The Whole Town's Talking

by Fannie Flagg

  There was a slight pause. “Ah…Good morning, Mrs. Warren. This is Emmett down at Olivera Auto Repair, and I’m calling with an estimate.”

  A horrified Norma desperately tried to recover and said in as normal a voice as she could muster, “Oh, yes, Emmett.”

  “My boss says we can do the whole thing, fender and top, for seven twenty-five.”

  “Well, thank you,” she said, and hung up.

  Emmett put the phone down at the shop and thought, Lord, what was the world coming to? Mrs. Warren was pretty for her age, but he figured she was at least fifty-something. She must be one of those women that go after younger men.

  Norma immediately called Macky, hysterical. “Oh, my God. I am so embarrassed. Why didn’t you call me?”

  “I was just getting ready to. Why?” When Norma told him what she had said, Macky just laughed. “Well, I’m sure you made his day.”

  “I’m just mortified.”

  “Oh, honey, don’t worry about it. It probably happens all the time.”

  “Not to me. I want you to call him and tell him that I certainly didn’t mean him.”

  “What do you care what Emmett thinks?”

  “What if he tells his wife and it gets all over that I was coming on to her husband?”

  “Oh, Norma…”

  “No, no. You don’t understand, Macky. I can’t live in this town with people thinking that. You have got to call him, right now!”

  “Why don’t you call him?”

  “I can’t. Oh please, Macky. Please!”

  As usual Norma was hysterical over nothing. But he would call.

  Down at the auto shop, a voice on the intercom said, “Emmett…phone call…on three.”

  He wiped his hands and picked up. “Hello.”

  “Emmett, this is Macky Warren.”

  “Yes, sir?”

  “Are you having an affair with my wife?”

  “Ah, oh no, sir. Oh God, no!”

  “Just kidding.”

  “Oh.”

  “Hey, listen…you knew she thought it was me calling her when she picked up the phone, right?”

  “Uh, yes, sir.”

  “Okay. She was just a little embarrassed and I wanted to clear it up. Okay, buddy?”

  “No problem…done.”

  “Good. Oh, and that estimate’s fine.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  When Emmett hung up his heart was still pounding. He knew Macky had been a Green Beret, and it scared the hell out of him.

  Two minutes later, Norma was on the line. “Did you call?”

  “Yes, no big deal. He laughed about it. So you can go on with your life, okay?”

  “Okay, but you’ll have to take the car in. I can’t face him.”

  “I figured.”

  “This is all your fault, you know. You shouldn’t be so sexy,” she said.

  “I’ll try not to. Oh, and by the way, Emmett told me I was a lucky man to have such a hot-tamale sexpot of a wife.”

  “He did not! Did he really say that?”

  “No, but I bet he thought it.”

  “Oh, Macky!”

  “Gotta go. Bye.”

  Norma hung up and shook her head. Macky could be so silly sometimes.

  Three days before Thanksgiving, the entire town gathered down at the high school to see the big yellow band bus off to New York. Several band mothers were aboard as chaperones, as well as Tot Whooten, who was along to fix the majorettes’ hair for the parade. She told Cathy Calvert, “The whole country will be watching us, so I’m doing everybody in a flip and extra-strength hair-spraying them to hell and back, so no matter what the weather is, our girls are gonna look good from start to finish.” Luther Griggs went along to help load and unload the bus.

  Two days later, the bus full of screaming and excited kids finally arrived at the motel in Newark, New Jersey, where they would be staying. When they walked into the lobby, they were greeted with a big banner across the lobby that the town had ordered: GOOD LUCK TOMORROW. WE ARE SO PROUD.

  At around four A.M. early Thanksgiving morning, just a few hours before the Elmwood Springs High School Band was to have their brush with greatness, something happened.

  When Luther Griggs went out to the motel parking lot to unlock the bus, it wasn’t there. It had been stolen, along with all their uniforms and instruments still inside.

