“Uh, yes ma’am. Uh, I’s looking for the number of Fred B. Jones.”
“I’m sorry, could your repeat that name, please?”
“Yes ma’am, Mr. Fred Jones in Five Points.” His heart was pounding.
“I have about fifty Fred Joneses, sir. Do you have a street address?”
“No ma’am, but he’s over in Five Points.”
“I have three Fred Joneses in the Five Points area … would you like all three numbers?”
“Yes ma’am.”
He searched his pockets for a pencil—and she started … “Mr. Fred Jones, 18th South, 68799; and Mr. Fred Jones, 141 Magnolia Point, 68745; and Fred C. Jones, 15th Street, that number is 68721 …”
He never found a pencil and the operator hung up. Back to the book.
He could hardly breathe. The sweat was running down his eyes, blurring his vision. Drugstore … Pharmacy … Ice Cream … Food … Catering … THAT’S IT! Here it was, Fred B. Jones Catering, 68715 …
He mashed the nickel in the slot and dialed the number. Busy. Tried again. Busy … busy …
“Oh Lord.”
After trying eight times, Artis didn’t know what to do, so he just ran back to the men. He turned the corner and, Thank God, they were still there, leaning up against the truck. They had the dog tied to the door handle with a rope.
“You get him?” the big one asked.
“No suh,” he said, gasping. “I wasn’t able to reach him, but if you could just ride me over to Five Points, I could get him …”
“Naw, we’re not gonna do that. We already wasted enough time with you, boy,” and he began to untie the dog and put him in the back.
Artis was desperate. “Naw suh, I jes’ cain’t let you do it.”
He reached in his pocket, and before either one of the men knew what had happened, he had sliced the rope holding the dog in half with the four-inch switchblade, and yelled, “Scat!”
Artis turned around and watched the grateful dog scamper around the corner, and was smiling when the blackjack hit him behind his left ear.
TEN YEARS FOR THE ATTEMPTED MURDER OF A CITY OFFICIAL WITH A DEADLY WEAPON. It would have been thirty if those two men had been white.
SEPTEMBER 1, 1986
Ed Couch came home Thursday night and said that he was having trouble with a woman down at the office who was “a real ball breaker,” and that none of the men wanted to work with her because of it.
The next day, Evelyn went out to the mall to shop for a bed jacket for Big Momma and while she was having lunch at the Pioneer Cafeteria, a thought popped into her head, unannounced:
What is a ball breaker?
She’d heard Ed use that term a lot, along with She’s out to get my balls and I had to hold on to my balls for dear life.
Why was Ed so scared that someone was out to get his balls? What were they, anyway? Just little pouches that carried sperm; but the way men carried on about them, you’d think they were the most important thing in the world. My God, Ed had just about died when one of their son’s hadn’t dropped properly. The doctor said that it wouldn’t affect his ability to have children, but Ed had acted like it was a tragedy and wanted to send him to a psychiatrist, so he wouldn’t feel less of a man. She remembered thinking at the time, how silly … her breasts had never developed, and nobody ever sent her for help.
But Ed had won out, because he told her she didn’t understand about being a man and what it meant. Ed had even pitched a fit when she wanted to have their cat, Valentine, who had impregnated the thoroughbred Siamese cat across the street, fixed.
He said, “If you’re gonna cut his balls off, you might as well just go on and put him to sleep!”
No doubt about it, he was peculiar where balls were concerned.
She remembered how Ed had once complimented that same woman at the office when she had stood up to the boss. He had bragged on her, saying what a ballsy dame she was.
But now that she thought about it, she wondered: What did that woman’s strength have to do with Ed’s anatomy? He hadn’t said, “Boy, she’s got some ovaries”; he had definitely said what balls she had. Ovaries have eggs in them, she thought: Shouldn’t they be as important as sperm?
And when had that woman stepped over the line of having just enough balls to having too much?
