Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe Page 9

  “It’s a good thing I love trains, because Whistle Stop wasn’t never nothing more than a railroad town, and Troutville was just a bunch of shacks, with one church, the Mount Zion Primitive Baptist Church, where Sipsey and them went.

  “The railroad tracks run right along the side of my house. If I had me a fishin’ pole, I could reach out and touch the trains with it, that’s how close I am. So, I’ve been sitting on my glider swing on the front porch for the past fifty years, watching those trains go by, and I never get tired of looking at them. Just like the raccoon washing the cracker. I like to look at them at night the best. My favorite thing was the dining car. Now, they just have a snack bar where people sit and drink their beer and smoke their cigarettes, but back before they took the good trains off, the seven-forty Silver Crescent from New York, on its way to New Orleans, would pass by right at suppertime, and, oh, you should have seen it, with the colored waiters dressed up in their starched white jackets and black leather bow ties, with the finest flatware and silver coffeepots, and a fresh rose with baby’s breath on each table. And each table had its own little lamp with a little shade on it.

  “Of course, those were the days when the women would dress in their finest, with hats and furs, and the men looked so handsome in their blue suits. The Silver Crescent even had little tiny Venetian blinds for each window. There you could sit, just like you were in a restaurant, rolling through the night. I used to tell Cleo, eating and getting somewhere at the same time appealed to me.

  “Idgie always said, ‘Ninny, I think you ride that train just to eat’… and she was right, too. I loved that porterhouse steak they used to serve, and you’ve never had a better plate of ham and eggs than what you could get on the train. Whenever the train stopped in those small towns along the way, people would sell the cooks fresh eggs and ham and fresh trout. Everything was fresh back then.

  “I don’t cook that much anymore … oh, I’ll heat up a can of Campbell’s tomato soup, now and then. Not that I don’t enjoy a good meal. I do. But it’s hard to find one nowadays. One time, Mrs. Otis signed us up for this Meals on Wheels program they got down at the church, but they were so terrible that I just stopped them from coming. They may have been on wheels, but they weren’t anything like the meals you could get on the trains.

  “Of course, living so close to the tracks had its bad side. My dishes got all cracked, even that green set I won when we all went to the picture show over in Birmingham during the Depression. I can tell you what was playin’: it was Hello Everybody, with Kate Smith.” She looked at Evelyn. “Now, you probably don’t remember her, but she was known as the Songbird of the South. A big fat girl with a good personality. Don’t you think fat people have a good disposition?”

  Evelyn smiled weakly, hoping this was true, since she was already on her second bag of Lorna Doones.

  “But I wouldn’t take anything for the trains. What would I have done all those years? They didn’t have television yet. I used to try and guess where people were comin’ from and goin’ to. Every once in a while, when Cleo could scrape together a few dollars, he’d take me and the baby on the train and we’d go as far as Memphis and back. Jasper, Big George and Onzell’s son, was a pullman porter at the time, and he’d treat us like we were the king and queen of Rumania. Jasper went on to become the president of the Brotherhood of the Sleeping-Car Porter’s Union. He and his brother Artis moved to Birmingham when they were very young … but Artis wound up in jail two or three times. It’s funny, you never know how a child will turn out.… Take Ruth and Idgie’s little boy, for instance. Having to go through life like that could have ruined some people, but not him. You never know what’s in a person’s heart until they’re tested, do you?”

  JUNE 16, 1936

  The minute Idgie heard the voices outside by the tracks, she knew that somebody had been hurt. She looked out and saw Biddie Louise Otis running for the cafe.

  Sipsey and Onzell had walked out of the kitchen, just as Biddie threw open the door and screamed, “It’s your little boy, he’s been run over by the train!”

  Idgie’s heart stopped for a moment.

  Sipsey threw her hands up to her mouth, “Oh Lord Jesus!”

  Idgie turned to Onzell: “Keep Ruth in the back,” and started running over to the tracks. When she got there, the six-year-old boy was lying on his back with his eyes wide open, staring at the group of people who were looking down on him in horror.

  When he saw her, he smiled, and she almost smiled back, thinking he was all right, until she saw his arm lying in a pool of blood three feet away.

