Carl and I both work for Boss Hodges in Birmingham, Alabama. Carl’s been with him for a long time, over ten years, going back to at least 1920. Me? I’m a newcomer. For me it’s been less than a year.
Mrs. Rose, my landlady, trudged upstairs. I could hear the creaking steps as she approached my door. She’s one of the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union women. I pay her $7 a month, in advance for my room plus another $1 to park my truck in her back yard. She’s glad to get a sober non-drinking boarder who’s often gone overnight. Her only real complaint about me is the unusual hours I keep. I don’t have any complaints about her at all although she’s a little bit hard of hearing. Once you know that you can compensate for it. In 1930 Birmingham Alabama that’s a good deal.
An authoritative rap on my door was followed by, “Mr. Jones, your friend Carl is here.”
“Yes Ma’am. Thank you Mrs. Rose,” I told her, speaking loudly.
Carl sat in the front room, dwarfing the green upholstered chair he’d chosen. Mrs. Jones was very particular about who she allowed indoors and who had to wait outside. Carl had reached the indoor status a few months ago. He was somewhat of a local celebrity having been a former football player and a professional boxer but I think she saw his most redeeming quality as his friendly polite manner. It sure wasn’t his looks. He was a bruiser, what some people would call a Palooka. Big, burly and slow moving, you could tell looking at him he’d been hit in the face repeatedly. His nose had been broken several times and the ridge above his eyes was a mass of scar tissue. There’s a comic strip in the funny pages called “Joe Palooka” which recently became popular but the name has been used for a long time. I take it to mean an inept, clumsy, none-too-clever and none-too-admirable athlete. Then again, maybe Mrs. Rose just liked big men, he was sure that. In any case she’d given him a Charleston Chew candy bar and a glass of milk to enjoy while I was getting dressed. Not everyone got that. She sat on the edge of the sofa chatting with him as I came downstairs.
“I’ll leave you boys alone,” she told us as she rose to her feet. “Is that milk OK, Carl? It’s been in the ice box a while.”
He finished the milk in a few large swallows, tilting back his head. “Yes’m, that was good. Thank you,” he told her as he handed her the empty glass.
“What’s up, Carl?” I asked him.
“Boss Hodges wants to see you today at 4:00 in the Reading Room,” he told me. The first thing I thought was what have I done wrong? That’s the way it is with Boss Hodges. I couldn’t think of anything. I’d been making my runs back and forth to Mobile regularly, fast and efficiently. “It’s gonna be a big sit down,” he went on, “and he asked for you special.” That was curious. I wasn’t normally part of Boss Hodges’ inner circle like Carl and some others were.
“I’ll be there,” I told him. “Do you know what it’s about?”
“We’re gonna sit down with the coloreds,” he said as he rose to his feet. “Bring your pistol.” I ushered him to the door.
In addition to hauling illegally imported booze that came from Mexico and Cuba by boat I’d been involved with busting a few local stills along with Carl and a man I knew as Raymond. They did muscle and gun work for Boss Hodges. Carl did the muscle part and Raymond was the shooter. Me, I was the driver.
The black and white parts of Birmingham were pretty clearly divided when it comes to illicit liquor sales. Boss Hodges considered the white parts of the city as his territory. A man named Freeman Sweet ruled the black parts with the same sort of authority. Both of them were ruthless criminals.
Before I got dressed for my afternoon meeting I polished my shoes with my Shinola home shoe polish kit. It took me a while but when I was done I could look down and see my reflection in them. I wore my good tan three-piece suit and a black linen shirt I’ve got. I spent two years of my life wearing prison stripes and grays. One of my pleasures now was to be able to dress nicely. A black show handkerchief in the jacket pocket and my Panama hat added the finishing touches. The hat wasn’t the final item, though. Carl had made a point of telling me to bring my revolver so I tucked my old Colt single-action Army revolver in my waistband. When I unbuttoned my jacket the wooden handgrips were pretty apparent. Colt says you can carry those cocked on the safety notch but I feel a lot more comfortable with the hammer resting on an empty cylinder. Last but not least I figured what the hey, there’s no point in having a gun without bullets so I dropped six extra cartridges into my pants pocket where they rattled around. Raymond calls that sound battle rattle.
