The Wonder Boy of Whistle Stop Read online

  On a sadder note: Even though it has been only a few months, all of us in Whistle Stop continue to be heartbroken over losing our dear Ruth Jamison. It’s still so hard to walk in the cafe and not see her greeting us, as she always did, with her beautiful welcoming smile. Idgie and Buddy send thanks to all of you for your generous donations. Grace over at the humane society says that so many donations were made in Ruth’s name that they have built a new room in the back for the cats and raccoons. The old one was just too small. Knowing Ruth, I am sure she would have loved that.

  …Dot Weems…

  1955

  WHEN RUTH DIED, Idgie’d had to hold herself together for Buddy’s sake. He needed her to be strong. She had wanted to close the cafe then, but she couldn’t. She needed the money. She had made a solemn promise to Ruth that no matter what, she would make sure that Buddy finished college.

  Buddy had taken his mother’s death pretty hard. It had happened in his senior year of high school. However, the next fall, after he left Whistle Stop for college and got busy making new friends, things changed for the better. But not for Idgie.

  Every evening after the cafe closed, Idgie would grab a bottle of whiskey from under the counter, get in her car, and drive all night long. She would speed seventy or eighty miles an hour, flying up and down dark country roads, her radio blaring, drunk as a loon, singing at the top of her lungs.

  It was as if the speed, the noise, and the booze could somehow help numb the pain. And it did for a few hours, but then every dawn, when she got back home, she still had to face another day without Ruth. Another day of hating God for taking her away.

  But later, after Buddy graduated from college and was on his way to a great life, Idgie felt she had kept her promise to Ruth. And now what? The town was falling apart, all her railroad pals had left, everyone else was leaving or getting ready to. Her older sister Leona had just written to her wondering whether they should sell the old two-story Threadgoode family house, since nobody was living there anymore. Idgie really didn’t have a reason to stay, and every reason to take off. The cafe held too many memories. Besides, she had just spent a rough night in jail over in Gate City, for speeding and drunk driving. She had to get out of town before one of these nights she killed herself, or even worse, someone else. Her friend Sheriff Grady had made a call to her brother Julian in Florida, and told him that everybody was worried about Idgie. She was just not herself anymore. He told Julian, “You better do something soon, ’cause I don’t know if I can get her outta jail the next time. Especially if she takes another swing at some cop that’s tryin’ to arrest her.” Julian immediately called Idgie and told her to get herself down to Florida now, or if not he would come up and get her.

  A week later, when Idgie pulled up to his house and got out, Julian was shocked at her appearance. She was bone thin, looked terrible, and reeked of whiskey and cigarettes. She fell down twice before he could even get her into the house. The next morning, after she’d had a few cups of coffee, Idgie’s hands were shaking and she was sweating and pale as a ghost, but she was at least halfway sober. So Julian started in on her. “Grady called and told me a friend of his over in Gate City had clocked you doing ninety-five miles an hour at four o’clock in the morning. Do you realize you could have killed yourself drinking and driving like some kind of maniac?”

  “I don’t care…wish I had.”

  “My God, Idgie. I know you lost your best friend, but you’re actin’ like a damn fool, getting yourself thrown in jail like that. What in hell are you thinking?”

  She looked at him, for a long time. Then she said, “Ruth was more than a best friend, Julian.”

  Julian was a little surprised to hear her say so, but he just nodded. “I know that, Idgie. I just don’t see how killing yourself over it is going to help matters. We all lose people, Idgie. That’s life. I love you, but you aren’t special. You’re just another human being who lost somebody they loved. I’m your brother, don’t you care about me? I don’t want to lose my little sister. And I’ll tell you another thing. Ruth would be ashamed of the way you’re acting. Sure, you miss her. We all do, but is this any way to honor her memory? And if you don’t care about yourself or me, at least think about Buddy. You’re the only parent he has left. Do you think he wants some drunk old woman showing up at his wedding? You need to stop this nonsense now. Do you hear me?”

  Idgie had heard what he said. And he’d made a point. Ruth had been a lady, and she would have been ashamed of her.