  Big George, who had been out in the back of the cafe, barbecuing, had come running right up behind her and saw the blood at the same time. He picked him up and started running as fast as he could toward Dr. Hadley’s house.

  Onzell was standing in the door, blocking Ruth from leaving the back room.

  “No, now, Miz Ruth, you cain’t go. You jus’ stay put right here, sugar.”

  Ruth was scared and confused. “What’s the matter? What’s happened? Is it the baby?”

  Onzell took her over to the couch and sat her down and held her hands with a death grip.

  “Hush, sugar … you jus’ sit here and wait now, honey, it’s gonna be all right.”

  Ruth was terrified. “What is it?”

  Sipsey was still in the cafe, wagging her finger up to the ceiling. “Don’t you do dis, Lord … don’t you do dis to Miz Idgie and Miz Ruth … don’t you do dis thang! You hear me, God? Don’t do it!”

  Idgie was running right behind Big George and they were both yelling at the house, three blocks away, “Doctor Hadley! Doctor Hadley!”

  The doctor’s wife, Margaret, heard them first and came out on the front porch. She spotted them just as they came around the corner, and she shouted for her husband, “Get out here quick! It’s Idgie and she’s got Buddy Jr.!”

  Dr. Hadley jumped up from the table and met them on the sidewalk, with his napkin still in his hand. When he saw the blood spurting from the boy’s arm, he threw the napkin down and said, “Get in the car. We’ve got to get him to Birmingham. He’s gonna need transfusions.”

  As he was running to the old Dodge, he told his wife to call the hospital and tell them they were coming. She ran inside to call, and Big George, who was by this time completely covered with blood, got in the backseat and held the boy in his arms. Idgie sat in the front seat and talked to him all the way there, telling him stories to keep him calm, although her own legs were shaking.

  When they arrived at the Emergency entrance, the nurse and the attendant were waiting for them at the door.

  As they started in, the nurse said to Idgie, “I’m sorry, but you’ll have to have your man wait outside, this is a white hospital.”

  The boy, who hadn’t said a word, kept watching Big George as they took him down the hall, and until they turned the corridor, out of sight …

  Still covered with blood, Big George sat outside on the brick wall and put his head in his hands and waited.

  Two pimply-faced boys walked by, and one snarled over at Big George.

  “Look, there’s another nigger that’s got hisself all cut up in a knife fight.” The other called out, “Hey! You better get yourself over to the nigger hospital, boy.”

  His friend with the missing front tooth and the crossed eye spit, hitched up his pants, and swaggered on down the street.

  JUNE 24, 1936

  Tragedy Strikes in Front of Cafe

  I am sorry to report that Idgie’s and Ruth’s little boy lost his arm last week while playing on the tracks in front of the cafe. He was running alongside of the train when he slipped and fell on the tracks. The train was traveling about forty miles an hour, Conductor Barney Cross said.

  He is still over at the hospital in Birmingham, and although he lost a lot of blood, he is fine and will be home soon.

  That makes a foot, an arm, and an index finger we have lost right here in Whistle Stop this year. And also, the colo
red man that was killed, which just says one thing to us, and that is that we need to be more careful in the future. We are tired of our loved ones losing limbs and other things.

  And I, for one, am tired of writing about it.

  … Dot Weems …

  FEBRUARY 23, 1986

  Mrs. Threadgoode was enjoying the Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup that Evelyn had brought and reflecting back to what seemed to be her favorite period, the time when all the trains were running past her house.

  But something she had said the week before interested Evelyn, and her curiosity got the best of her.

  “Mrs. Threadgoode, did you say that Idgie and Ruth had a little boy?”

  “Oh yes, Stump, and you never saw a more manly little fella. Even when he lost his arm.”

  “Good Lord, what happened?”

  “He fell off one of the trains and had his arm cut off, right above the elbow. His real name was Buddy Threadgoode, Jr., but they called him Stump ’cause all he had left was a little stump of an arm. Cleo and I went to see him in the hospital, and he was just as brave, didn’t cry, didn’t feel sorry for himself. But then Idgie raised him that way, to be tough and take hard knocks.

