Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe

APRIL 8, 1986

Evelyn waited until the first warm day of spring before she called Mrs. Hartman. Somehow she could not stand the thought of seeing Whistle Stop for the first time in the dead of winter. Evelyn rang the doorbell and a pleasant-looking brown-haired woman came to the door.

“Oh Mrs. Couch, come on in. I’m so happy to meet you. Mrs. Threadgoode told me so much about you, I feel as if I know you already.”

She took Evelyn back into a spotless kitchen, where she had set two places with coffee cups and placed a freshly baked pound cake on her green Formica dinette set.

“I was so sorry to have to write you that letter, but I knew that you would want to know.”

“I appreciate that you did. I had no idea she had left Rose Terrace.”

“I know you didn’t. Her friend Mrs. Otis died about a week after you left.”

“Oh no. I didn’t know … I wonder why she didn’t tell me.”

“Well, I told her she ought to, but she said you were on your vacation and she didn’t want you to worry. That’s how she was, always looking out for the other fellow …

“We moved next door right after her husband died, so I guess I’ve been knowing her for over thirty years, and I never heard her complain, not once, and she didn’t have an easy life. Her son, Albert, was like a child. But every day, she’d get up, and shave and bathe and powder him, and put on his hernia belt—treated him just like he was a baby, even after he was a grown man.… There was never a child more loved than Albert Threadgoode. Bless her heart, I miss her so much, and I know you do, too.”

“Yes, I do, and I just feel terrible I wasn’t there. Maybe I could have done something, gotten her to a doctor or something.”

“No honey. There wasn’t a thing you could have done. She wasn’t sick. We always carried her with us to church on Sunday, and usually she would be all dressed and waiting, sitting on her front porch. But that Sunday morning, when we got ready to leave, she wasn’t there, which was very unusual. So Ray, my husband, walked over and knocked on her door, but she didn’t answer, so he went on in, and in a few minutes he came back out by himself. I said, ‘Ray, where’s Mrs. Threadgoode?’ And he said, ‘Honey, Mrs. Threadgoode’s dead,’ and then he sat down on the steps and cried. She died in her sleep, just as peaceful. I really think she knew her time was near, because whenever I went over there, she would say, ‘Now, Jonnie, if anything ever happens to me, I want Evelyn to have these things.’ She thought the world of you. She’d brag on you all the time and said that she was sure you’d come riding up here one day and take her for a ride in your new Cadillac. Poor old thing, when she died, she didn’t have hardly anything to her name but a few knickknacks. That reminds me, let me get your things.”

Mrs. Hartman came back with a picture of a naked girl swinging on a swing, with blue bubbles in the background; a shoe box; and a Mason jar with what looked like gravel in it.

Evelyn took the jar. “What in the world?”

Mrs. Hartman laughed. “That’s her gallstones. Why she thought you’d want them, the Lord only knows.”

Evelyn opened the shoe box. Inside, she found Albert’s birth certificate, Cleo’s graduation diploma from the Palmer School of Chiropractic, in Davenport, Iowa, in 1927, and about fifteen funeral programs. Then she found an envelope full of photographs. The first was a picture of a man and a little boy in a sailor suit, sitting on a half-moon. Next was a 1939 school picture of a little blond boy; on the back it said, Stump Threadgoode—10 years old. Then she picked up a family portrait of the Threadgoode family, taken in 1919; Evelyn felt as if they were old friends. She recognized Buddy immediately, with those flashing eyes and big smile. There was Essie Rue and the twins, and Leona, posing like a queen … and little Idgie, with her toy rooster. And there, way in the back, in a long white apron, was Sispey, taking picture posing very seriously.

Right underneath, she found a picture of a young woman in a white dress, standing in the same yard, shading her eyes from the sun and smiling at the person taking the picture. Evelyn thought that she was probably one of the loveliest-looking creatures she had ever seen, with those long eyelashes and that sweet smile. But she didn’t recognize her. She asked Mrs. Hartman if she knew who it was.

Mrs. Hartman put on the glasses she had hanging on a chain around her neck and studied that picture for a while, puzzled. “Oh, I’ll tell you who that is! That’s that friend of hers who lived here for a time. She was from Georgia … Ruth somebody.”

