… Dot Weems …
P.S. Who says we are the weaker sex? Poor Dwane Glass fainted at his own wedding last Sunday and had to be held up by his bride-to-be throughout the entire ceremony. He said he felt much better after it was over though. He leaves for the army right after his honeymoon.
JANUARY 12, 1944
In Birmingham, at the big L & N Terminal train station, a brass band and a crowd of five hundred people had gathered to welcome home the returning sons, husbands, and brothers; war heroes, all. The flags were waving already, waiting for the six-twenty from Washington, D.C.
But tonight, the train made its first stop twenty minutes outside of Birmingham, and down at the end of the platform was a black family, waiting for their son. Quietly, the wooden box was lifted off the baggage coach and placed on the cart that would take him over the tracks to Troutville.
Artis, Jasper, and Naughty Bird walked behind Onzell, Sipsey, and Big George. As they walked by, Grady Kilgore, Jack Butts, and all the railroad boys took their hats off and stood at attention.
There were no flags or bands or any medals, just a cardboard name tag on the box, with P.F.C. w. C. PEAVEY written on it. But across the street, in the window of the cafe, there was a flag and a service star in the window and a sign that read: WELCOME HOME, WILLIE BOY …
Ruth and Idgie and Stump had already gone over to Troutville to wait with the others.
Sweet Willie Boy, Wonderful Counselor Peavey, the boy who had been accepted at Tuskegee Institute … the smart one, the one who was going to be a lawyer, a leader of his people, a shining light from the back roads of Alabama to Washington, D.C. Willie Boy, the one who had the chance to make it, had gotten himself killed after a bar fight by a black soldier named Winston Lewis from Newark, New Jersey.
Willie Boy had been talking about his daddy, Big George, who, whenever his name was mentioned down home, blacks and whites alike would always say, “Now, there’s a man.”
But Winston Lewis had said that any man working for whites, especially in Alabama, was nothing but a low-down, ignorant, stupid shuffling Uncle Tom.
In order to survive, Willie Boy had been trained not to react to insults and to disguise even the tiniest glimmer of aggressiveness or anger. But tonight, when Winston spoke, he thought of his daddy and crashed a beer bottle into the soldier’s face and sent him sprawling on the floor, out like a light.
The next night, while he was asleep, Willie Boy’s throat had been cut from ear to ear; Winston Lewis then went A.W.O.L. The army didn’t much care; they had pretty much had it with the knife fights among the colored troops, and Willie Boy was sent home in a box.
At the funeral, Ruth and Smokey and all the Threadgoodes were in the front row of the church, and Idgie spoke on behalf of the family. The preacher preached about Jesus taking only His precious children home early to be with Him, and talked about the will of the Almighty Father Who sits on the golden throne in heaven. The congregation swayed and responded with, “Yes sir, His will be done.”
Artis answered the preacher along with the rest of them, and he swayed in his seat while he watched his mother scream in agony; but after the service, he did not go to the graveyard. While Willie Boy was being lowered into that cold Alabama red-clay grave, Artis had hopped a train and was on his way to Newark, New Jersey. He was looking for someone named Mr. Winston Lewis to cut.
… And the congregation was singing, “Lord, don’t move my mountain, just give me the strength to climb …”
Three days later, Winston Lewis’s heart was found in a paper sack several blocks from his residence.
FEBRUARY 24, 1944
Icebox Follies a Sidesplitter
The Dill Pickle Club put on its annual “Icebox Follies,” and this one was the best yet.
Grady Kilgore was cast as Shirley Temple, who sang “On the Good Ship Lollipop.” I wonder if everyone knew what pretty legs our sheriff has?
And my own other half, Wilbur Weems, sang “Red Sails in the Sunset.” I thought it was good, but then, I’m no judge. I hear him every day in the shower. Ha. Ha.
The most hilarious skit was a skit depicting Reverend Scroggins, played by Idgie Threadgoode, and Vesta Adcock, played by Pete Tidwell.
Opal did all the hair and makeup, and Ninny Threadgoode, Biddie Louise Otis, and yours truly made all the costumes.
The so-called “dangerous animal” in the Mutt and Jeff skit was none other than Dr. and Mrs. Hadley’s bulldog, Ring, in a gas mask.
All the proceeds go to the Christmas fund to aid all the needy here in Whistle Stop and in Troutville.
I wish this old war would hurry up and be over with; we sure do miss all our boys.
By the way, Wilbur tried to join the army the other day. Thank God, he’s too old and has flat feet, or we’d really be in trouble.
… Dot Weems …
JULY 28, 1986
Evelyn had gained back all the weight she had lost on her diet, plus eight more pounds. She was so upset, she did not notice that Mrs. Threadgoode had her dress on inside out again.
They were busy eating a five-pound box of Divinity Fudge when Mrs. Threadgoode said, “I’d kill for a pat of butter. This margarine they serve out here tastes like lard. We had to eat so much of that stuff in the Depression, I don’t want to ever have to eat it again. So I just do without, and I have my toast dry, with plain apple butter.
“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 fu
nnies 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 I’ll tell you one thing, they don’t give you 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 Ray 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 Couch … Mrs. Couch’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 around doing nothing, looking 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 that 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 Idgie 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 menapause 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 at night 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 Judgment 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!”
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 begi
nning 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.”