Текст книги "Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe"

Автор книги: Фэнни Флэгг

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Текущая страница: 10 (всего у книги 18 страниц)

He was last seen on the morning of December 13, when he left home and told Mr. Box that he would be returning that evening. Anyone having any information as to his whereabouts is asked to please inform the local authorities.

DECEMBER 18, 1930

It was another ice-cold Alabama afternoon, and the hogs were boiling in the big iron pot out in back of the cafe. The pot was bubbling over the top, full of long-gone hogs that would soon be smothered with Big George's special barbecue sauce.

Big George was standing by the pot with Artis, when he looked up and saw three men with guns strapped to their sides walking toward him.

Grady Kilgore, the local sheriff and part-time railroad detective, usually called him George. Today, he was showing off in front of the other two men, "Hey, boy! Come here and take a look at this." He held out a photograph. "You seen this man around here?"

Artis, whose job it was to stir the pot with a long stick, began to sweat.

Big George looked at the picture of the white man in the derby hat and shook his head. "No suh . . . I shore ain't," and handed it back to Grady.

One of the other men walked over and looked in the pot at the pink and white hogs bobbing up and down like a carousel.

Grady put the photograph back in his vest pocket, his official duty over, and said, "Hey, when are we gonna get some of that barbecue, Big George?"

Big George looked in the pot and studied it a moment. "You come 'round 'bout noon tomorrah . . . yes suh, 'bout noon it's gonna be ready."

"You save us some, y'hear?"

Big George smiled. "Yes suh, I will, I shore 'nuff will."

As the men headed to the cafe, Grady bragged to the others. "That nigger makes the best goddamned barbecue in the state. You've gotta get yourselves some of that, then you'll know what good barbecue is. I don't think you Georgia boys know what good barbecue is."

Smokey and Idgie were sitting in the cafe, smoking cigarettes and drinking coffee. Grady came in and put his hat on the rack by the door and walked over to where they were sitting.

"Idgie, Smokey, meet Officer Curtis Smoote and Officer Wendell Riggins. They're over here from Georgia, looking for a fella."

They all nodded hello and sat down.

Idgie said, "What can I get you boys? How 'bout some coffee?"

They all agreed that would be fine.

Idgie hollered to the kitchen, "Sipsey!"

Sipsey stuck her head out of the kitchen door.

"Sipsey, we need three coffees."

Then she said to them, "How ‘bout some pie?"

Grady said, "Naw, we better not, we're here on official business."

The younger, heavier-set man seemed disappointed.

"These two boys are over here lookin’ for a fella, and I've agreed to cooperate." He had only agreed to cooperate if he could be in charge of the photograph.

He cleared his throat and pulled the picture out, trying to look important and nonchalant at the same time. "Has either one of you seen this man, here, in the past couple of days?"

Idgie looked at it, said, no, she had not seen him, and passed it on to Smokey.

"What's he done?"

Sipsey brought the coffee, and Curtis Smoote, the wiry, skinny one with the neck that looked like a wrinkled arm sticking out of a white shirty said in a high-pitched, tight little voice, "He ain't done nothing that we know of. We're trying to find out what's been did to him."

Smokey handed the picture back "Naw, I ain't never see'd him. What you looking for him over here for?"

"He told some old boy who worked for him, over in Georgia, that he was coming over here, a couple of days ago, and he never did come back home."

Smokey asked whereabouts in Georgia.

"Valdosta."

"Well, I wonder what he was a-coming over here for." Smokey said.

Idgie turned around and called out to the kitchen, "Sipsey, bring us a couple of pieces of that chocolate pie, out here." Then she said to Officer Riggins, "I want you to try a piece of this for me. Tell me what you think. We just made it a few minutes ago, have a piece on me."

Officer Riggins protested, "No, I couldn't really, I. . ."

Idgie said, "Oh, come on, just a bite. I need an expert opinion."

"Well, okay, just a bite then."

