by Fannie Flagg
Momma took me to the doctor again today, but I was just overheated because Daddy made me push the car a couple of blocks.
Life is not much fun. Momma is watching me like a hawk. She has taken me to the doctor four times this past month thinking I have polio. She won’t let me go swimming or to the movies and she won’t even let me eat a Popsicle because someone told her that the little colored boys take the wrappers off and lick them before they sell them.
Daddy sneaked me a grape Popsicle the other day, but it turned my lips purple and she found out. That’s what you get when you have fair skin.
Grandmother Pettibone’s neighbor’s little boy got polio and is in an iron lung. His daddy had his head chopped off by the Japanese in the war. I can’t do my imitation of the little crippled match girl anymore. I better not get polio. My momma would have a fit.
Daddy had to promise Momma he would stop drinking so much after he got drunk at work and put the movie on backwards. Now all Daddy drinks is Hadacol to build up his blood. He drinks it all day. I don’t know how he can stand it It tastes like swamp water. I hope Daddy gets his $500 soon, and we can move.
I hate Rose Mary Salvage. She stole my best friend, Jennifer May, by telling her she had a lot of information about the facts of life. I ask you just how much can you know in the fifth grade, even if you are an Italian?
As for me, Momma says for me not to listen to any facts of life and if I do hear some not to believe them. Besides, I am not interested after seeing those kittens born. I think I’d be better off not knowing.
I ran into my Granddaddy Harper downtown the other day. He was standing in front of the pawnshop, talking to some of his friends. When he saw me, he called me over and asked me how I was and gave me $5. When he saw Daddy come around the corner, he just looked at him and said, “Nuts to you, bub,” and went on down the street.
I bought myself a Davy Crockett hat and a Gorgeous George paper doll book and a lot of jewelry from Woolworth’s.
Momma says she is convinced I have Indian blood because I like colored beads so much, but I think I get it from my Grandmother Pettibone. She has tons of colored beads. I would give anything to have her yellow crystal beads and her multicolored stone earrings.
Grandma Harper has two green bottles shaped like women with black hair painted on their heads and a yellow glass colored captain’s hat that she keeps her face powder in that I want, too, and a picture of a naked girl in a swing, swinging way up in the air over castles in a blue sky.
I don’t know why I want those things. I just do.
May 6, 1952
Last night was the night of the biggest bingo game in town. The East Lake VFW was giving away $500 for the jackpot. Momma was a nervous wreck all day. Daddy was trying to figure out a way to cheat and was making fake bingo cards in the basement. She kept telling him there was no way to cheat at bingo and even if there was, she wouldn’t do it, because she was the mother of a small child and had no intentions of going to jail in disgrace.
Finally, Momma sent him over to the Wagon Wheel to have a few beers. That was the first time she ever told him to go for a drink. He was out the door in jig time, then she grabbed me and braided my hair so tight I had a headache.
She wouldn’t let me pull the cord on the streetcar, even though we were an hour early. She took me to the Rexall and bought me a June Allyson and Van Johnson coloring book, a Little Audrey comic book and a Casper the Friendly Ghost coloring book, so I would be plenty busy and leave her alone.
The East Lake VFW Bingo Hall has big blue neon VFW letters out front and hundreds of yellow faded pictures of soldiers all over the wall, and lots of flags. They are very patriotic. Everybody was at the bingo game early, trying to get a good seat.
The Catholic women showed up and some people from the American Legion bingo parties came and they don’t even like the VFW people. We got a seat and saved Grandma a bingo table. Everybody was carrying on about what they were going to do with that $500 if they won it.
Snookie, the most famous bingo caller in Jackson, was there in his Cootie uniform with his stupid hat with the tassels on and was walking all over the room shaking hands with everyone. People thought he called the numbers too fast, but they were all sweet to him, trying to butter him up.
Snookie’s organization with the VFW is called the Cooties because their job in the war had been to travel in boxcars with mules and they caught cooties from the mules. I sure wouldn’t have told anyone I was a Cootie.
