“Then, one morning, right around daybreak, I had to go to the toilet. I was about half asleep and when I got to the bathroom, there was Momma and Aunt Idgie in there, with the sink running. Momma looked at me, surprised, and said, ‘Wait a minute, honey,’ and closed the door.
“I said, ‘Hurry up, Momma, I cain’t wait!’ You know how a kid’ll do. I heard them talking and pretty soon they came out, and Aunt Idgie was drying her hands and face. When I got in there, the sink was still full of coal dust. And on the floor, behind the door, was a black stocking hat.
“I suddenly figured out why I’d seen her and old Grady Kilgore, the railroad detective, always whispering. He’d been the one who was tipping her off about the train schedules … it had been my Aunt Idgie jumping them trains, all along.”
Linda said, “Oh Granddaddy, are you sure that’s true?”
“Of course it’s true. Your Aunt Idgie did all kinds of crazy things.” He asked Macky, “Did I ever tell you what she did that time old Wilbur and Dot Weems got married and went on their honeymoon at a big hotel in Birmingham?”
“No, I don’t think so.”
Peggy said, “Stump, don’t be telling that story in front of the children.”
“It’ll be all right, don’t worry. Well anyway, old Wilbur was a member of the Dill Pickle Club, and right after the wedding, Aunt Idgie and that bunch got in a car and drove over to Birmingham as fast as they could, and bribed the hotel clerk into letting them into the honeymoon suite, and they put all kinds of funny stuff all over the bed … God knows what all …”
Peggy warned him, “Stump …”
He laughed. “Hell, I don’t know what it was. Anyway, they got in the car and came back home, and when Wilbur and Dot got back, they asked Wilbur how he liked his honeymoon suite at the Redmont, only to find out that they had been at the wrong hotel, and some poor honeymoon couple had gotten the shock of their lives.”
Peggy shook her head. “Can you imagine such a thing?”
Norma stuck her head under the serving counter. “Daddy, tell them about the catfish you used to catch down at the Warrior River.”
Stump’s face lit up. “Oh well. You wouldn’t believe how big those catfish were. I remember one day, it was raining and I got a bite so hard, it slid me right down the bank and I had to fight to not be pulled into the water. Lightning was striking and I was fighting for my life, but after about four hours, I pulled that grandaddy mud cat out of the water and, I tell you, he must have weighed twenty pounds or more, and he was this long …”
Stump held out his one arm.
The skinny would-be chiropractor sat there with a stupid look on his face, seriously trying to figure out how long the catfish was.
Linda, exasperated, put her hand on her hip. “Oh Granddaddy.”
Norma just cackled from the kitchen.
SEPTEMBER 28, 1986
Today, they were enjoying a combination of things: Cokes and Golden Flake potato chips, and for dessert—another request from Mrs. Threadgoode—Fig Newtons. She told Evelyn that Mrs. Otis had eaten three Fig Newtons a day for the past thirty years, to keep her regular. “Personally, I eat ’em just ’cause I like the taste. But I’ll tell you something that’s good. When I was at home and didn’t feel like cooking, I’d walk over to Ocie’s store and pick up a package of those little brown-and-serve rolls and pour Log Cabin Syrup on them and have that for my dinner. They don’t cost all that much. You ought to try it sometime.”
“I’ll tell you what’s good, Mrs. Threadgoode, are those frozen honey-buns.”
“Honey-buns?”
“Yes. They’re like cinnamon buns. You know.”
“Oh, I love cinnamon buns. Let’s have some sometime, want to?”
“All right.”
“You know, Evelyn, I’m so glad you’re not on that diet of yours anymore. That raw food will kill you. I hadn’t wanted to tell you this before, but Mrs. Adcock nearly killed herself on one of those slimming diets. She ate so much raw food that she was rushed to the hospital with severe stomach pains and they had to do exploratory surgery on her. And she said that while the doctor was examining all her insides, he picked up her liver to get a close look at it, and dropped it right on the floor, and it bounced four or five times before they got it. Mrs. Adcock said that she has suffered with terrible backaches ever since, because of it.”
“Oh Mrs. Threadgoode, you don’t believe her, do you?”
“Well, that’s what she said at the dinner table the other night.”
“Honey, she’s just making that up. Your liver is attached to your body.”
“Well, maybe she got mixed up and it was a kidney or something else, but if I were you, I wouldn’t eat any more of that raw food.”
“Well okay, Mrs. Threadgoode, if you say so.” Evelyn took a bite of her potato chip. “Mrs. Threadgoode, there’s something I’ve been meaning to ask you. Didn’t you tell me one time that some people thought Idgie had killed a man? Or did I just think you said that?”
“Oh no, honey, a lot of people thought she had done it. Yes indeed, ’specially when she stood trial for murder with Big George over in Georgia …”
Evelyn was shocked. “She did?”
“Haven’t I ever told you about that before?”
“No. Never.”
“Oh … Well, it was awful! I remember the very morning. I was doing my dishes, listening to The Breakfast Club, when Grady Kilgore came up to the house and got Cleo. He looked like someone had died. He said, ‘Cleo, I’d rather cut off my right arm that to do what I’m about to do, but I’ve got to go take Idgie and Big George in on charges, and I want you to go with me.’
“You know, Idgie was one of his best friends, and it liked to of killed him to do it. He told Cleo that he would have resigned from office, but he said the thought of a stranger arresting Idgie was even worse.
“Cleo said, ‘My God, Grady, what’s she done?’
“Grady said that she and Big George were suspected of murdering Frank Bennett back in ‘thirty. Here, I didn’t even know he’d been dead or missing or anything.”
Evelyn said, “What made them think that Idgie and Big George did it?”
“Well, it seems that Idgie and Big George had threatened to kill him a couple of times, and the Georgia police had that on record, so when they found his truck, they had to bring them in …”
“What truck?”
“Frank Bennett’s truck. They were looking for a drowned body and found that truck in the river, not far from Eva Bates’s place, so they knew he’d been around Whistle Stop in nineteen thirty.
“Grady was furious that some damn fool had been stupid enough to call over to Georgia and give them the tag number … Ruth had been dead about eight years, and Stump and Peggy had already married and moved over to Atlanta, so it must have been around nineteen fifty-five or ’fifty-six.
“The next day, Grady took Idgie and Big George over to Georgia, and Sipsey went with them; nobody could talk her out of going. But Idgie wouldn’t let anybody else go with her, so we all had to stay home and wait.
“Grady tried to keep it quiet. Nobody in town talked about it if they knew … Dot Weems knew, but she never printed anything in the paper.
“I remember the week of the trial, Albert and I went over to Troutville to be with Onzell, who was terrified because she knew if Big George was found guilty of killing a white man, he’d wind up in the electric chair, just like Mr. Pinto.”