by Fannie Flagg
Doc did not know it but Jimmy had already slipped a twenty-dollar bill into her coat pocket before she’d left. “A little spending money,” he had said.
Glory, Glory, Clear the Road
THE OTHER SET of parents that had to deal with being separated from their daughter that year was Minnie and Ferris Oatman. From the moment they had driven away and left her behind in Elmwood Springs they had been kept busy, rehearsing songs quietly with Beatrice all the way to Little Rock, and had been traveling ever since. They both missed Betty Raye terribly. Ferris worried that without his daily preaching and Bible readings she might wander off from the Lord and fall prey to the wicked ways of the world. Minnie, on the other hand, was more concerned that Betty Raye fit into her new life and try to be happy. Before she left she told Betty Raye not to pay too much attention to her daddy’s strict Pentecostal ideas. She said this in private.
Ferris would have a fit if he knew she was now wearing lipstick and had gone to a Ginger Rogers movie. But as Minnie said to Betty Raye on the phone, “Baby, what your daddy don’t know ain’t gonna hurt him one whit.”
Their lives had been changing almost as fast as Betty Raye’s, ever since that first night when they arrived in Little Rock for the all-night sing. By the time they got to the auditorium all the other groups were already there, dressed and ready. It was going to be a big night. The Spears, the Happy Goodmans, the Lester-Stamps Quartet, the John Daniels Quartet, the Melody Masters, the Dixie Boys, the Sunny South Quartet—groups from all over the country were backstage visiting before the show, happy to see one another again and catch up on heart attacks and gallbladder operations since they were last together. Also, they compared notes on who was having trouble with the IRS, a constant problem with gospel groups, who, it seems, were always being harassed by the tax people over income taxes.
It was only a half hour before the show started, so Minnie and Beatrice went straight to the dressing room while the boys got ready in the men’s dressing room downstairs. Floyd was in charge of the Oatman sound system and was busy getting it out of the car and ready to set up. The halls were buzzing with excitement, as they always were, and the auditorium was filling with hundreds of people. This all-star affair had the Oatmans in high cotton, as Minnie said. It was not a good night to break in a new member of the group. But it could not be helped. They had taken time to get Betty Raye to Elmwood Springs at least a few weeks before school started and they needed the money. Seventy-five dollars for an all-night sing was the highest they had ever been offered. They were to go on third, after the Dixie Boys. When the time came, Minnie led Beatrice and Honey to the wings and as Beatrice heard all the noise and excitement going on backstage as well as onstage she grabbed Minnie’s arm and squeezed. Minnie patted her hand. “Don’t be scared, darling, I’m right here with you.”
Beatrice said, “Oh, Minnie, I’m not scared—I just can’t wait to get out there.”
After the Dixie Boys had finished their last number, “Many Thrills and Joys Ago,” the audience continued to fill up, a lot of people arriving late because they knew the really good groups did not come out until after intermission. When Hovie Lister came out to announce the Oatmans, a few hundred were still wandering around looking for good seats.
A few looked up when the Oatmans walked out and were surprised to see a dog coming onstage with a little woman in a white dress wearing sunglasses. What was going on, they wondered. Minnie sat down, stared straight ahead like she always did, started tapping her foot, and when the spirit hit her, off she went into their first number, “Glory, Glory, Clear the Road.” Then something unexpected happened that surprised even the Oatmans. The sound coming out of the loudspeakers and wafting high across the auditorium was one they had never heard before.
Minnie knew at once they had something special. So did everyone else. Suddenly, the people in the audience that had been moving around shopping for seats stopped and sat down. Soon all the dressing rooms emptied as the other groups backstage started to gather in the wings to listen.
Beatrice singing alone was something. Minnie alone was something. Betty Raye’s voice had been soft and sweet but Beatrice’s clear and powerful soprano blended perfectly with Minnie’s equally powerful tenor. This sound, combined with Ferris’s deep bass and the two boys’ alto voices, was a sensation and set the audience wild. They stood up and clapped and cheered after each number. By the time they had finished their last song, “Sweeter as the Days Go By,” their appearance fee had gone up from $75 to $150, and they would never sing before the intermission again.