That poor woman. She would have to spend her whole life balancing imaginary balls if she wanted to get along. Balance was everything. But what about size? she wondered. She never heard Ed mention size before. It was the other thing’s size they were so concerned about, so she guessed it didn’t matter all that much. All that mattered in this world was the fact that you had balls. Then all at once, the simple and pure truth of that conclusion hit her. She felt as if someone had run a pencil up her spine and dotted an i on her head. She sat up straight in her chair, shocked that she, Evelyn Couch, of Birmingham, Alabama, had stumbled on the answer. She suddenly knew what Edison must have felt like when he discovered electricity. Of course! That was it … having balls was the most important thing in this world. No wonder she had always felt like a car in traffic without a horn.
It was true. Those two little balls opened the door to everything. They were the credit cards she needed to get ahead, to be listened to, to be taken seriously. No wonder Ed had wanted a boy.
Then another truth occurred to her. Another sad, irrevocable truth: She had no balls and never would or could have balls. She was doomed. Ball-less forever. Unless, she thought, if maybe the balls in your immediate family counted. There were four in hers … Ed’s and Tommy’s … No, wait … six, if she counted the cat. No, wait just another minute, if Ed loved her so much, why couldn’t he give her one of his? A ball transplant.… That’s right. Or, maybe she could get two from an anonymous donor. That’s it, she’d buy some off a dead man and she could put them in a box and take them to important meetings and bang them on the table to get her way. Maybe she’d buy four …
No wonder Christianity had been such a big hit. Think of Jesus and the Apostles … And if you counted John the Baptist, why that was 14 pairs and 28 singles, right there!
Oh, it was all so simple to her now. How had she been so blind and not seen it before?
Yes, by heavens, she’d done it. She’d hit upon the secret that women have been searching for through the centuries …
THIS WAS THE ANSWER …
Hadn’t Lucille Ball been the biggest star on television?
She banged her iced tea on the table in triumph and shouted, “YES! THAT’S IT!”
Everyone in the cafeteria turned and looked at her.
Evelyn quietly finished her lunch and thought, Lucille Ball? Ed might be right. I probably am going crazy.
JUNE 10, 1948
Benefit for New Balls
The Dill Pickle Club will hold a womanless wedding to benefit the high school so they can get a new set of balls for the football, basketball, and baseball teams this year. This should be quite an evening, with our own Sheriff Grady Kilgore as the lovely bride and Idgie as the groom. Julian Threadgoode, Jack Butts, Harold Vick, Pete Tidwell, and Charlie Fowler will be bridesmaids.
This affair will be at the high school on June 14, at seven o’clock. Admission is 20¢ for adults and 5¢ for children.
Essie Rue Limeway will play the organ for the wedding.
Come one, come all! I intend to be there, as my other half, Wilbur, will be the flower girl.
My other half and I went to the picture show and saw The Gracie Allen Murder Mystery. It was funny, but go before the prices change at seven.
By the way, Rev. Scroggins said someone put his lawn furniture on top of his house.
… Dot Weems …
JULY 11, 1948
Artis O. Peavey had been sent down to Kilbey Prison, better known as the Murder Farm, for pulling a knife on those two dogcatchers, and it had taken Idgie and Grady six months of trying before they could get him out.
On the way down, Grady said to Idgie, “It’s a damn go
od thing he’s coming out now. He might not of lasted in that place for another month.”
Grady knew what he was talking about, having once been a guard there.
“Hell, if the guards don’t get him, then the other niggers will. I’ve seen decent men turn into animals inside. Men, with a wife and children at home, will turn around and kill one another over some gal-boy … every night in the cell blocks was bad—but whenever there was a full moon, look out. They all go crazy and stick each other. We’d go in the next morning and there’d be about twenty-five stiffs we’d have to bring out. And after a while down there, the only difference between the men and the guards is the gun. Most of those guards are pretty simpleminded old boys … they’ll go to a picture show and see Tom Mix or Hoot Gibson and then they come back and ride around the farm, pulling their guns, trying to be cowboys. Sometimes they get meaner than the prisoners. That’s why I quit. I’ve seen men that would beat a nigger to death, just to have something to do. I’m telling you, that place gets to you after a while, and I hear now that they’ve got those Scotts-borough boys down here, things is worse than ever.”