The skinny one squinted at Idgie, "I told these boys that he most likely is on a drunk somewhere and gonna show up in the next day or so. What I cain't figure out is what, he was coming over here for. There ain't nothing here . . ."

Wendell said, between bites, "We figure maybe he had a girl friend around here, or something."

Grady exploded with laughter. "Hell, ain't no woman in Whistle Stop that somebody would come all the way from Georgia for!" Then he paused. "Except maybe Eva Bates."

Then all three of them laughed, and Smokey, who also had had the pleasure of knowing Eva in the biblical sense, said, "That's the God's truth."

Grady started in on the other piece of pie, still amused at his own joke but the skinny man was serious, and he leaned over the table to Grady.

"Who's Eva Bates?"

"Oh, she's just an old redheaded gal that runs a joint over by the river," Grady said. "A friend of ours."

 "You think this Eva woman might be the one he came over for?"

Grady, eating his pie, glanced over at the photo on the table and dismissed the thought. "Naw. Not in a million years."

The skinny one persisted. "Why not?"

"Well, for one thing, he ain't her type."

They all three laughed again.

Wendell Riggins chuckled along with them, although he didn't know why.

Officer Smoote said, "What do you mean, not her type?"

Grady put his fork down. "Now, I don't want to hurt your feelings or nothing, and I don't even know this old boy in the picture here, but he looks a little sissified to me. Wouldn't you say so, Smokey?"

Smokey agreed.

"Naw, the truth is, boys, Eva would take one look at him and throw him back in the water."

They all laughed again.

Smoote said, "Well, I guess you know what you're talking about," and squinted his eyes at Idgie again.

"Yeah, well, that's just the facts of life!" Grady continued. He winked at Idgie and Smokey. "From what I hear, all you boys over in Georgia is a little light on your feet."

Smokey sat there giggling. "That's the way I heard it."

Grady leaned back in his chair and patted his stomach. "Well I guess we better head on out of here. We got a few more stops to make before dark," and put the picture back in his pocket.

As they all got up to go, Officer Riggins said, "Thanks for the pie, Mrs. . .”

"Idgie."

"Mrs. Idgie, it sure was delicious, thank you again.

"You're welcome."

Grady got his hat. "You're gonna see them again. I'm gonna bring 'em back tomorrow for some barbecue."

"Good. Be happy to see you."

Grady looked around to the back. "By the way, where's Ruth?"

"She's over at Momma's, house. Momma's been real sick."

Grady said, "Yeah, that's what I heard. I'm real sorry to hear that. Well, see you tomorrow."

And they beaded out the door.”

Although it was only four-thirty in the afternoon, the sky was already a gunmetal gray, with silver streaks shooting across the north, and the winter rain that had just started was as thin and cold as ice water. Next door, the windows of Opal's beauty shop had already been decorated with blinking Christmas lights that reflected on the wet sidewalk. Inside, Opal's shampoo girl was sweeping up and Christmas music was playing on the radio. Opal was finishing up her last customer, Mrs. Vesta Adcock, who was going to an L N banquet in Birmingham that night. The bells on the door jangled as Grady and the men came in, and Grady put on his official voice.

"Opal, can we speak to you for a minute?"

Vesta Adcock looked up horrified and clutched her flowered smock around her, screaming, "WHAT IN THE WORLD!"

Opal looked up, equally horrified, and rushed over to Grady with a green comb in her hand. "You cain't come in here, Grady Kilgore, this here is a beauty shop! We don't let men in here. What is the matter with you? Have you lost your mind? Now, go on, get out! The very idea!"

The six-foot four-inch Grady and the two men stumbled all over each other trying to get out the door and wound up back on the sidewalk, with Opal glaring at them through the foggy window.

Grady put the photograph of Frank Bennett back in his pocket and said, "Well, that's one place he ain't been in, that's for damn sure."

The three men pulled up their collars and headed across the tracks.