As one of the Dixie Boys remarked later, “Them Oatmans got themselves a gold mine in that little blind woman.” While Betty Raye was being given a new look and a new life, the Oatmans were getting a brand-new sound.
The only person who had not been totally amazed at this phenomenon was Minnie. As she always said and believed with all her heart, “God never shuts up one door till He slings open another!”
Jimmy and the Trolley Car Diner
AFTER ANNA LEE left for college, Dorothy was uneasy for a few days, until she received her phone call. Her mother knew she was all right and had arrived safely. Soon Dorothy was back to her old self again, happy to be busy with all the many details of getting Betty Raye enrolled in Elmwood Springs High School, making sure she had all the books and supplies she needed. They had had her tested a few weeks before and, to everyone’s surprise, she scored high enough to be entered as a senior. It really was going to be like having Anna Lee back. They would be going through another senior year all over again, with so many wonderful things to look forward to.
But poor Bobby was getting ready to slug through another year of the sixth grade. It had been quietly decided between his parents and his teacher, Miss Henderson, that since his grades last year had been so bad, particularly in math and English grammar, it would be best to hold him back a grade now and not let him get so far behind in the future that he would never catch up. Between having to repeat the grade and not being able to climb the water tower again this summer, Bobby was not very happy. Now the only thing he had to look forward to before the holidays came around again was a double feature each Saturday at the Elmwood Springs Theater and then over to the Trolley Car Diner afterward. That was something, at least.
The Trolley Car Diner was a small, round, white building with glass bricks along the side. After the movie, Bobby loved to sit on a stool at the counter in the front window and eat chili dogs, drink an Orange Crush, and watch the rest of the world go by. Jimmy would watch him sitting there swinging his feet and hitting the wall each time. This meant a lot more work for Jimmy, cleaning the scuff marks, but he never said a word. He got a big charge out of Bobby with all his tall tales and was always glad to see him come in. Being a boarder with the Smiths for so long, he’d begun to think of them as his family. He had long since given up hope of starting a family of his own. Although his limp was not very noticeable to other people, he was embarrassed about it and it prevented him from ever asking a girl out for a date, much less asking one to marry him.
He had joined the navy at sixteen and was twenty-five when the Second World War began. But for him the war ended the same day it had started. Sunday morning, December 7, 1941, he had been aboard the battleship Arizona. After that he spent years in and out of veterans hospitals, learning to walk again, but no one ever heard him complain. He had been luckier than most of his shipmates. He had just lost a leg; they had lost their lives. Jimmy had a steady and simple life that consisted of going to the diner every day, a week’s vacation once a year, which he spent up in St. Louis visiting some of his buddies at the V.A. hospital, and poker on Friday night at the VFW. He did not really need to work, with all the disability pay he got from the government, but the thought of not working never occurred to him.
When Betty Raye had first come to the house to live she had been shy but she’d liked him right away. He was not loud like the men in her family. She always felt anxious around most people,
afraid they were waiting for her to say something, but not Jimmy. He was quiet and sweet and easy to be around. And he liked her as well. Dorothy could tell by the little changes in his behavior. Ever since Betty Raye arrived he’d started wearing a clean white shirt to dinner every night. She also noticed that Jimmy often waited until Betty Raye left the porch, ashamed to get up in front of her. But Dorothy never said a word. Betty Raye did not know Jimmy had a wooden leg but if she had, it would not have mattered. She of all people knew what it was like to be different from the rest of the world around them.
They did not realize it but both were handicapped and afraid of life, only in different ways.
The Return of Ida Jenkins
AS MUCH AS poor Bobby dreaded repeating a grade, Norma dreaded her mother’s next visit even more. On September 21, Ida had returned from her museum tour in Washington and her National Federated Women’s Club meeting in Baltimore, and that afternoon was walking through her daughter’s new little house, offering a running commentary.