  Later, when the kids were told what had happened, they wandered around the hotel in a state of shock. A lot of the girls cried. They couldn’t believe it. After the whole town had worked so hard to raise money to get them there, and all their parents and grandparents had been looking so forward to seeing them on television. Some had even bought new television sets just for the occasion. They were not going to be in the parade. The police came and took a report, but said there was nothing they could do for the moment.

  Later, the kids sat in the lobby with Mr. Koonitz and the chaperones and watched the parade on television. They had come all that way, worked so hard, all for nothing. That afternoon, the school board had to charter another bus to go up and bring them home.

  As Merle Wheeler said to Ernest Koonitz when they came back, “It makes you wonder about people, doesn’t it? How can thieves live with themselves? Didn’t they think what stealing that bus would do to those poor kids?” Tot Whooten was mad as hell as she stomped off the bus. She said to Verbena, who had come to pick her up, “Can you believe it? They got my hot irons, rollers, and all my gel and spray.”

  Macky and Norma Warren were there to meet the bus. They had gone down to the high school to help get the kids home. When Macky saw the stricken looks on the kids’ faces, it really got to him.

  That night, after they went to bed, he said, “I wish to God I could find the bastards who took that bus. I’d kill them with my bare hands.”

  Like everybody else in town, Macky was upset about losing the bus, the instruments, and the uniforms, but he knew those things could be replaced. What had made him so mad was how the theft had affected the kids. Having that rotten thing happen had caused them to lose a little bit of the innocence and trust in the world they once had. And that was something they could never get back.

  Naturally, in Elmwood Springs, a predominantly Christian community, the following Sunday, most of the sermons had been about forgiveness; the main thrust being “Forgive them, Father, for they know not what they do.” But Macky was having none of it. As far as he was concerned, the sorry low-life son of a bitch who took the bus knew exactly what he was doing. Sermon or no, he would have broken his neck if he could have found him.

  After they had stashed all the stuff from the school bus in the basement of a deserted building they used to store things, the two thieves drove the bus across town, stripped it, and dumped it in a parking lot.

  When they got back to the building, the mother of one of the thieves and her boyfriend were going through the clothes and had already cut all the buttons off the uniform jackets. All the patches that said ELMWOOD SPRINGS MARCHING BAND had been ripped off and thrown away.

  A week later, the buttons, along with the uniforms, white shoes, and majorette boots, were sold to a secondhand shoe store in Secaucus for two hundred bucks.

  All the band’s drums, trumpets, trombones, saxophones, clarinets, and tubas that the kids had worked so hard to pay for eventually wound up in various pawnshops all over New Jersey and New York. The buyers never knew where the instruments had come from. Most didn’t care. All they knew was they had gotten a good deal. The thieves were never caught, and the robbery earned them a lot of street cred and respect in the gang.

  Three years later, after things got too hot in Newark, the two moved on to San Francisco, where one had a cousin. In October 1989, the day of a World Series game, they were out at Candlestick Park, but not to see the baseball game. A few minutes later, they sped out of the parking lot in a brand-new red Ferrari they had just stolen. As soon as they hit the freeway, they started high-fiving each other and laughing their heads
off. They gunned it as fast as it would go and headed north on the Nimitz Freeway with the music blasting away. A few seconds later, an earthquake shook the entire Bay Area and the top layer of the freeway collapsed onto the lower level, smashing the Ferrari and its two passengers as flat as a pancake.

  During the cleanup of the freeway, as the large crane rotated around and lifted what was left of the red Ferrari from the rubble, a bystander remarked, “Shit…that car looks like a red Frisbee.”

  The owner of the stolen Ferrari had filled out a police report. Several weeks later, when the man received a call from the police department, a man’s voice said, “Sir, I’m calling about a police report you submitted regarding a stolen car?”

  “Yes?”

  “I’m calling to inform you that we found your car. You might want to contact your insurance company.”

  “Was it wrecked?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Where is it? Can I see it?”