DECEMBER 21, 1930

Three days after the two men from Georgia had first arrived in town asking questions about Frank Bennett, the skinny one, Curtis Smoote, came in by himself and ordered another barbecue and an Orange Crush.

When Idgie brought it over to the booth, she said, "Between Grady and your partner, ya’ll are about to eat up all my barbecue. That makes ten you three have had today!"

He squinted at her and said, in his high nasal little voice, "Have a seat."

Idgie looked around the room and saw that it wasn't busy, and then sat down across from him. He took a bite of his sandwich and looked at her, hard. "How ya doing?" Idgie said. "Found that man you was looking for yet?”

This time he glanced around the room and then leaned across the table, his face sharp like a razor. "You're not fooling me, girlie girl. I know who you are. Don't think for a minute you are fooling me. . . . You gotta get up early in the morning to put one over on Curtis Smoote. Yes sir, the first time I come in here, I knowed I'd seen you somewhere before, but I couldn't place you. So I made a few phone calls, and last night it come to me who you were."

He sat back and continued eating, never taking his eyes off her. Idgie, hot batting an eye, waited for him to continue.

"Now, I got me a sworn statement from this fellow Jake, that works out at the Bennett place, that someone answering the description of you and that big black buck you got out in the back, there, come over with a bunch and took Bennett's wife off, and that nigger threatened Bennett with a knife."

He picked a piece of dark meat out of his sandwich and put it on his plate and looked at it. "Besides that, I was in the back of the barbershop that day, and me and a whole bunch heard you threaten to kill him. Now, if I can remember, you can be damn sure the rest of them will."

He took a swig of his cold drink and wiped his mouth with the paper napkin. "Now, I cain't say Frank Bennett was no particular friend of mine . . . no sir. I got my oldest girl living in a shack, outside of town, with a kid, because of him, and I heard tell of what was going on out at his place. And I would venture a guess that there's others that wouldn't shed a tear if he was to show up dead. But it looks to me, girlie girl, that you would be in a whole passel of trouble if he did, 'cause the fact that you threatened him twice is in the official record, and I can tell you right now, that don't look too good in black and white.

"What we're talking about here, girlie, is murder . . . running afoul of the law. And nobody can get away with that."

He leaned back in the booth and took on a casual air. "Now, of course, just hypothetically speaking, of course, if it was me in your shoes, why, I'd figure it would do me a whole lot of good if that body didn't show up at all. Yes, a whole lot of good... or if anything that belonged to him was to be found, for that matter. I'd figure it wouldn't bode well if anybody could prove that Frank Bennett had been over here at all, you understand, and I'd figure, if I was smart, that is, it would be real important to make sure there wasn't nothing to find."

He glanced up at Idgie to make sure she was listening. She was.

"Yes sir, that would be too bad, 'cause I'd have to come back over here and arrest you and your colored man on suspicion. Now, I'd hate to come back over here after you, but I will 'cause I'm the law and I'm sworn to uphold it. You cain't beat the law. Do you understand that?"

Idgie said, "Yes sir."

Having made his point, he pulled a quarter out of his pocket and threw it on the table, put his hat on, and said as he was leaving, "Of course, Grady may be right. He may just show back up at home one of these days. But I ain't gonna hold my breath."

JANUARY 7, 1931

Local Man Feared Dead

The search for Frank Bennett, 38, a lifelong resident of Valdosta, missing from his home since early morning December 13 of last year, has officially ended. The extensive search, conducted by Detective Curtis Smoote, and Detective Wendell Riggins, led to people being questioned as to Bennett's whereabouts as far away as Tennessee and Alabama. However, neither Bennett nor the truck in which he was traveling at the time of the disappearance has been recovered.

"We left no stone unturned," said Officer Smoote in an interview early today. "He just seems to have vanished off the face of the earth."

