by Fannie Flagg
Vita was a completely self-made woman. After finishing high school she had left Kansas City for Chicago and immediately got a job at Illinois By-Products, a company with about seven hundred employees. Over a period of three years she had worked her way up from the secretarial pool to one of five secretaries to private secretary to executive secretary. Two years later she was made personal assistant to the president of the company, with two secretaries of her own. The president and owner of the company, Robert Porter and his wife, Elsie, had no children of their own and they took an interest in the intelligent and ambitious young woman. They often invited her to join them at their home for dinner or at one of their clubs. Vita was a fast study. She quickly learned how to dress, how to use the right knife and fork. At night she studied art, music, and history. When she met the people the Porters introduced her to, she soon became a frequent guest in the beautiful residences along Lake Shore Drive. Vita felt that she was finally mingling with the kinds of people she should have been around all her life. The “by-products” of the company were a delightful little mixture of iron ore, copper, and steel, and with Mr. Porter’s help, by the time she was twenty-eight she had already made a small fortune buying and selling World War II surplus scrap iron. Not a romantic product but when Mr. Porter died and left her even more stocks than she’d bought, scrap and iron became her two favorite words.
She had never married. There was no Mr. Green. When she had moved back to Kansas City, the creation of Mr. Green had been her own little private joke. She’d even named him after the color of money. There had been men, rich powerful men, but none she was willing to marry. She was already rich and very happy. She liked the life she led. She enjoyed coming into that spacious beige apartment, filled with her lovely things, sitting on top of the city where she had once been poor and unhappy. When she looked back on her life, she was grateful, in a way, and wondered if she would have enjoyed it quite as much if the money had been handed to her on a silver platter. She had worked for every dime she had. Granted, it had not been easy for a woman in business in a man’s world but from where she sat now it had been worth it. She now had everything she wanted—including Hamm Sparks. There was something so wonderfully freeing about completely surrendering herself to him without reservation. It was those moments when she let go and allowed herself to flow and meld into him, that moment when she could no longer tell where she stopped and he began, that made her happier than she had been for a long time. This little fireplug lover of hers ate fast, walked fast, talked fast, and made love fast. She loved the way he was always ready, always full of energy and speed, like a car that could go from five miles an hour to seventy in less than five seconds. She could depend on him, count on never having to have a second thought wondering if he wanted her. Being with Hamm was like watching a starving man devour a huge meal and still manage to love every bite, no more, no less than the last time. And for a woman of a certain age, it was the kind of thing that kept a secret smile on her face and a hum in her body. But most of all she loved the way he was coming to trust her and depend on her.
Hamm had also found a person he could talk to, a woman who would not laugh at him or look down on where he had come from or think any of his ambitions were too much to try for. On the contrary, Vita had almost more ambition for him than he could have ever dreamed for himself. To his great surprise, he had discovered that Vita knew more about the working of politics inside and out than he did. For a while before her father fell apart completely, he had been involved in local politics and was one of old Boss Pendergast’s men during the twenties and thirties, when Kansas City politics had been a hotbed of greed, graft, and good times. Until Pendergast went to jail. But during that time, although she was only twelve or thirteen years old, she had also learned where a lot of the bodies were buried, so to speak, due to her father’s inability to keep his mouth shut when he had a snootful, which was often.
After she had been with Hamm a year, she decided to pay a visit to one of her father’s old friends, Earl Finley. He had known Vita when she was a little girl and had always been very fond of her. He knew she had been a large donor to Peter Wheeler’s campaign and he was very happy to see her after all these years, and catch up on old times. After a while, Vita steered the conversation around to Hamm. At the mention of his name, Earl practically bit the white plastic tip off his White Owl cigar. “Don’t blame us for that, Vita, we tried our best to stop him. But the little redneck son of a bitch slipped right past us and now this stupid hayseed is thumbing his nose at us and won’t listen to a word we say.”
Vita said, “Earl, I think you may be wrong about Hamm. He might be stubborn but he’s not stupid. I think he understands he can’t fight you and the senate at the same time. Call off the dogs and quit blocking every move he makes and I’ll give you my word he’ll push a few things through you want.”
He chewed on his cigar for a moment and blinked his eyes a few times, wondering what she meant. “Aw now, Vita, how can you be sure what that little maverick son of a bitch will do? He’s never done anything we wanted him to yet.”
She answered him with a smile that said everything.
He looked at her and said, “You don’t mean it.”
“Oh yes,” she said. “You better believe I do.”
Then, after a moment, he started to laugh from the bottom of his big gut until it came out and filled the room and shook the table where they were sitting. When he’d calmed down long enough to speak, he wiped his eyes with his pocket handkerchief with the E.F. embroidered on it and said, “Hell, Vita, let me see what I can do.”
Suddenly Hamm’s $150 million road-improvement bond, stalemated for almost three years, passed both houses, and Earl got a few little things he wanted. But not many; Vita made sure of that. As she wisely told Hamm, “Darling, there are some people in this world that are either at your throat or at your feet. Best to keep him at your feet.”
