Tribute to bootlegger who had class, many friends

Town after town and county after county is going wet, which will kill another honorable profession — bootlegging.

Twenty-five years ago, a fine bootlegger was dying and I wanted to honor him before death and so wrote these words as a living funeral message. This column came out Jan 1, l991 and is being reprinted with the permission of the Appalachian News-Express, which was then and still is the best newspaper in the uplands:

“Pike County has been blessed with some excellent bootleggers, but like most old time art forms, bootlegging is dying out. So is Pike County’s classiest bootlegger, Roy Brewer. Roy has been given by his doctor, or whomever gives out such things, only a few months before cancer is supposed to kill him. Maybe he ought to go to a doctor who will give him longer. Knowing Roy, he will beat the odds, but in case he doesn’t, and while he still has plenty of sense about him I wanted to help the preacher. It is hard on a preacher to bury a bootlegger, so us who appreciate them more have to pitch in.

“Roy is actually a retired bootlegger, having called it quits after a row of search warrants got the best of him and threatened him with what he was always able to avoid, the Coon Hilton (our jailer then was “Coon” Stratton). But in his time there has never been a bootlegger with more style, more class and more friends.

“When you consider that he had a sliding glass window that you could see out of but not into, a dinger like gas stations, an ice machine, and a choice selection of America’s finest products that people everywhere else in the world could get legally at cheaper rates, Roy brought much needed style to Island Creek.

“Island Creek used to be a remote place and not so long ago. The new concrete bridge replaced the Narrows as the means of entry and now Island Creek is just as dull as the places the rest of us live. Now, up there, people actually notice gunshots and nobody has burned a schoolhouse down in 10 years.

“So eventually civilization abounded on Island Creek and now only the real thoughtful people realize how really sad that was. But for many a year, scared young people from Pikeville drove up the Narrows and rang Roy’s dinger and bought their way into manhood with Schlitz tall boys. Many a Pike Countian left there feeling more grown up, and feeling even better when he got down the road.

“Roy helped pay for the court system as he was fined enough through the years to pay for the Cut Through and had enough of his beer poured out to flood the city. To be sure, probably very little was poured out, as most of what was taken from bootleggers ended up being drank by friends and relatives of the laws that seized it.

“Roy says that he has done about all he ever wanted to do, and extra money helps in that regard. He has treated many a friend to a good time, and there is a place somewhere between here and the place preachers go for people like that.

“It is hard to know what to say to somebody that is dying slow, but not nearly as hard on the one saying it as on the one they are talking to. I always end up saying something foolish-sounding at funerals, or to the very sick. It is easier to write out your words, like this, and so, Roy, if you don’t outlive us all we will miss you very much. Hold your head up high like you always did.

“In England you would have been an honored innkeeper. In Germany you would have been exalted as a purveyor of their culture. In Pike County you were a bootlegger, but you chose an honorable profession. Honor and law do not always go hand in hand, and you knew that as well as anybody.

“Maybe the Pearly Gates will have a dinger bell when you approach, and maybe whomever answers the bell up there will have a two-way window to see you even if you can’t see them. And maybe you will be judged there not by the law, but by your heart, and if that is the case, I imagine that all the little tricks you have ever played will not amount to the good you have done.”

After Roy read that, he brought me a half gallon of Crown Royal and died soon thereafter.

This story was originally published March 6, 2016 at 6:54 AM with the headline "Tribute to bootlegger who had class, many friends."