MARCH 19, 1931

Sad News for All of Us

After having lost their daddy a year before, it was another sad trip home for Leona, Mildred, Patsy Ruth, and Edward Threadgoode, who all came back home for their mother's funeral.

After the service, we all went over to the Threadgoode house, and everyone in town must have been there to pay their respects to Momma Threadgoode. Half the people here practically grew up over at the Threadgoode house with she and Poppa. I can never forget the good times we had over there and how she always made us feel so welcome. As for me, I met my better half over there at one of their big Fourth of July parties. We courted with Cleo and Ninny, and many an hour was spent sitting on that front porch after church. Everybody is going to miss her and the place is not going to seem the same without her.

. . . Dot Weems . . .

MAY 11, 1986

Evelyn Couch opened the plastic Baggie full of carrot sticks and celery she had brought for herself and offered them to her friend. Mrs. Threadgoode declined, but went on eating her orange-marshmallow peanuts. "No thank you, honey, raw food just doesn't sit well with me. Why're you eating raw food, anyway?”

"It's' Weight Watchers, well, kind of. I can eat anything I want as long as it doesn't have fat or sugar in it."

"Are you trying to slim down again?"

"Yes. I'm going to try. But it's hard. I've gotten so fat."

"Well, you do what you want to, but I still say you look fine to me."

''Oh Mrs. Threadgoode, you're sweet to say so, but I've gotten up to a size sixteen,”

"You don't look heavy to me. Essie Rue . . . now, she was heavyset.  But then, she was always inclined in that direction, ever since she was a little girl But I guess at one time she got up to well over two hundred pounds."

"She did?"

"Oh yes, but she never let it bother her, and she always dressed up in the best-looking outfits and always had a little flower in her hair to match. Everybody used to say that Essie Rue looked like she had just stepped out of a bandbox, and she had the cutest little hands and feet. Everybody in Birmingham used to talk about what cute little feet she had when she got her job playing the mighty Wurlitzer . . ."

"The what?"

"The mighty Wurlitzer organ. They had it down at the Alabama Theater for years. They said it was the largest organ in the south, and I believe they were right. We'd all get on the streetcar and go over and see the picture show. I'd always go when Ginger Rogers was playing. She was my favorite player. That girl is the most talented one they got out there in Hollywood. I don't even care to see a picture if she's not in it . . . she can do it all: dance, sing, act . . . what have you . . .

"But anyhow, between shows, the lights would go down and you'd hear this man's voice saying, 'And now, the Alabama Theater is proud to present . . ." he'd always say that, 'proud to present' Miss Essie Rue Limeway, performing on the mighty Wurlitzer. And from far away you'd hear this music . . . and then, all of a sudden, here would come this huge organ, rising up from the floor, and there would be Essie Rue, playing her theme song, 'I'm in Love with the Man in the Moon.' And all the spotlights would hit her and the sound of that organ would fill the theater and shake the rafters. Then she'd turn around and smile and never miss a note; and move into another song. Before you knew it, she'd be playing 'Stars Fell on Alabama' or 'Life Is Just a Bowl of Cherries,' And her tiny little feet would just fly over those pedals like butterflies! She wore ankle straps that she ordered especially from Loveman's department store.

"You'd think she'd put weight on everywhere, but she never did, just her body.

"Everybody has their good points, and she knew hers and played them up. That's why I hate to see you so down on yourself. I was telling Mrs. Otis the other day, I said, 'Evelyn Couch has got the prettiest skin I ever saw,' I said. 'She looks like her mother has just kept her wrapped up in cotton all her life.' “

"Why, thank you, Mrs. Threadgoode."

"Well, it's true. You don't have a wrinkle on you. I also told Mrs. Otis that I thought you ought to think about selling some of that Mary Kay cosmetics. With your skin and personality, why I bet you could get yourself a pink Cadillac in no time. My neighbor Mrs. Hartman has a niece who sells it and she made a bundle, and Mary Kay gave her a pink Cadillac as a bonus. And she's not half as pretty as you are."

