Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe (22 page)

"Come to think of it, Idgie and Ruth bought the cafe in 1929, right in the height of the Depression, but I don't think we ever had margarine there. Leastways, I cain't recall if we did. It's odd, here the whole world was suffering so, but at the cafe, those Depression years come back to me now as the happy times, even though we were all struggling. We were happy and didn't know it.

"A lot of nights we'd all sit around up at the cafe and just listen to the radio. We'd listen to Fibber McGee and Molly, Amos and Andy, Fred Allen ... oh, I cain't remember what all we'd listen to, but they were all good. I cain't look at any of these programs they put on the TV today. Just people shootin’ their guns and shoutin’ insults at each other. Fibber McGee and Molly didn't shout at each other. Amos and Andy used to shout a little, but that was funny. And the colored people on the TV now are not near as sweet as they used to be. Sipsey would have Big George's hide if he talked as smart aleck as some of them do.

"It's not just TV. Mrs. Otis was over at the supermarket one day and she told this little colored boy that was passing by that she would give him a nickel if he'd lift her groceries in her car for her, and she said that he cut his eyes at her, mean-like, and just walked away. Oh, and it's not just the colored people, either. Back when Mrs. Otis was driving, before she hit that stack of grocery carts, people would run up behind us and blow their horns something awful, and when they passed us, some of them would give us the finger. I never saw such behavior. There's no call to be that ugly.

"I don't even want to look at the news anymore. Everybody fighting each other. They ought to give those boys some tranquilizers and quiet them down for a while. That's what they gave Mr. Dunaway. I think all the bad news affects people, makes them so mean. So whenever the news comes on, I just cut it off.

"Lately, for the past ten years or so, I have just taken to looking at my religious programs. I like the P.T.L. Club. They have a lot of smart men on that program. I send money every once in a while, if I have any. And I listen to Camp Meeting U.S.A., from seven to eight, every night. And I like Oral Roberts and the Seven Hundred Club. I like just about all of them, except that woman with the makeup, and she'd be all right if she just didn't cry all the time. Oh, she cries if she's happy and she cries when she's sad. I'm telling you, she can cry at the drop of a hat. Now, there's one that needs her hormones. And I don't like preachers that yell all the time. I don't know why they want to yell when they have a microphone right in their hands. When they get to yelling like that, we just switch them over.

And I'll tell you another thing, the funnies in the paper are not funny anymore. I remember when you could always get a laugh out of Gasoline Alley or Wee Willie Winkle. And I
loved
that Little Henry . . . oh, the scrapes Little Henry could get himself in.

"I just don't believe people are happy anymore, not like they used to be. You never see a happy face, at least I don't. I said to Mrs. Otis when Frances carried us out to the mall, I said, 'Look at all these people pulling such dried-up, sour little faces, even the youngsters.'"

Evelyn sighed. "I wonder why people have gotten so mean, anymore . . .”

"Oh, it's all over the world, honey. The end of times are coming. Now, we may go to the year two thousand, but I doubt it. You know, I listen to a lot of good preachers and they're all saying we're in our last time. They say it's in the Bible in Revelations. . . . Of course, they don't know. Nobody knows but the good Lord.

"I don't know how long the good Lord is going to let me live but I'm in the jumping-off years, you know that. That's why I live every day like it could be my last. I want to be ready. And that's why I don't say anything about Mr. Dunaway and Vesta Adcock. We have to live and let live."

Evelyn felt she had to ask. "What about them?"

"Oh, they think they're in love. That's what they say. Oh, you should have seen them holding hands and smooching all over the place. Mr. Dunaway's daughter found out about it and came out here and threatened to sue the nursing home. Called Mrs. Adcock a hussy!"

"Oh no."

"Oh yes, honey . . . said she was trying to steal their daddy away from them. It was a big mess, and they took Mr. Dunaway back home. They were afraid he and Mrs. Adcock would try to have relations, I guess. I think that's a dream long dead, myself.  Geneene said he lost his activities years ago and couldn't possibly harm a fly . . . so what would a little hugging and kissing hurt?  Vesta is heartbroken.  No telling what she’ll do next. 

“But tell you one thing, they don’t give much slack out here.”

Evelyn said, “I guess not.”

AUGUST 1, 1945

Man Falls in Lacquer

If I hadn't been married to him, I would have never believed it. . . . My other half was out at the railroad yards, hanging out where they've been painting all the troop trains, and he fell into a 250-gallon vat of lacquer, he was able to climb out, but the lacquer dried so fast, he was completely encrusted before setting foot on the ground and we had to get Opal to come over to the house and cut the lacquer out of what's left of his hair. It's a good thing we didn't have any children. I don't have time to worry about any other kids.