“I’m not sure about those curtains, Norma.”
“What’s the matter with them?”
Ida did not go into specifics. “I just wish you would have let your father and me hire a professional decorator like we wanted to.” She glanced around the room. “And where is your silver tea set?”
“In the closet.”
Ida looked at her daughter in disbelief. “Norma, you display your tea set, it should be out so people can see it. A tea set is the earmark of a gracious home.”
“Mother, I don’t have enough room to display a teacup, much less an entire tea set I’m never going to use.”
Ida sat down in the kitchen and took her gloves off. “I don’t know why you and Macky insisted on buying this place; it’s no bigger than a matchbox . . . and how you expect to entertain with no guest bathroom is beyond me.”
Norma poured her mother a cup of coffee. “I don’t expect to entertain and it’s all Macky and I could afford.”
Ida gave her a look. “I won’t say it but you know how I feel. We offered to buy you a bigger place.”
“Yes, Mother. How was your trip?”
“Wonderful . . . we heard the most enlightened talks from the most interesting women in all fields. Oh, I wish you would join the club, then you could have gone with me.”
The fact that Norma would not join any of her clubs was a constant source of pain for Ida. Norma said, “Mother, please don’t start up on that again,” and brought her some cream.
“All right, all right, that’s not what I came here to talk to you about anyway.” Ida looked at the small, plain white cream pitcher her daughter had put on the table. “Norma, where is the pretty pitcher with the hand-painted flowers that Gerta and Lodor bought you?”
“I broke it,” she lied.
“Well, don’t tell Gerta—tell her you’re saving it for special occasions.”
Ida suddenly noticed something different about the way Norma looked. “What in the world happened to your hair? Why is it all fuzzy like that?”
“Tot Whooten.”
“Say no more.”
Norma sat down at the table. “What was it that you wanted to talk to me about?”
“What?”
“You said you wanted to talk to me about something?”
“Oh yes. Now, Norma, I want you to know that I have thought about this a great deal. Now that you are grown and married, it’s time we had a woman-to-woman talk. After all, you’re my daughter and you should benefit from what little wisdom I have gained over the years. After many years of careful observation, I have come to a conclusion.” Norma waited while Ida paused for effect as she always did when she was stating one of her ten thousand conclusions. “Norma, women are simply going to have to take over this world and that’s all there is to it. All men want to do is start wars and show off in front of each other.” She leaned over and looked out the window to make sure that no man was around to hear. “I am beginning to think that most of them don’t get past age twelve—not your daddy, of course, thank God; he is a sensible and adult man but if I hadn’t been around, who knows? Men are just like gardens. You have to tend to them every day or they just can go to seed. It’s a sad fact that I have had to learn the hard way. Men without women to guide them lose all their training.”
Norma looked somewhat skeptical.
“Norma, it’s the truth. Look at what happened in the American West. Now that is how men act if you let them, never bathing, always shooting Indians and buffaloes and one another, drinking and gambling and I don’t know what all. It wasn’t until decent, respectable women went west that they straightened up and started behaving themselves. And don’t forget—it’s the men that stir up all the mischief in this world. Let me ask you this . . . if women were in charge of everything, do you think we would have so many fatherless little orphans in this world? You know, the male lion even eats his young if the mother is not careful.”
“Mother, what do lions have to do with anything?”
“It proves my point. Norma, you have to watch them every minute or they will revert back to jungle ways.”
“Oh, Mother, Daddy is not like that.”
“I know he isn’t now—not when he’s with us—but I hate to disillusion you, my girl: no matter how well-bred they may be or how nice they may act in polite society, you put a group of men alone in a cabin for a week and if you think they bother to use their napkins or set the table or even have the courtesy to shave, you are sadly mistaken. Now, I’m not saying they can help it, all I am saying is that in order for this world to keep on progressing the women have got to run things. The trick is to do it without them knowing it.”