Evelyn said, "Oh Mrs. Threadgoode, thank you for saying that, hut I'm too old to start anything like that. They want young women."

"Evelyn Couch, how can you say that, you are still a young woman. Forty-eight years old is just a baby! You've got half your life left to live yet! Mary Kay doesn't care how old you are. She's no spring chicken herself. Now, if it was me and I had that skin and was your age, I'd make a try at that Cadillac. Of course, I'd have to get me a driver's license, but I'd try for it anyway.

"Just think, Evelyn, if you live to be as old as I am, you've got thirty-seven more years to go . . ."

Evelyn laughed. "What does it feel like to be eighty-six, Mrs. Threadgoode?"

"Well, I don't feel any different. Like I say, it just creeps up on you. One day you're young and the next day your bosoms and your chin drops and you're wearing a rubber girdle. But you don't know you're old. Course, I can tell when I look in the mirror . . . sometimes it nearly scares me to death. My neck looks just like old crepe paper, and I've got so many wrinkles and there's nothing you can do about it. Oh, I used to have something from Avon for wrinkles, but it didn't last but about an hour and they all came back, so I finally stopped fooling with it.  I don't even put on a face anymore, just a little lotion and eyebrow pencil, so you can tell I've got eyebrows . . . they're white now, honey . . . and I'm full of liver spots." She looked at her hands. "You wonder where all those little fellows come from.”  Then she laughed.  “I’m even too old to make a good picture.  Francis wanted to snap a picture of me and Mrs. Otis, but I hid my head.  Said I might break the camera.”

Evelyn asked if she ever got lonesome out there.

“Well yes, sometimes I do.  Of course all my people are gone . . . but once in a while some of the ones from the church come to see me, but it’s just hello and goodbye.  That’s just the way it is, hello and goodbye.

“Sometimes I look at my picture of Cleo and little Albert and wonder what they are up to . . .  and dream about the old days.”

She smiled at Evelyn.  “That’s what I’m living on now, honey, dreams, dreams of what I used to do.”

NOVEMBER 18, 1940

Stump was in the back room shooting at cardboard blackbirds with a rubber-band gun and Ruth was correcting papers when Idgie came banging in the back door from the annual Dill Pickle Club fishing trip.

He ran and jumped up on her and nearly knocked her down.

Ruth was glad to see her because she always worried whenever Idgie went off for a week or more especially when she knew she was down at the river with Eva Bates.  Stump ran out to look on the back steps.

“Where’s the fish?”

“Well Stump,” Idgie said, “the truth is, we caught a fish, it was so big we couldn’t get it out of the water.  We took a picture of it, though, and the picture alone weighs twenty pounds . . .”

“Oh Aunt Idgie, you didn’t catch any fish!”

About that time, they heard, “Whooo-ooo, it’s me . . . me and Albert, come to visit . . .” and in came a tall, sweet-looking woman, with her hair twisted back in a knot, and a little retarded boy, about Stump’s age coming to visit, just like they had every day for the past ten years; and they were always glad to see her.

Idgie said, "Well hey there, gal, how you doing today?"

"Just fine," she said, and sat down. "How are you girls doing?"

Ruth said, "Well, Ninny, we almost had some catfish for supper, but they must not have been biting." She laughed. "We're having photographs instead."

Ninny was disappointed. "Oooh, Idgie, I wish you had brought me a good ol' catfish tonight . . . I love a good catfish. What a shame, I can just taste him."

"Ninny," Idgie said, "catfish don't bite in the dead of winter."

"They don't? Well, you'd think they would be just as hungry in the winter as they are in the summer, wouldn't you?"

Ruth agreed. "That's true, Idgie. Why don't they bite this time of year?"

"Oh, it's not that they're not hungry, it has to do with the temperature of the worm. A catfish won't eat a cold worm, no matter how hungry it gets."

Ruth looked at Idgie and shook her head, always amazed at the tales she could come up with.

