Railroad Yard Closing

Of course, we are all so sad to hear that the railroad yard is closing. Now that we have lost most of our trains, we seem to be losing a lot of our old friends, who are moving on to other places. We can only hope that the trains will start running again. It will not seem right with just a few trains passing through.

Grady Kilgore, retired official of L N Railroad, says that the country cannot exist without its trains, and that it is just a matter of time before the government realizes it. I say the L N Co. will come to its senses and put them back on the line soon.

Georgia Pacific Seaboard, and now L N. Only Southern Railroad has held out... it seems they just don't want passengers anymore.

Also, we hear that the cafe may be closing. Idgie says that her business is way down.

By the way—

My other half claims he has had the eight-day pneumonia for ten days... Men!

... Dot Weems...

PULLMAN CAR NO. 16

DECEMBER 23, 1958

Jasper Peavey sat up all through the quiet night while the train glided through the snow-laden landscape and the moon sparkled on the passing fields of white.

It was freezing outside the ice-cold window, but warm and cozy inside the car. This was when he felt safest, and at ease. No more smiling for the day... just quiet.

The red and green railroad crossing lights slid by at each stop, and early in the dawn, the lights began to come on, one by one, in the small towns.

He was a month away from retiring, with a nice pension, from the Southern Railroad. Jasper had come to Birmingham a year later than his brother Artis, and although they were twins and both classified as Negro under the law, they had lived two entirely different lives. Jasper had loved his brother, but hardly ever saw him. Artis had quickly found a place among the fast, racy set down on 4th Avenue North, where the jazz was hot and dice rolled night and day. Jasper had taken up residence at a Christian boardinghouse four blocks away and had attended church at the 16th Street Baptist Church the first Sunday he was in Birmingham. It was there that Miss Blanch Maybury had caught the eye of and took a shine to this creamy boy with his mother's freckles. Blanch was the only daughter of Mr. Charles Maybury, a respected citizen, well-known educator, and principal of the Negro high school, so it was through her that Jasper was automatically admitted to the exclusive, upper-middle-class black society.

When they married, if Blanch's father had been disappointed in Jasper's lack of formal education and background, Jasper's color and manners more than made up for it.

After he married, Jasper worked hard; and while Artis was spending his money on clothes and women, Jasper was staying in the cold, rat-infested dormitories that the company provided for porters when they were out of town. He saved until he and Blanch could go down to the piano company and buy one for cash. A piano in the home meant something. He gave ten percent to the church and started a savings account for the children's college education at the all-black Penny Saving Bank. He'd never touched a drop of whiskey, never borrowed a dime, and never been in debt. He had been one of the first blacks in Birmingham to move into white Enon Ridge, later known as Dynamite Hill. After the Klan had blown up Jasper's and several of his neighbors' red brick homes, some had left, but he had stayed. He had endured years of "Hey, Sambo," "Hey, boy," "Hey, George," emptied cuspidors, cleaned bathrooms, shined shoes, and lifted so much luggage that be couldn't sleep from the pain in his back and shoulders. He had often cried in humiliation when something was stolen and the railroad officials searched the pullman porters' lockers first.

He had "yes sirred" and "yes ma'amed" and smiled and brought loud-mouthed salesmen liquor in the middle of the night, had taken abuse from arrogant white women and been called nigger by children, had been treated like dirt by some of the white conductors, and had had his tips stolen by other porters. He had cleaned up after sick strangers and passed through Cullman County a hundred times, with the sign that warned, NIGGER... DON’T LET THE SUN SET ON YOUR HEAD.

He had endured all this. But...

The burial policy for his family was paid off, he had sent all four of his children through college, and not one of them would ever have to live off tips. That was the one thought that had kept him going all the long, hard, back-breaking years.

That, and trains. If his brother Artis had been in love with a town, Jasper was in love with trains. Trains, with dark, polished, mahogany wood-paneled club cars and plush, red velvet seats. Trains, with the poetry of their names... The Sunset Limited... The Royal Palm... The City of New Orleans.. The Dixie Flyer... The Fire Fly... The Twilight Limited...The Palmetto... The Black Diamond... The Southern Belle... The Silver Star...

And tonight, he was riding on The Great Silver Comet, as slender and streamlined as a silver tube... from New Orleans to New York and back, one of the last of the great ones still running. He had mourned each of those great trains as, one by one, they were pulled off the lines and left to rust in some yard, like old aristocrats, fading away; antique relics of times gone by. And tonight he felt like one of the old trains... off the track... out of date... past the prime... useless.

Just yesterday, he overheard his grandson Mohammed Abdul Peavey telling his mother that he didn't want to go anywhere with his grandaddy because he was embarrassed by the way he bowed and scraped to white people and the way he acted in church, still singing that old coon-shine, ragtime gospel music of his.

It was clear to Jasper that his time was over now, just like his old friends rusting out in the yards. He wished it could have been different; he had gotten through the only way he had known how. But he had gotten through.

