by Fannie Flagg
Suddenly Betty Raye had to take a good hard look at what was really going on in the state. Paving roads and promoting business and building bridges was fine but she began to see a lot of little things that were wrong that Hamm had been too busy to be bothered with. She began to read all the letters addressed to the governor from women all across the state, letters that previously had always been answered by someone in Wendell’s office. Betty Raye found herself being touched and deeply moved by the real problems she read about. Women whose husbands had either died or left them, with no way of making a living. Some had even had to give up their children. Old women who had worked all their lives and had wound up penniless and without a place to go. Hundreds of letters came pouring in, their writers hoping that because she was a woman she would understand, letters they would never have written to another politician.
Betty Raye had always signed papers and done everything from upstairs. But now there were so many to sign it was getting harder to do. One morning she walked into the governor’s office, and for the first time sat down behind Hamm’s desk and pushed a button she hoped was the right one.
Someone she did not know answered and said loudly, “Yes?”
Betty Raye jumped back.
“Yes,” he said again.
She then leaned forward and asked in a small, apologetic voice, “Could you please bring me a list of all the state trade schools, if it’s not too much trouble?”
“Who is this?” the voice said.
“It’s the governor,” she said, surprised to hear it herself.
There was a long pause and then the sound of sudden realization. “Oh. Oh . . . yes, ma’am, right away.”
Betty Raye looked around the big room and waited. After a moment she picked up the nameplate on the desk that read GOVERNOR HAMM SPARKS, looked at it, then quietly opened a drawer and put it in and closed it.
Hamm was proud of all the trade schools he had opened but Betty Raye, who had never bothered to ask, discovered to her dismay that trade schools tended to be for males only. She also found out that the majority of the state scholarships offered were for boys. There were boys’ clubs, mentor programs, sports scholarships, all for boys, and nothing for the girls. Young boys who got into trouble were sent to boys’ farms and received help. Girls had few places to go.
That’s not fair, she thought. Betty Raye knew she had no real political power but the day she walked into a decaying and crumbling rat-infested building that served as the state school for the deaf and blind was a turning point. These were the children of the poor whose parents had been unable to care for them at home. She saw for herself how badly those children needed a clean place to live and study and how terribly understaffed and underpaid the teachers were. The worst moment was when a blind girl came feeling her way through the crowd, thinking Betty Raye might be her mother, and, once beside her, kept pulling at her skirt, repeating, “Momma, Momma,” over and over. Betty Raye was so shaken she could hardly make it to the car. She went home and sobbed. The little girl looked just like Beatrice Woods might have when she had been that age.
She did not know how she was going to do it but when Hamm came back for any length of time she was going to insist that if she was going to remain as the governor he was going to have to do something about these things.
For the first time in her life she was going to speak up.
The Gold Mine
HAMM CALLED Vita from Detroit as excited as she had ever heard him. He had just come back to his hotel from speaking to over five thousand members of the teamsters union. “I can win this thing, Vita. For the first time, I really see I have to run. Walter told me he could deliver all of the union vote. He said I was just what the country needed, that people were tired of being pushed around.”
“How did the speech go?”
“Great!”
Hamm had been campaigning nationally for just a few months but not only was he popular in the rural areas, as was expected, but to everyone’s surprise he was already starting to draw huge crowds in Chicago, Newark, and Pittsburgh, and was gaining momentum every day. Hamm had hit a nerve or, as one columnist put it, he had tapped into a gold mine of unrest in the country and he was the only candidate who was “telling it like it is,” saying publicly what they were thinking privately. Many people were upset at the way they thought the country was headed. They were angry at the way the federal government seemed to be forcing things on them they did not want. They worried that if someone did not stop it there was no telling where it would end. There was a growing concern in middle America that all the wealthy liberal eastern politicians, with their endless giveaway programs, were leading the nation down the road to socialism and bogging it down with needless bureaucracy.
Almost everyone was frustrated with the way the war was going and what they perceived to be a weakness on the part of the government to do anything to stop it. They were shocked at the lack of respect the protesters had for the American soldiers fighting in Vietnam, particularly those who had served in the Second World War and Korea. Ada Goodnight, who had been a pilot in the Second World War, said she would be happy to go to Vietnam right now if she could. To them war was war and a draft dodger was a traitor. There was racial unrest everywhere and uneasiness about the rise of crime, drugs, and gangs in the cities and how it was being handled. It seemed to numerous voters that, thanks to the growing power of the ACLU, criminals were beginning to have more rights than the victims. Preachers across the country were becoming alarmed about the young people’s apathy and lack of morals. Some blamed television. Or as Reverend W. W. Nails put it, “The devil has three initials: ABC, NBC, and CBS. They love Lucy more than they do the Lord and they would rather leave it to Beaver than to Jesus.” The average middle-class Americans who worked hard every day, who were not criminals, not on welfare, and had seldom complained, suddenly and collectively started showing signs of growing disillusionment, worried that with all the new social programs they were now going to have to carry the rich and the poor on their backs. They were tired of having to pay so much income and other taxes to support half the world while they struggled to make ends meet. They began to feel that no matter how hard they worked or how much they paid, it was never appreciated and it was never enough.
