Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe (41 page)

Evelyn was surprised. “Ruth? But where was Ruth the night of the murder? Surely someone knows.”

Mrs. Threadgoode shook her head. “That’s just it, honey. Nobody knows for sure. Idgie says that she and Ruth were over at the big house visiting Momma Threadgoode, who had been sick. And I believe her. But there are some who wonder. All I know is that Idgie would go to her grave willingly before she would let Ruth’s name be involved with murder.”

“Did they ever find out who did it?”

“No, they never did.”

“Well, if Idgie and Big George didn’t kill him, who do you think did it?”

“Well, that’s the sixty-four-dollar question, isn’t it?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know?”

“Well sure I would, who wouldn’t? It’s one of the great mysteries of the world. But, honey, nobody’s ever gonna know that one except the one that did it, and Frank Bennett. And you know what they say … dead men tell no tales.”

Smokey Lonesome sat on the side of his iron bed at the mission, coughing through the first cigarette of the day. After the cafe closed, Smokey had wandered around the country for a while. Then, he got a job as a short-order cook at the Streetcar Diner No. 1, in Birmingham, but his drinking got the best of him and he was fired.

Two weeks later, Brother Jimmy found him, passed out cold under the viaduct on 16th Street, and had brought him over to the mission. He was too old to tramp anymore, his health was bad, and his teeth were almost all gone. But Brother Jimmy and his wife had cleaned him up and fed him, and the Downtown Mission had been his home now, more or less, for the past fifteen years.

Brother Jimmy was a good man, having been a drunk himself, once, but as he told it, he had made the long trip “from Jack Daniel’s to Jesus” and was determined to devote his life to helping other unfortunates.

He put Smokey in charge of the kitchen. The food was mostly leftover frozen stuff that had been donated; fish sticks
and mashed potatoes out of a box were the staple. But there were no complaints.

When he wasn’t in the kitchen or drunk, Smokey would spend his day upstairs, drinking coffee and playing cards with the other men. He had seen a lot happen at the mission … seen a man with one thumb meet up with his boy there, who he hadn’t seen since the day he was born. Father and son, both down on their luck, winding up in the same place at the same time. He had seen men come through that had been rich doctors and lawyers, and one man who had been a state senator for Maryland.

Smokey asked Jimmy what caused men like that to sink so low. “I’d have to say the main reason is that most of them have been disappointed in some way,” Jimmy said, “usually over a woman. They had one and lost her, or never had the one they wanted … and so they just get lost and wander around. And, of course, old man whiskey plays a role. But in all the years I’ve been seeing men come in and out, I’d say disappointment is number one on the list.”

Six months ago, Jimmy died and they were renovating downtown Birmingham and the rescue mission was to be torn down. Smokey would have to be moving on soon. Where to, he didn’t know as yet …

He walked down the stairs, and outside, it was a cold clear day and the sky was blue, so he decided to take a walk.

He walked by Gus’s hot dog joint and down around 16th Street, past the old terminal station and under the Rainbow Viaduct, down the railroad tracks until he found himself headed in the direction of Whistle Stop.

He had never been anything more than just a tomato-can vagabond, hobo, knight of the road, down-and-outer. A free spirit who had seen shooting stars from many a boxcar rolling through the night. His idea of how the country was doing had been determined by the size of the butts he picked up off the sidewalks. He had smelled fresh air from Alabama to Oregon. He had seen it all, done it all, belonged to no one. Just another bum, another drunk. But he, Smokey Jim Phillips, perpetually
down on his luck, had loved only one woman, and he had been faithful to her all his life.

It was true he had slept around with a bunch of sorry women in sleazy hotels, in the woods, in railroad yards; but he could never love any of those. It had always been just the one woman.

He had loved her from the first moment he saw her standing there in the cafe, wearing that organdy dotted-swiss dress; and he had never stopped.

He had loved her when he’d been sick, puking in an alley behind some bar, or lying up half dead in some flophouse, surrounded by men with open sores having crazy alcoholic delusions, screaming and fighting imaginary insects or rats. He had loved her in those nights he’d been caught in a hard, cold winter rain with nothing but a thin hat and leather shoes, wet and hard as iron. Or that time he had landed at the veterans’ hospital and lost a lung, or when the dog had torn off half his leg, or sitting in the Salvation Army in San Francisco that Christmas Eve, while strangers patted him on the back, giving him a dried-out turkey dinner and cigarettes.