I try to make it a habit of being early when I can. The walk over toward Legion Field and the Christian Reading Room would take some time so I set out. You might not think about it but the freedom to walk more than three steps in one direction before you have to turn around is one to enjoy if you’ve got it. I was so early that Melinda, the tight lipped woman who runs the Reading Room was still there when I arrived.
“My, Mr. Jones, you look awfully handsome today,” she complimented me as I walked in. That made me feel pretty good.
“You look very nice yourself, Melinda,” I told her. “Looks like you’re the one who put the snap in snapdragon.” She actually blushed.
Boss Hodges was already seated at his table. He’s well barbered and has a thin matinee idol mustache. You invariably get a whiff of the Lucky Tiger aftershave he wears. He’s got an intensity about himself that’s undisguised. “You’re early, Jones,” he told me. “Good man. You can have a seat over there.” He pointed toward one of the chairs lining the back wall, far from his table. That was good enough for me. I had a seat.
Raymond’s maroon Packard roadster pulled up at the curb. After he parked it he opened one of the side trunk doors and took out a B.A.R. like it was the most normal thing in the world and brought it in with him. That’s a Browning Automatic Rifle, an expensive machine gun. He took a seat where he could see the whole room and didn’t say a word; he just nodded to us both. The heavy hitters were starting to arrive. Carl was next and he sat down two chairs away from Boss Hodges as if that was his normal spot.
“Hey Jones,” he greeted me. Then he told Raymond, “That’s sure a sharp lookin’ breezer you’re drivin’ around in.” Raymond nodded to him, acknowledging the compliment to his car. One by one they drifted in, Scratch, the thin man with both a limp and a cane who ran Hodges’ warehouse was relegated to the back row of chairs, like me. He was dressed in Big Mac work clothes. You can get them at J. C. Penny. At least they were clean. The man who ended up sitting next to me was another driver, Russo or Rossi or Rizzo, something like that. He owned a big REO FD Master Speed Wagon and makes the Birmingham – Mobile run like me. As he took his seat I could see that he favored a shoulder holster underneath his silver striped suit. He too had dressed for the meeting. Mr. Valentine, who pretty much ran sales for Boss Hodges arrived, greeting everyone. He shook my hand and clapped me on the shoulder. He didn’t shake hands with Raymond, though. He ended up between Carl and Boss Hodges at the main table. The fella who sat next to Boss Hodges on the other side was a guy I didn’t know. I had seen him in here before, however, playing cards. He took off his suitcoat before he sat down revealing he also used a shoulder holster where he kept a Smith & Wesson.
“Good night, gentlemen,” Melinda said as she prepared to leave. “Lock up when you’re done.” She didn’t say anything about the firearms. Scratch followed her to the door and locked it from the inside after she left. Then he went around behind the counter where she normally stood and leaned on the work surface there. Apparently he was the doorman.
About 4:30 a new black Plymouth four door Touring Sedan stopped right outside the door, next to Raymond’s Packard. Freeman Sweet got out of the rear seat and he was joined on the sidewalk by two other men, one tall and one short. They looked up and down the street and then the shorter man went to open the door for Freeman Sweet. He found it locked.
“Open the door, Scratch,” Boss Hodges commanded him. “These are them.” Scratch unlocked the door but stood in the doorway. He said something to them I wasn’t able to hear but the short man raised his arms to allow Scratch to pat him down. It wasn’t the first time he’d been frisked. I could tell. Scratch recovered a handgun from his waistband and a switchblade knife from a back pocket. Those went on the counter. One by one the three black men were searched. When Scratch had finished with that there were three handguns on the counter and two knives. He’d allowed the tall man to keep two pairs of brass knuckles after he examined them.
The Plymouth drove off. A minute later it reappeared on the opposite side of the street, where it parked, headed back the way it had come. Apparently the driver would wait with the car.
Freeman Sweet stood in front of the table, flanked by his two men. “Mr. Hodges,” he said by way of greeting.
Boss Hodges nodded. “Mr. Sweet,” he replied. Gesturing with his right hand he indicated the chairs that were vacant. “Have a seat.”
The three men sat down but the next man to speak was the tall black man to Freeman Sweet’s right. “Crash Nelson,” he said suddenly, looking at Carl. After a moment he added, “You don’t remember me, do you?”