My God, thought Evelyn; Ruth Jamison. It must have been taken that first summer she had come to Whistle Stop. She looked at it again. It had never occurred to her that Ruth had been so beautiful.

The next picture was of a gray-haired woman wearing a hunting cap and sitting on Santa Claus’s knee, with Season’s Greetings, 1956 written on the backdrop.

Mrs. Hartman took it and laughed. “Oh, that’s that fool Idgie Threadgoode. She used to run the cafe out here.”

“Did you know her?”

“Who didn’t! Oh, she was a mess, there was no telling what that one would do next.”

“Look, Mrs. Hartman, here’s a picture of Mrs. Threadgoode.” The photograph had been taken downtown at Love-man’s department store, about twenty years before; Mrs. Threadgoode was already gray and looked very much like she did the last time Evelyn had seen her.

Mrs. Hartman took the picture in hand. “Bless her heart, I remember that dress. It was dark navy blue with white polka dots. She must have worn that dress for thirty years. After she died, she said she wanted all her clothes to go to the Goodwill. She really didn’t have anything worth saving, poor soul, just an old coat and a few housedresses. They picked up what little furniture there was, all except for the glider on the front porch. I just couldn’t bear to give them that. She used to sit in that thing all day and night, waiting for the trains to go by. It just wouldn’t seem right to let strangers have it. She left her house to our daughter, Terry.”

Evelyn was still taking things out of the box. “Look, Mrs. Hartman, here’s an old menu from the Whistle Stop Cafe. It must be from the thirties. Can you believe those prices? A barbecue for ten cents … and you could get a complete dinner for thirty-five cents! And pie was a nickel!”

“Isn’t that something. It costs at least five or six dollars to get a decent meal nowadays, even out at the cafeteria, and they charge you extra for your beverage and your pie, at that.”

Before she was through, Evelyn found a photograph of Idgie wearing a pair of those glasses with the fake nose, standing with four goofy-looking guys dressed up in crazy outfits, with Dill Pickle Club … Icebox Follies, 1942 written underneath … and an Easter card from Cleo, the postcards Evelyn had sent her from California, a Southern Railroad pullman car menu from the fifties, a half-used lipstick, a mimeographed copy of Psalm 90, and a hospital armband that said:

Mrs. Cleo Threadgoode

An eighty-six-year-old woman

And down at the very bottom of the box, Evelyn found the envelope addressed to Mrs. Evelyn Couch.

“Look, she must have written me a letter.” She opened it and read the note:

Evelyn,

Here are some of Sipsey’s original recipes I wrote down. They have given me so much pleasure, I thought I’d pass them on to you, especially the one for Fried Green Tomatoes.

I love you, dear little Evelyn. Be happy. I am happy.

Your Friend,

Mrs. Cleo Threadgoode

Mrs. Hartman said, “Well, bless her heart, she wanted you to have those.”

Evelyn was sad as she carefully folded the note and put everything back. She thought, My God, a living, breathing person was on this earth for eighty-six years, and this is all that’s left, just a shoe box full of old papers.

Evelyn asked Mrs. Hartman if she could tell her how to get to where the cafe had been.

“It’s just a couple of blocks up the road. I’ll be happy to go with you and show you if you want me to.”

“That would be wonderful, if you could.”

“Oh sure. Just let me turn off my beans and throw my roast in the oven, and I’ll be right there.”

Evelyn put the picture and the shoe box in the car, and while she was waiting, she walked over to Mrs. Threadgoode’s yard. She looked up and started to laugh; still stuck up, high in the silver birch tree, was Mrs. Threadgoode’s broom she had thrown at the bluejays over a year ago, and sitting on the telephone wires were those blackbirds Mrs. Threadgoode thought had been listening to her on the phone. The house was just as Mrs. Threadgoode had described it, with her pots of geraniums, right down to the dog-eared snowball bushes in the front.

When Mrs. Hartman came out, they drove a few blocks from the house and she showed her where the cafe used to be, sitting not twenty feet from the railroad tracks. Right beside it was a little brick building, also abandoned, but Evelyn could just make out a faded sign in the window: OPAL’S BEAUTY SHOP. Everything was just as she had imagined.

