Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe (24 page)

A car and a truck pulled up in front of the house. Big George and Idgie were in the truck; Cleo and Julian and two of their friends, Wilbur Weems and Billy Limeway, were in the Model T.

Ruth, who had been dressed and waiting since early that morning, hoping they would come today, stepped out the door.

The boys and Big George got out and waited in the yard, and Idgie went up on the front porch.

Ruth looked at her and said, “I’m ready.”

Frank had been taking a nap when he heard them driving up. He came down the stairs and recognized Idgie through the screen.

“What the hell are you doing here?”

He threw open the door and was heading for her when he saw the five men standing in the yard.

Idgie, who had not taken her eyes off Ruth, said quietly, “Where’s your trunk?”

“Upstairs.”

Idgie called to Cleo, “It’s upstairs.”

As four men marched by him, Frank spluttered, “What the hell’s going on?”

Julian, the last one, said, “I think your wife’s leaving you, mister.”

Ruth had gotten into the truck with Idgie, and Frank started toward them when he saw Big George, who was leaning against the truck, calmly pull a knife out of his pocket and core the the apple he had in his hand with one swift movement, and throw it over his shoulder.

Julian yelled down from the top of the stairs, “I wouldn’t get that nigger mad, mister. He’s crazy!”

Ruth’s trunk was in the back of the truck, and they were headed down the driveway before Frank knew what had happened. But as an afterthought, and for the benefit of Jake Box, his hired hand, who had witnessed the exit, Frank Bennett screamed at the dust the cars had stirred up, “And don’t you come back, you frigid bitch! You whore! You coldhearted whore!”

The next day, he went into town and told everyone that Ruth had gone completely out of her mind with grief after her mother died. He had been forced to have her committed to an insane asylum, outside of Atlanta.

Momma and Poppa Threadgoode were on the front porch waiting. Momma and Sipsey had been fixing up Ruth’s room all morning, and now Sipsey was in the kitchen with Ninny, baking biscuits for supper.

“Now, Alice, don’t jump at her and scare her off. Just be calm and wait and see. Don’t make her think she has to stay. Don’t put any pressure on her.”

Momma was fidgeting with her handkerchief and pulling at her hair, a sure sign that she was nervous. “I won’t, Poppa. I’ll just say how glad we are to see her … that’s all right, isn’t it? Let her know she’s welcome? You’re going to say how glad you are to see her, aren’t you?”

“Of course I will,” Poppa said. “But I just don’t want you getting your hopes up too much, that’s all.”

After a minute of silence, he asked, “Alice … do you think she’ll stay?”

“I pray to the Lord she does.”

At that moment, the truck, with Ruth and Idgie, turned the corner.

Poppa said, “They’re here! Ninny and Sipsey, they’re here!”

Momma jumped up and flew down the front steps, with Poppa right behind her.

When they saw Ruth get out of the car and how thin and weary she looked, they forgot their plan and grabbed her and hugged her, both talking to her at the same time.

“I’m so glad you’re home, honey. We’re not gonna let you run off from us this time.”

“We got your old room ready, and Sipsey and Ninny have been cooking all morning.”

As they walked Ruth up the stairs, Momma turned and looked back down at Idgie.

“You better behave yourself this time, young lady! Do you hear me?”

Idgie looked baffled and said to herself as she followed them inside, “What’d I do?”

After supper, Ruth went into the parlor with Momma and Poppa and closed the door. She sat across from them with her hands in her lap, and began, “I don’t have any money, I really don’t have anything but my clothes. But I can work. I want you both to know that I’ll never leave again. I should never have left her four years ago, I know that now. But I’m going to try and make it up to her and never hurt her again. You have my word on that.”

Poppa, who was embarrassed at any sort of sentiment, shifted in his chair. “Well, I hope you’re aware of what you’re in for. Idgie’s a handful, you know.”

Momma shushed him. “Oh Poppa, Ruth knows that. Don’t you, dear? It’s just that she has a wild streak … Sipsey says it’s because I ate wild game when I was carrying Idgie. Remember, Poppa, you and the boys brought home some quail and wild turkeys that year?”

“Mother, you have eaten wild game every year of your life.”

“Well, that’s true, too. Anyhow, that’s beside the point. Poppa and I just want you to know that we think of you as one of the family now, and we couldn’t be happier for our little girl to have such a sweet companion as you.”