Carl studied the tall man and he slowly shook his head. “I go by Carl, mostly now. Should I remember you?” Everyone in the room was focused on the two.
“Hurricane Cain. You beat me in six rounds back in ’24 over in Augusta.”
Carl looked at him some more. “Sorry, I don’t remember. There’s some things from back then that have kind of gone out of my mind.”
“Well I remember,” the tall man said. “Left hook to the head. Never been hit so hard in my life. It’s good to see you’re still around.”
“Thank you,” Carl told him. That little conversation kind of broke the ice. I took another look at the tall man and then at Carl. That was probably some fight, like two battleships exchanging salvos of shells during the War to End All Wars. Carl was big and wide and sturdy. Hurricane Cane was big and tall with a reach that could stretch out to the next county. His hands were about 12” across when he opened them up. It made me think those brass knuckles in his pocket were probably deadly weapons.
Boss Hodges spoke next. His hands were on the table top, fingertips pressed together. He spread them apart as he talked. “What can I do for you, Mr. Sweet?
“Well I’ve got a problem and I think you can help me with it.” Freeman Sweet’s voice was low and melodic, rich.
“A problem with me?” Boss Hodges tilted his head slightly to one side and he leaned forward across the table as if he was ready to go on the muscle.
“Not at all,” Freeman Sweet answered. “You and me, you and I, we get along fine and we have for quite a few years. You run your territory, I run mine and we don’t cross over.”
“We co-exist,” Boss Hodges told him, nodding his head. At the same time he leaned back in his chair. Some of the tension that had crept implacably into the room, when Freeman Sweet had said he had a problem seemed to dissipate, to vanish.
“Co-exist, I like that,” Freeman Sweet smiled. “That’s what we do.” He was very conservatively dressed and handsome as the day is long. When he smiled his teeth shone sparkling and white. I suspected there was some Caribbean in his ancestry, maybe even a white man or woman in his family tree. All of his features were regular and pleasing. Although he was of modest height his shoulders were very square, he was trim and fit.
“So what’s the problem?”
“There are some people who have been, let’s say encroaching on my territory.” Sweet’s voice changed as he adopted a regional accent, “Comin’ into my briar patch.” He looked at the other men at the table and smiled as if to show he could talk that way when he wanted to. “That’s nothing new, we both face that, now and then.” His hands were eloquent aids to his voice and the gesture he made encompassed everyone in the room. “Young bucks, upstarts, Spanish niggers, even some of the Italians from Missouri and Oklahoma, different groups, they try to take what isn’t theirs. They look at black Birmingham and think it will be easy pickings.”
“Sure, I get that,” Boss Hodges commiserated. “You have to deal with it. Hard, sometimes.”
“That’s what I thought,” Freeman Sweet told him. “They hijack one of my trucks, I take one of theirs and the driver disappears, too. Send a message. You know I’ve got a lot of other interests besides moonshine and booze?”
“Yeah, I know,” Boss Hodges admitted. “What’s that got to do with it?”
“Well they have been hitting me there. I make a move against them, to squash them down like a bug and they set fire to my movie theater. Last week they burned six brand new Plymouth automobiles at my dealership. They don’t just attack my numbers runners, they raid the stores and places that take bets for us. People who aren’t even mine are hurt. I’ll tell you people are starting to be scared. That’s not good for business.”
Boss Hodges looked at Raymond, who was sitting still with his B.A.R. across his lap, one hand just outside of the trigger and the other on the forestock. “You want Raymond for a while? I’ll tell you he doesn’t come cheap but you can have him.” He talked as if Raymond was a weapon himself. Maybe he is. “Or Carl? Both of them?” Carl raised his head.
Freeman Sweet looked at Raymond and then Carl and he shook his head. “Good men, I’m sure, but I’ve got Hurricane and a young man who isn’t here who can do that kind of thing. What I need is police protection. So I go to the police and I tell them. They laugh at me. They say deal with your own problems. It’s as if I’m persona non grata.”
“That sounds like a problem, all right,” Boss Hodges agreed
“Listen, Mr. Hodges, the moonshine and the booze just isn’t that important to me to begin with. I think Prohibition will be repealed in the next year or two anyway but until then it’s a business I’m in. The trouble is it’s putting everything else at risk, too.”