DECEMBER 23, 1965

Smokey was across the street from the boarded-up terminal L N station downtown, in a hotel room that may have been up to the minute thirty-five years ago but now consisted only of a bed, a chair, and a forty-watt light bulb on a string. The room was pitch black, except for the pale yellow light that spilled through the glass transom at the top of the tall, thickly enameled, brown door.

Smokey Lonesome sat alone, smoking his cigarette and looking out the window onto the cold wet street below, thinking back to a time when there had been little stars in the ring around the moon and all the rivers and the whiskey had been sweet. When he had been able to take a breath of fresh air without coughing his guts up. When Idgie and Ruth and Stump still lived in the back of the cafe, and all the trains were still running. That time, special time, so long ago... just an instant away in his mind...

Those memories were still there, and tonight, he sat searching for them, just like always, grabbing at moonbeams. Every once in a while he would catch one and take a ride, and it was like magic. An old song played over and over in his head:

Smoke rings

Where do they go?

Those smoke rings I blow?

Those circles of blue, that

Keep reminding me of you...

SEPTEMBER 22, 1986

When Evelyn Couch came into the lounge, Mrs. Threadgoode was asleep, and suddenly looked her age. Evelyn realized how old her friend really was, and it scared her. She shook her.

"Mrs. Threadgoode!"

Mrs. Threadgoode opened her eyes and patted her hair, and began talking at once. "Oh Evelyn. Have you been here long?"

"No, I Just got here."

"Well, don't you ever let me sleep through visitors' day. You promise?"

Evelyn sat down and handed her friend a paper plate with a barbecue sandwich and a piece of lemon icebox pie, a fork and napkin.

"Oh Evelyn!" Mrs. Threadgoode sat up. "Where'd you get this? Over at the cafe?"

"No. I made it especially for you."

"You did? Well, bless your heart."

Evelyn had noticed that for the past couple of months, her friend seemed to be getting more and more mixed up about time, past and present, and sometimes called her Cleo. Sometimes she would catch herself and laugh; but more and more, lately, she didn't.

"Sorry I drifted off like that. But it's not only me; everybody out here is exhausted."

"Why, can't you sleep at night?"

"Honey, nobody's been able to sleep out here for weeks. Vesta Adcock has taken to making phone calls all night long. She calls everybody, from the president to the mayor. She called the queen of England to complain about something the other night. She gets herself all fussed up like an old cat and carries on all night long."

"Why in the world doesn't she close her door?"

"She does."

"Well, why don't they take the phone out of her room?"

"Honey, they did, only she don't know it, she just keeps on making calls."

"My God! Is she... crazy?"

"Well, let's put it this way," Mrs. Threadgoode said kindly. "She's of this world, but not in it."

"Yes. I think you're right."

"Honey, I sure would love a cold drink to go with my pie. You think you could get me one? I'd go, but I cain't see well enough to find the slot."

"Oh, of course. I'm sorry, I should have asked."

"Here's my nickel."

"Oh Mrs. Threadgoode, now don't be silly. Let me buy you a drink. My heavens."

Mrs. Threadgoode said, "No. Now Evelyn, you take this money... you don't need to be spending your cash on me," she insisted. "I won't drink it if you don't let me pay for it."

Finally, Evelyn took the nickel and bought the seventy-five-cent drink with it, as she always did.

"Thank you, honey... Evelyn, did I ever tell you I hated brussels sprouts?"

"No. Why don't you like brussels sprouts?"

"I cain't say. I just don't. But I love anything else in the vegetable family. I don't like them frozen, though, or in a can. I like fresh, sweet corn, lima beans, and good ol’ black-eyed peas, and fried green tomatoes..."

Evelyn said, "Did you know that a tomato is a fruit?"

Mrs. Threadgoode, surprised, said, "It is?"

"It sure is."

Mrs. Threadgoode sat there, bewildered, "Oh no. Here all these years, throughout my whole life, I've been thinking they were a vegetable... served them as a vegetable. A tomato is a fruit?"

"Yes."

"Are you sure?"

"Oh yes. I remember that from home economics."

"Well, I just cain't think about it, so I'm gonna pretend I never even got that piece of information. Now, a brussels sprout is a vegetable, isn't it?" "Oh yes."

"Well, good. Now I feel better.... What about a snap bean?

You're not gonna tell me that's a fruit, too?"

"No, that's a vegetable."

"Well, good." She ate the last bit of pie and remembered something and smiled.

"You know, Evelyn, last night I had the loveliest dream. It seemed so real. I dreamed Momma and Poppa Threadgoode were standing on the front porch of the old house, waving for me to come over... and pretty soon, Cleo and Albert and all the Threadgoodes came out on the porch, and they all started calling to me. I wanted to go so bad, but I knew I couldn't. I told them I couldn't come now, not until Mrs. Otis got better, and Momma said, in that sweet little voice of hers, 'Well, hurry up, Ninny, 'cause we're all here waiting.'"