Now Idgie was really worried and she wished he would drive faster.
When they turned in the gate that led down the road to the main building, they saw hundreds of prisoners in coarse striped uniforms out in the yard digging or hoeing, and they saw the guards, just like Grady had said, showing off as the car passed by, running their horses in circles and peering at the car as it drove by. Idgie thought that most of them did look a little retarded, so when they brought Artis out, she was relieved to see that he was still alive and well.
Although his clothes were wrinkled, his hair was nappy. Artis was never so happy to see anybody in his whole life. The scars on his back from the whip didn’t show, and they could not see the lumps on his head. He grinned from ear to ear as they walked out to the car. He was going home …
On the way back, Grady said, “Now, Artis, I’m in charge of you, so don’t be going and getting in any more trouble. You hear?”
“No suh. I don’t ever want to go back to that place, no suh.”
Grady looked at him in the rearview mirror. “Pretty rough in there, huh?”
Artis laughed. “Yes suh, it be pretty rough, all right … yes suh, pretty rough.”
When they first caught sight of the steel mills in Birmingham about four hours later, Artis became so excited he was like a child, and wanted to get out of the car.
Idgie tried to get him to come home to Whistle Stop first. “Your momma and daddy and Sipsey are all waiting to see you.”
But he pleaded to get out in Birmingham for just a few hours, so they drove him over to 8th Avenue North, where he wanted to be let out.
Idgie said, “Please try and get on home soon, ’cause they really want to see you … promise?”
Artis said, “Yes ma’am, I promise,” and ran down the street, laughing so happy to be back where he belonged.
About a week later, he showed up at the cafe, his hair smooth as glass, looking spectacular in his brand-new Revel hat, designed in Harlem, with the extra-wide brim, a gift from Madeline, happy to have him home.
SEPTEMBER 7, 1986
This week, for Evelyn and Ninny, the bill of fare was Corn Curls and Cokes and homemade brownies.
“Honey, you should have been out here this morning, you missed a show. We were all having our breakfast and we looked up and there was Vesta Adcock with a bran muffin on her head, doing a hula dance right in front of us in the dining room. It was a sight! Poor old Mr. Dunaway got so excited they had to give him his pill and take him to his room. Geneene, that little colored nurse, made her sit down and eat her muffin. They want us to have one of those every day, so we won’t get constipated. When you get up in years, your digestive system goes off.”
She leaned over and whispered. “Some of these old people out here pass gas and they don’t even know they’ve done it.”
Ninny took a swig of her Coke. “You know, a lot of these people resent having colored nurses out here. One of them said that deep down, all colored people hate white people and if those nurses got a chance, they’d kill us off in our sleep.”
Evelyn said that was the stupidest thing she’d ever heard.
“That’s what I thought at the time, but it was your mother-in-law that said it, so I shut my trap.”
“Well, I’m not surprised.”
“Oh, it’s not just her. You’d be surprised how many of them out here think that way. But I don’t believe it for one minute. I’ve been around colored people all my life. Why, when Momma Threadgoode died and was laid out in the parlor, that afternoon we looked out the window and, one by one, every colored woman from Troutville had gathered out in the side yard, there by the window, and they started singing one of their old Negra spirituals, ‘When I Get to Heaven, I’m Gonna Sit Down and Rest Awhile’… Oh, I never will forget it. You’ve never heard singing like that, it still gives me goose bumps just to think about it.
“And take Idgie, for instance. She had as many friends over in Troutville as she did in Whistle Stop. She was always over there preaching at some funeral if a friend of hers died. She told me one time that she preferred them to some of the whites she knew. I remember one time she said to me, ‘Ninny, a no-good nigger is just no good, but a low-down white man is lower than a dog.’
“Of course, I cain’t speak for all of them, but I never saw anybody more devoted to a person than Onzell was to Ruth. Ruth was her special pet, and she let you know it, too. She wouldn’t allow anybody to bother Ruth.