Hamm Moves Up
AT FIRST Hamm had not wanted to meet many of Vita’s friends or go to parties for the arts. He had resisted but Vita knew it would be good for him personally and politically.
“Look, Vita,” he said, “I just wouldn’t feel right around them.”
“Why not? My friends are very nice. They give a lot of money. Why wouldn’t you go?”
“Because I don’t want to be around people always looking down their noses at me, thinking I’m dumb.”
“Hamm, you are the governor of the state. Nobody is going to think you are dumb.”
“It doesn’t matter what I’m the governor of, I know what they think. I used to see that same bunch when I was in college, driving around campus in their fancy cars, joining their fancy fraternities. The only way I got in the doors of a fraternity house was as a waiter. I hated every one of those pompous, egg-sucking bastards. I wanted an education and a degree as bad as the next man, only I didn’t have a rich daddy to pay my bills and I had to drop out. I never got a degree in anything except how to sell tractors. How could I talk to that crowd you run with?”
“Is that what’s bothering you? You know just because someone has a degree does not make them smarter or more interesting. Hamm, look where you are, how smart you are about knowing what people want. Most of those boys you knew in college would change places with you in a second.”
“Do you think so?”
“Hamm, you don’t need a degree to prove how smart you are.”
He admitted something to her. “It’s not just the degree, Vita. It’s everything else. Those rich kids learned how to socialize with each other, how to act at parties. They had four years to do nothing but make friends and find out who they were. I envy them that; I’ve been working since I was thirteen years old. We never had any social life. . . . Oh hell, Vita, the truth is I’m scared. I’ll say the wrong thing or use the wrong fork. I feel more comfortable being around Rodney and them. I know they’re not gonna laugh at me. They don’t know any better themselves.”
She shook her head. “Hon
ey, you are the hardest person to kick upstairs I ever met. But I am determined to do it.”
Hamm continued to resist but Vita was persistent. He said he’d make a rare appearance now and then.
A month later Vita was at her apartment waiting for him. He came in looking very pleased. He sat down and loosened his tie and put his feet up on her coffee table. “Well, how did I do?”
“You were wonderful and everybody there adored you. People came up to me all night and told me how charming they thought the governor was and how handsome he was in person.”
“Is that so?” he said, taking the drink she handed him.
“Yes. I was very proud of you.”
“You didn’t think I was too loud or anything?”
“No.”
“I didn’t look stupid in this monkey suit? People weren’t laughing at me, were they?”
“Not a one.”
“You know, Vita, I have to say I was a little surprised. Once you get to know him, that Pete Wheeler is a pretty regular guy, isn’t he? I’m kinda sorry now I said all those things about him.”
“I’m glad you liked him. He really is a fine person. So is his wife.”
“Do you know what he said to me, Vita?”
“No, what?”
“He said that he envied me my ability to connect with people. He said he wished he had not been handed everything, could have been a workingman like me, and been given the chance to make good on his own, like I had.” He looked at her in wonderment. “Can you imagine that—here I’ve been jealous of him and all the time he envied me.”
She could have said I told you so but she enjoyed too much watching him discover things on his own.
Sometime later, Rodney, who rarely had anything to do except be on hand whenever Hamm wanted company, came strolling into the attorney general’s office. Wendell Hewitt glanced up from the work on his desk and said, “Come in and close the door, I need to talk to you.”
Rodney sat down. “What’s up?”
“You know, we’re the only two he’ll listen to and he depends on us to tell him the truth and, frankly, I’m a little worried about him and I think we both should sit him down and talk to him.”
“About what?”
“All this running back and forth to all those parties. I think he is beginning to enjoy this high life a little too much, all this getting written up in the society pages. If he’s not careful, he’s gonna get the people who voted for him riled up.”
Rodney waved his hand and dismissed the idea. “Oh, don’t worry about that. No matter how many new suits he gets or who he rubs shoulders with, they know underneath it all he’s one of them.”
“Do you think so?”
“Hell yes. Listen, those country people have some secret way of recognizing one another that you and I don’t know anything about. And you can’t fool them. They can smell a phony a mile away.”
“Really?”
“Oh yeah—don’t forget, I’ve known him for a long time. I’ve seen him with those people and first of all, he is one of them, and second, he likes them, he understands how they think, and what they want, and believe me, if he didn’t like them, hell, love them even, they would know it. Right now they believe he’ll stand up for them but, most importantly, he believes he will fight for them, even against us.”
“Do you think he would?”
“You bet. He means all that stuff about how there are no little men. It’s not just a come-on with him and it’s just what they want to hear. He knows where they itch and how to scratch it. Now, you or I couldn’t get away with it but they’ll stick with him through thick and thin—and he knows not to go too far.”
“You sure? I think he’s mighty close myself.”
“Naw . . . all those people have some invisible line. If you cross it, brother, watch out. They are done with you forever. But Hamm knows just where that line is. It’s like a dog whistle that only other dogs can hear.”
But despite Rodney’s lack of concern, there were a few rumblings about Hamm and some people did start to notice he was changing. Several editorials and column mentions popped up here and there. Some said he was spending too much time with the elite and not looking after the ones who voted him into office. But as Rodney had said, Hamm knew just when to say what and just how to say it. In his last big television address to the state before he was to go to New York for the National Governors Convention he ended his remarks with a slight little chuckle.
