat in Ella’s stomach signaled its emptiness. She couldn’t remember her last meal.

  “Sophia told me there might be something to eat tonight,” she said.

  “We eat after the meeting,” Velma said. She cleared her throat, ran her tongue over her front teeth. “People stick around for food. If you feed them first they’ll get their bellies full and go home.”

  They watched the crowds gather, watched as more cars and trucks passed and searched for empty places to park. Velma nodded at people as they passed by, smiled, said hello to the ones she knew, kept her silence when newspapermen drew close.

  The field began to fill with people. Velma swatted at a mosquito on her arm, looked at the dollop of blood it had left behind. She wiped her hand on her dress and nodded toward the field. “Hard to believe we’re going to fill this whole field with tents that aren’t here yet.”

  “When should they get here?” Ella asked.

  “I don’t know,” Velma said. “Yesterday? Evictions begin tomorrow at dawn in the village. They’re going to look to us, and I’m going to look to Beal, and I’m going to say, ‘We’re all looking at you, Fred.’”

  “Maybe they’ll get here tomorrow.”

  “They’re always getting here tomorrow,” Velma said. “Everything’s getting here tomorrow: tents, food, supplies. It’s all getting here tomorrow.” She seemed to catch herself, seemed to want to unsay the things she’d said. She looked down, toed at the gravel with her shoe. “We like to keep things moving during the meetings,” she said. “So, if you hear your name you be ready to get up there and tell your story, sing your song.”

  Ella closed her hand around the leaflet in her pocket. It had grown tissue-soft from her sweaty palm. Velma crossed to the other side of the street, disappeared into the crowd. Ella followed. She passed through clouds of cigarette smoke, caught snatches of conversations about the strike, about the next day’s evictions, about the union. She kept moving until she reached the right-hand side of the stage. Three stairs led up to the platform. The moon had risen on the other side of the trees. A form passed through its light, stopped in the middle of the stage, rapped its knuckles on the podium. It was Sophia. She rapped her knuckles again, waited for the crowd to quiet. She welcomed everyone to the meeting.

  Ella did her best to focus on the things Sophia said—something about the union’s efforts to reach Gastonia’s young people, about mothers and fathers bringing their children to the meetings, what to do in the morning if you found yourself homeless. She glanced around her, where men and women and a few small children had pressed in close to the stage so they could hear everything being said. Ella noted the man standing to her right. He slid his hands in and out of his pants pockets. He caught her looking at him, nodded at her, and smiled. He reached into his breast pocket for a pack of cigarettes. Ella noted his shaking hands. He pushed his red hair away from his eyes before lighting his cigarette.

  The man was young, only in his thirties. He did not have the hardened look about him that the rest of the strikers had. His face was full, pale and soft, almost childish. His navy blue suit was so worn that the material appeared shiny at the knees and elbows.

  “Tonight, we’ve got Mr. Carlton Reed, a reporter from the Labor Defender, here with us all the way from New York City,” Sophia said onstage. “And of course we’re going to hear from Mr. Fred Beal himself.” There was clapping, whistles from the audience. Sophia paused
, waited for quiet. “But first, we want to remind you that one of the best things about these meetings is the opportunity it offers us to fellowship with one another and welcome new friends. One of those friends is here with us tonight.”

  Ella had been staring at the redheaded man’s shaking hands and did not realize that Sophia had been referring to her until someone whispered in her ear. “You ready?” a voice asked.

  Ella saw Velma standing beside her.

  “Don’t be nervous,” Velma said.

  “I can’t help it,” Ella said.

  “The stage has been checked. It’s all clear.”

  “Checked for what?” Ella asked.

  “Dynamite,” Velma said.

  “Dynamite?”

  “Shhh,” Velma said. “Wasn’t anything there.” She nodded to the skirt that enclosed the stage’s underpinning. “At a meeting last week, somebody stashed a bundle of it under the stage. They lit it too, but the fuse was too wet after the rain.”