Mrs. Threadgoode turned to Evelyn, "Sometimes I just cain't wait to get to heaven. I just cain't wait. The first thing I'm gonna do is look up old Railroad Bill—they never did find out who he was. Of course, he was colored, but I'm sure he'll be in heaven. Don't you think he'll be there, Evelyn?"

"I'm sure he will be."

"Well, if anyone deserves to be there, it's him—I just hope I know when I see him."

FEBRUARY 3, 1939

The place was jam-packed full of railroad men at lunchtime, so Grady Kilgore went to the kitchen door and hollered in, "Fix me a mess of them fried green tomatoes and some ice tea, will ya, Sipsey? I'm in a hurry." Sipsey handed Grady his plate and he walked back in the cafe with his lunch.

Nineteen thirty-nine marked the fifth winter in a row that Railroad Bill had been hitting the trains. As Kilgore passed, Charlie Fowler, an engineer for the Southern Railroad, said, "Hey, Grady, I hear old Railroad Bill hit himself another train last night. Ain't you railroad dicks ever gonna catch that boy?"

All the men laughed as Grady sat down at the counter to eat. "You boys can laugh if you want to, but it ain't funny. That makes five trains that son of a bitch has hit in the past two weeks.”

Jack Butts sniggered. “That nigger boy’s got ya’ll jumping every which way, ain't he?'*

Wilbur Weems, next to him, smiled and chewed on a toothpick. "I heard tell he threw a whole boxcar full of canned goods off between here and Anniston, and the niggers got 'em before sunup.”

“Yeah, and not only that," Grady said. "That black bastard threw seventeen hams that belonged to the United States government right off the damn train, in broad daylight"

Sipsey giggled as she put his iced tea down in front of him.

Grady reached for the sugar. "Now, that ain't funny, Sipsey. We got a government inspector coming down from Chicago that's on my tail. I've got to go over to Birmingham and meet him, right now. Hell, we've already put on six extra men, over at the yard. That son of a bitch is liable to get me fired."

Jack said, "I hear nobody can figure out how he's getting on the trains and how he knows which ones have food on 'em. Or how he gets off before you boys can catch him."

"Grady," Wilbur added, "they say you ain't ever come close to catching him."

"Yeah, well, Art Bevins almost had him the other night, outside Gate City. Just missed getting him by two minutes, so his days are numbered... you mark my words."

Idgie was walking by. "Hey, Grady, why don't I send Stump over to the yard to help you boys out? Maybe he can catch him."

Grady said, "Idgie, just shut up and get me some more of these damn things," and handed his plate to her.

Ruth was behind the counter making change for Wilbur. "Really, Grady, I cain't see what harm it can be. These poor people are almost starving to death, and if it hadn't been for him throwing coal off, a lot of them would have frozen to death."

"I agree with you in a way, Ruth. Nobody cares about a few cans of beans, now and then, and a little coal. But this thing is getting out of hand. So far, between here and the state line, the company has already put on twelve new men, and I'm working a double shift at night."

Smokey Lonesome was down at the end of the counter having his coffee, and piped up, "Twelve men for one little old nigger boy? That's kinda like shooting a fly with a cannon, ain't it?"

"Don't feel bad." Idgie patted Grady on the back. "Sipsey told me the reason you boys cain't catch him is because he can turn himself into a fox or rabbit whenever he wants to. What do you think? Do you reckon that's true, Grady?"

Wilbur wanted to know how much the reward was up to.

Grady answered, "As of this morning, it was two hundred fifty dollars. Probably go up to five hundred before this thing is over."

Wilbur shook his head. " Damn, that's a lot of money.... What's he supposed to look like?"

"Well, according to our people that saw him, they say he was just a plain old nigger boy in a stocking cap."

"One smart nigger boy, I'd say," Smokey added.

"Yeah, maybe so. But I'll tell you one thing, when I do catch that black son of a bitch, he's gonna be one sorry nigger. Hell I ain't been home to sleep in my own bed in weeks."

Wilbur said, "Well hell, Grady, from what I hear, that ain't nothing new."

Everybody laughed.

Then, when Jack Butts, who was also a member of the Dill Pickle Club, said, "Yeah, it must be pretty bad... I hear Eva Bates's been complaining, too," the whole place exploded with laughter.

"Why, Jack, you ought to be ashamed of yourself," Charlie said. "You ought not to insult poor Eva that way."

Grady got up and looked around the room. "You know, every one of you boys in this cafe is as ignorant as hell. Just plain ignorant!"

He went to the hat rack and got his hat, and then turned around. "They ought to call this place the Ignorant Cafe. I think I'll just take my business elsewhere."

Everybody, including Grady, laughed at that one, because there wasn't anyplace else. He went out the door and headed for Birmingham.

NOVEMBER 27, 1986

Stump Threadgoode, still a good-looking man at fifty-seven, was at his daughter Norma's house for Thanksgiving dinner. He had just finished watching the Alabama-Tennessee football game and was sitting at the table with Norma's husband, Macky, their daughter, Linda, and her skinny boyfriend with the glasses, who was studying to be a chiropractor. They were having their coffee and pecan pie.

