Moonshine Woman
An imagining of a distant family member and her enterprising nature. Plus, a little backstory for the story.
One time, I was having a conversation with my Mama and she was telling me about members of my family on my Daddy’s side. It all started when I brought up that my maternal great grandmother affectionately known as Big Mama used to ‘run whiskey’. My Big Mama’s late husband owned a whiskey still before he passed away and she took over the side hustle. I never had the chance to meet him. Mama said she used to run the jugs to the customer’s porch, get the money and jump back into Big Mama’s car before they moved on to the next house.
Mama told me about a woman who was my Daddy’s cousin and she was also a bootlegger. Her name was Nozelle Harkins. There’s something pretty damn awesome about knowing that there were enterprising, hustling women on both sides of my family. One night, I thought about Nozelle and decided to write this short fiction piece about her.
Nozelle strutted down the gravel road en route to Aunt Ella Mae’s house with the Alabama sun motivating her decision to pick up the pace. Her wide brim white hat shielded some of the fiery rays from her face but the damp handkerchief was an indicator that the heat was the winner of the day. So, before she became a fine brown melted mess laid out on the side of the road, she needed to get to some shade soon. Nozelle left her daddy’s beat up pickup truck at Aunt Ella Mae’s house to keep it out of sight until she got off Sheriff’ Welker’s radar.
It’s been three weeks since he, Deputy Carter, and a few other officers from the neighboring town caught her coming out of Ray Deloach’s place after making her weekly dropoff of corn liquor. She rushed towards the back door and managed to escape one of the burly officers who smelled like spoiled barbecue. They grabbed her as she was making a run for the woods to get them off her trail. As Nozelle thought back to this moment, she rubbed her hand across her waist, fingering the fading rope marks under her dress. One spot, right under her left breast, was still tender. She winced a bit as she touched it. At Sheriff Welker’s order, Deputy Carter tied Nozelle to a tree as she struggled to free herself from his grasp. They proceeded to intimidate and arrest the patrons at Ray’s place, holding them at gunpoint while they waited for the paddy wagon to arrive and load them up.
It was the usual game the Law played with all of the ‘niggers’ in Pickens County. On Fridays, most of them being tenant farmers, would receive their lousy ass pay from the landowners for a week’s worth of toiling in fields of white gold, like their people before them; some of them enslaved and some of them newly freed with nowhere to go but right there. With it being the first of the month, it was expected that the sheriff and his boys were going to raid one of the juke joints around there, carry them all to the jailhouse and force them to bail themselves out with their meager wages or sentence them to work extra hours for the landowners for free. It was all one big power trip for small minded men.
Now, Ray’s place was rather inconspicuous and only the townspeople knew about it as a gathering spot so ain’t nobody real sure how the Law found out about it. That night, Nozelle was later than usual showing up with the hooch. One of the batches took too long to cool because of the humidity. She was getting ready to leave before Freddy Stewart, who was sweet on her, called her back to dance and grind on her. Once she got down to the jailhouse, they put everybody in the holding cell except her. They took her into a small room and sat around like brutes to interrogate her.
“Who you running this whiskey for, gal?” Sheriff Welker began.
Nozelle swallowed her fear and sat defiantly. She glared at each one of the officers, especially Sheriff Welker. His chubby reddish face was smashed together with an anger he tried to conceal.
“I’on even know whatchall talkin’ bout.” Nozelle countered.
“Where you get that whiskey?” Deputy Carter chimed in with a gruff voice. He was trying to sound authoritative but it was comical. Nozelle struggled to keep from laughing at his frail frame in his police suit that was two sizes too big.
Nozelle turned to look directly into Deputy Carter’s eyes. She knows him. Grew up with him. She remembered when his mama used to come down to their house to pick up meat after Nozelle’s daddy slaughtered a hog or cured some cow meat. Before he became Deputy Carter, he was just Stanley. His daddy was a drunk who couldn’t keep a job nor take care of his family so he and all nine of his siblings would’ve starved if it wasn’t for Nozelle’s folks. Stanley always wanted to belong.