  * * *

  —

  THAT NIGHT SHE found herself sitting next to Julian in an AA meeting. After Idgie joined Alcoholics Anonymous, her life began to change. She found a female sponsor to help her with the Twelve Steps, and Idgie actually did what the woman said to do. Her sponsor was a tough old Florida gal who didn’t let her get away with a thing, and, being so stubborn, Idgie needed that. In the following weeks, she met an awful lot of nice people that were just like her. People who had been through hell and back, trying to move forward to a better future.

  Idgie found that she actually loved going to the meetings and getting to know everybody. It was almost like living in a small community again. She still missed Whistle Stop, but she knew there was nothing there for her anymore.

  It took a while, but eventually Idgie even started to believe in something again. It wasn’t the same exact faith she’d had as a child, but it seemed to work.

  After a few years of being sober, Idgie started sponsoring newcomers herself, and some old-timers as well. You couldn’t drive by the fruit stand without seeing someone sitting outside with her, talking to her. Of course, she still missed Ruth as much as ever, but at least she was not killing herself or anybody else over it anymore. She didn’t have time. She was kept pretty busy these days at the fruit stand and tending to her beehives and, as she put it, “Just doing my little bit for mankind.”

  JUST AFTER RUTHIE and Evelyn left the hospital that afternoon, Nurse Terry knocked on Bud’s door and walked in.

  “Hey, Mr. Popular. You have a couple more visitors.”

  Bud looked up and was surprised to see Billy Hornbeck, his friend from the train, walk in with a young lady.

  “Billy, my boy! Hey, what a nice surprise. How are you?”

  “Just fine, sir. How are you?”

  “Fit as a fiddle. How did you know I was here?”

  “It was in the papers. I hope you don’t mind my coming. I just wanted to check up on you. You should have told me you wanted to go to Whistle Stop. I would have been happy to take you.”

  Bud laughed. “Well, Billy, I didn’t know I wanted to go myself, until I got to Birmingham. But I never did find it, and not only that, I lost my arm out in the woods.”

  “Yes sir, I noticed it was missing. But at least you’re okay.”

  “I am, and it’s really sweet of you to come and check up on me.”

  “No problem. But the other reason I came is that I wanted you to meet Geena.”

  The young woman standing with Billy stepped up and said, “How do you do, sir,” while shaking his hand firmly. “Pleased to meet you.”

  “Same here, Geena.” Bud looked at Billy. “Is this the fire-person you told me about?”

  “Yes sir,” he said, beaming at her.

  “So, Geena. I know you are not supposed to tell a fire-person they are pretty, but you sure are.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  After they had visited a while, Terry came back in and said, “Sorry, folks, but we have to get this guy up to physical therapy.”

  “Oh, that’s all right,” Billy said. “We were just leaving.”

  “Well, I guess I’ll have to do what she says. She beats me up if I don’t. But thanks so much for coming, you two. Great to meet you, Geena.”

  “Same here, Mr. Threadgoode. Sorry you lost your arm.”

  As they went
out the door, Billy stuck his head back in for a second and said, “The wedding’s back on.”

  Bud gave him the victory sign. “Good for you, boy.”

  Bud then turned to Terry and said, “Ain’t love grand?”

  “I wouldn’t know….I’m married.”

  THE NEXT MORNING, Ruthie and Evelyn came to the hospital at around eight to pick Bud up.

  When Ruthie opened the closet to help him get dressed for the trip home, she was appalled.

  “Oh, Daddy. Don’t tell me you wore this old worn-out jacket in public. You told me you got rid of it.”

  “I did? I don’t remember.”

  “And look at your good pants. They have grass stains all over them. Oh well, there’s nothing to be done now.”

  After Bud was checked out of the hospital, Terry wheeled him downstairs and waited while Evelyn brought the car around to the front door. When she pulled up, Terry helped get Bud get into the car and said, “You take care of yourself, or I’ll have to come over to Atlanta and give you what-for, you hear?”

