Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe

DECEMBER 15, 1985

One hour later, Mrs. Threadgoode was still talking. Evelyn Couch had finished three Milky Ways and was in the process of unwrapping her second Butterfinger, wondering if the old woman beside her was ever going to shut up.

“You know, it’s a shame the Threadgoode house has fallen into such disrepair. So much happened there, so many babies born, we had so many happy times. It was a great big two-story white-frame house with a big front porch that wrapped all the way around to the side … and all the bedrooms had rose-patterned wallpaper that looked so pretty when the lamps were turned on at night.

“The railroad tracks ran right across the backyard, and on summer nights that yard would be just full of lightning bugs and the smell of honeysuckle that grew wild, right alongside the tracks. Poppa had the back planted with fig trees and apple trees, and he had built Momma the most beautiful white lattice grape arbor that was full of wisteria vines … and little pink sweetheart roses grew all over the back of the house. Oh, I wish you could have seen it.

“Momma and Poppa Threadgoode raised me just like I was one of their own, and I liked all the Threadgoodes. Especially Buddy. But I married Cleo, his older brother, the chiropractor, and wouldn’t you know it, later on I turned out to have a bad back, so it worked out just fine.

“So you can see I’ve been keeping up with Idgie and the Threadgoodes all my life. And I’ll tell you, it’s been better than a picture show … yes it has. But then, I was always a tagalong sort of person. Believe it or not, I never did talk much until after I hit my fifties, and then I just couldn’t stop. One time Cleo said to me, ‘Ninny’—my name is Virginia but they called me Ninny—he said, ‘Ninny, all I hear is Idgie said this and Idgie did that.’ He said, ‘Don’t you have anything better to do than to hang around that cafe all day?’

“I thought long and hard and said, ‘No, I don’t’ … not to downgrade Cleo in any way, but it was the truth.

“I buried Cleo thirty-one years ago last February, and I often wonder if I hurt his feelings when I said that, but I don’t think so, because after all was said and done, he loved Idgie as much as the rest of us, and always got a good laugh out of some of her doings. She was his baby sister, and a real cutup. She and Ruth owned the Whistle Stop Cafe.

“Idgie used to do all kinds of crazy harebrained things just to get you to laugh. She put polker chips in the collection basket at the Baptist church once. She was a character all right, but how anybody ever could have thought that she killed that man is beyond me.”

For the first time, Evelyn stopped eating and glanced over at the rather sweet-looking old lady in the faded blue flower-print dress, with the silver-gray fingerwaves, who didn’t miss a beat:

“Some people thought it started the day she met Ruth, but I think it started that Sunday dinner, April the first, 1919, the same year Leona married John Justice. I can tell you it was April the first, because Idgie came to the dinner table that day and showed everybody this little white box she had with a human finger inside of it, resting on a piece of cotton. She claimed she’d found it out in the backyard. But it turned out to be her own finger she had poked through a hole in the bottom of the box. APRIL FOOL!!!

“Everybody thought it was funny except Leona. She was the oldest and the prettiest sister, and Poppa Threadgoode spoiled her rotten … everybody did, I guess.

“Idgie was about ten or eleven at the time and she had on a brand new white organdy dress that we’d all told her how pretty she looked in. We were having a fine time and starting in on our blueberry cobbler when all of a sudden, out of a clear blue sky, Idgie stood up and announced, just as loud … ‘I’m never gonna wear another dress as long as I live!’ And with that, honey, she marched upstairs and put on a pair of Buddy’s old pants and a shirt. To this day, I don’t have any idea what set her off. None of us had.

“But Leona, who knew Idgie never said a thing she didn’t mean, began to wail. She said, ‘Oh Poppa, Idgie’s going to ruin my wedding, I just know it!’

“But Poppa said, ‘Now, baby girl, that’s just not so. You’re gonna be the most beautiful bride in the entire state of Alabama.’

“Poppa had this great big handlebar moustache … then he looked at us and he said, ‘Isn’t that right, children?’… and we all put in our two cents’ worth to make her feel better and to get her to shut up. All of us except Buddy, that is, who just sat there and giggled. Idgie was his pet, so anything she did was all right with him.

“So anyway, Leona was finishing her cobbler, and just when we thought she was all calmed down, she screamed so loud that Sipsey, the colored woman, dropped something in the kitchen. ‘Oh Poppa,’ Leona said, ‘what’s gonna happen if one of us dies?’

“… Well, it was a thought, wasn’t it?

“We all looked at Momma, who just put her fork down on the table. ‘Now, children, I’m sure your sister will make that one small concession and wear a proper dress if and when that time ever comes. After all, she’s stubborn, but she’s not unreasonable.’

“Then, a couple of weeks later, I heard Momma tell Ida Simms, the seamstress for the wedding, that she was gonna need a green velvet suit with a bow tie, for Idgie.

“Ida looked up at Momma kinda funny and said, ‘A suit?’ … And Momma said, ‘Oh I know, Ida, I know. I tried my best to get her to wear something a little more weddinglike, but that child has a mind of her own.’

“And she did, even at that age. I think she wanted to be like Buddy, myself … oh, those two were a mess!” The old lady laughed.

“One time, they had this raccoon named Cookie, and I used to spend hours watching him try to wash a cracker. They’d put a little pan of water out in the backyard, and then they’d give him a soda cracker, and he’d wash cracker after cracker, and never could figure out what happened to it when it would disappear. Each time, he’d look at his little empty hands and be so surprised. Never did figure out where his cracker was going. He spent a good part of his life washing crackers. He’d wash cookies, too, but that wasn’t as funny … he washed an ice cream cone once …

“Oh, I better quit thinking about that raccoon or they’re gonna think I’m as crazy as Mrs. Philbeam, down the hall. Bless her heart, she thinks she’s on the Love Boat, headed for Alaska. A lot of these poor souls out here don’t even know who they are.”

Evelyn’s husband, Ed, came to the door of the lounge and motioned. Evelyn wadded up her candy wrappers and put them in her purse and got up.

“Excuse me, that was my husband. I think he’s ready to go.”

Mrs. Threadgoode looked up, surprised, and she said, “Oh? Do you hafto?”

Evelyn said, “Yes, I think I better. He’s ready to leave.”

“Well, I’ve enjoyed talking to you … what’s your name, honey?”

“Evelyn.”

“Well, you come back and see me, y’hear? I’ve enjoyed talk-in’ to you … bye-bye,” she called after Evelyn, and waited for another visitor.