Stump turned to the boyfriend. "I had an uncle, Cleo, that was a chiropractor. Course, he never made a dime at it... treated everybody in town free. But that was during the Depression, and nobody had any money, anyhow.

"My momma and Aunt Idgie ran a cafe. It wasn't nothing more than a little pine-knot affair, but I'll tell you one thing: We always ate and so did everybody else who ever came around there asking for food... and that was black and white. I never saw Aunt Idgie turn down a soul, and she was known to give a man a little drink if he needed it...

She kept a bottle in her apron, and Momma would say, 'Idgie, you're just encouraging people into bad habits.' But Aunt Idgie, who liked a drink herself, would say, 'Ruth, man does not live by bread alone.'

"There must have been ten or fifteen hoboes a day that showed up. But these boys weren't afraid to do a little work for their grub. Not like the ones they've got today. They'd rake the yard or sweep the sidewalk. Aunt Idgie always let them do a little something, so as not to hurt their pride. Sometimes she'd let them come sit in the back room and baby-sit with me, just so they'd think they were working. They were mostly good guys, just fellows down on their luck. Aunt Idgie's best friend was this old hobo named Smokey Lonesome. God, you could trust him with your life. Never took a thing that didn't belong to him.

"Those hoboes had an honor system. Smokey told me he heard they caught one that had stolen some silverware out of a house, and they killed him on the spot and took the silverware back to the people he had stolen it from... back then, we didn't even have to turn a key. These new ones on the road and riding what's left of the rails are a different breed. Just bums and dope addicts that will steal you blind.

"But Aunt Idgie never had one thing taken." He laughed. "Of course, that may have been because of that shotgun she kept by the bed... she was as tough as pig iron, wasn't she, Peggy?"

Peggy called back from the kitchen, "Tougher."

"Of course, most of that was just an act, but she could be a hellion if she didn't like you. She had this running feud with this old preacher at the Baptist church, where Momma taught Sunday School, and she would give him fits. He was a teetotaler, and one Sunday he preached against her friend Eva Bates, and it made her so mad she never did forgive him. Every time a stranger came to town looking to buy some whiskey, she'd take him outside the cafe and point to old Reverend Scroggins's house and she'd say, 'See that green house, down there? Just go over and knock on the door. That man's got the best liquor in the state.' She'd point out his house when some of those old boys was looking for something else, too."

Peggy came out of the kitchen and sat down. "Stump, don't be telling them that."

He laughed. "Well, she did. Always doing something mean to that man. But, like I say, she just liked for people to think she was mean... inside, she was as soft as a marshmallow. Just like that time the preacher's son, Bobby Lee, got arrested... she was the one he called to come get him.

"He'd gone over to Birmingham with two or three boys and gotten himself all liquored up and was running down the halls in his underwear, throwing water balloons out of the seventh-floor window; only Bobby Lee had them filled with ink and had dropped one on some big city councilman's wife when they were going into the hotel for some shindig.

"It cost Aunt Idgie two hundred dollars to get him out of jail and another two hundred dollars to take Bobby's name off the books, so he wouldn't have a police record and his daddy wouldn't find out... I went over there with her to get him, and coming home, she told him that if he ever let anybody know she had done it, she would shoot his you-know-whats off. She couldn't stand anybody knowing she had done a good deed, especially for the preacher's son.

"All that bunch in the Dill Pickle Club were like that. They did a lot of good works that nobody knew about. But the best part of the story is that old Bobby Lee went on to become a big-time lawyer, and wound up as an attorney general for Governor Folsom."

His daughter, Norma, came in to get the rest of the dishes. "Daddy, tell him about Railroad Bill."

Linda shot her mother an exasperated look.

Stump said, "Railroad Bill? Oh Lord, you don't really want to hear about Bill, do you?"

The boyfriend, who really wanted to take Linda out parking somewhere, said, "Yes sir, I'd love to hear about it"

Macky smiled at his wife. They had heard this story a hundred times and knew Stump loved to tell it.

"Well, it was during the Depression and, somehow, this person called Railroad Bill would sneak on the government supply trains and throw stuff off for the colored people. Then he'd jump off before they could catch him. This went on for years, and pretty soon the colored started telling stories about him. They claimed that someone saw him turn into a fox and run twenty miles on top of a barbed-wire fence. People that did see him said he wore a long black coat, with a black stocking cap on his head. They even made up a song about him.... Sipsey said, every Sunday in church, they'd pray for Railroad Bill, to keep him safe.

“The railroad put a huge reward up, but there wasn't a person in Whistle Stop that would have ever turned him in, even if they had known who he was. Everybody wondered and made guesses.

"I got in my head that Railroad Bill was Artis Peavy, our cook's son. He was about the right size and as fast as lightning. I followed him around night and day, but I could never catch him. I must have been around nine or ten at the time, and I would have given anything to have seen him in action, so I would have known for sure.

