Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe

SEPTEMBER 30, 1924

When Frank Bennett was growing up, he had adored his mother, to the point that it had disgusted his father, a bull of a man who thought nothing of knocking Frank out of a chair or kicking him down the stairs. His mother had been the only softness and sweetness he had known as a child and he loved her with all of his heart.

When he came home from school early one day, with some feigned illness, and found his mother and his father’s brother on the floor in the kitchen, all that love turned to hate in the five seconds before he screamed and ran out of the room: the five seconds that would haunt him for as long as he lived.

At thirty-four, Frank Bennett was a vain man. His black shoes were always shined to a high spit polish, his hair was always brushed, his clothes were perfect, and he was one of the few men who received a manicure at the barbershop every week.

You could say he was a dandy. You could say he was handsome, in a black Irish sort of way, with that head of thick hair and the steel-blue eyes; and although one was made of glass and the other was just as cold as shiny, it was hard to tell which was which.

But above all things, he was a man who got what he wanted, and he wanted Ruth Jamison. He’d had just about every available girl around, including, and preferring, the black girls he would take by force while his friends held them down. Once he had them, he was not one to want them again. One pale-blond woman, who lived on the outskirts of town now, had a little girl that looked like him, but after he had blackened her eyes and threatened her child, she no longer made any claims on him. It was clear he did not have much interest in used women. Particularly if he had been the one who’d used them.

But in town, he was known as a hale and hearty fellow, and he decided that he needed to have sons to carry on the Bennett name; a name that didn’t mean anything to anybody, except that he was a man who owned a lot of land south of town.

Ruth was young, pretty, certainly untouched, and needed a place for herself and her mother. What could be better? Ruth was flattered; she couldn’t help but be. Wasn’t he the most eligible man around? Hadn’t he courted her like a gentleman and charmed her mother?

Ruth had come to believe that this handsome young man loved her, and that she should and therefore did love him.

But who could have known that all the shiny shoes and flashy three-piece suits could never cover up the bitterness that had been growing in his heart all these years …

Certainly no one in town guessed; it took a complete stranger. On the night of Frank’s bachelor party, he and a group of men had stopped by a bar for a few drinks, on the way to a cabin where three whores from Atlanta had been hired for the night. An old bum, passing through, had wandered into the bar, off the street, and was watching the party of young men from across the room. Frank did what he did to all strangers: He walked over to the man, who was obviously in need of a drink, and slapped him on the back. “I’ll tell you what, old-timer, if you can tell me which one of these eyes of mine is glass, I’ll buy you a drink.”

His friends laughed because it was impossible to tell, but the old man looked at him and without a beat said, “The left.”

His friends roared, and although Frank was taken aback, he laughed it off as luck and threw a half dollar on the bar.

The bartender watched the party of men leave, and then said to the old man, “What’ll it be, mister?”

“Whiskey.”

He poured the old man his shot. A little later, the bartender said, “Hey, old friend, how were you able to tell his left eye was glass right off the bat like that?”

The old man drank his whiskey and said, “Easy. The left one was the only one with even a glimmer of human compassion in it.”