  “Sir, I wouldn’t bother if I were you. There’s not much left to see.”

  “Oh…Where did they find it?”

  “On the Nimitz Freeway. The suspects appear to have been headed out of town when the earthquake hit, and the bridge collapsed on top of them. Both were killed instantly.”

  “Oh, I see. Have they been identified?”

  “No, sir. Not much left to identify, just two gold chains.”

  “Oh, so…uh…can I press charges against them or what?”

  The officer, who had a sick sense of humor, paused. He wanted so much to say, “They have already been pressed, sir.” But he didn’t.

  —

  THE ABANDONED BUS HAD been found a week after the theft in the back lot of a warehouse in Newark, stripped down to the bone. They had stolen the motor, the tires, the radio, the leather seats, everything. And someone had painted graffiti all over the sides in black paint.

  Cathy Calvert typed up the headline for her column:

  * * *

  NEW BUS, UNIFORMS, AND INSTRUMENTS ON THE WAY

  * * *

  by Chatty Cathy

  The Elmwood City Council announced today that thanks to a generous donation sent by an anonymous donor, the band bus and its contents will all be replaced by no later than January 15.

  * * *

  Of course, everybody in town knew it had been Hanna Marie who had sent the check. Even though she was now Mrs. Vincent, she was still a Swensen and her father’s daughter.

  Ander, who was up in years now, had retired a few years earlier. When he did, he appointed Beatrice’s nephew, Albert Olsen, to take over operations. Ander had trained the young man and felt he had left the dairy in good hands. But he would still stop by the dairy from time to time just to say hello.

  Ander Swensen may have felt good about Albert Olsen taking over as manager, but his son-in-law, who now had to take orders from the nephew, did not. He felt that as Hanna Marie’s husband, the position should have been his. But he didn’t say anything at the time. He figured he wouldn’t have to put up with Albert too much longer. The old man was getting up there, and as soon as he was out of the way, things would change.

  Aunt Elner’s birthday was coming up, so Norma asked her what she wanted this year. Aunt Elner said, “Oh, honey, I don’t need a single thing. I’m trying to get rid of things as it is.”

  “You have to want something, Aunt Elner.”

  “I don’t.”

  “No, really….Think, if you could have anything in the world, what would you want?”

  “But, honey, I don’t want anything.”

  “Really?”

  “Oh, if I was younger, I suppose it would be a litter of kittens. Oh, there’s nothing in this world more entertaining than watching a bunch of kittens playing. They are the cutest little things…with their little paws, I could just kiss them to death.”

  “I know, but the problem is they grow up to be big, ugly cats, and you can’t get rid of them. Nobody has any use for some old mangy cat.”

  “Oh, Norma, they can’t help it. We all grow up. What if nobody had any use for us when we grew up? Just because they are older doesn’t mean they aren’t sweet.”

  —

  AND IT SO HAPPENED, up at Still Meadows, they were talking about the exact same thing. Lucille Beemer had just posed a question. “Mrs. Bell, at what age did you begin to feel old?”

  “Well, the last time they took my picture for my driver’s license, it nearly scared me to death. ‘Mercy,’ I thought. ‘When did my eyes get so squinty and all those chins show up?’ It’s best not to have your picture made or hear your voice on a tape machine. It can really depress you. I thought I was still cute, but I was wrong. I was an old lady with an old lady’s voice. It sure wrecked my high opinion of myself.”

  “What about you, Birdie?”

  “When I started to look like my grandmother. But the funny thing was I didn’t feel old inside. I remember how I used to feel about old people. I could never imagine them as young…but it’s a different story when you’re on the other end.”

  “Oh, is it ever,” said Ola Warren. “At the end, I got to the point where I hated having a body. Everything started going haywire on me, and I started falling apart like an old car. If it wasn’t one thing, then it was another. You just get your gallbladder out, then your heart starts acting up, then you need a new hip, and after that, a cataract operation, then you need a hearing aid. Oh, it just goes on and on. You finally get everything fixed, and you think you are ahead, then you come down with the heartbreak of psoriasis. Most of the stuff I got after that, I couldn’t even spell.”