Ruth got up and kissed both of them and went outside, where Idgie was waiting in the backyard, lying in the grass,
listening to crickets, and wondering why she felt so drunk when she had not had a drop to drink.

After Ruth left the room, Poppa said, “See, I told you you didn’t have anything to worry about.”

“Me? You were the one who was worried, Poppa, not me,” Momma said, and went back to her needlework.

The next day, Ruth changed her name back to Jamison and Idgie went all over town and told everybody about poor Ruth’s husband, how a Brinks armored truck had turned over on him and squashed him to death. At first, Ruth was horrified that Idgie had told such a lie, but later, after the baby was born, she was glad she had.

Vesta Adcock ran over her colored yard man, Jesse Thiggins, on her way to her Eastern Star meeting on Tuesday. Jesse had been napping under a tree when Vesta made a turn around in her front yard and the wheel rolled over his head and pushed it into the mud. When she heard him holler, she stopped the car on his chest and got out to see who it was. Some neighbors nearby came running over and picked the car up off of him.

Grady Kilgore came over and said thank God it had been raining a lot lately, because if it had not been for the mud, Jesse might have been killed, being run over like that.

At this report, Jesse is fine except for the tire marks, but Vesta said that he should not have been napping, because she pays him good money.

I guess by now most of you know that fool of a
husband of mine burned down our garage the other day. He was so busy trying to fix the radio, so he and his railroad gang could listen to the baseball game, that he threw his cigarette on my pile of
Ladies’ Home Companions
that I’d been saving, and it was down to the ground in minutes. My other half was so busy trying to save his precious buzz saw I got him for his birthday that he forgot to back the car out.

I didn’t feel so bad about the car as I did my magazines. The car didn’t run anyhow.

Essie Rue’s little boy, whose size has earned him the name of Pee Wee, won the $10 prize in the lima bean contest. His guess was
83
lima beans off, but Idgie says he was the closest.

By the way, Boots died and Opal says she hopes you’re satisfied.

 … Dot Weems …

It was a cold, crystal-clear day outside, and inside it was almost time for one of their radio programs to come on. Grady Kilgore was just finishing his second cup of coffee, and Sipsey, who was sweeping up the cigarette butts left over from the breakfast crowd, was the first one to see them out the window.

Quietly, two black pickup trucks had parked in front of the cafe and about twelve members of the Klan, dressed in full regalia, had slowly but deliberately gotten out and lined up outside the cafe.

Sipsey said, “Oh Lord, here dey is … I knowed it, I just knowed it.”

Ruth, who was working behind the counter, asked Sipsey, “What is it?” and then went over to look for herself.

The minute she saw them, she called back, “Onzell, lock the back door and bring me the baby.”

The men were just standing there on the sidewalk, facing the front of the cafe like white statues. One had a sign that had written on it, in bloodred letters:
BEWARE OF THE INVISIBLE EMPIRE … THE TORCH AND THE ROPE ARE HUNGRY
.

Grady Kilgore stood up and went over, looked out and
picked his teeth with a toothpick while he scrutinized the men in the pointed hoods.

The radio announcer said, “And now, to the many friends who wait for him, we present, ‘Just Plain Bill, Barber of Harville’… the story of a man who might be living right next door to you …”

Idgie, who had been in the bathroom, came out and saw everybody looking out of the window.

“What’s going on?”

Ruth said, “Come here, Idgie.”

Idgie looked out. “Oh shit!”

Onzell handed Ruth the baby and did not leave her side.

Idgie said to Grady, “What the hell is this all about?”

Grady, who was still picking his teeth, said with certainty, “Them’s not our boys.”

“Well, who are they?”

Grady dropped his nickel on the table. “You stay here. I’m gonna damn well find out.”

Sipsey was over in the corner with her broom, muttering to nobody, “I ain’t scared of no white men’s ghosties. No suh.”

Grady went out and talked to a couple of the men. After a few minutes, one man nodded and said something to the others, and one by one, the men began to leave, as quietly as they had come.

Ruth couldn’t be sure, but it seemed to her that one of the men had been staring right at her and the baby. Then she remembered something that Idgie had once said, and she looked down at the man’s shoes as he was climbing into the truck. When she saw the shiny, black-polished shoes, she was suddenly terrified.

Grady came back into the cafe, unconcerned. “They didn’t want nothing. They was just a bunch of old boys out to throw a little scare in you, that’s all. One of them was over here the other day for something or another and saw you was selling to niggers out the back door and thought he’d try to shake you up a little bit. That’s all.”