After her mother left she dialed the hardware store. When he picked up she said, “Macky, will you promise me one thing?”
“What?”
“If I ever start acting like my mother, will you just take out a gun and shoot me?”
The Shy Senior
WHEN BETTY RAYE had started her senior year at Elmwood Springs as the new girl in school, she had naturally attracted a lot of attention. Also having been a gospel singer, she had been quite an oddity for the first couple of weeks but after the initial curiosity about her had worn off she’d more or less faded into the background. It would have been difficult for anybody entering into a class where most of the students had been together since the first grade to fit in but it was doubly hard for Betty Raye. She certainly did not stand out in a crowd and the boys her age were most definitely not interested in this thin, rather plain girl wearing blue plastic glasses. Some of the girls tried their best to bring her into the conversation at lunch or invite her to the drugstore for a soda, but she was so shy she never said much of anything. After a while they gave up. They figured she did not have much of a personality or was probably some sort of religious nut. They did not dislike her—they just stopped trying to get to know her. So Betty Raye did not go anywhere except to school and back and sometimes to a movie with the family but that was really fine with her. She was happy just to come home and Dorothy was glad to have her. In fact, she was a big help. Dorothy received hundreds of letters a week and Betty Raye helped her sort them out and put her recipe letters in one pile, her requests and announcements in another. Betty Raye also helped Bobby, only Dorothy did not know about that. Sometimes when he could not figure out his math or English problems he would sneak over to her room and she would do them for him. Mother Smith, who loved to play cards, was teaching Betty Raye how to play and was amazed at how quickly she learned. After a few days a pleased Mother Smith confided to Dorothy, “That girl is a natural-born card sharp. I wouldn’t be surprised if she was playing bridge by the end of the week.”
Everything seemed to be going along smoothly until one day in early November.
Dorothy was at the A&P picking out some russet potatoes when Pauline Tuttle, the high school English teacher, a tall woman without much of a chin, came in the door. She spotted Dorothy and came right over and asked in a
loud voice, “Well, how is our Anna Lee doing? Have you heard from her?”
“She’s just fine, Pauline. She says she’s doing so well and apparently loves it up there.”
“I knew she would. I always said if anyone succeeds in this world, it will be Anna Lee Smith.”
“I’ll tell her you asked about her.”
“Of all the students I have had she was one of my smartest girls—straight A’s and so pretty.”
“Thank you, I appreciate that. And how is my little boarder Betty Raye doing?”
Pauline suddenly frowned and picked up a paper sack. “I was going to call you and talk to you about that, Dorothy. I’m afraid we have a serious problem.”
Dorothy was alarmed. “What is it?”
“She does well with her paperwork but it’s in classroom participation where she falls down. She never raises her hand and when I do call on her she just mumbles and says she doesn’t know the answer.” Pauline picked up a potato and looked at it. “When I know full well she does. She just will not speak up. I hate to be the bearer of bad news, Dorothy, but the girl has absolutely no verbal skills whatsoever!” She then threw a large red tomato in her bag to emphasize the point. “The few times I did call on her to recite I thought she was going to faint dead away, so I just don’t call on her anymore.”
“Oh dear, that’s not good,” said Dorothy.
“No, it is not good.”
Miss Tuttle threw an onion in the same sack. “That little girl is never going to amount to anything in this world if she does not learn to assert herself and she most certainly will not be making the grades she should be making.”
“We knew she was a little timid.”
“Dangerously so, and if we don’t nip this in the bud right here and now, her entire future may be at stake. She may be left behind forever.”
Now Dorothy was truly alarmed. “Oh dear. What can we do?”
“I was thinking she should join the Drama Club as soon as possible. Maybe Miss Hatcher can do something with her, teach her to express herself, speak up, speak out. It may be her only hope.” She picked up a head of lettuce, weighed it in her hand, and put it back down. “It’s so hard to fix dinner for just one. You can’t buy a half a head of lettuce. You’re lucky you have a big family to cook for. If you want me to talk to Betty Raye, I will.”