But most of all they were scared. They looked around and saw the bright and shining true-blue America they had known growing up beginning to tarnish, tear, and fall apart at the seams. Hamm Sparks knew exactly how to verbalize their fears and frustration for them. Unlike the rest of the potential candidates, he seemed to understand their point of view.
As Rodney said, Hamm knew where the public itched and just how to scratch it. And scratch it he did. He took full advantage of all the upset and unrest, told his audiences exactly what they wanted to hear. He got more people mad and upset, more frightened, and was gaining more support by the day. Soon Hamm came down with a full-blown case of Washington fever and started doing anything he thought could get him in the White House. He made deals with people he should not have, said things that were more and more outrageous. Vita told him to be careful. Betty Raye begged him to come home. But it was like trying to stop a moving train. He was not a bad man, just a recklessly ambitious man. Soon even the people around him began to worry and Wendell put it best. When a woman at the John Birch Society luncheon gushed that she thought Hamm was the only man who could save America, Wendell said, “That’s fine if she believes it. But when Hamm starts believing it, we are in big trouble.”
Genetic Flaw
NORMA WAS OVER at the beauty shop for her weekly hair appointment and Macky was eating his lunch at the Trolley Car Diner, as he did every Friday. Sitting at the counter, a few of the other men were discussing politics and Hamm Sparks, as usual. Macky said, “The guy is dangerous. He’s getting crazier by the minute. Right now he’s got every lunatic-fringe group and hate group coming out of the woodwork. If somebody doesn’t shut him up, he’s going to drag us right back into McCarthyism and the next thing
we know we’re going to be dragged into a war with Russia.”
“I read the other day that the Klan was backing him now,” Ed said.
Merle, who was just a step away from being a part of the radical right wing, said, “He can’t help who backs him. He came out in the newspaper and said he wasn’t one of them.”
Macky said, “He says that, I can guarantee it, but he’s taking money from them right now and God knows who else.”
“What do you think, Jimmy?” asked Ed. Jimmy, who had not said anything, said quietly, “I agree with Macky. He needs to shut up and quit putting his wife through all this mess.”
Ed said, “Yeah, but how are you going to stop him? Like he says, it’s a free country.”
Monroe Newberry, who had come in from the tire store, added, “I was talking to Bobby on the phone the other day and he says all the big insurance companies up there are getting behind Hamm, but I don’t know what his real chances are.”
Merle said, “I don’t care what the papers say, I think he has a good chance to win.”
Jimmy took a swipe at the counter with his rag but said nothing else.
Two blocks away, at Tot Whooten’s beauty shop, the conversation was definitely not about politics. Betsy Dockrill, who had just come out from under the dryer and was getting ready to be combed out, remarked, “They are having a sale on caper coats out at Montgomery Ward. I got two, they were so cheap.”
Tot pulled Betsy’s hair net off. “Well, I wish I had time to sit around the house in a caper coat. I don’t even have time to shop for one, with my schedule. By the time I close this place up at night, all I want to do is go home and get off my feet.”
“You need to take a day off once in a while.”
“I would if I could.” Tot cut her eyes in the direction of Darlene, her twenty-five-year-old daughter, who worked in the shop with her. Betsy got the implication. Darlene was not overly intelligent and could not be left alone in the shop without someone watching to make sure she wouldn’t put the wrong thing on a customer’s hair again. Tot’s insurance was already sky-high.
Norma was sitting in the next chair, with her hair half rolled up, flipping through a magazine. She asked Tot, who was taking a drag off her cigarette, “Do you think Elizabeth Taylor is happy?”
Tot blew the smoke out. “She’s sporting a diamond the size of a doorknob, why wouldn’t she be?”
“I just wonder if all that fame and money and all those husbands have made her really happy.”
“Well,” Tot said, “if she’s not, I’d like to switch places with her. I’d be downright delirious. She can keep the men; I just want the money and the ring. Between having to put up with Daddy and James, not to mention Dwayne Junior, I’ve done my time in hell, thank you.”
“Oh, Tot, you make it sound so terrible. I can’t believe your life has been all bad. Weren’t you ever happy?”
Tot took another drag on her Pall Mall and put it back in the black plastic ashtray. It was an interesting question, one she had never been asked before. She thought about it for a moment. “Well, let’s see, there was the wedding. Other than Daddy getting drunk and passing out in the vestibule and me having to walk down the aisle by myself, that went fine, right up until we went outside the church and James got that piece of rice stuck in his ear. The honeymoon was ruined from the minute we got in the car because all he did was complain about the ringing in his ear. That ear drove him crazy for over two months. He was so dizzy all he did was lie down. It was so bad they had to operate on it three times looking for it, and we went into debt paying hospital bills.”
Norma said, “I had forgotten about that.”