When the bar opened up, all the poor husbands, drug there by their wives, rushed in to get their beer. Momma was dressed up in her aqua wool dress with the accordion sleeves. I thought it was a terrible outfit for playing bingo and I told her so.
She gave me fifty cents to go over and buy Mr. Bill a drink. Mr. Bill is great. Every week he’s at the bar with a baseball cap on. He is a veteran of three wars: the Spanish-American, World War One and Two. He is real old and has no teeth and will tip his cap when you give him money. I like to see him eat potato chips. Boy, is that a mess. He was just getting ready to eat some when my Grandma Pettibone came in the door.
The whole VFW hall got quiet. They were scared of her because she was on a winning streak and could play seventeen cards at once. She was wearing her lucky blue and white polka-dotted dress and her multicolored jeweled earrings.
She must have gone over to Bootie’s Beauty Shop that day because her hair was bright purple. Her two friends Ollie Meeks and Pearl Tatum were with her. They are the three most feared bingo players in the state of Mississippi and even play penny bingo in the daytime just to keep sharp. I know ’cause I’ve been there. One of the reasons my Grandpa Pettibone left was because he said those old women used to scare his chickens to death yelling, “Bingo.”
When Momma saw Grandma, she said, “Mother, you know I hate your hair purple!”
Grandma said, “It is not purple, it is bluish gray and I have the box top to prove it, miss,” and pulled it out from her purse and gave it to Momma.
Momma didn’t say anything else. I love it when Grandma fusses at Momma, but Grandma’s hair was purple. She had two round circles of powdered rouge on her cheeks and a little dot of lipstick on her lips. Her hair is so thin you can see right through it in the light. Sometimes she lets me play with the fat on her arms during the nickel games. I don’t think she looked like a Shriner clown, no matter what Momma said.
Momma never could get anywhere with Grandma. Momma told me I was lucky to be her granddaughter and not her daughter.
When the official games were about to start, Grandma sent me up to look at the wooden bingo balls in the cage and tell her what numbers looked the best and for me to be real sweet to Snookie. Ugh!
He never took that smelly old cigar out of his mouth the whole time he was telling me how lucky I was to be the granddaughter of Leona Pettibone and would I be a sweet girl and draw the lucky number for the door prize later. I told Grandma that I 29 looked good to me and she got seventeen cards with I 29 on them.
Just then my Aunt Bess came in the door with some old railroad men friends of hers and hollered at Grandma, “Hey, Leona, what you gonna do with that five hundred dollars, girl?”
Grandma pretended she didn’t know her. She doesn’t like Aunt Bess to come around her friends.
One time three days before Christmas, Grandma was downtown when somebody she knew saw her and said, “Leona, come up to the toy department and look at this crazy drunk woman who’s sitting on Santa’s lap, getting her picture made.” Grandma turned on her heels and marched right out of the ladies’ lingerie department. She knew it was Bess because Bess gets drunk and has her picture made with Santa Claus every year.
Bess never comes to the bingo game much and I was glad to see her. Besides, she gave me a present, a little colored baby doll. She’d put mustard in its diaper as a joke. Momma thought it was sickening, but I like jokes.
Aunt Bess knew she couldn’t have any fun with Momma and Grandma when they were in their bing
o moods, so she went on over to the bar to have a good time with Mr. Bill and her friends. Momma wouldn’t let me go with Aunt Bess. Instead, she told me to shut up and sit down and color my books, but I had to go to the bathroom. Momma made me promise not to sit on the seats because all the old ladies peed on them.
I tried and tried not to sit down, but my legs started to shake and wouldn’t you know it, I sat right down on the seat by mistake and got the back of my dress wet.
There must have been twenty old ladies who came in and every one of them pinched my cheek and asked if I was having fun. When my dress dried off a little, I went back to Momma’s table and sat down fast.
The games started. I colored my June Allyson and Van Johnson coloring book and read my Little Audrey comic book, but I couldn’t concentrate. Those wooden balls rattling in that cage make a lot of noise. I tried to color Casper the Friendly Ghost, but how many colors can you color a ghost? Snookie told everyone to be ready because after the next game for $10, the big jackpot was coming up. Everyone started getting nervous, and I had to buy Momma and Grandma Coca-Colas and cheese crackers.