“Now Stanley, I got that hooch from the same place you got yours.” Nozelle teased, hinting at his father’s penchant for always wanting to get a sip of that good colored folks’ liquor. Deputy Carter’s face grew hot with embarrassment and one of the younger officers from Aliceville rose up to strike Nozelle but Sheriff Welker pushed him back.
“Sit down. We ain’t like you boys over there in Aliceville. This here is a woman. She gone be treated like a woman even if she colored.” The officer attempted to move past Sheriff Welker but he shoved his pudgy body towards the officer, causing him to stumble against the wall. Nozelle chuckled slightly to herself as she watched the spectacle.
“Get ‘im outta here!” Sheriff Welker bellowed. Another one of the officers escorted the hotheaded officer out of the room. The other two officers exchanged looks back and forth with each other. Sheriff Welker ran his hands through his hair and Deputy Carter walked to the side of him and pulled a chair out from the table so he could sit down.
“Now, Nozelle, we need to know who you running this whiskey for. Cause you know it’s ‘gainst the law ‘round here. I know your folks. They good people so I ain’t gonna do nothing to ya. You have my word. We just need to know who got you breaking the law for ‘im.”
The smell of the jailhouse was thick with heat, frustration, suppression and neglect. Nozelle knew if she didn’t tell them something soon, she’d be in that hot box all weekend and she’d have to face Judge Telford the first thing Monday morning. He would surely rule that she had to work the fields to pay off her bond. She hasn’t picked one stem of cotton since she was seven and she was going to keep it that way. Rather than upholding her rightful resistance, she chose to relax her jaw and pretend to cooperate.
“I got it from Big Herb, from over there in Birmingham. But don’t tell him I told you. I ain’t trying to die. He don’t care nothing bout the law and he’ll kill you dead before he let you catch him.”
Deputy Carter interjected, “Not if we kill him first.” Sheriff Welker shot the deputy a stern, reprimanding look. Nozelle dropped her head and hid the smirk on her face.
Nozelle reached Aunt Ella Mae’s front yard and stood under the big oak tree in the shade to catch her breath. A soft, warm breeze greeted her under the swaying branches as she opened the first two buttons on her dress and dabbed at the sweat on her neck and between her cleavage with her nearly soaked handkerchief. She noticed that the screen door was the only door closed on the house and the front window was up as well.
“Aunt Ella Mae!!” Nozelle called. “Auntee!” A small, graceful woman with salt and pepper hair came to the screen door and opened it with a smile.
“Hey there, gal! Who brought you here?” Aunt Ella Mae chirped.
“I had Freddy to drop me off from up there at the road and walked down here just in case the Law was tailin’ him,” explained Nozelle.
“When you gonna let Freddy coat (court) you?” Aunt Ella Mae inquired as she sat down in one of her chairs on the porch.
“I ain’t thinking ‘bout no Freddy.” Nozelle walked up the steps to the porch, kissed Aunt Ella Mae on her forehead.
“That sholl is a pretty dress you got on there, gal.” Aunt Ella Mae complimented.
Nozelle spun around to show off her dress to Aunt Ella Mae. The dress was sky blue with a white lace collar. Tapered at the waist, the skirt flared around the top of her knees. The wide brim white hat and white Florentine flats with a decorative bow accented the dress beautifully. Nozelle was known around Pickens County as one of the best dressed Black women. She didn’t step outside of her house without wearing some finery that she got from some big city up north or somewhere like that.
“I got this from Memphis last month. From A.W. Schwab.”
“It’s pretty.”
“Why thank you! You want me to get one for you? That’ll gimme a reason to get back over there to Memphis. I gotta keep moving around anyway for a little while.”
“Aw, you ain’t gotta go through no trouble like that for me.” Aunt Ella Mae said.
“It ain’t no trouble. I’d be more than happy to do that for you,” insisted Nozelle.
“That’s fine but don’t put yourself out. I still like looking at them pretty dishes you got me.”
Nozelle sat down beside her aunt. “That’s fine china. I got some for you and Mama. She ain’t used hers yet.”
“Maybe she’ll get ‘round to using them directly. It’s some poke chops and rice in there,” Aunt Ella Mae offered.
“I’ll get some in a little bit. Did Wilbert and Curtis put my stuff up?”
