* Author : Stephanie Malia Morris

* Narrator : Dominick Rabrun

* Host : Wilson Fowlie

* Audio Producer : Eric Valdes





PC 909: Resurrection Rum is a PodCastle original.





Content warnings for death, gun violence, and racism





Rated PG-13

Resurrection Rum

by Stephanie Malia Morris

After Kraus’s The Death and Life of Zebulon Finch

 

ALBEMARLE COUNTY, July 1927: WANTED! One ROBERT HOWARD for the MURDER of JOHN LITTLE. Physical description: NEGRO MALE of lightish hue, aged SEVENTEEN or EIGHTEEN, of LOW STATURE and AVERAGE BUILD, head PEANUT-SHAPED with CLOSE-CROPPED hair. Known to dress above his station in GENTLEMAN’S SUITS, outrageous HANDKERCHIEFS, and WING-TIPPED SHOES (stolen, all). Wanted also for the illegal possession and transport of RESURRECTION RUM across county lines. KNOWN ASSOCIATES: a gang of six or seven Negro rumrunners both MALE and FEMALE variously aged TWELVE to NINETEEN (descriptions, sketches below). DANGEROUS BY ASSOCIATION. REWARD $100 for information leading to hideout and/or capture. Suspect known to be ARMED and HIGHLY DANGEROUS. DO! NOT!! APPROACH!!! Report all sightings to the Albemarle County Sheriff’s Office at the following address: ——

One hundred dollars! Robert Howard — he declaimed to his KNOWN ASSOCIATES, speaking from the pulpit of Ma Marian’s kitchen table while his company of six or seven dug into peach cobbler and amened, brother, amened — Robert Howard was worth a million, gazillion, fafillion times that dead, let alone alive. And the rest of it? Low-stature, peanut-shaped head, above his station? His suit and shoes, stolen? Man, Robert Howard ordered his suits from Richmond. He made more cash money dollars running a crate of resurrection than Sheriff Little had made five years in office. But what did the chief of pigs know? Scared motherfucker, calling Rob out his name from the safety of a wanted ad, claiming him ARMED and HIGHLY DANGEROUS, his handkerchiefs OUTRAGEOUS. Blaming Rob for John, when all present knew the Sheriff himself had pulled the trigger, and John his own son. Sheriff wanted MURDER so bad, Rob would drive up to Charlottesville today, let his piece do the speaking. Now that would be murder.

His known associates shouted him down. Sugared crust and glistening brown chunks of peach sprayed from their protesting mouths, spattered the wooden table beneath their pounding fists and the planks beneath their drumming feet. They called themselves the Browntown Boys, preferring alliteration to accuracy, there being half as many FEMALE as MALE among them, and one or two with no interest in claiming either one. They all knew Rob for innocent. Sheriff Little had murdered before. Look at Pops B. But there wasn’t a soul in Albemarle would contravene him. If the Sheriff said Rob did it, Rob did it. Half the county was on the hunt. The drive from Browntown to Charlottesville crawled with pigs, rum-running rivals, Klan. Best lie low until things cooled down, the Browntown Boys said. Best let Sheriff Little’s falsehood stand. It was his loss. What sick bastard killed his own goddamn kid, whatever side of the law he was on?

Rob bristled from scalp to gold-cuffed sleeves. “Naw, son. John was one of us. He didn’t deserve that bullet. We ain’t taking his daddy’s shit lying down. Pops B. wouldn’t. I ain’t about to neither. We still got a job to do.”

The drumming and pounding slowed. The Boys reared back. Their chairs creaked in astonishment. “Not the man in Norfolk,” said a Browntown Boy, incredulous.

The man in Norfolk,