Lawrence “Mac” McGurty sat at his kitchen table, rolling a cigarette between his thumb and forefinger, watching it burn down to the filter. He heard the front door open and footsteps in the hall.

“Hey, Mac.” Said William “Red” Davis, appearing in the doorway. “Got your message from yesterday. What’s so important?”

Mac looked up at his brother-in-law with tired eyes. “I’m..we’re leaving. After the House Un-American Activities Committee hearing, after being in all those newspapers, no one will hire us. We need a fresh start.”

Red’s mouth tightened. “What about the cause?”

“What about me?” Mac snapped back, harsher than intended. “What about Millie? She’s your sister, Red. Do you want her tossed out on the street? Do you want her to starve? That’s where things are.”

“If you go, then we’ll be done, all of what we worked for, with the unions, with the negroes, it’ll all be over.”

“Then it’ll all be over.”

“You’ll still be a Communist.”

Mac had never heard him use the word like that. Like it was a brand Red was searing into his skin so he could never escape it.

“Yes. But I’ll be able feed my family.”

Memphis Note
Lawrence McGurty, his wife Mildred Davis McGurty and her brother William Davis made up the core of the Communist Party’s leadership in Memphis after World War II. Before World War II, they were all militant pro-union organizers and civil rights advocates. But after war everything changed. The unions they used to support turned their backs on them, the federally wanted leader of the North Carolina Communist Party was arrested in Memphis, they were ordered to appear before two different Congressional committees. By the time it was done, they were financially ruined and utterly unable to be employed in Memphis because of all the negative press.

I shifted awkwardly in the vinyl chair, my legs sticking to the plastic covering. I barely knew anyone at the cookout, and those were just people from work. Work I’d just started after moving everything I owned across the country to a city where I didn’t know anyone.

A hand and a cup appeared in front of my face. “Summer brew!”

I took the cup and looked up. “And that is?” I asked the person handing the cups out to everyone.

“It’s summer brew,” he said enthusiastically, but failing to understand that I didn’t know what that was.

“It’s like a beergarita.” Piped up a woman next to me.

“Beergarita?”

“Yeah, you know, a margarita made with beer. And, uh, vodka.”

“So basically, the only thing it has in common with a margarita is the lime slush stuff.”

She didn’t say anything for a moment, mulling it over, and then with a shrug, “Yep. It’s great, try it.”

I shrugged back, “Well, what doesn’t kill you and all that jazz…”

I tipped the cup up, letting the icy drink flow into my mouth.

And as it hit my taste buds, I knew the move was going to work out fine.

Memphis Note
Summer brew, in a list of ingredients, sounds to be the most foul thing you could put into your body. Crappy beer, cheap vodka, frozen limeade, a big spoon to stir it, and maybe ice if you’re not planning on downing it all immediately, are the components. And when mixed, it looks nearly identical to a cup of refrigerated urine, slightly yellow and frothy. But, dear God, does it taste delicious. Everyone that tries it speaks of it for the rest of their lives. My friends and I make a mission of exposing as many people to summer brew as possible every summer, spreading it like a new religion. And my favorite part about it? The metaphor of summer brew as our city. A mix-mash of things that shouldn’t go together, creating the most unforgettable kind of end result.