Does anybody know a good baby-sitter for a husband . . . ?

We are all so happy the war is finally over. Bobby Scroggins came home yesterday, and Tommy Glass and Bay Limeway got home last Thursday. Hooray!

Nothing but good news. Ninny Threadgoode came in and brought me a four-leaf clover. She said she and Albert had found three of them in her front yard. Thanks, Ninny.

. . . Dot Weems . . .

AUGUST 15, 1986

Geneene the black nurse who prided herself on being as tough as nails, but really wasn’t, said she was tired.  She was working a double shift today, and she had come in their room to sit down for a minute and have a cigarette.  Mrs Otis was down the hall in her arts and crafts class so Mrs. Threadgoode was happy for the company.

“You know that woman I talk to on Sundays?”

Geneene said, “What woman?”

“Evelyn.”

“Who?”

“She’s that little plump gray-haired woman. Evelyn . . . Evelyn Crouch . . . Mrs. Crouch’s daughter in law.”

“Oh Yes.”

“She told me ever since that man called her names at the Pigley-Wigley, she just hates people.  I told her, I said, ‘Oh honey, it does no good to hate.  It’ll do nothing but turn your heart into a bitter root. People cain’t help being what they are any more than a skunk can help being a skunk.  Don’t you think if they had their choice they would rather be something else?  Sure they would, people are just weak.’

“Evelyn said there are times when she is even beginning to hate her husband.   He’ll be sitting at his football games or talking on the phone, and she has this terrible desire to hit him in the head with a baseball bat, for no reason.  Poor little Evelyn, she thinks she’s the only person in the world that ever had an ugly thought.  I told her, her problem is just a natural thing that happens with couples after they’ve been together so long.

"I remember when Cleo got his first set of dentures he was so proud of. They’d make this clicking sound every time he’d take a bite of food, and it just grated on my nerves so bad there’d be some nights, I’d just have to get up from the table to keep myself from saying something . . . and I loved that man better than anything in the world.  But you go through a period when you start to get on one another's nerves. And then, one day— now, I don't know if his teeth stopped clicking on their own or if I just got used to it or what—but It never bothered me another time. You have that kind of thing happen in the best of families.

°You take ldgie and Ruth. Now you never saw two people more devoted to each other than they were, but even the two of them went through a period when they had their little problems. Ruth moved In with us once. I never knew what it was about, nor did I ask, because it was none of my business, but I think it was because she didn’t like Idgie goin’ over to the river, where Eva Bates lived.  Said she felt that maybe Eva encouraged Idgie to drink too much for her own good.  And it was true.

“But like I told Evelyn, everybody has their little quirks.

“Poor little Evelyn, I worry about her.  That menopause has hit her with a vengeance!  She said, not only does she want to hit Ed in the head, but lately, she’s having fantasies in her mind where she dresses up in black clothes and goes out and kills all the bad people with a machine gun.  Can you imagine?

“I said, ‘Honey, you been looking at too many TV shows.  You just get those thoughts out of your mind right now!  Besides it’s not up to us to judge other people.  It says right there in the Bible as plain as the nose on your face that on Judgement Day Jesus is going to come down with a host of angels to judge the quick and the dead.’

“Evelyn asked me who the quick were, and do you know, for the life of me, I couldn’t tell her!”

WARRIOR RIVER, ALABAMA

JUNE 3, 1946

The blue lights were on and you could hear the people inside carrying on, and the jukebox blaring all the way across the river. Idgie was sitting right in the middle of it, drinking Pabst Blue Ribbon beer and chasing it with more Pabst Blue Ribbon beer. She was off whiskey for that night, because the night before had been enough to last her for a while.

Her friend Eva was whooping it up with some country boys that were supposed to be at an Elks Club meeting that night over in Gate City. She passed by Idgie and looked at her.

"Good God, girl, what's the matter with you? You look like a lizard with a hangover!"

Hank Williams was singing his heart out about how he was so lonesome he could die.

Idgie said, "Ruth moved out."

Eva's mood changed. "What?"

"Moved out. Went over to Cleo and Ninny's house."

Eva sat down. "Well, good Lord, Idgie, why did she do that?"

"She's mad at me."

"I figured that. But what did you do?"

"I lied to her."

“Uh-oh. What did you say?"

“I told her I was going to Atlanta to see my sister Leona and John.”

"Didn't you go?"

"No."

"Where did you go?"

"Out in the woods."

"With who?"

"By myself. I just wanted to be by myself, that's all."

"Why didn't you tell her?"

"I don't know. I guess I just kinda got mad at having to tell somebody where I am all the time. I don't know. I was beginning to feel kinda trapped, like I needed to get out for a while. So I lied. That's all. What's the big deal? Grady lies to Gladys, and Jack lies to Mozell."

