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Stephanie Klein-Davis | Roanoke Times

Retired railroad man and moonshiner Robert Tolliver has created his own style from a distinctive sense of fashion and treasures he finds.

• Hear and see him talk about his "secret dentist" and his life in two audio slide shows.

It's hard to miss the mauve-and-white checkered blazer on his tall, lanky body. There's the rhinestone cross below the collar, the brown felt hat circled by a sparkly silver band.

But of all the aspects there are to the unusual Robert Tolliver, what stands out most is perhaps his smile full of bling.

Diamonds are cemented between each of his top front teeth, bookended by gold. He's had a jewel-encrusted grin for years, back when grills were for barbecues, not symbols of hip-hop glitz.

"I'm 86 years old and lookin' good fo' sure," he says with his Southern accent. "I can blind you when the sun hits dead on."

Retired and wrinkled, Tolliver says he lives on "Cloud Nine," the ninth and very top floor of Melrose Towers, a subsidized complex in Northwest Roanoke with dorm-style apartments.

Yet with his broad shoulders, bright suits and diamond teeth courtesy of a "secret dentist," he's also among the eccentric collection of downtown dwellers almost every city has, a stand-out in wide-brimmed hats and belt buckles agleam.

He's always been a church man, he admits, but he's far from a saint. Life, he claims, has taken him just about everywhere except the penitentiary.

He's a fashionista of his own making -- retired from Norfolk and Western Railroad after 18 years and a past that includes selling liquor illegally. Now, his days are filled with redemption -- he joined a church and was baptized again at 85. And while cleansing his soul, he is still colorful when it comes to his wardrobe, browsing second-hand shops and flea markets, looking for anything that sparkles.

"Every day I go lookin' good and smellin' good and feelin' good," he explains. "When I'm walking the street, I don't want nobody coming looking like me."

Always dressed best

Rhinestone-belted pants are pulled to his ribs and his jacket mirrors the pattern of the checkered floor as Tolliver walks, right hand gripped around his cane, through Happy's Flea Market. He navigates his way past dolls, coins, VCR tapes and sugar snap peas, looking for something new.

He pauses at Maria Mirzayan's jewelry stand, examining heavy gold and silver crosses hanging against black velvet.

Tolliver is such regular at Mirzayan's booth that she brought him jewelry from a recent trip to the Middle East. Today, her hands are as weighed down by as many rings as his.

The treasures he finds here will be made into something else. Crosses, for instance, will likely be turned into pendants for his neckties.

The band around his hat used to be a belt.

The chain stretching from the handle to body of his cane was once a charm bracelet. Its dangling hearts bobble above the words "I love BINGO" printed down the cane, each letter floating in a colored bubble.

In retirement, crafting jewelry is Tolliver's pastime.

It's hard for him to say how many jobs he's worked. But he always had good manners and nice clothes.

Born in Christiansburg on July 11, 1920, he left school after fifth grade. His daddy, James Tolliver, was a railroad man who also rented an acre raising watermelons. His son followed a similar path. Robert Tolliver recalls earning 10 cents an hour as a teenager, shucking corn, picking beans, painting houses.

There were years working at a Shenandoah Street bakery and the job at Colonial National Exchange Bank -- where he learned to handle people with money -- followed by driving a tractor for N&W. He used to arrive at work in a gabardine suit, in a shirt, tie and "lookin' fine." Those were the days he was out till dawn, nights spent "everywhere but home."

Alphonso Page, 78, lives a few floors below Tolliver's "Cloud Nine." He's known Tolliver for three decades, and his neighbor's wardrobe has remained unchanged.

"He always been flashy," Page said.

There were the "seven long, frightening years" Tolliver was married to a woman a dozen years his senior. And there was the lady with whom he had two children out of wedlock. Then, there were the three women who worked for him when he ran the six-room "Heartbreak Hotel" before the Northwest Roanoke spot turned into a Coca-Cola plant. There, he claims he rented rooms and sold liquor that was rationed during World War II and Korea.

He stops short of saying those women who worked for him were prostitutes, but "they was something."

Now, the only ladies he does business with are those like Mirzayan, whom he pays with a stack of single bills because he knows she's always looking for change.

Often, Tolliver's journeys end with him boarding a Valley Metro bus. He likes sitting in the back, where he can see everything. His lips droop down, as if pulled by an invisible string, as he sits among ladies in work uniforms and silent men who gaze at the Food Giants, beauty salons, banks and brick houses swishing past.

On the bus one such morning heading home, Tolliver reaches up and adjusts his tie, the habit of a man who always wants to look good no matter where he's going.

Timeless Tolliver

The blue Oldsmobile's front license plate reads "Don't wait for the hearse to take you to church."

This is Tolliver's Sunday carpool to Jesus Christ the King Tabernacle of Prayer, his windowless, Melrose Avenue parish.

He's one of few men in this congregation of 14 where ladies wear circles of lace in their hair and worshippers greet each other with "Praise the Lord."

Barrel-chested in his lavender suit, preacher Keith Johnson tries so hard spreading the Word that he breaks a sweat, explaining the nation is a mess because of a three-letter word: s-i-n.

After church and between shopping trips, Tolliver spends much of his time at home -- a loner in his one-room apartment.

Here, the decor is as colorful as his wardrobe.

A mirror shaped like a boat captain's wheel hangs above the bed. Silver, heart-shaped balloons are tucked behind the spokes.

The round light fixture on the ceiling is ringed by candy canes. Baskets of fabric flowers and framed pictures of Jesus cover the walls. The fridge is a mosaic of alphabet and fruit-shaped magnets.

And Tolliver is not done adding yet.

He often browses Salem's Goodwill, walking aisles lined with $10 suits and snow globes housing Dickensian Christmas scenes, leaving a trail of cologne in his wake.

He sees gold on shelves of second-hand goods -- spotting an orange pullover he could cut up, frame and make into a picture.

"I can get anything, turn it around and make anything I want," he brags.

At an electronics display, he pauses to pick up a clock radio.

"That's a G.E.," he says. "That's a powerful radio."

He is a man who likes time. He wears a silver watch on each wrist, explaining he's testing the extra timepiece, making sure the date and hour are correct.

His apartment is filled with radios and timepieces. The clock over the front door is shaped like the state of Florida, another crows like a rooster and four clock radios are stacked on a dresser. The times range from 1:00 to 3:03 to 7:45, even when it's really 4 p.m.

Sometimes, he plays four or five radios at once -- all tuned to the same station.

Tolliver buys the G.E. he finds at Goodwill this day. He takes it home to add to the collection.

Secrets revealed

Each week, Tolliver makes rounds downtown, repeating a well-worn path to a Campbell Avenue snack shop he calls "my store," and places like New York Fashions, which sells bright suits and electric blue snakeskin-print loafers.

"Prettiest clothes on Earth," he exclaims.

En route to New York Fashions one morning, he's spotted on the street by Karen Beasley, a sales associate at Orvis clothing store. She befriended Tolliver by simply walking over and talking to him one day. How could you not, she reasons; he's the king of accessories.

"Mr. Tolliver, I love your Western shirt you've got on today," she gushes.

He has seven cowboy shirts like the one he's wearing, he explains, enough for every day of the week.

He's got countless hats and who knows how many ties and even some gabardine pants. He's got a box full of stones his "secret dentist" uses to make those diamond teeth.

But the gems -- just like his teeth -- are not real.

"As long as it sparkles," he says. "It don't make no difference."

It makes it easier for the dentist to bore a hole in the dentures, then use tweezers and magnifying glasses to cement the stones.

And he'll even let you in on something else: Robert Tolliver is the secret dentist.