  “She went over to see her friend who owned the tombstone place and had him make up a baby tombstone that had carved on it:

  HERE LIES BUDDY JR’S ARM

  1929–1936

  SO LONG OLD PAL

  She put it out in the field behind the cafe, and when he got home, she took him out there and they made a big to-do about having this funeral for his arm. Everybody came. Onzell and Big George’s children, Artis and Jasper, little Willie Boy and Naughty Bird, and all the neighborhood kids. Idgie had some Eagle Scout come out there and play ‘Taps’ on the bugle.

  “Idgie was the first one to start calling him Stump, and Ruth near had a fit, said it was a mean thing to do. But Idgie said it was the best thing, so nobody would call him anything about it behind his back. She thought he might as well face up to the fact that he had an arm missing and not be sensitive about it. And she turned out to be right, because you never saw anybody that could do more with one arm … why, he could shoot marbles, hunt and fish, anything he wanted to. He was the best shot in Whistle Stop.

  “When he was little and there was somebody new in the cafe, Idgie would bring him in and have him tell this long, tall tale about going fishing for catfish down on the Warrior River, and he’d get them all caught up in the story and then Idgie would say, ‘How big was the catfish, Stump?’

  “And he’d put out his arm, like the grown fisherman used to do to show how long the fish was, and he’d say, ‘Oh, about that big.’ And Idgie and Stump would laugh over the expressions on the people’s faces, trying to figure out how long that fish was.

  “Of course, now, I’m not saying he was a saint, he had his little temper fits, just like the other little boys. But in his whole life, the only time I ever knew him to complain or be upset is that one Christmas afternoon when we were all sitting around the cafe, drinking coffee and having fruitcake, when all of a sudden he started carrying on like a crazy person, just a-mashing up all of his toys. Ruth and Idgie went in the back room where he was, and in as little time as it takes you to say ‘butter the biscuits,’ Idgie had him in his coat and out the door. Ruth was upset and worried and ran after them and asked where they were going, but Idgie said, never mind that, they would be back in a little while.

  “And, sure enough, they were back in about an hour, and Stump was laughing and in a good mood.

  “Years later, when he was down at my house cutting my yard, I had him come up on the porch and handed him a glass of iced tea. I said, ‘Stump, do you remember that Christmas when you got so mad and stomped your Erector set that Cleo and I gave you?’

  “Well, he just laughed and said, ‘Oh Aunt Ninny’—that’s what he called me—he said, ‘Aunt Ninny, I sure do.’

  “I said, ‘Where did Idgie take you that afternoon?’

  “He said, ‘Aw, I cain’t tell you, Aunt Ninny, I promised I wouldn’t.’

  “So I still don’t know where he went, but Idgie must have said something to him, because he never worried about his arm being missing again. He was the nineteen forty-six Champion Wild Turkey Hunter … and do you know how hard it is to shoot a wild turkey?”

  Evelyn said, no, she didn’t.

  “Well honey, let me tell you, you have to shoot those turkeys right between the eyes, and their heads are no bigger than my fist! Now, that’s a good shot!

  “He even went on to play all kinds of sports … never let that arm stop him in any way.… And sweet. You never met a sweeter boy.

  “Course, Ruth was a good mother, and he adored her. We all did. But Stump and Idgie were special. They’d take off hunting or fishing and leave us all behind. They enjoyed each other’s company more than anyone else, I guess.

  “One time, I remember, Stump put a piece of pecan pie in his pocket and ruined his good pants, and Ruth was just afussin’ at him, but Idgie thought it was the funniest thing in the world.

  “Now, Idgie could be rough with him. She was the one that threw him in the river when he was five, and taught him how to swim. But I tell you one thing, he never sassed his mother like some boys will do. At least not when Idgie was around. She just wouldn’t allow it. Not at all. No sir. He minded his momma, not like Onzell’s boy Artis. They couldn’t do a thing with him, could they?”

  Evelyn said, “I guess not,” and noticed Mrs. Threadgoode had her dress on inside out.