"Yeah, but now, honey, you ain't Grady or Jack . . . and Ruth ain't Gladys or Mozell, either. Oh Lord, girl, I hate to see this happen, don't you remember the fits you was having until she came over here?"

"Yeah, but sometimes I just need to take off for a while. I feel like I need my freedom. You know."

"Course I know, Idgie, but you got to look at this thing from her point of view. That girl give up everything she had to come over here. She left her hometown and all her friends she grew up with—gave up all that just to be here and make a life for you. You and Stump are all she has. You've got all your friends and your family . . ."

"Yeah, well, sometimes I think they like her better than they do me."

"You listen, Idgie, I'm gonna tell you something. Don't you think she couldn't have anybody that she wanted around here? All she'd have to do is snap her fingers. So I'd think long and hard before I'd go flying off."

At that moment, Helen Claypoole, a woman of about fifty, who'd been hanging around the River Club for years, picking up men and drinking with anything that moved and would buy her drinks, came out of the bathroom so drunk that she had stuffed the back of her dress in her panties and was staggering to her table, where the men were waiting for her.

Eva pointed toward her. "Now, there's a woman who's got her freedom. Nobody gives a shit where she is and ain't nobody checkin' up on her, you can be damn sure of that."

Idgie watched Helen, with her lipstick smeared and her hair falling in her face, sitting there, looking at the men with her boozy eyes, not seeing them.

Pretty soon Idgie said, "I gotta go. Gotta think this thing out."

"Yeah, well, I thought you might."

Two days later, Ruth received a neatly typed note that said, "If you cage a wild thing, you can be sure it will die, but if you let it run free, nine times out of ten it will run back home."

Ruth called Idgie for the first time in three weeks. "I got your note and I've been thinking, maybe we should at least talk."

Idgie was thrilled. "I think that would be great. I'll be right over," and started out the door, planning to swear on a Bible in front of Reverend Scroggins's house, if she had to, that she would never lie to Ruth again.

As she turned the corner and saw Cleo and Ninny's house, something Ruth said dawned on her. What note? She hadn't sent any note.

OCTOBER 15, 1947

One-Armed Quarterback Leads Team to Fifth Straight Victory

In a 27 to 20 win over Edge wood, with the score tied 20-20 throughout the fourth quarter, victory for Whistle Stop came in the thrilling 43-yard pass made by Whistle Stop's one-armed quarterback, Buddy (Stump) Threadgoode, a senior.

"Stump is our most valuable player," said Coach Delbert Naves in an interview earlier today. "His winning attitude and team spirit has made the difference. Despite his handicap, he has been able to complete 33 out of 37 attempted passes this year. He is able to take the snap from center and hug the ball to his chest, get the correct grip, and throw the ball in less than two seconds, and his speed and accuracy are outstanding."

This B-average student is also on the first string baseball and basketball team. He is the son of Mrs. Ruth Jamison, of Whistle Stop, and when asked how he became so proficient in sports, he said that his Aunt Idgie, who helped raise him, taught him everything he knows about football.

OCTOBER 28, 1947

Stump had just come in from practice and got himself a Coke. Idgie was behind the counter fixing Smokey Lonesome a second cup of coffee, and she said to him as he passed by, "I want to talk to you, young man."

Uh-oh, thought Smokey, and buried his head in his pie.

Stump said, "What'd I do? I didn't do anything . . ."

"That's what you think, little fella," she said to Stump, who at the time was six feet tall and shaving. "Let's go in the back room."

He followed her slowly and sat down at the table. "Where's Momma?"

"She's over at the school at a meeting. Now, young man, what did you say to Peggy this afternoon?"

He looked innocent. "Peggy? Peggy who?"

"You know Peggy who. Peggy Hadley."

"I didn't say anything."

"You didn't say anything."

"No."

"Then why do you suppose she came in the cafe, no more than an hour ago, Just crying her eyes out?"

"I don't know. How should I know?"

"Didn't she ask you to go to the Sadie Hawkins Dance with her this afternoon?"

"Yeah, I guess she may have. I don't remember."

"And what did you say?"

"Aw, Aunt Idgie, I don't want to go to any dance with her. She's just a kid."

"What did you say?"

"I told her I was busy or something. She's crazy, anyhow."

"Mister, I am asking you what you said to that girl."

"Aw, I was just kidding."

"You were just kidding, huh? What you were doing is standing around, trying to be a big shot in front of all your friends, is what you were doing."

He shifted uncomfortably in his chair.

"You told her to come back when she had grown some tits and ask you again. Isn't that right?"