Almost nobody played that game. They all headed for the bathroom. Grandma’s friend Pearl Tatum won the $10. She was mad about it because she said she used up her good luck for just $10. Grandma told her not to be upset. She might win again, but Pearl said, “Lightning doesn’t strike twice,” and asked Grandma if she would play her cards for her in the jackpot game.
That meant Grandma would have to play thirty-two cards at one time. Grandma thought about it and said she would, but if she did bingo on Pearl’s card, Pearl would have to give her half. They set up all the cards on one table. Momma told her not to try it, but Grandma never listens to Momma. She told her to worry about her own cards.
Grandma had to stand up to play. The game started. Grandma was going great guns. You should have seen her. She was smoking her Camel cigarette, and Pearl Tatum was handing her those red bingo chips just like they were bobby pins at the beauty parlor. She was doing great, up until Snookie called the number I 29, that Grandma had on twenty-four of her cards.
When Snookie called the next number, B 3, Grandma hadn’t finished covering all her I 29s and she and Pearl Tatum and Ollie Meeks started hollering at Snookie to slow down.
The other women sitting around them screamed at them to shut up because they couldn’t hear the numbers being called. But Grandma, Pearl and Ollie kept screaming for Snookie to slow down. The other women got madder and madder, and pretty soon this Italian woman called Ollie Meeks an old bat.
Ollie ran over to her table and knocked all the bingo chips off the woman’s card. Then the Italian woman’s friend got mad and threw a handful of vanilla wafers at Grandma. Pearl Tatum knocked them away like they were Ping-Pong balls. It was great. All the Italian women started screaming, and Pearl Tatum got mad and threw down her bingo chips, took her Coca-Cola bottle and shook it up and spewed the whole table right down the line.
Meantime, people were pulling for their numbers all over the room, “I need N thirty-two,” or whatever number they needed.
Grandma hadn’t missed a beat. She still was going strong when one of those women hit her in the head with a piece of fruitcake. It was at that moment that someone in the room yelled, “Bingo!”
Everybody turned around and it was MY MOMMA! She bingoed on I 69 and hit the jackpot. Aunt Bess whooped and knocked Mr. Bill right off the barstool. It took seven of those VFW men to hold back the Italian women from killing Grandma and Ollie Meeks and Pearl Tatum. All I could think was: We are on our way to Shell Beach!
May 19, 1952
Momma almost didn’t give Daddy the money after she had won. She was still scared to death to go off with Daddy even though he promised that if she would give him the money to put down on that shop, he would not drink on holidays and not look at any other women. It was just what he had been waiting for, a chance to be his own boss and quit running movies. He might even join the Lions Club. He promised her the moon.
I told her I would stop singing like Mario Lanza, which was hard because it was still my best imitation.
Daddy said for her not to think of how he had acted in the past, but to think of our new life just like Coming Attractions in the movies.
She finally said yes. We are leaving in three days. Boy, did I get Rose Mary Salvage and Jennifer May! I told them that I was moving to Russia to be a spy and for them not to write me. Imagine how surprised they will be when I come back to Jackson in my mink coat, the wealthy daughter of a very successful businessman.
Daddy and I had fun his last night as a motion picture operator. I stayed in the booth with him and we broke eighty-three intermission records over our heads. I ate five Mr. Goodbars and a Baby Ruth.
Momma, who was in the audience, was embarrassed. Nobody enjoyed the movie, Johnny Belinda, which had a lot of silent parts in it, because of the noise we made. When Daddy missed his changeover and the audience started clapping, she clapped right along with them. She didn’t want anyone to know she was related to the operator. I myself remained loyal and leaned over the balcony and screamed, “Shut up.” After all, it was only a four-minute wait. Some people have disgusting habits.
Felix, plus two of her kittens, and Lassie are going to Shell Beach with us.
We are driving down in our Crosley car. It is real little and Momma hates it. She says she feels like she is riding in a washing machine.