“You know, folks, it seems you just can’t please everybody. Some people complain that I’ve been hobnobbing with the rich too much lately and I agree, but let me ask you this. How am I supposed to keep my eye on them and make sure they’re not stealing from you if I don’t hobnob a little? Some say that I’m beginning to look like Lady Astor’s pet goat with my new fluffed-up haircut and button-down collars. I don’t like it any more than you do but now, I can’t help what’s in fashion; all I can do is make sure that nobody up there in New York is ever going to say that the governor of the great state of Missouri is a hick and he doesn’t know how to dress. Not while I’m in office. Why, I’ll wear a necklace with pearls if that’s what it takes. And the way things are going, next year I just might be doing that.”
The cameramen in the studio cracked up and so did most everybody listening and all was smooth again.
Electricity
HAMM SPARKS WAS not the only one headed for New York that year. When she was four years old Norma Warren’s cousin Dena Nordstrom had left town with her mother, Marion Nordstrom, and the Warrens had not seen her since. Dena was working in television in New York and was now a very successful TV journalist and Norma decided that it was time that she and Macky went up to New York and paid her a visit. After Dena’s grandmother Gerta died, Norma felt she needed to make sure that some family kept in touch with Dena. The morning they were to leave, Aunt Elner was in her kitchen frying some bacon when the phone rang. She picked up the phone, wondering who was calling this early.
“Hello.”
“Aunt Elner, it’s me, Norma.”
Elner was surprised to hear her voice. “Are you there already? That was fast—”
“No, we’re still at the airport—”
“Oh.”
“Aunt Elner . . . do me a favor and go look out your bedroom window and see if you see any smoke.”
“Wait a minute.” Elner clanked the phone down on the telephone table. She came back in a moment. “No. No smoke.”
“Are you sure? Did you look toward our house?”
“Yes.”
“And there was no smoke?”
“No.”
“Are you sure? Did you smell any smoke? Go take another look, will you?”
“Hold on.”
After a silence, “Nope, the sky is as clear as a bell.”
“You haven’t heard any fire engines, have you?”
“Why?”
“Because I think I may have walked out and left the coffeepot on. I could just kill Macky. He rushed me, so now I can’t remember whether I turned it off or not. I don’t know why he thinks we have to get to the airport two and a half hours before the flight—we left in such a hurry, God knows if I remembered to do anything, much less turn off the coffeepot. I am a nervous wreck.”
“I’m sure you did, honey. If I know you, you probably washed it before you left.”
“All right, Macky! Aunt Elner, do me a favor. Call Verbena at work. She has a key to the back door. Ask her if she will come over there and see if I unplugged it and if I didn’t, to unplug it.”
“All right.”
“I tried to call her at home but she had already left and I have to get on this plane in one minute; that’s all I need is to have my house burn to the ground. . . . ALL RIGHT, MACKY. . . . He’s yelling for me, so I have to go.”
“Don’t worry, I’ll take care of it. You run on and don’t worry about a thing. Just put your mind at ease. I’ve left my coffeepot on all day and night and I’m not burned up ye
t.”
“Thanks, Aunt Elner. . . . All right, Macky. I’ve gotta run, I’ll call you when I get there. ’Bye.”
Aunt Elner put the phone down and went back in the kitchen. After she had finished her breakfast, she went into the living room and sat down at her telephone table and used the magnifying glass she kept by the phone book and looked in the Yellow Pages for the number to Blue Ribbon Cleaners. Then she dialed.
“Verbena, it’s Elner. Norma just called from the airport about her coffeepot. . . . Yes, again. I tell you if it’s not the coffeepot, it’s the iron. Anyway, she said for me to call you, so I’m calling you. I’ve never seen a person so nervous about electricity in my life. Whenever there’s a thunderstorm, she runs through the house like a chicken with her head cut off and unplugs everything, puts on her rubber shoes, and sits in the dark. Can you imagine? I guess she thinks lightning won’t hit her if she’s in rubber shoes. Somebody told her about that boy over in Poplar Bluff that got hit by lightning. You remember, Claire Hightower’s nephew. He was that little sissy boy who was the tap dancer. Anyway, he was running home to his momma one day after his lesson and forgot to change his shoes and got hit by lightning, bang, right in the taps. Knocked him twenty feet in the air. It was in all the papers, but you know, Claire says he had curly hair after that. It used to be straight as a stick until he got hit. She says he never was the same afterward. He never did marry, so we just don’t know what kind of damage it caused. Anyhow, when you get home tonight, go over there so I can tell her that her house hasn’t burned down to the ground. We can say we checked. Well, you take care now.”
At 5:28 Aunt Elner’s phone rang.
“Hello.”
“Elner, it wasn’t on, it was washed out and in the dishwasher.”
“What I figured.”
“But it’s a good thing I went over, because she had left the back door wide open and two of those old dogs that Macky feeds were flopped up on the sofa in the living room.”