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.
JUNE 25, 1969
Hard to Say Goodbye
I am sorry to report that this will be the last issue. Ever since I took my other half to south Alabama for a vacation, he has been having a fit to live there. We found ourselves a place right on the bay, so we are going to move down in a couple of weeks. Now the old coot can fish night and day if he wants to. I know I spoil him, but with all his orneriness, he’s still a pretty good old guy. Don’t know what to say about leaving, so I won’t say much. Both of us were raised right here in Whistle Stop, and had so many wonderful times and friends. But most of them have gone somewhere else. The place doesn’t seem the same, and now, with all these new super highways they got, you can hardly tell where Birmingham ends and Whistle Stop begins.