  “Okay, I’ll try,” said Bud. “And you tell that husband of yours to watch out, or I might come over here and steal you.”

  After Bud was in the car and the door was shut, Ruthie said, “Terry, thanks so much for taking such good care of him. You’ve just been an angel.”

  “Well…he’s easy to take care of. He’s a real sweetheart.”

  * * *

  —

  LATER, AS EVELYN stood in the airport watching Ruthie and Bud’s plane take off, she realized she was going to miss them. She had known them for only a few days, but it had been so nice to finally meet someone who had also known Ninny.

  * * *

  —

  WHEN RUTHIE AND Bud landed back in Atlanta and were waiting for her car at the parking lot, Ruthie turned to Bud. “Daddy, are you sure you won’t come home with me? You know you don’t have to go back to Briarwood if you don’t want to.”

  Bud shook his head “No, no, honey. Your mother-in-law would be upset if I left. And besides, I’m used to the place now. I’ll just go back and take my medicine. I guess I will have to apologize to Merris, though.”

  “If you’re planning to stay, it might be a good idea.”

  When they drove up to Briarwood Manor, Mr. Merris was waiting in the front entrance with a flower in his lapel and a pained smile plastered on his face.

  “Well, here is our wandering boy. Welcome back, Mr. Threadgoode.”

  “Thank you. Yes…listen, I’m sorry about the little mishap. I sort of—”

  Thankfully at that moment, Bud’s friend Hattie came down the hall toward them and called out, “Hey, Mr. Threadgoode, I hear you took a trip on a train, and I want to hear all about it. Come on with me, your room is all ready for you.”

  Ruthie waited outside in the car until she knew everything was all right. It must have been, because Bud turned around and gave her a little wave, and he was smiling.

  After she had dropped her father off, Ruthie drove across town to her house. When she arrived at the big iron gate, she punched in the code and drove into the Circle. She had left home with only a purse, but had returned with a suitcase that Evelyn Couch had lent her, filled with Mary Kay products and some new clothes she’d bought in Birmingham.

  She was headed into her house when, across the way, Martha Lee opened her front door, looked at her, then went back in and shut the door.

  As soon as Ruthie walked inside, her phone was ringing.

  “I see you are finally home,” said Martha Lee.

  “Yes, I am. I stayed a little longer than I’d planned.”

  “And your father? Is he back as well?”

  “Yes, I just dropped him off.”

  “I hope you are aware that his behavior was quite an embarrassment, not only to me, but to the Manor.”

  Ruthie closed her eyes and silently sighed. “Yes. I’m sure it must have been. Daddy said to apologize to you, and tell you that it won’t happen again.”

  “I hope not. Also, were you aware that when you ran out like that, without a word to me or the staff, that you left your stove on? If Ramón had not gone in to check on things, you could have burned down the entire Circle.”

  “No, I wasn’t aware. I’m sorry.”

  After Ruthie hung up, she said to herself, “Welcome home, Ruthie.” Before she could get upstairs, the phone rang again.

  “Listen, you’d better call Carolyn right away and tell her you’re home. She’s been extremely upset over her grandfather’s behavior.”

  “Yes, I will do that, thank you.”

  Ruthie would call, but not right away. She knew she would get another lecture. Carolyn and Martha Lee were always on the same page.

  1978

  JESSIE RAY SCROGGINS was one of the many kids in Whistle Stop that Idgie would pile into a car and take to the picture show every Saturday. He was a handful, always getting into trouble, fighting in the back seat, throwing popcorn at people in the theater, but Idgie liked him.

  Being a preacher’s son was never easy, particularly in a small town. And doubly hard, if you were a son of Reverend Robert A. Scroggins, minister at the Whistle Stop Baptist Church, where a sign on the young adults Bible study blackboard read: WE DON’T DRINK, SMOKE, OR DANCE, OR DATE THOSE WHO DO.