I’m going to name my pony Trigger, or Helen if it is a girl.
May 29, 1952
I am in Shell Beach, Mississippi, almost 300 miles from Jackson. Wow! We have been here a week and a lot has happened. The trip down was great. I saw real cotton growing and cows and read Burma Shave signs and there were rednecks all along the side of the road. Momma says I have white trash blood on my father’s side, but I don’t believe it.
The trip took about nine hours. We had to keep stopping for Lassie and Felix and her kittens to go to the bathroom and Felix ran away in a field once. Momma cried all the way and wouldn’t even eat her bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwich.
We met Jimmy Snow at a filling station ten miles from the beach and he gave Daddy the key to the malt shop and wished him good luck. He sure is funny-looking. He has snow white hair and snow white eyebrows and he isn’t even old. He said he would be down and see us later.
At about four-thirty in the afternoon we reached Shell Beach and it is the most beautiful place I have ever seen. The beach has sand white as flour and the water is green and clear, not like the Pearl River at all. There is not a tree anywhere.
Daddy’s place is located at the end of the road that goes straight to the beach. Even I can tell it is a prime location. It is across the street from a dance hall called the Little Casino. Daddy got the key out and opened the door.
The malt shop is terrific. It has six booths, made out of lime green plastic, and six tables and chairs to match, and you can see the Gulf of Mexico right out the window. It has a kitchen and a jukebox with pink and green lights and red buttons that I get to play free.
We couldn’t tell much about the floor because the place was closed all winter and it had about two feet of sand in it. Daddy said we could clean that up in jig time. However, it took us four days. Sand can fool you. We are living in the back of the malt shop, which is one large room with a sun porch. Daddy is turning the sun porch into a bedroom for me. The malt shop is made of green asbestos and has a big picture window in the front.
Our very first visitors were the Romeos, who live up the road and have an Italian restaurant and about eight summer cottages. They have a son named Michael, who is visiting his cousins in Jackson and will be back home in about two weeks. Mrs. Romeo said the only other person down here my age is a girl named Kay Bob Benson.
The Romeos were very nice and helpful. They told us about the money prospects of Shell Beach. Mr. Romeo said there were only three months a year that you could make money: June, July and August. The rest of the year nobody ever comes
down here. There are only about fifteen people who live in Shell Beach year round. Even in the summer there aren’t that many people because everybody wants to go to Florida. The main highway to Florida bypasses Shell Beach by thirty miles.
Momma looked at Daddy like she could kill him when she heard that one.
Most of the people who come to Shell Beach are from Hattiesburg. Mr. Romeo said we would learn to hate people from Hattiesburg fast. If you own an eating establishment, they are the worst form of humanity alive because they come to the beach on Saturdays and Sundays by the carloads and bring their own lunches. If they rent a cottage, they bring their own groceries.
My daddy is not a man to let little things upset him. He looked upon this news as a challenge, but Momma is worried. She told Daddy he should have known all this before we moved.
Later we sat down and figured out a plan to turn our business into a profit-making organization. The first thing we did was to decide on a name for the place. We settled on Harper’s Malt Shop and ordered a big pink neon sign with a big blue neon arrow pointing to the door.
One of the things Daddy told Momma in order to get her to marry him was that one day he would put her name up in lights. I don’t think Harper’s Malt Shop is what Momma had in mind. Daddy barely got Momma to marry him. She thought he was ugly, too little and skinny, but he wouldn’t leave her alone. He wrote her poems and when she said she didn’t want to marry him, he cried and carried on so, everybody felt sorry for him. He would spend all night hollering on her front porch.
Her mother said she better marry him because he wasn’t going to leave. I’m sure glad she said yes. Look at all the free movies I’ve seen, not to mention getting to live on the beach.
Daddy and I have been working to get ready to open. We changed the names over the bathroom doors from “Men” and “Women” to “Buoys” and “Gulls.” We also painted a lot of signs that say “Harper’s Malt Shop and Delicatessen.” He and Momma argued a lot about the word “delicatessen.” She said it was a Yankee word and nobody in Mississippi knew what it meant, including her.