Ninny said, "Well, that makes sense. I hate my food to get cold, myself, and I guess even if you were to heat up the worms, they would be cold by the time they got to the bottom of the river, wouldn't they? And speaking of cold, hasn't it been a cold old winter? It's as cold as blitzen out there."

Albert was across the room playing with Stump and shooting at the cardboard blackbirds. While Ninny was having her coffee, she had a thought. "Stump, do you reckon you could come over to my house and shoot your gun at these old black-birds that are sitting on my telephone wires? I don't want you to hurt them, I just want you to scare them off . . . I think they're up there listening to my telephone calls, through their feet."

Ruth, who adored Ninny, said, "Oh Ninny, you don't think that's true, do you?"

"Well, honey, that's what Cleo told me."

BY MR MILTON JAMES

NOVEMBER 19, 1940

 Faith Act Used to Fleece Woman

Out of $50 in Cash

Mrs Sallie Jinx, of 68-C Howell Street, S.E., was the victim of flimflam, she reported to police yesterday.  Mrs Jinx said a woman, known to her as Sister Bell, came to her home and, through a faith act, pretended to tie $50 of her money in a napkin and put it in a trunk with instructions not to open the napkin until four hours later. When the napkin was opened, the money was gone, the victim stated.

Toncille Robinson and E. C. Robinson are telling their friends they don't care what the other does.

Missing from Our Alley

8th Avenue just doesn't seem the same. Artis O. Peavey, that well-known fellow around town, has seen fit to exit to the Windy City. He is sorely missed by the female population, of that fact you can be sure.

We hear that Miss Helen Reid had to call the law over a late-night prowler trying to enter her home on Avenue F, and do her bodily harm . . . and when the officers of the law arrived, they apprehended a gentleman hiding under the house with an ice pick in his hand, who claimed that he was the iceman.

Could that gentleman have been Mr. Baby Shephard, who heretofore had been sweet on Miss Reid?

. . . The Esquire Club is preparing for its annual Limb Loosener . . .

Platter News

Ellington's "Black and Tan Fantasy” is a new Decca release of considerable interest and novelty. The pianist in "Creole" gets on a boogie-woogie kick that's odd but effective.

CHICAGO, ILLINOIS

NOVEMBER 20, 1940

It was raining in Chicago, and Artis O. Peavey was running down the street. He ducked into a doorway, under a sign that read SEA FOOD LUNCH, FRIED FISH 35c.  Across the street, at the RKO Alhambra, Dealers in Crime and Hoodlum Empire were showing. He felt like a fugitive, himself, up here, away from home, hiding out from a dusky damsel named Electra Greene.

He stood there, smoking a Chesterfield cigarette and contemplating life and its turmoils. His mother had said, whenever she was down, that just the thought of her sweet Jesus could always make her spirits rise.

But it hadn't been such thoughts that made Artis rise. It was the sight of a certain high-hipped, thick-lipped black beauty; and it hadn't been just his spirits that would rise and stay risen, much to the delight of said beauty. His main problem in life, at the moment, was that he loved too well and not too wisely.

He had always played a dangerous game where the lovely ladies' husbands were concerned, for Artis knew no boundaries. Every living female was his particular domain, and because of that lack of respect for territorial rights, he had often been forced to search his own body for stab wounds and broken bones, and on too many occasions had found them. After being caught with the wrong woman at the wrong time, one bronze amazon stuck him with a corkscrew. He was much more careful after that unhappy affair, the result of which was an interesting scar, to say the least, and a natural hesitation to fool with any more women who were bigger than he was. Still he was a heartbreaker. He had told one too many to look for him the next night, and that's just what they wound up doing—looking . . .

This skinny little man, so black he was a deep royal blue, had caused a lot of trouble for the opposite sex. One gal drank a can of floor wax and topped it off with a cup of Clorox, trying to separate herself from the same world he was in. When she survived, claiming that the liquids had ruined her complexion for life, he became continually uneasy after dark, because she had snuck up behind him more than once and cracked him in the head with a purseful of rocks.

