A Novel: Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe

THE WEEMS WEEKLY(WHISTLE STOP, ALABAMA'S WEEKLY BULLETIN)June 12, 1929Cafe OpensThe Whistle Stop Cafe opened up last week, right nextdoor to me at the post office, and owners IdgieThreadgoode and Ruth Jamison said business has beengood ever since. Idgie says that for people who knowher not to worry about getting poisoned, she is notcooking. All the cooking is being done by two coloredwomen, Sipsey and Onzell, and the barbecue is beingcooked by Big George, who is Onzell's husband.If there is anybody that has not been there yet, Idgiesays that the breakfast hours are from 5:30-7:30, and youcan get eggs, grits, biscuits, bacon, sausage, ham andred-eye gravy, and coffee for 25 [cts.].For lunch and supper you can have: fried chicken;pork chops and gravy; catfish; chicken and dumplings;or a barbecue plate; and your choice of threevegetables, biscuits or cornbread, and your drink anddessert–for 35 [cts.].She said the vegetables are: creamed corn; fried greentomatoes; fried okra; collard or turnip greens; black-eyedpeas; candied yams; butter beans or lima beans.And pie for dessert.My other half, Wilbur, and I ate there the other night,and it was so good he says he might not ever eat at homeagain. Ha. Ha. I wish this were true. I spend all my timecooking for the big lug, and still can't keep him filledup.By the way, Idgie says that one of her hens laid an eggwith a ten-dollar bill in it…. Dot Weems …ROSE TERRACE NURSING HOMEOLD MONTGOMERY HIGHWAYBIRMINGHAM, ALABAMADECEMBER 15, 1985Evelyn Couch had come to Rose Terrace with her husband, Ed,who was visiting his mother, Big Momma, a recent but reluctantarrival. Evelyn had just escaped them both and had gone into thevisitors' lounge in the back, where she could enjoy her candy bar inpeace and quiet. But the moment she sat down, the old womanbeside her began to talk …"Now, you ask me the year somebody got married … who theymarried … or what the bride's mother wore, and nine times out of tenI can tell you, but for the life of me, I cain't tell you when it was Igot to be so old. It just sorta slipped up on me. The first time Inoticed it was June of this year, when I was in the hospital for mygallbladder, which they still have, or maybe they threw it out bynow … who knows. That heavyset nurse had just given me anotherone of those Fleet enemas they're so fond of over there when Inoticed what they had on my arm. It was a white band that said:Mrs. Cleo Threadgoode … an eighty-six-year-old woman.Imagine that!"When I got back home, I told my friend Mrs. Otis, I guess theonly thing left for us to do is to sit around and get ready to croak….She said she preferred the term pass over to theother side. Poor thing, I didn't have the heart to tell her that nomatter what you call it, we're all gonna croak, just the same …"It's funny, when you're a child you think time will never go by,but when you hit about twenty, time passes like you're on the fasttrain to Memphis. I guess life just slips up on everybody. It suredid on me. One day I was a little girl and the next I was a grownwoman, with bosoms and hair on my private parts. I missed thewhole thing. But then, I never was too smart in school or otherwise …"Mrs. Otis and I are from Whistle Stop, a little town about tenmiles from here, out by the railroad yards…. She's lived down thestreet from me for the past thirty years or so, and after her husbanddied, her son and daughter-in-law had a fit for her to come and liveat the nursing home, and they asked me to come with her. I toldthem I'd stay with her for a while–she doesn't know it yet, but I'mgoing back home just as soon as she gets settled in good."It's not too bad out here. The other day, we all got Christmascorsages to wear on our coats. Mine had little shiny red Christmasballs on it, and Mrs. Otis had a Santy Claus face on hers. But I wassad to give up my kitty, though."They won't let you have one here, and I miss her. I've alwayshad a kitty or two, my whole life. I gave her to that little girl nextdoor, the one who's been watering my geraniums. I've got me fourcement pots on the front porch, just full of geraniums."My friend Mrs. Otis is only seventy-eight and real sweet, butshe's a nervous kind of person. I had my gallstones in a Mason jarby my bed, and she made me hide them. Said they made herdepressed. Mrs. Otis is just a little bit of somethin', but as you cansee, I'm a big woman. Big bones and all."But I never drove a car … I've been stranded most all my life.Always stayed close to home. Always had to wait for somebody tocome and carry me to the store or to the doctor or down to thechurch. Years ago, you used to be able to take a trolley toBirmingham, but they stopped running a long timeago. The only thing I'd do different if I could go back would be toget myself a driver's license."You know, it's funny what you'll miss when you're away fromhome. Now me, I miss the smell of coffee … and bacon frying in themorning. You cain't smell anything they've got cooking out here,and you cain't get a thing that's fried. Everything here is boiled up,with not a piece of salt on it! I wouldn't give you a plugged nickelfor anything boiled, would you?"The old lady didn't wait for an answer "…. I used to lovemy crackers and buttermilk, or my buttermilk and cornbread,in the afternoon. I like to smash it all up in my glass and eatit with a spoon, but you cain't eat in public like you can at home… can you? … And I miss wood."My house is nothing but just a little old railroad shack of ahouse, with a living room, bedroom, and a kitchen. But it's wood,with pine walls inside. Just what I like. I don't like a plaster wall.They seem … oh, I don't know, kinda cold and stark-like."I brought a picture with me that I had at home, of a girl in aswing with a castle and pretty blue bubbles in the background, tohang in my room, but that nurse here said the girl was naked fromthe waist up and not appropriate. You know, I've had that picturefor fifty years and I never knew she was naked. If you ask me, Idon't think the old men they've got here can see well enough tonotice that she's bare-breasted. But, this is a Methodist home, soshe's in the closet with my gallstones."I'll be glad to get home…. Of course, my house is a mess. Ihaven't been able to sweep for a while. I went out and threw mybroom at some old, noisy bluejays that were fighting and, wouldn'tyou know it, my broom stuck up there in the tree. I've got to getsomeone to get it down for me when I get back."Anyway, the other night, when Mrs. Otis's son took us homefrom the Christmas tea they had at the church, he drove us over therailroad tracks, out by where the cafe used to be, and on up FirstStreet, right past the old Threadgoode place. Of course, most of thehouse is all boarded up and falling down now, but when we camedown the street, the headlights hit thewindows in such a way that, just for a minute, that house looked tome just like it had so many of those nights, some seventy yearsago, all lit up and full of fun and noise. I could hear peoplelaughing, and Essie Rue pounding away at the piano in the parlor;`Buffalo Gal, Won't You Come Out Tonight' or `The Big Rock CandyMountain,' and I could almost see Idgie Threadgoode sitting in thechinaberry tree, howling like a dog every time Essie Rue tried tosing. She always said that Essie Rue could sing about as well as acow could dance. I guess, driving by that house and me being sohomesick made me go back in my mind …"I remember it just like it was yesterday, but then I don't thinkthere's anything about the Threadgoode family I don't remember.Good Lord, I should, I've lived right next door to them from the dayI was born, and I married one of the boys."There were nine children, and three of the girls, Essie Rue andthe twins, were more or less my own age, so I was always overthere playing and having spend-the-night parties. My own motherdied of consumption when I was four, and when my daddy died, upin Nashville, I just stayed on for good. I guess you might say thespend-the-night party never ended…"