Just then, Geneene, the nurse, came in and sat down to have a cigarette and relax.
Mrs. Threadgoode said, “Oh Geneene, this is my friend Evelyn, the one I told you about who’s having such a bad menapause.”
“How do you do.”
“Hello.”
Then Mrs. Threadgoode went on and on to Geneene about how pretty she thought Evelyn was and didn’t Geneene think that Evelyn should sell Mary Kay cosmetics?
Evelyn was hoping that Geneene would leave so Mrs. Threadgoode would finish her story, but she never did. And when Ed came to get her, she was frustrated because now she would have to wait a whole week to hear how the trial came out. As she left, Evelyn said, “Don’t forget where you left off.”
Mrs. Threadgoode looked at her blankly. “Left off? You mean about Mary Kay?”
“No. About the trial.”
“Oh yes. Oh, that was something, all right …”
JULY 24, 1955
It was just before a thunderstorm; the air in the courtroom was hot and thick.
Idgie turned and looked around the courtroom, the sweat running down her back. Her lawyer, Ralph Root, a friend of Grady’s, loosened his tie and tried to get a breath of air.
This was the third day of the trial and all the men who had been in the barbershop in Valdosta, the day Idgie had threatened to kill Frank Bennett, had already testified. Jake Box had just taken the stand.
She turned around again and looked for Smokey Lonesome. Where the hell was he? Grady had sent word that she was in trouble and needed him. Something was wrong. He should have been here. She began to wonder if he was dead.
At that moment, Jake Box pointed to Big George and said, “That’s him. That’s the one that come after Frank with the knife, and that’s the woman that was with him.”
The entire Loundes County Courthouse murmured with uneasiness over a black man threatening a white man. Grady Kilgore shifted in his seat. Sipsey, the only other black in the room, was up in the balcony, moaning and praying for her baby boy, even though he was almost sixty at the time.
Not even bothering to question Big George, the prosecuting attorney moved right on along to Idgie, who took the stand.
“Did you know Frank Bennett?”
“No sir.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes sir.”
“You mean to sit here and tell me you never met the man whose wife, Ruth Bennett, was your business partner for eighteen years?”
“That’s right.”
He twirled around, with his thumbs in his vest, to face the jury. “You mean to say you never came into the Valdosta barbershop in August of nineteen twenty-eight and had a heated conversation in which you threatened to kill Frank Bennett, a man you did not know?”
“That was me, all right. I thought you wanted to know if we had ever met, and the answer is no. I threatened to kill him, but we were never, what you might say, properly introduced.”
Some of the men in the room, who hated the pompous lawyer, laughed. “So, in other words, you admit that you threatened Frank Bennett’s life.”
“Yes sir.”
“Is it not true that you also came to Georgia with your colored man in September of nineteen twenty-eight and left, taking Frank Bennett’s wife and child with you?”
“Just his wife, the child came later.”
“How much later?”
“The usual time; nine months.”
The courtroom broke out in laughter again. Frank’s brother, Gerald, glared at her from the front row.
“Is it true that you spoke against Frank Bennett’s character to his wife and made her believe that he was not of good moral fiber? Did you convince her that he was not fit as a husband?”
“No sir, she already knew that for a fact.”
More laughter.
The lawyer was getting heated. “Did you or did you not force her to go to Alabama with you at knifepoint?”
“Didn’t have to. She was already packed and ready when we got there.”
He ignored this last statement. “Is it not true that Frank Bennett came over to Whistle Stop, Alabama, trying to retrieve what was rightly his—his wife and his tiny baby son—and that you and your colored man killed him to prevent her from returning to her happy home and giving the child back to its father?”
“No sir.”
The large, pigeon-breasted man was picking up steam. “Are you aware that you broke up the most sacred thing on this earth—a Christian home with a loving father and mother and child? That you defiled the sacred and holy marriage between a man and a woman, a marriage sanctioned by God in the Morning Dove Baptist Church, right here in Valdosta, on November first, nineteen twenty-four? That you have caused a good Christian woman to break God’s laws and her marriage vows?!”
“No sir.”
“I suggest that you bribed this poor weak woman with promises of money and liquor, and that she lost control of her senses, momentarily, and when her husband came back to get her and take her home, didn’t you and your colored man murder him in cold blood to prevent her from returning?”
He then turned on her and screamed, “WHERE WERE YOU ON THE NIGHT OF DECEMBER THIRTEENTH, NINETEEN THIRTY?”
Idgie really began to sweat. “Well, sir, I was over at my mother’s house, in Whistle Stop.”
“Who was with you?”
“Ruth Jamison and Big George. He went over there with us that night.”
“Can Ruth Jamison testify to that?”
“No sir.”
“Why not?”
“She died eight years ago.”
“What about your mother?”
“She’s dead, too.”
He was coming down the mountain now, and stood up on his tiptoes for a second and then twirled toward the jury again. “So, Miss Threadgoode, you expect twelve intelligent men to believe that, although two witnesses are dead and the other is a colored man who works for you and was with you the day you abducted Ruth Bennett from her happy home, and is known to be a worthless, no-good lying nigger, you are asking these men to take your word for it, just because you say so?” Although she was nervous, the lawyer should not have called Big George those names.
“That’s right, you gump-faced, blowed-up, baboon-assed bastard.”
The room exploded as the judge banged his gavel in vain.
This time, Big George moaned. He had begged her not to stand trial, but she was determined to give him an alibi for that night. She knew she was his only chance. The odds of a white woman’s getting off were much higher than his; especially if his alibi depended on the words of another Negro. She was not going to let Big George go to jail if her life depended on it; and it very well might.
The trial was going badly for Idgie, and when the surprise witness was rushed into the courtroom on that last day, Idgie knew it had just gone from bad to worse. He came sweeping through the courtroom as pious and holier-than-thou-looking than ever … her old sworn enemy, the man she had tormented for years.
This is it, she thought.
“State your name, please.”
“Reverend Herbert Scroggins.”
“Occupation?”
“Pastor of the Whistle Stop Baptist Church.”
“Place your right hand on the Bible.”
Reverend Scroggins informed him that he had brought his own, thank you, and placed his hand on his Bible and swore to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help him God.
Idgie became confused. She realized it had been her own lawyer who had brought him in. Why had he not asked her first? She could have told him that this man would have nothing good to say about her.
But it was too late, he was already on the stand.
“Reverend Scroggins, could you tell the court why you called me long distance and what you told me last evening?”