"Then, one morning, right around daybreak, I had to go to the toilet. I was about half asleep and when I got to the bathroom, there was Momma and Aunt Idgie in there, with the sink running. Momma looked at me, surprised, and said, 'Wait a minute, honey,' and closed the door.

"I said, ‘Hurry up, Momma, I cain't wait!' You know how a kid'll do. I heard them talking and pretty soon they came out, and Aunt Idgie was drying her hands and face. When I got in there, the sink was still full of coal dust. And on the floor, behind the door, was a black stocking hat.

"I suddenly figured out why I'd seen her and old Grady Kilgore, the railroad detective, always whispering. He'd been the one who was tipping her off about the train schedules... it had been my Aunt Idgie jumping them trains, all along."

Linda said, "Oh Granddaddy, are you sure that's true?"

"Of course it's true. Your Aunt Idgie did all kinds of crazy things." He asked Macky, "Did I ever tell you what she did that time old Wilbur and Dot Weems got married and went on their honeymoon at a big hotel in Birmingham?"

"No, I don't think so."

Peggy said, "Stump, don't be telling that story in front of the children."

"It'll be all right, don't worry. Well anyway, old Wilbur was a member of the Dill Pickle Club, and right after the wedding, Aunt Idgie and that bunch got in a car and drove over to Birmingham as fast as they could, and bribed the hotel clerk into letting them into the honeymoon suite, and they put all kinds of funny stuff all over the bed... God knows what all...”

Peggy warned him, "Stump..."

He laughed. "Hell, I don't know what it was. Anyway, they got in the car and came back home, and when Wilbur and Dot got back, they asked Wilbur how he liked his honeymoon suite at the Redmont, only to find out that they had been at the wrong hotel, and some poor honeymoon couple had gotten the shock of their lives."

Peggy shook her head. "Can you imagine such a thing?"

Norma stuck her head under the serving counter. "Daddy, tell them about the catfish you used to catch down at the Warrior River."

Stump's face lit up. "Oh well. You wouldn't believe how big those catfish were. I remember one day, it was raining and I got a bite so hard, it slid me right down the bank and I had to fight to not be pulled into the water. Lightning was striking and I was fighting for my life, but after about four hours, I pulled that grandaddy mud cat out of the water and, I tell you, he must have weighed twenty pounds or more, and he was this long..."

Stump held out his one arm.

The skinny would-be chiropractor sat there with a stupid look on his face, seriously trying to figure out how long the catfish was.

Linda, exasperated, put her hand on her hip. "Oh Granddaddy."

Norma just cackled from the kitchen.

SEPTEMBER 28, 1986

Today, they were enjoying a combination of things: Cokes and Golden Flake potato chips, and for dessert—another request from Mrs. Threadgoode—Fig Newtons. She told Evelyn that Mrs. Otis had eaten three Fig Newtons a day for the past thirty years, to keep her regular. "Personally, I eat 'em just 'cause I like the taste. But I'll tell you something that's good. When I was at home and didn't feel like cooking, I'd walk over to Ocie's store and pick up a package of those little brown-and-serve rolls and pour Log Cabin Syrup on them and have that for my dinner. They don't cost all that much. You ought to try it sometime.”

"I'll tell you what's good, Mrs. Threadgoode, are those frozen honey-buns.”

"Honey-buns?”

"Yes. They're like cinnamon buns. You know."

"Oh, I love cinnamon buns. Let's have some sometime, want to?”

"All right."

"You know, Evelyn, I*m so glad you’re not on that diet of yours anymore. That raw food will kill you. I hadn't wanted to tell you this before, but Mrs. Adcock nearly killed herself on one of those slimming diets. She ate so much raw food that she was rushed to the hospital with severe stomach pains and they had to do exploratory surgery on her. And she said that while the doctor was examining all her insides, he picked up her liver to get a close look at it, and dropped it right on the floor, and it bounced four or five times before they got it. Mrs. Adcock said that she has suffered with terrible backaches ever since, because of it."

"Oh Mrs. Threadgoode, you don't believe her, do you?"

"Well, that's what she said at the dinner table the other night."

"Honey, she's just making that up. Your liver is attached to your body."

"Well, maybe she got mixed up and it was a kidney or something else, but if I were you, I wouldn't eat any more of that raw food."

"Well okay, Mrs. Threadgoode, if you say so." Evelyn took a bite of her potato chip. "Mrs. Threadgoode, there's something I've been meaning to ask you. Didn't you tell me one time that some people thought Idgie had killed a man? Or did I just think you said that?"

"Oh no, honey, a lot of people thought she had done it. Yes indeed, 'specially when she stood trial for murder with Big George over in Georgia..."

Evelyn was shocked. "She did?"

"Haven't I ever told you about that before?"

"No. Never."

"Oh... Well, it was awful! I remember the very morning. I was doing my dishes, listening to The Breakfast Club, when Grady Kilgore came up to the house and got Cleo. He looked like someone had died. He said, "Cleo, I'd rather cut off my right arm that to do what I'm about to do, but I've got to go take Idgie and Big George in on charges, and I want you to go with me.'

