Moonshine Over Georgia

MOONSHINE MOONSHINE A NOVEL BASED ON ACTUAL EVENTS CHRIS SKATES Moonshine Over Georgia By Chris Skates Copyright © 2023 by Chris Skates All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording or any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without the prior written permission of the author. Exceptions are made for brief excerpts used in published reviews. ISBN 9798388496430 Independently Published Cover art by Dylan Nichols For all the heroes who remained true to the call… What a chimera then is man! What a novelty, what a monster, what a chaos, what a contradiction, what a prodigy! Judge of all things, feeble earthworm, repository of truth, a sink of uncertainty and error, the glory and shame of the universe. –Blaise Pascal AUTHOR’S NOTE From 1936 to 1952 my grandpa (“Pop”) was a state revenue officer in Georgia. Growing up in the ‘70s, I always spent at least a month with my beloved Pop and Grandma during the summers. Those months were the happiest times of my life. Our daily routine included working in the fields in the morning and then coming inside for a homemade lunch. After our meal, the three of us sat down to watch The Andy Griffith Show. One day during that show, a character came onto the screen named Rafe Hollister, the Mayberry area moonshiner. Suddenly, Pop became agitated. He reached up and abruptly snapped off the television. I looked at him and noticed that his chin had begun to quiver and tears were welling in his eyes. I asked him what was wrong. “It wasn’t like that, son. It wasn’t nothing to laugh about,” he said gravely. “You’ve never heard a little child cry, I mean really wail, like I have. I’ve drug so many men out of some woods somewhere, covered in their own vomit, and carried them home to a shanty. They’d be sick— drunk off liquor that was made out of mash that the day before had been crawling with maggots. I knew what I was going to see at their place before I got them there. Lots of times their children would be out in the yard even though it was late at night, half-dressed most of the time. Folks was poor back then. And here this child’s daddy had just spent what little viii MOONSHINE OVER GEORGIA money they had for groceries, on moonshine. The babies likely hadn’t eaten that day, and maybe not the day before. And those little children would hold onto my leg and wail. You never get that sound out of your head. And I couldn’t stop it all. I couldn’t help them all …” I had never seen Pop cry, but he began to sob loudly. He and Grandma had been married fifty-two years at that time. They bickered constantly, yet that day Grandma came over and quickly pulled up an ottoman as she took Pop’s hands in her own. They sat like that for a long time. Nothing more was said. I knew in that moment that I would someday tell Pop’s story. A few days later, Pop began to share things with me that he had never shared before. On many occasions, he took me deep into the Georgia woods and showed me place after place where he had “busted” liquor stills. His eyes would twinkle when he talked of the tracking, the stakeouts, and the footraces as he chased moonshiners through the night woods. I invariably would ask if he ever fought anybody or shot a bad guy. Then Pop’s face would grow dark and pensive. He’d say something like, “Buddy, all that’s been a long, long time ago,” and change the subject. It was two years later when the narrative nonfiction book entitled Murder in Coweta County was released. It purported to tell the story of the infamous Georgia moonshiner, John Wallace, and the murder he committed. That was an investigation in which I knew my Pop had been intimately involved. The book would later be made into a made for TV movie, ironically staring Andy Griffith as Wallace. Again, this version of the story upset my grandpa greatly. Someone gave him a copy of the book, and during the first week of my thirteenth summer, I began to devour it. Pop stopped me from reading one day and took me to a back room. He removed a strongbox from a closet shelf (the same strongbox that I now have on my writing desk) and had me sit down. He opened the box, which was filled with newspaper clippings and papers that looked official, and took out a worn piece of stationary. There was a handwritten note that read as follows: Author's Note ix Agent Miller, It is quite urgent that I speak with you. Meet me at my barn tomorrow night at midnight. Come alone. Do not come early. Sincerely, John Wallace He went on to tell me how inaccurate the book and movie had been. He told me how the author, Margaret Barnes, had set up an interview with him that she didn’t show up for. Sometime in 1995, the year before he passed away, Pop burned much of what the box contained. I have never understood why. However, some papers remain, including a commendation from the Georgia governor in 1946, commending Pop for “rounding up and assisting in the conviction of the Upson County Liquor Gang.” Moonshine Over Georgia is the story of a man and his wife who faced attempts on their life and yet never wavered. During my research in 2013, I had a telephone conversation with an elderly moonshiner (then 93) that Pop arrested in 1948. As I was about to hang up, the man made one last comment. It still rings in my ears. “Son, you need to understand somethin’ about your grandpa. He shut down the liquor business in Western Georgia.”