But this situation with Electra Greene was more serious than a purseful of rocks. Electra was packing a .38 revolver that she knew how to use and had made uncouth threats pertaining to his manhood, and the extermination of such, after finding out he had not been true. Not once, but eight times, to be exact, with a Miss Delilah Woods, her sworn enemy, who had also left town in a hurry.

As Artis stood there today in the doorway, he was hurting so bad, he thought he would die. He missed Birmingham and he wanted to go back.

Every afternoon, before his hasty exit from Birmingham, he had driven his blue two-toned Chevrolet with the whitewall tires up Red Mountain and had parked to watch the sunset. From up there he could look down and see the iron and steel mills, with their towering smokestacks billowing orange smoke all the way up to Tennessee. There had been nothing more beautiful to him than the city at that hour, when the sky was washed with a red-and-purple glow from the mills and neon lights would start coming on all over town, twinkling and dancing throughout the downtown streets and over to Slagtown.

Birmingham, the town that during the Depression had been named by FDR "the hardest hit city in the U.S." . . . where people had been so poor that Artis had known a man that would let you shoot at him for money and a girl that had soaked her feet in brine and vinegar for three days, trying to win a dance marathon . . . the place that had the lowest income per capita of any American city and yet was known as the best circus town in the South . . .

Birmingham, which at one time had the highest illiteracy rate, more venereal disease than any other city in America, and at the same time proudly held the record for having the highest number of Sunday School students of any city in the U.S. . . . where Imperial Laundry trucks had once driven around town with WE WASH FOR WHITE PEOPLE ONLY written on the side, and where darker citizens still sat behind wooden boards on streetcars that said colored and rode freight elevators in department stores.

Birmingham, Murder Capital of the South, where 131 people had been killed in 1931 alone . . .

All this, and yet Artis loved his Birmingham with an insatiable passion, from the south side to the north side, in the freezing-cold rainy winter, when the red clay would slide down the sides of hills and run into the streets, and in the lush green summers, when the green kudzu vine covered the sides of the mountains and grew up trees and telephone poles and the air was moist and heavy with the smell of gardenias and barbecue. He had traveled all over the country, from Chicago to Detroit, from Savannah to Charleston and on up to New York, but there was never a time when he wasn't happy to get back to Birmingham. If there is such a thing as complete happiness, it is knowing that you are in the right place, and Artis had been completely happy from the moment he hit Birmingham.

So today he made up his mind to head on home, because he knew he would rather be dead than be away any longer. He missed Birmingham like most men miss their wives.

And that's just what Miss Electra Greene intended to become . . . if she let him live, that is.

As he walked by the Fife and Drum Bar, somebody played a song on the jukebox:

Way down South, in Birmingham. I mean South, in Alabam’

An old place where people go to dance the night away,

They all drive or walk for miles to jive

That Southern style, slow jive, that makes you want

To dance ‘til break of day.

At each junction where the town folks meet

At each function, in their tux they greet you.

Come on down, forget your care. Come on down

You'll find me there. So long town!

I'm headin' for Tuxedo Junction now.

BY MR. MILTON JAMES

NOVEMBER 25, 1950

Popular Birmingham Bachelor Marries

Miss Electra Greene, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. R. C. Greene, became the charming bride of Mr. Artis O. Peavey, son of Mr. and Mrs. George Peavey, of Whistle Stop, Alabama.

Officiating at the colorful wedding rites was Dr. John W, Nixon, pastor of the First Congressional Church, while nuptial music was provided by the accomplished Mr. Lewis Jones.

Radiant Bride

The lovely bride was fetching in a forest-green ensemble, with amber accessories, mink trimmed off the face. She wore a brown felt hat, gloves and shoes to match, with a corsage of valley lillies.