"You know, Idgie was one of his best friends, and it liked to of killed him to do it. He told Cleo that he would have resigned from office, but he said that the thought of a stranger arresting Idgie was even worse.

“Cleo said, 'My God, Grady, what’s she done?”

“Grady said that she and Big George were suspected of murdering Frank Bennett back in ‘thirty. Here, I didn't even know he'd been dead or missing or anything."

Evelyn said. What made them think that Idgie and Big George did it?”

“Well it seems that Idgie and Big George had threatened to kill him a couple of times, and the Georgia police had that on record, so when they found his truck, they had to bring them in...”

"What truck?"

"Frank Bennett's truck. They were looking for a drowned body and found that truck in the river, not far from Eva Bates's place, so they knew he'd been around Whistle Stop in nineteen thirty.

"Grady was furious that some damn fool had been stupid enough to call over to Georgia and give them the tag number... Ruth had been dead about eight years, and Stump and Peggy had already married and moved over to Atlanta, so it must have been around nineteen fifty-five or 'fifty-six.

"The next day, Grady took Idgie and Big George over to Georgia, and Sipsey went with them; nobody could talk her out of going. But Idgie wouldn't let anybody else go with her, so we all had to stay home and wait.

"Grady tried to keep it quiet. Nobody in town talked about it if they knew... Dot Weems knew, but she never printed anything in the paper.

"I remember the week of the trial, Albert and I went over to Troutville to be with Onzell, who was terrified because she knew if Big George was found guilty of killing a white man, he'd wind up in the electric chair, Just like Mr. Pinto.”

Just then, Geneene, the nurse, came in and sat down to have a cigarette and relax.

Mrs. Threadgoode said, "Oh Geneene, this is my friend Evelyn, the one I told you about who's having such a bad menopause.”

"How do you do."

“Hello."

Then Mrs, Threadgoode went on and on to Geneene about how pretty she thought Evelyn was and didn't Geneene think that Evelyn should sell Mary Kay cosmetics?

Evelyn was hoping that Geneene would leave so Mrs. Threadgoode would finish her story, but she never did. And when Ed came to get her, she was frustrated because now she would have to wait a whole week to hear how the trial came out. As she left, Evelyn said, "Don't forget where you left off."

Mrs. Threadgoode looked at her blankly. "Left off? You mean about Mary Kay?"

"No. About the trial."

"Oh yes. Oh, that was something, all right..."

JULY 24, 1955

It was just before a thunderstorm; the air in the courtroom was hot and thick.

Idgie turned and looked around the courtroom, the sweat running down her back. Her lawyer, Ralph Root, a friend of Grady's, loosened his tie and tried to get a breath of air.

This was the third day of the trial and all the men who had been in the barbershop in Valdosta, the day Idgie had threatened to kill Frank Bennett, had already testified. Jake Box had just taken the stand.

She turned around again and looked for Smokey Lonesome. Where the hell was he? Grady had sent word that she was in trouble and needed him. Something was wrong. He should have been here. She began to wonder if he was dead.

At that moment, Jake Box pointed to Big George and said, "That's him. That's the one that come after Frank with the knife, and that's the woman that was with him."

The entire Loundes County Courthouse murmured with uneasiness over a black man threatening a white man. Grady Kilgore shifted in his seat. Sipsey, the only other black in the room, was up in the balcony, moaning and praying for her baby boy, even though he was almost sixty at the time.

Not even bothering to question Big George, the prosecuting attorney moved right on along to Idgie, who took the stand.

"Did you know Frank Bennett?"

"No sir."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes sir."

"You mean to sit here and tell me you never met the man whose wife, Ruth Bennett, was your business partner for eighteen years?"

"That's right."

He twirled around, with his thumbs in his vest, to face the jury. "You mean to say you never came into the Valdosta barbershop in August of nineteen twenty-eight and had a heated conversation in which you threatened to kill Frank Bennett, a man you did not know?"

"That was me, all right. I thought you wanted to know if we had ever met, and the answer is no. I threatened to kill him, but we were never, what you might say, properly introduced."

Some of the men in the room, who hated the pompous lawyer, laughed. "So, in other words, you admit that you threatened Frank Bennett's life."

"Yes sir."

"Is it not true that you also came to Georgia with your colored man in September of nineteen twenty-eight and left, taking Frank Bennett's wife and child with you?"

"Just his wife, the child came later."

"How much later?"

"The usual time; nine months."

The courtroom broke out in laughter again. Frank's brother, Gerald, glared at her from the front row.

"Is it true that you spoke against Frank Bennett's character to his wife and made her believe that he was not of good moral fiber? Did you convince her that he was not fit as a husband?"

"No sir, she already knew that for a fact."

More laughter.

The lawyer was getting heated. "Did you or did you not force her to go to Alabama with you at knifepoint?"

"Didn't have to. She was already packed and ready when we got there."

He ignored this last statement. "Is it not true that Frank Bennett came over to Whistle Stop, Alabama, trying to retrieve what was rightly his—his wife and his tiny baby son and that you and your colored man killed him to prevent her from returning to her happy home and giving the child back to its father?"