Tot continued, “So I spent the first three months of my marriage being a nurse and then after he got drafted and went off to the army he came back home five years later a full-blown alcoholic, just like Daddy, who I’d married James to get away from. So I was happy from the time I said I do until we got outside the church and somebody threw rice in his ear. How long does it take to go from the altar down the aisle to outside the church, a minute? So you can say I was happy for a minute.”
Norma felt terrible that she had even asked the question. “Poor Tot,” she said. “I’m so sorry.”
“Well, don’t be, because it’s my own fault. I did it to myself. I should have known when I had to give my own self away, it was a bad omen. I should have just turned around and gone home but everybody wants a wedding, I guess. Women are fools; they will marry anything that has a heartbeat just to have a man.” She glanced over at Darlene again. “I’m still paying for her last fiasco, number three. And it’s not just the women—Dwayne Junior has already got two girls pregnant that I’m having to pay child support to. Sometimes I wish both my kids had turned queer and saved the world a lot of trouble.”
“Mother, I don’t think that’s funny.”
“I know you don’t but it’s true.” Tot looked at Betsy in the mirror. “From fifteen to twenty-five she managed to marry every half-wit in town and is dating number four.”
Her daughter defended her latest fiasco: “He has a job, Mother.”
Tot rolled her eyes. “Well, if collecting beer cans in the back of a truck is considered a profession, then I stand corrected.” She changed the subject: “Darlene, run down the street and get me a tuna fish salad on whole wheat and a bag of chips. Do you want anything, Norma?”
“No thanks, I just had lunch. I’ve been up since five-thirty.”
After Darlene left the shop, Tot shook her head. “Norma, just be glad you have a daughter with good sense. Darlene is about to drive me crazy. I tell you, from the day she flunked out of tap school it’s been downhill ever since. I went in her house the other morning and she’s sitting there at the table with a brick. I said, What are you doing and she said, I’m filing my nails. I spent a fortune sending her to beauty school and she’s filing her nails with a brick. After the tenth grade she was flunking everything but fooling with her hair night and day so I shipped her off to beauty school. I figured she’d be good at it. But I was wrong. And I don’t know where she got that thin fuzzy hair. She didn’t get it from my side of the family. She got it from the Whootens. No telling what’s in that gene pool, but it’s the worst possible advertisement for the hair business. I swear, between her and James and Dwayne Junior I’m so worn out I can hardly get up in the morning.”
Although she did not want people to know it, Tot had a heart of gold and would give you the shirt off her back if you needed it. That was the main reason she was so tired all the time. After working in the shop all day and on weekends she would pack up her kit and go over to all the older ladies’ homes and fix their hair for them. Most were either sick or bedridden and could not pay but Tot did not care. She said as long as her fingers could move no lady she knew was going to do without her weekly shampoo and set.
And as much as she complained about Darlene and Dwayne Jr., she let them have just about anything they wanted and baby-sat her grandchildren anytime they asked, which, unfortunately, was often.
The Hunting Trip
HAMM HAD BEEN campaigning for president for only a few months but already Hamm (“Tell It Like It Is”) Sparks had become a big thorn in the side of a lot of people. Once more he was making powerful enemies in his own party, only this time on a national level. What had started out as a fly-by-night, grassroots campaign was suddenly not so funny and could no longer be dismissed. Besides, his poor English and backwoods manner were an embarrassment to the elite East Coast Harvard and Yale, pipe-and-tweed Democrats in Washington and elsewhere. They also believed that his radical, black-and-white, take-no-prisoners brand of politics was dangerous for them and for the country. The powers that be called him in and tried to reason with him, get him to step down for the good of the party, but Hamm was like a dog with a bone. He would not withdraw and if they threw him out they knew he might run on an independent ticket and take the votes with him anyway.
On December 31 Dorothy’s first New Year’s re
solution was the same as last year:
1. Lose ten pounds.
On December 31 Minnie Oatman sat down at the small table on the big silver bus that was headed for a New Year’s Day gospel sing in Bloomington, Illinois, and wrote out her same old resolution:
1. Lose fifty pounds.
Tot Whooten wrote out her yearly resolution, as she had for the past seven years, only this time she stuck it on the refrigerator:
1. Do not loan Darlene or Dwayne Jr. another dime.
But across the country a new resolution appeared on the top of a lot of people’s lists that year:
1. Get rid of Hamm Sparks.
They did not write it down but they thought it.
He gained momentum every day. They knew Hamm could never have the numbers to win the election—he was too much of a wild card—but now even the Republicans were beginning to worry. To their utmost irritation, Hamm was quietly receiving thousands of dollars from a lot of big-money supporters that should have been going to their man. Both parties were afraid of his growing popularity. Despite the fact that all the newspapers, magazines, and national television network news shows were either ignoring him or ridiculing him, he gained on them every day. Something had to be done; if he continued on with this momentum he was going to upset the election for everyone.
Some of the people who supported Hamm financially did not want it known. And there were some people he was willing to take money from that he did not want known.