Boss Hodges conferred with the man sitting next to him in hushed tones, the one who had taken his suit coat off and displayed a Smith & Wesson. “Who are these people?” Boss Hodges asked.
“I’m not really sure,” Freeman Sweet told him. “That makes it harder. Some of them are from New Orleans, some from Louisiana. It’s like fighting a ghost if you can imagine that. You go to hit them and there’s nothing there.”
“I think you’re wrong about Prohibition,” Boss Hodges told him. “Alabama has been voting to be dry since before you and I were old enough to vote.” He paused, then said, “If you want to ease out of the liquor business I can take over what you’re doing.” There were nods and a murmur of agreement around the table.
“Not if these fellas from New Orleans take it over first,” Freeman Sweet told him. “In fact you give them a toe-hold here and they’ll come for you next.”
“Maybe they will,” Boss Hodges admitted. A person can read a lot from someone’s body language. I thought that was something Boss Hodges hadn’t considered. “I’m not in the police business, though. The opposite, you might say.” There was general laughter around the room. Even Freeman Sweet thought that was funny.
“You’ve got contacts that I don’t have, who are, though. That’s what I understand anyway.”
“Aah,” Boss Hodges interjected. “I see. What is it exactly you want?”
“If I gave you a list of businesses in the black part of town that need protection from these… from this outside criminal element,” Freeman Sweet pronounced the words carefully, “and the police watched over them it would be good.”
Boss Hodges leaned over and spoke with the man who had the Smith & Wesson again. They talked in hushed tones for a while and then he addressed Freeman Sweet again, “I can ask. That’s all I can promise. There’ll probably be a price for it.”
Freeman Sweet stood up. The two men on either side of him did too. “That’s all I can ask, Mr. Hodges. Thanks for hearing me out.”
“I’ll be in touch,” Boss Hodges assured him.
***
Two weeks later the Birmingham Daily Trumpet headlined, “Police Captain Announces New Crackdown on Crime,” and went on to say that the Department was putting a renewed emphasis on battling crime in certain areas of the city. Various civic groups applauded the new program. Church leaders and ministers approved and even gave sermons with the new program as a focal point. The police department’s arrest figures increased dramatically.
What the newspaper didn’t report was that hadn’t come about without a price, however. Freeman Sweet had to give up a 5% stake in ownership of his popular nightspot The Cellar Club to Boss Hodges who had initially wanted 10%. The Cellar Club was a tremendously well-liked dinner and dance club. Most everyone in Birmingham who knew would tell you it was the best place to hear hot Jazz music in the city.
Boss Hodges, on the other side of the negotiations, agreed to sell illegally imported liquor to Freeman Sweet at near wholesale prices. Patrons of black Birmingham’s finer restaurants and speakeasies were suddenly able to purchase better quality alcohol than the moonshine and bathtub gin they had previously been limited to. In Mexico and Cuba, Boss Hodges’ suppliers were pleased with the upswing in sales.
Birmingham was plunged into a moonshine war.
***
I was headed north toward Birmingham in my AA Ford truck on another run down to Mobile and back. I had a full load, too, cases and cases of bonded bourbon, aged whisky, champagne and more mundane liquors hidden underneath the tarpaulin which flapped in the wind. The ship that had off-loaded onto my truck right on the wharf had even used a crane. I’d backed up next to the Tampico Aventurera which had loaded me out in broad daylight. Most this load would go right to Freeman Sweet’s warehouse. I usually didn’t do local deliveries, it was rare anyway, but recently that had changed since Boss Hodges had started selling to him.
Driving along I was trying to remember the words to Harry Richman’s “Puttin’ on the Ritz.” I had the chorus down pat of course but only parts of the rest of it. I’m not much of a singer but it was something to do. It would be good if they started putting radios in cars. I guess maybe they were actually starting to do that in some brands but they were awfully expensive options. I think the dealers were installing them, not the factories.