  * * *

  —

  JESSIE RAY HAD come out of the womb wriggling like a worm, and he never stopped wriggling. He seemed to have been given a double dose of energy. The minute he could stand up, he didn’t walk, he ran. From the time he was five, the first thing his poor mother had to do every morning was open the door and let him run out in the yard, or else he would have broken everything she had. His older brother, Bobby Scroggins, had gotten into trouble a few times for drinking too much, but Bobby had gone on to become a successful lawyer. Jessie Ray was a different story.

  Jessie Ray had been given his first drink when he was ten by a friend of Idgie’s named Smokey Lonesome who used to hang out at the cafe. And he’d liked it right away. Not the taste, but the way it had made him feel. And the more he drank the better he felt. By the time he was eighteen, he had wrecked three cars and been in jail in Birmingham five times.

  Each time, he had called Idgie and she’d driven over and bailed him out. She was the only person in Whistle Stop he could call who wouldn’t tell his daddy.

  Jessie Ray had gone into the army, and his daddy had hoped it would make a man out of him. However, when he came home from Korea, after having seen so many of his army buddies get killed, he seemed to be worse. As hard as he tried, he could not stop drinking. He knew he was letting his parents, his wife, his friends, and everybody else down, but there was a part of him that didn’t want to live.

  He had given up on himself as a hopeless case, and then one night in a drunken stupor he called Idgie down in Florida and talked to her for almost two hours, telling her how he was going to kill himself. All he remembered of the conversation was the last thing she’d said: “Jessie Ray, you get your sorry-ass self down here right now!”

  His father had tried everything. Maybe, just maybe, Idgie could do something with him. Nobody else could. The following day, his daddy drove Jessie down to Florida, let him out of the car, and drove off. The next thing Jessie knew he was sitting in an AA meeting, with Idgie on one side of him and her brother Julian on the other.

  It took a while. He had a few setbacks. But slowly he began to understand himself a little better. For as long as he could remember, he had always felt uncomfortable in his own skin. The only relief he could find was in the bottle. He figured out later that this must be why they called it “spirits.” After about six months, when he was sober, healthy, and tan from picking oranges, Idgie sent him back home to his wife and kids, pretty much a changed man.

  Jessie found out that being sober was wonderful,
but it could also be painful at times, especially when he had to have the big LIFE SUCKS tattoo removed from his chest. It had hurt like hell, but nothing like having to face the fact that his daddy had died before he’d gotten a chance to tell him how sorry he was for all the hurt he’d caused. A few years later, hoping to do some good in what life he had left, he became a minister and took over his father’s church in Birmingham. Although his daddy had been hard-shell Baptist, Jessie leaned more toward a nondenominational point of view.

  At first, he faced some resistance from the older Bible-based members. Some people remembered Jessie’s bad behavior, and there were complaints that he was a little too loosey-goosey with his preaching. But with a little effort, he soon found plenty of appropriate Bible verses that filled the bill and everyone came back into the fold.

  Word spread about what good, positive sermons he was giving and soon there were not enough seats in the small church. He was having to do an eight, nine, and eleven o’clock service to get all the people in.

  When the big Piggly Wiggly supermarket at the old Eastwood Mall closed, Jessie saw his chance and quickly rented out the space. Within three years he had created a megachurch that seated over five thousand. His Sunday service had become so popular that soon it was broadcast live over WBRC-TV, right after the Country Boy Eddie show.

  BIRMINGHAM, ALABAMA

  1982

  OPAL BUTTS HAD called her old friend Gladys Kilgore in Tennessee, and they were catching up on the latest news about the old Whistle Stop gang. Gladys was astonished at what she heard.

  “Jessie Ray Scroggins is now a preacher? Why, Grady must have arrested that boy over twenty times. You have got to be fooling me.”

  “No, I’m not. After Reverend Scroggins died, Jessie Ray got himself some kind of minister’s license and took over his daddy’s congregation. And at first people were a little leery about going, given his criminal record and all, so he started out real slow, but over time he’s built himself quite a following. So many people were coming that there weren’t enough seats to fit everybody. Now he’s preaching over at the old Piggly Wiggly supermarket building, right up the street from me.”