“I remember one time when Idgie was acting up, drinking and carrying on and she didn’t come home all night, she told her, right in the kitchen the next day, she said, ‘Now, Miz Idgie, I’m gonna tell you something … Miz Ruth’s done left one no-account, and it’d be jest as easy to leave two, an’ I’s jest the one to help her pack.’
“Idgie just walked out of the kitchen and didn’t say a word. She knew not to cross Onzell where Ruth was concerned.
“As sweet as she was, Onzell could be tough. She had to be, raising all those kids and working all day at the cafe. When Artis or Naughty Bird would get to pestering her, I’ve seen her backslap them out the door and never miss cutting a biscuit.
“But she was gentle as a lamb where Ruth was concerned. And when Ruth got that terrible cancer in her female organs and had to go over to Birmingham and have an operation, Onzell went right along with Idgie and me. We were all three sitting in the waiting room when the doctor came in. He hadn’t even taken off his cap and gown and he said, ‘I’m sorry to have to tell you this, but I cain’t do a thing for her.’ It had spread to her pancreas, and once it hits you in your pancreas, you’re a goner. So he said he just sewed her back up and left a tube in her to drain.
“We took her home to the Threadgoode house and put her upstairs in one of the bedrooms so she would be more comfortable, and from the moment she got there, Onzell moved into the room with her and never left her side.
“Idgie wanted to hire a nurse, but Onzell wouldn’t hear of it. All of her children were grown by then, but Big George had to cook for himself.
“Poor Idgie and Stump, they just sorta fell apart. They’d just sit downstairs in a daze. Ruth went down so fast and, oh, she was in so much pain. She’d tried not to let on she was, but you could tell. Onzell was right there with her medicine, twenty-four hours a day, and during the last week, Onzell wouldn’t let anybody in to see her but Idgie and Stump. She said that Ruth had begged her not to let anyone see her looking so terrible.
“I never will forget what she said, standing there in front of that door. She said, Miss Ruth is a lady and always knew when to leave a party, and this wasn’t going to be any exception as long as she was around.
“She kept her word. Big George and Stump and Idgie were way out in the woods looking for pinecones for her room when Ruth died, and by the time they got back home she had been taken away.
“Onzell had called Dr
. Hadley, and he had sent an ambulance over to pick up Ruth’s body and take her over to the funeral home in Birmingham. Cleo and I went down there with her, waiting, and after they put her in the ambulance, Dr. Hadley said, ‘You go on home now, Onzell, and I’ll ride over with her and make all the arrangements.’
“Well, honey, Onzell pulled herself up tall and told Dr. Hadley, ‘No suh, that’s my place!’ and marched right by him and got in the back of the ambulance and closed the door. She had packed Ruth’s gown and makeup and did not leave the funeral parlor that night until she thought Ruth looked like she wanted her to look.
“So there’s not a person alive that can tell me that colored people hate white people. No sir! I’ve seen too many sweet ones in my life to believe that.
“I told Cleo just the other day, I’d like for us to ride the train to Memphis and back so I could see Jasper and see what he’s up to. He works on the dining car.”
Evelyn looked at her friend and realized that she was confused about time again.
FEBRUARY 7, 1947
That rainy morning, Onzell had asked Stump and Idgie to go down to the woods by the river and get some pinecones for Miss Ruth’s sickroom. She was wiping Ruth’s face with a damp cloth.
“Hold on, Miz Ruth, it’s gonna be over soon. It’s gonna be over soon, baby.”
Ruth looked back up at her and tried to smile, but the pain in her eyes was terrible. There was no rest from it now; no sleep, no relief.
Onzell, a charter member of the Mount Zion Primitive Baptist Church and the lead singer in the Halleluiah Choir, who believed with all her heart and soul in a merciful God, had made a decision.
No God, anywhere, certainly not her sweet, precious Jesus, Who died for our sins and loved us above all things, had ever meant anyone to suffer like this.
So it was with perfect joy and a pure heart that she gave Ruth the morphine that she’d been saving, bit by bit, day by day. Onzell watched Ruth’s body relax for the first time in weeks, and then she sat down by the bed and held her little skeleton of a hand and began to rock and sing.