"No sir."

The large, pigeon-breasted man was picking up steam. "Are you aware that you broke up the most sacred thing on this earth—a Christian home with a loving father and mother and child? That you defiled the sacred and holy marriage between a man and a woman, a marriage sanctioned by God in the Morning Dove Baptist Church, right here in Valdosta, on November first, nineteen twenty-four? That you have caused a good Christian woman to break God's laws and her marriage vows?!"

"No sir."

"I suggest that you bribed this poor weak woman with promises of money and liquor, and that she lost control of her senses, momentarily, and when her husband came back to get her and take her home, didn't you and your colored man murder him in cold blood to prevent her from returning?"

He then turned on her and screamed, "WHERE WERE YOU ON THE NIGHT OF DECEMBER THIRTEENTH, NINETEEN THIRTY?"

Idgie really began to sweat. "Well, sir, I was over at my mother's house, in Whistle Stop."

"Who was with you?"

"Ruth Jamison and Big George. He went over there with us that night."

"Can Ruth Jamison testify to that?"

"No sir."

"Why not?"

"She died eight years ago."

"What about your mother?"

"She's dead, too."

He was coming down the mountain now, and stood up on his tiptoes for a second and then twirled toward the jury again. "So Miss Threadgoode, you expect twelve intelligent men to believe that, although two witnesses are dead and the other is a colored man who works for you and was with you the day you abducted Ruth Bennett from her happy home, and is known to be a worthless, no-good lying nigger, you are asking these men to take your word for it, just because you say so?" Although she was nervous, the lawyer should not have called Big George those names.

"That's right, you gump-faced, blowed-up, baboon-assed bastard."

The room exploded as the judge banged his gavel in vain. This time, Big George moaned. He had begged her not to stand trial, but she was determined to give him an alibi for that night. She knew she was his only chance. The odds of a white woman's getting off were much higher than his; especially if his alibi depended on the words of another Negro. She was not going to let Big George go to jail if her life depended on it; and it very well might.

The trial was going badly for Idgie, and when the surprise witness was rushed into the courtroom on that last day, Idgie knew it had just gone from bad to worse. He came sweeping through the courtroom as pious and holier-than-thou-looking than ever... her old sworn enemy, the man she had tormented for years.

This is it, she thought.

"State your name, please."

"Reverend Herbert Scroggins."

"Occupation?"

"Pastor of the Whistle Stop Baptist Church."

"Place your right hand on the Bible." Reverend Scroggins informed him that he had brought his own, thank you, and placed his hand on his Bible and swore to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help him God.

Idgie became confused. She realized it had been her own lawyer who had brought him in. Why had he not asked her first? She could have told him that this man would have nothing good to say about her.

But it was too late, he was already on the stand.

"Reverend Scroggins, could you tell the court why you called me long distance and what you told me last evening?"

The reverend cleared his throat. "Yes. I called to tell you that I have information about the whereabouts of Idgie Threadgoode and George Pullman Peavey on the night of December thirteenth, nineteen thirty."

"Were she and her colored man not over at her mother's house that evening, as has been suggested here earlier in the trial?"

"No, they were not."

Oh, shit, thought Idgie.

Her lawyer persisted. "Are you saying, Reverend Scroggins, that she was lying as to her whereabouts on that evening?"

The reverend pursed his lips. "Well, sir, as a Christian, I couldn't say for sure if she was lying or not. I think it is a question of being mixed up about the dates." He then opened the Bible he had and turned to the back and began looking at a particular page. "It has been my habit through the years to write down all the dates of the activities of the church in my Bible, and while going through it the other evening, I show that the night of December thirteenth was the start of our church's yearly tent revival, down at the Baptist campgrounds. And Sister Threadgoode was there, along with her hired man, George Peavey, who was in charge of refreshments—just as he has been every year for the past twenty years."

The prosecuting attorney jumped up. "I object! This doesn't mean anything. The murder could have taken place anytime during the next couple of days."

Reverend Scroggins looked fiercely at him, then turned to the judge. "That's just it, Your Honor: Our revival always lasts for three days and three nights."

The lawyer said, "And you're sure Miss Threadgoode was there?"

Reverend Scroggins seemed offended that anyone would doubt his word. "Of course she was." He addressed the jury. "Sister Threadgoode holds a perfect attendance record at all our church activities and is the lead singer in our church choir."

For the first time in her life, Idgie was speechless, dumb, mute, without a comeback. All these years the Dill Pickle Club had spent lying and telling tall tales, thinking they were so good at it, and in five minutes Scroggins had put them all to shame. He was so convincing, she almost believed him, herself.

"In fact, we think so much of Sister Threadgoode at our church, the entire congregation has come over in a bus to testify on her behalf." With which the doors of the courtroom opened and in filed the oddest lot that God had ever put together on this earth: Smokey Lonesome, Jimmy Knot-Head Harris, Splinter-Belly Al, Crackshot Sackett, Inky Pardue, BoWeevil Jake, Elmo Williams, Warthog Willy, and so on... all with fresh haircuts from Opal's Beauty Shop and wearing borrowed clothes... just a few of the many hoboes Idgie and Ruth had fed throughout the years and Smokey had been able to round up in time.