  Ella did not know whether she wanted to run or if she wanted to fall to her knees and lift the skirt around the stage and peer beneath it. Velma must have sensed her fear.

  “Don’t worry,” Velma whispered. “It’s been checked. There’s nothing there.” She smiled. “Not when we got started anyway.”

  Ella heard Sophia say her name. She turned to the stage at the sound of it.

  “Tonight she’s joining us from down the road in Bessemer City,” Sophia said. “Ella May’s a believer in this struggle, and we’re hoping she’ll go home and organize the American Mill. She’s got a family at home to support, just like many of you, and she’s here to do her part. Remember her name, brothers and sisters, and make certain you shake her hand tonight. Ella May, you want to come on up?”

  The audience could have applauded, or they could not have applauded: Ella was never able to remember. What she could remember was suddenly finding herself walking across the stage in front of all those faces. She didn’t look at Sophia, but she felt the girl standing nearby like a distant star that pulled Ella into its orbit. She remembered what Velma had said about the dynamite, wondered what it would feel like to have the stage explode, to lift itself beneath her, toss her into the air over the crowd. She shook the fear from her mind, took hold of the podium with both hands just as Sophia had done.

  “Thank you,” she said. “And thank you for letting me be here tonight.” She opened her mouth, waited. She wanted to turn toward Sophia to ask what to say next, but instead she searched for Velma in the crowd. All the faces looked the same. She touched the leaflet in her pocket. Eventually, more words came. “I ain’t from here. I’m from up in the mountains in Tennessee.” A whistle came from the back of the crowd, and someone clapped his hands and hollered, “Johnson City!” The people in front of the stage turned at the sound. Some of them laughed, a few of them applauded. “Bristol!” a woman’s voice called out. More laughter, more applause. Ella felt that a game had begun, and the crowd cheered as a list of towns, cities, and counties in Tennessee were shouted out: Knoxville, Cocke County, Erwin, Elizabethton, Greeneville. Ella waited until the crowd grew quiet and the laughter and applause died away.

  “Is that everybody?” she asked. The audience erupted in cheers. “I don’t want to leave nobody out.” She laughed then, and she felt the tightness in her stomach leave her body. Her heart slowed.

  “It feels good to hear the names of all them places,” she said. “I ain’t visited all of them, and I’ll probably never see the Tennessee hills again, but it feels good to hear those names, so thank you.

  “I reckon I ended up here the same way most of you did. The mills sent men up into the mountains, told us all about the good life down here.” Boos lifted from the audience, and Ella acted surprised that someone would boo such promises. She heard laughter, and she watched as the people in the audience slowly came into focus, and she felt as if she were looking into each individual face and seeing that they’d been made the same promises she’d been made, and there was nothing to do now but laugh at the absurdity of their own belief in those promises and the men who made them. “They talked about how much money we’d make, didn’t they? About how fine our homes would be, what nice things we could buy in town. My husband—the man who was my husband, anyway—he wanted to go. He said, ‘It sounds good,’ and I said, ‘Well, let’s go then.’ I’ve worked in one mill or another ever since, a lot of them here in Gaston County. I figure one mill ain’t too different from another: they’re all bad as far as I know.

  “I work at American over in Bessemer City now. I work six days a week for nine dollars, but it ain’t enough.”

  Ella stopped speaking, let her eyes linger on a young woman standing just a few feet away. She wore a homespun dress and held a sleeping baby in her arms, and as Ella stared at her she noticed how the woman swayed back and forth.

  “I’ve got four kids at home,” Ella said. “I had five, but I lost one of them when he was just a baby.” She pulled her gaze from the baby in the young mother’s arms and stared out at the audience, searched the faces again until she found an older woman with a little girl standing beside her who could have been her granddaughter. “I got a little girl sick at home right now. I asked the foreman to put me on days so I could be there to care for her at night, but he won’t do it. I don’t know why. I’m doing my best for the babies I’ve still got. But it’s hard. You men might not know it the way we know it, but it’s hard.

  “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?”

  Ell
a 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.