Mrs. Hartman showed her the spot where Poppa Threadgoode’s store used to be, now a Rexall Drug Store with an Elks Club on the second story.

Evelyn asked if it would be possible to see Troutville.

“Sure, honey, it’s right across the tracks.”

When they drove through the little black section, Evelyn was surprised at how small it was—just a few blocks of tiny, run-down shacks. Mrs. Hartman pointed out one little house with faded green tin chairs on the front porch and told her that’s where Big George and Onzell had lived until they went over to Birmingham to stay with their son Jasper.

As they drove out, she saw Ocie’s grocery store, attached to the side of a falling-down, wooden shotgun house that had once been painted baby blue. The front of the store was plastered with faded old signs from the thirties, urging you to DRINK BUFFALO ROCK GINGER ALE … MELLOWED A MILLION MINUTES OR MORE …

Evelyn suddenly remembered something from her childhood.

“Mrs. Hartman, do you think they might have a strawberry soda in there?”

“I’ll bet he does.”

“Would it be all right if we went in?”

“Oh sure, a lot of white people shop over here.”

Evelyn parked and they went in. Mrs. Hartman went to the old man in the white shirt and suspenders and began shouting in his ear. “Ocie, this is Mrs. Couch. She was a friend of Ninny Threadgoode’s!”

The minute Ocie heard Mrs. Threadgoode’s name, his eyes lit up and he got up and ran over and hugged Evelyn. Evelyn, who had never been hugged by a black man in her life, was caught off guard. Ocie started talking to her a mile a minute, but she couldn’t understand a word he was saying because he had no teeth.

Mrs. Hartman shouted at him again, “No honey, this isn’t her daughter! This is her friend Mrs. Couch, from Birmingham …”

Ocie kept grinning and smiling at her.

Mrs. Hartman was rooting around in the cold drink box and pulled out a strawberry soda. “Look! Here you are.”

Evelyn tried to pay for it, but Ocie kept saying something to her that she still could not understand.

“He says put your money away, Mrs. Couch. He wants you to have that cold drink on him.”

Evelyn was flustered, but thanked Ocie, and he followed them out to the car, still talking and grinning.

Mrs. Hartman shouted, “BYE-BYE!” She turned to Evelyn. “He’s as deaf as a post.”

“I figured that. I just can’t get over him hugging me like that.”

“Well, you know, he thought the world of Mrs. Threadgoode. He’s been knowing her since he was a little boy.”

They drove back over the tracks, and Mrs. Hartman said, “Honey, if you take a right on the next street, I’ll show you where the old Threadgoode place is.”

The minute they turned the corner, she saw it: a big, two-story white wooden house with the front porch that went all around. She recognized it from the pictures.

Evelyn pulled up in front, and they got out.

The windows were mostly broken and boarded up, and the wood on the front porch was caved in and rotten, so they couldn’t go up. It looked like the whole house was ready to fall down. They walked around to the back.

Evelyn said, “What a shame they let this place go. I’ll bet it was beautiful at one time.”

Mrs. Hartman agreed. “At one time, this was the prettiest house in Whistle Stop. But all the Threadgoodes are gone now, so I guess they’re just gonna tear it down one of these days.”

When they got to the backyard, Evelyn and Mrs. Hartman were surprised at what they saw. The old trellis, leaning on the back of the house, was entirely covered with thousands of little pink sweetheart roses, blooming like they had no idea that the people inside had left long ago.

Evelyn peeked in the broken window and saw a cracked, white enamel table. She wondered how many biscuits had been cut on that table throughout the years.

When she took Mrs. Hartman home, she thanked her for going along.

“Oh, my pleasure, we almost never get anybody out here to visit anymore, not since the trains stopped running. I’m sorry that we had to meet under such sad circumstances, but I’ve enjoyed meeting you so much, and please come back just anytime you want to.”

Although it was late, Evelyn decided to drive by the old house one more time. It was just getting dark, and as she came down the street, her lights hit the windows in such a way that it looked to her like there were people inside, moving around … and all of a sudden, she could have sworn that she heard Essie Rue pounding away at the old piano in the parlor …

“Buffalo gals, won’t you come out tonight, come out tonight …”

Evelyn stopped the car and sat there, sobbing like her heart would break, wondering why people had to get old and die.