  CHRISTMAS DAY, 1937

  Almost everyone in town had gotten a cap pistol for Christmas, and most of them had gathered in Dr. Hadley’s backyard that afternoon for a shoot-out. The whole yard smelled of sulphur from the caps that had been cracking in the cold air all afternoon. They had all been killed a hundred times over. Pow! Pow! Pow! You’re dead!

  Pow! Pow!

  “Augh! You got me! … Auggh!”

  Eight-year-old Dwane Kilgore grabbed his chest, fell to the ground, and took three minutes to die. When he had jerked his last jerk, he jumped up and unrolled another red strip of caps and reloaded in a frenzy.

  Stump Threadgoode was a late arrival to the shoot-out, and had just finished his Christmas dinner up at the cafe with the family and Smokey Lonesome. He hit the yard running, and he had timed it just right, because everyone was loaded and ready to go. He ran behind a tree and took aim at Vernon Hadley. POW! POW!

  CRACK CRACK CRACK … Vernon, who was behind a bush, jumped up and yelled, “You missed, you dirty varmit!”

  Stump, who had shot all his caps, was busy trying to reload when Bobby Lee Scroggins, an older boy, ran up to him and let him have it.

  CRACK CRACK CRACK … POW POW POW … “Got ya!”

  And before he knew it, Stump was dead …

  But Stump was game. He reloaded time and time again, only to be killed in the process, over and over again.

  Peggy Hadley, Vernon’s little sister, who was in the same class as Stump, came out, all bundled up in her new maroon coat, with her new doll, and sat on the back steps to watch. All of a sudden it wasn’t so much fun to be getting killed over and over, and Stump started desperately trying to get one of them, but there were too many of them and he couldn’t reload fast enough to protect himself.

  CRACK CRACK CRACK … killed again! But he kept trying. He made a desperate run and got behind a big oak tree in the middle of the yard, where he could dart out and shoot and jump back behind the tree. He had already killed Dwane with a lucky shot and was working on Vernon when Bobby Lee jumped up behind him from behind a stack of bricks—Stump turned, but it was too late.

  Bobby Lee had pulled two guns on him and let him have it with both barrels.

  CRACK CRACK CRACK CRACK CRACK CRACK CRACK CRACK CRACK CRACK

  Bobby Lee shouted, “You’re dead! You’re double dead! Die!”

  Stump had no choice but to die in front of Peggy.

  It was a quick, quiet death. He got right up and
said, “I’ve gotta go home and get some more caps. I’ll be right back.”

  He had plenty of caps, but he wanted to die for real. Peggy had seen him get killed over and over.

  After he left, Peggy stood up and yelled at her brother, “Ya’ll aren’t playing fair. Poor Stump has only one arm and that’s not fair. I’m gonna tell Mother on you, Vernon!”

  Stump ran in the back room and threw his cap pistol across the floor and then kicked his electric train set against the wall, mad and crying with frustration. When Ruth and Idgie came back, there he was stomping his Erector set that he’d already smashed flat.

  When he saw them, he started crying and screaming at the same time, “I cain’t do anything with this thing,” and he began hitting at his missing arm.

  Ruth grabbed him. “What’s the matter, honey? What happened?”

  “Everybody’s got double holsters but me! I cain’t beat ’em, they’ve killed me all afternoon!”

  “Who?”

  “Dwane and Vernon and Bobby Lee Scroggins.”

  Ruth said, stricken, “Oh honey …”

  She knew this day would come, but now that it had, she didn’t know what to say. What was there to say? How do you tell a seven-year-old boy that it would be all right? She looked to Idgie for help.

  Idgie stared at Stump for a minute and then got her coat, picked him up off the bed, put his coat on, and took him outside to the car.

  “Come on, mister, you’re going with me.”

  “Where are we going?”

  “Never mind.”

  He sat there in silence while she drove him down to the river road. When they came to a sign that said WAGON WHEEL FISHING CAMP, she made a turn. Pretty soon they came to a gate made out of two big white wagon wheels. Idgie got out and opened the gates and then drove on through, down to a cabin by the river. When she got there, she blew the horn, and after a minute, a redheaded woman opened the door.