“Yeah, they came here early this morning and went to the still to get it. It’s back there in the shed.”
“Alright. Gotta make quite a few runs this evening,” Nozelle said, pensively.
Nozelle’s whiskey still was nestled in a deep part of the woods behind Aunt Ella Mae’s house. Her aunt’s garden, full of okra, corn, and tomatoes, hid a small clearing path that led to the still. Aunt Ella Mae allowed Nozelle to use the corn she grew to make the hooch. When Nozelle was eleven years old, her daddy took her to the whiskey still and showed her how to make it, from the fermentation to the distillation processes. Her daddy didn’t want her picking cotton or working in some white woman’s house as a maid. So, he figured that teaching her how to make and sell hooch would allow her to make her own money. That way, she could do what she wanted.
The sweat on Nozelle’s body began irritating the rope scars around her waist. She winced again as she adjusted herself in the chair. Aunt Ella Mae noticed her doing so.
“How you feeling?” Aunt Ella Mae asked Nozelle with a concerned look.
“It’s healing up pretty good since I put some of that salve you gave me on it.”
“Welker didn’t have no business telling that boy to tie you up like that. You ain’t no hog.” Aunt Ella Mae snorted a bit and tried to keep her composure.
“Naw. He did right to try to hold me down cause if he didn’t, I would’ve ran to Tuscaloosa!” Nozelle threw her head back in a raucous laugh as Aunt Ella Mae slightly chuckled while shaking her head. She didn’t find any of this as humorous as Nozelle did.
“You something else, gal,” Aunt Ella Mae said. “I be worried about you.”
“I know you do. Just keep praying for me.”
“I keep you ‘fore the Lord. You know that. When you gonna stop anyway? Ain’t you tired of running whiskey?”
“I just gotta save up a little bit mo’. Trying to get up there to Baltimore where Barbara Jean and ‘nem at.”
“Whatchu gone do up there?” Aunt Ella Mae asked earnestly.
“Live better. Alabama can’t hold me, Auntee.”
“You always had them big ideas, gal.”
“Just want to be able to move around like a woman is born to do.” Nozelle stated firmly.
“If they don’t get ya, first.” Aunt Ella Mae said softly and with a hint of fear in her voice.
“Auntee, they ain’t gone get me. They looking for Big Herb from over there in Birmingham.” Nozelle put her arm around her aunt to console her.
“Who dat is?” Aunt Ella Mae asked with a frown.
Nozelle paused and looked slyly at her aunt who was waiting for an answer. With a smile, she said in a boastful tone, “Right now…it’s me.”
With that, she stood to enter her aunt’s house to get her a plate of pork chops and rice. The sun was starting to set and she had to get ready to take care of her business for the night.
My Mama told me that Nozelle Harkins was captured by the Sheriff and tied to a tree when she tried to run away, so that part of the story is true. Aunt Ella Mae is my paternal great grandmother. Her full name is Ella Mae Taylor Haynie. She was born in 1896 and passed in 1983 when I was ten years old. Wilbert is the name of one of my uncles, my Daddy’s brother, and Curtis is the name of one my second cousins. My Daddy’s family is from Pickens County, Alabama and there really is a town called Aliceville. Barbara Jean and ‘nem (sisters and brothers) are on my Mama’s side of the family. They currently live in Birmingham. The store, A.W. Scwab, is still opened in Memphis, located on Beale Street. It has been in operation since 1876.
While there is a limited amount of research, bootlegging or running whiskey was something that many African Americans did, specifically after Prohibition and during the height of sharecropping to make more money. Most of this history was passed down as oral tradition for obvious reasons; bootlegging was a secret profession that created an alternate economy. Incidents of actual or suspected bootleggers involving law enforcement were a real thing. Women were usually not suspected of being the producers and distributors of illegal alcohol, although many were involved and moved about undetected.
The dialogue of this short fiction piece is formatted as African American Vernacular English (AAVE) and intentional because it is used to denote a specific time frame in the Black Experience. The exception is the dialogue by the white characters and it is formatted as Southern vernacular.
Lastly, all images and videos were created with Gemini AI but every blessed word of this short fiction piece came directly from my soul…and my ancestors.
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