He had loved her every night, lying in his bed at the mission, on the thin used mattress from some closed-down hospital, watching the green neon
JESUS SAVES
signs blink on and off, and listening to the sounds of the drunks downstairs, crashing bottles and yelling to come in out of the cold. All those bad times, he would just close his eyes and walk into the cafe again and see her standing there, smiling at him.

Scenes of her would occur … Ruth laughing at Idgie … standing at the counter, hugging Stump to her … pushing her hair off her forehead … Ruth looking concerned when he had hurt himself.

Smokey, don’t you think you ought to have another blanket tonight? It’s gonna freeze, they say. Smokey, I wish you wouldn’t take off like you do, we worry about you when you’re gone …

He had never touched her, except to shake her hand. He had never held or kissed her, but he had been true to her alone. He would have killed for her. She was the kind of woman you
could kill for; the thought of anything or anybody hurting her made him sick to his stomach.

He had stolen only one thing in his entire life. The photograph of Ruth had been made the day the cafe opened. She was standing out in front, holding the baby and shielding her eyes from the sun with her other hand. That picture had traveled far and wide. In an envelope, pinned to the inside of his shirt, so he wouldn’t lose it.

And even after she had died, she was still alive in his heart. She could never die for him. Funny. All those years, and she had never known. Idgie knew, but never said anything. She wasn’t the kind to make you feel ashamed of loving, but she knew.

She had tried so hard to find him when Ruth had become ill, but he had been off somewhere, riding the rails. When he did come back, Idgie took him to the place. They each understood what the other was feeling. It was as if, from then on, the two of them mourned together. Not that they ever talked about it. The ones that hurt the most always say the least.

The body of an as yet unidentified white male of about 75 was discovered early Wednesday morning beside the railroad tracks, one mile south of Whistle Stop. The victim, clad only in overalls and a thin jacket, apparently froze to death during the night. There was no identification found on the body other than a photograph of a woman. He is thought to be a transient.

Now that the cafe and the beauty shop have closed, I should have known I’d be next. Got my notice in the mail. The post office will be closing down and all mail will be sent over to the Gate City Post Office. It’s gonna be a sad old day for me. But I’m still keeping up with the news, so just call me or bring your news on by the house, or tell my other half if you see him around town.

Since Essie Rue has gotten that job playing the organ at the Dreamland Roller Rink over in North Birmingham, she and her husband, Billy, are talking about moving over there. I’m hoping she won’t … with Julian and Opal gone, me, Ninny Threadgoode, and Biddie Louise Otis will be all that’s left of the old gang.

This week I am sorry to report that someone broke into Vesta Adcock’s home and stole all her bird figurines
out of her china cabinet, and some change she had in a drawer.

Not only that, I was over at the cemetery Christmas Day, putting flowers on my mother’s grave, and someone stole my purse right out of the car. Times have changed. What kind of a person would do that, is what I wonder.

By the way, is there anything sadder than toys on a grave?

 … Dot Weems …

Evelyn got up early, went into the kitchen, and started preparing her treat for Mrs. Threadgoode. She heated up the plate right before they started for the nursing home, wrapped it in aluminum foil, and placed that in a thermo-bag, so it would be good and hot. Again, she made Ed rush across town as fast as he could.

The old woman was waiting, and Evelyn made her close her eyes while she unwrapped the plate and undid the lid on the jar of iced tea with mint.

“Okay. You can look now.”

When Mrs. Threadgoode saw what she had on her plate, she clapped her hands, as excited as a child on Christmas. There before her was a plate of perfectly fried green tomatoes and fresh cream-white corn, six slices of bacon, with a bowl of baby lima beans on the side and four huge light and fluffy buttermilk biscuits.

Evelyn almost started to cry when she saw how happy her friend was. She told Mrs. Threadgoode to eat her food while it was still warm and excused herself for minute and went down the hall to find Geneene. She gave her a hundred dollars
in an envelope, and twenty-five dollars for herself, and asked if she wouldn’t please make sure that Mrs. Threadgoode got whatever she wanted to eat and anything else she wanted while Evelyn was gone.