I had to downshift to get up the small hill in front of me. With all that weight I had to shift down from 4th to 3rd gear. My truck had the non-synchronized transmission so you had to catch the gears just right. I was concentrating on that when I crested the hill at about 30 mph. There were two cars parked off to the side and a man stood in the roadway, motioning me over to the side of the road, signaling me to stop. He wore a dark blue tunic style uniform with a Sam Browne belt and a sidearm but he didn’t have on a hat. I was able to see a second man between the two cars. Since my window was already rolled down I asked him “What’s up?” as I was rolling to a halt behind the second car.
He said “State safety check,” three words. It all connected together in my mind at once. Alabama didn’t do road safety checks on trucks. The man didn’t have any badges on his uniform. There weren’t a lot of Alabama Department of Public Safety employees who talked in a broad Cajun accent as if they had just come out of the swamps of Louisiana. I jammed the gearshift lever into granny gear, grinding the teeth as I did. I cranked the steering wheel hard to the left and pulled the throttle lever on the steering column all the way down.
The engine roared again. I hit the car in front of me more than just a glancing blow. It was a crash, but I kept rolling. The man who had been between the cars was trapped, crushed. He hadn’t expected that. What he did have, though, was a rifle. I spotted that as I drove past him. Some safety check. Back on the roadway again I looked in my rear view mirror and saw the first man clawing at his holstered gun. Three closely spaced shots followed me. None of them hit the cab but they might have broken a few bottles in the load. I didn’t know.
I drove as fast as I could. I was far from home. Fast as I could wasn’t very fast, though. It was about 45 mph. Keeping my eyes on the rear view mirrors it wasn’t long before I saw a black car approaching at a high rate of speed. It might have been a Chevrolet and it might have been the front car from the improvised roadside stop. That was confirmed when someone on the passenger side of the car leaned out of the window and started shooting at me. I could see the rifle flashes now and then, faintly hear the reports and feel the impact of bullets. I was glad I had such a large load of wooden cases and bottles. It was unlikely they’d get a good shot at the truck cab. They could shoot up the back of the truck but not me.
The car got right up behind me, real close, then swung out to pass. I swerved the AA into the middle of the road to keep them from doing that. It became a game of cat and mouse. I was the mouse but I was a big mouse. They would move over to the right, I would counter them. They would try and pass, I would block them. I moved to the right lane when I saw an oncoming car, they started to pull up alongside me and saw it too so they dropped back. That went on for a while. Every now and then they would take a shot at me. Maybe they were trying to shoot out my tires. That’s really easier said than done when both vehicles are moving and weaving and so on and you’re leaning out a window into the wind. Your eyes water, you go over bumps and so on and you don’t have anything to rest the rifle on. If they got alongside me it would be a different story.
Another oncoming car came by. I pulled back to the right, pulled to the left and then swerved back to the right to avoid it. That was pretty obviously their plan, their intentions, get up alongside me and then blast away. I didn’t know what more to do. My mechanical brakes weren’t good enough with this much weight on to stop suddenly and let them run into me.
We flew through the city of Montgomery if you can call 45 mph flying. There was some traffic there. The shooting stopped but they stayed close behind me. That was when I began to get the inkling of an idea. Outside of Montgomery, on the north side is the Alabama River. I’ve driven this route many times. I knew it was there. It had a nice long steel bridge spanning it. That would be a helluva thing to run into, wouldn’t it?
It sure would. As I approached the river, when we exited town I prepared myself mentally, rehearsing what I’d do. The black Chevrolet was still right behind me. I don’t imagine they could see much more than the back of my truck. I’d have to time it just right and it might depend on oncoming traffic, too. Just before the approach to the bridge I eased back over to the right. My pursuers edged to the left and seeing the oncoming lane was clear they accelerated forward. The front bumper on the car was even with my rear tires. It was coming up onto being even with the back of the cab when I pulled back to the left. They moved to the left too, to avoid me but there was only so far they could go. I began to scrape the sheet metal of the Chevrolet and then to crush it. The driver tried to fight the wheel but my truck is a lot heavier than that car. He couldn’t hold me off as I moved into his lane. Finally his left front corner hit one of the steel bridge supports. Hard. I kept motoring forward at full speed. The Chevrolet cocked at an angle in the road, tires screeched, it tipped up and then rolled over.
Driving for Boss Hodges was getting to be interesting.
[Image Credit : Photo by Mago Brown on Unsplash]
by 
Craig Inanen
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