  Lorene Gibble was as much of a permanent fixture at the downtown Main Street Café as the table and chairs. She had worked at the café since she was sixteen, only taking time off to have three babies, and even then only a few weeks. After her kids were grown, she started working the early bird dinner shift. The hours suited her. Check in at three, do her prep work, start serving at four-thirty and home by eight-thirty, just in time to see her television shows, then to bed.

  Tonight it was sad for Lorene not to see sweet little Mrs. Floyd sitting at table 4, the same little table by the window she had occupied since 1966. Her friend said that she had passed away the day before. Even though Mrs. Floyd had been unable to speak since her stroke, Lorene still missed her and her sweet, somewhat crooked, little smile. With Mrs. Floyd, it was always the same order: iced tea, baked chicken breast with the green beans and mashed potatoes, and chocolate pudding, if they had it.

  Lorene loved all her little early birders, mostly widows and one or two old widowers. But it was the ladies that touched her. They were all living on fixed incomes, and for most this was their only real meal of the day. After they finished, Lorene would carefully pack up their leftovers and throw in a couple of extra dinner rolls she knew they would probably eat for breakfast. They were all poor as church mice, but still they dug in their change purses to try and leave her a tip, even when they couldn’t afford it. Lorene knew the dates of all their birthdays and made sure to make a fuss over them. Free cake and ice cream. It was such a small thing to do, and it meant so much.

  For years now, just like clockwork, they all lined up outside the door at four-thirty, dressed in their best, powdered and clean smelling. She knew that most would be going home to an empty house. It just broke her heart to think that these ladies who had taught school, raised children, worked in stores or libraries, and paid their taxes and their mortgages on time, were now having to count their nickels and dimes.

  It wasn’t fair. All those who had never contributed a thing to society and could work if they wanted, but were instead living off the government, sucking the life out of it. Namely her daughter, who was living on disability, just because she had a little back pain and a doctor that was a fool. Lorene had worked all her life with bunions, a bad knee that gave her fits, and sometimes with a hangover from hell, but she went to work and had a smile and sometimes a little joke to cheer her ladies up.

&n
bsp; In this world of spectacular achievements, most would say Lorene never amounted to much. Every day for the past forty-two years, rain or shine, feeling well or not, she made sure her early birders were well taken care of. And for some, Lorene was the only bright spot in their day. She may not have set the world on fire with her brilliance, but when she finally arrived at Still Meadows, a lot of people were very happy to see her. “Our Lorene is here,” said Mrs. Floyd, without a hint of the stroke that had silenced her.

  Downtown Elmwood Springs was looking a little shabby these days. Ever since the big Walmart opened just north of town, almost nobody shopped downtown. After Dixie Cahill died, there was no one to take over her dance studio, and so it was closed. So was the old Main Street Café and the Trolley Car Diner. The only place you could eat was the coffee shop on the corner, and it closed at three in the afternoon. Hardly anybody went downtown at night.

  All the teenagers hung out at the mall, which had just opened a new multiplex movie theater and a food court. Even the Morgan Brothers Department Store had moved its downtown store out to the mall.

  There was now a new Ace Hardware store near the Walmart, and Macky was having a hard time competing with their prices. The mall had also affected Tot Whooten’s business. As she told Norma, “Ever since they opened that new Supercuts out there, none of the younger set come to me anymore…just my old regular customers. I’d relocate to the mall myself, but a lot of my oldsters can’t drive that far. Some of them have been with me for over fifty years, so I’m gonna stick with them to the end.” And she did.

  On Monday mornings, no matter how tired she was, she got into her car and drove out to the nursing home and did all the ladies’ hair for free. Darlene didn’t understand her mother. “Why do you fix them old ladies’ hair out there? They ain’t going nowhere.”