One by one, they took the stand and testified solidly, remembering in great detail the river revival that December, back in 1930. And last, but not least, came Sister Eva Bates, wearing a flowered hat and carrying a purse. She took the stand and almost broke the jury's heart as she recalled how Sister Threadgoode had leaned over to her during the first night of the revival meeting and had remarked how God had touched her heart that night, due to Reverend Scroggins's inspired preaching on the evils of whiskey and the lusts of the flesh.

The skinny little judge, with a neck like an arm, didn't even bother to ask the jury for a verdict. He banged his gavel and said to the prosecuting attorney, "Percy, it don't look to me like you've got a case at all. First of all, there ain't no body been found. Second, we've got sworn witnesses ain't nobody gonna dispute. What we got is a whole lot of nothing. I say this Frank Bennett got himself drunk and drove himself into the river and has long been ate up. We're gonna call this thing, here, accidental death. That's what we've got ourselves a case of."

He banged his gavel once more, saying, "Case dismissed."

Sipsey did a dance in the balcony, Grady let out a sigh of relief.

The judge, the Honorable Curtis Smoote, knew damn well that there had not been any three-day tent revival in the middle of December. And from where he was sitting, he had also seen that the preacher did not have a Bible between the covers of the book he had sworn on. He had seldom seen such a scrubbed-up lot of down and dirty characters. And besides, the judge's daughter had just died a couple of weeks ago, old before her time and living a dog's life on the outskirts of town, because of Frank Bennett; so he really didn't care who had killed the son of a bitch.

After it was all over, Reverend Scroggins came over and shook Idgie's hand. "I'll see you in church Sunday, Sister Threadgoode." He winked at her and left.

His son, Bobby, had heard about the trial and had called and told him about that time Idgie had gotten him out of jail. So Scroggins, the one she had bedeviled all these years, had come through for her.

Idgie was floored by the whole thing for quite a time. But, driving home, she did manage to say, "You know, I've been thinking. I don't know what's worse—going to jail or having to be nice to the preacher for the rest of my life."

OCTOBER 9, 1986

Evelyn had been in a hurry to get to the nursing home today. She had badgered Ed to drive faster all the way there. She stopped, as she always did, in Big Momma's room and offered her a honey-bun, but as usual, Big Momma declined, saying, "If I ate that I'd be sick as a dog. How you can eat that sticky, gooey stuff is beyond me."

Evelyn excused herself and rushed down the hall to the visitors' lounge.

Mrs. Threadgoode, who had on her bright green flowered dress today, greeted Evelyn with a cheery "Happy New Year!"

Evelyn sat down, concerned. "Honey, that's not till three months from now. We haven't had Christmas yet."

Mrs. Threadgoode laughed. "I know that, I just thought I'd move it up a bit. Have some fun. All these old people out here are so gloomy, moping around the place something awful."

Evelyn handed Mrs. Threadgoode her treat.

"Oh Evelyn, are these honey-buns?"

'They sure are. Remember I told you about them?"

"Well, don't they look good?" She held one up. "Why, they're just like a Dixie Cream Donut. Thank you, honey... have you ever had a Dixie Cream Donut? They're as light as a feather. I used to say to Cleo, I'd say, "Cleo, if you're going anywhere near the Dixie Cream Donut place, bring me and Albert home a dozen. Bring me six glazed and six jelly ones.' I like the ones that are twisted, too. You know, like a French braid. I forget what they're called..." Evelyn couldn't wait any longer.

"Mrs. Threadgoode, tell me what happened at the trial."

"You mean Idgie and Big George's trial?"

"That's right"

"Well, that was something, all right. We were all worried to death. We thought they never were coming home, but they finally got a not-guilty verdict. Cleo said that they proved beyond the shadow of a doubt where they had been at the time the murder was to have taken place, so they couldn't possibly have done it. He said the only reason that Idgie would have stood trial like that was to protect someone else."

Evelyn thought for a minute. "Who else would want to kill him?"

"Well, honey, it isn't a matter of who wanted to, but who would have. That's the question. Some say it could have been Smokey Lonesome. Some say it could have been Eva Bates and that gang out at the river—Lord knows it was a rough enough bunch, and those folks in the Dill Pickle Club stuck together... it's hard to say. And then, of course"—Mrs. Threadgoode paused—"there's Ruth, herself."

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."

JANUARY 23, 1969

Smokey Lonesome sat on the side of his iron bed at the mission, coughing through the first cigarette of the day. After the café 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 16^th Street, and 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 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 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 that 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 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 hunch 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 und 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 us 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.

RUTH JAMISON

1898-1946

GOD SAW FIT TO CALL HER HOME

THURSDAY, JANUARY 26, 1969

PAGE 38

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