by Fannie Flagg
Tawney’s a lot older than her picture and her hair is the color of a carrot. She must have gone crazy over her applause because she took off her top right there in front of everybody.
I thought Michael was going to faint, but she had another little brassiere on underneath. Then, just as she was starting to take off her bottom, I heard someone coming around the back, cussing up a blue streak. It scared me so bad I fell off my box and pulled Michael down with me.
We made such a racket I was sure we were goners. Whoever it was got closer and closer and was cussing louder and louder.
We were under the bushes and all we could see were feet. He got right in front of us and guess who it was? It was Pegleg Johnson. I recognized his leg. He was carrying a suitcase and he was mad as hell because his pegleg kept sinking into the sand.
He cussed up a storm and threw his suitcase down and started back around the building where he had come from. I told Michael we better get out of there fast because he might go and get Claude Pistal and I wasn’t taking any chances.
We ran as fast as we could. Michael is still mad at me because I made him miss the end of the act. Grandma is right. She says all men are fools over women. The more I think about it, the more I am convinced that Tawney had little motors in her brassiere. A real fake!
August 26, 1952
Velveeta told Momma I was at the Blue Gardenia Lounge and had seen Tawney the Tassel Woman. Nobody in the world knew that but Michael and he wouldn’t tell for nothing because he would get into big trouble for being there himself. Besides, I made him swear not to tell on a statue of the Blessed Mother that the Romeos have in their front yard. Catholics never go against the Blessed Mother. She is very popular with them. Saint Joseph is nothing compared to her.
The point is I caught Velveeta red-handed. She has been reading my papers. That is the only way she could have found out.
I told Daddy Velveeta had been into my private papers. He asked me what I write about so much. I told him just things that happen. He wanted to know if I ever put things in my papers about him and I said, “Oh, yes, it’s mostly about you.” So he went out and bought me a big tin box with a combination lock on it. I don’t trust Velveeta as far as I could throw her. I didn’t know colored people could read that well. People who say they are stupid are wrong. With my luck, Velveeta is probably a college graduate posing as a maid.
My momma has private papers. She should have locked them up. I looked in the top of the closet and found a lawyer’s paper that told where my daddy was in a paternity suit. I know what that means, too. The woman that sued him was named Billie G. Thweatt. I hope it is true. If it is true, that means I have a brother or sister out there somewhere.
When I get to be on This Is Your Life, maybe they will come out from behind the curtain and surprise me. I’m dying to ask Daddy who Billie G. Thweatt is, but I am saving that name to use when I need it.
And bad news for the fish. George Potlow came over to the malt shop and told Momma and Daddy they would have to keep me from going on the pier and kicking the fish back in the water because the fishermen were getting mad.
I saved twenty-five whitefish and three croakers the other day.
Edna, Roy Grimmett’s sister-in-law, and I are having a good time. We take walks and do a lot of things. She thinks I am real funny. I try to do everything to make her laugh. Momma says I am making a fool out of myself, but Edna doesn’t think so.
Roy Grimmett is making me mad. He is always trying to get Edna dates with sailors so she can get married again. I wish he would leave her alone. I could get a job and take care of her and that baby.
Daddy got his taxidermy kit in the mail from Wisconsin and a certificate. You should see it. It has every kind of eye you can imagine: deer eyes, rabbit eyes, fish eyes, but no eel eyes and no flamingo eyes. But he can use the rabbit eyes for the flamingo because they are nice and pink, and he can stuff the eel with its eyes closed.
Curtis Honeywell and his all-girl army traded in the bazooka and got a machine gun that really works. The other day they shot our window out by mistake. Momma says we are lucky we weren’t all killed in our beds because Mr. Honeywell thinks Daddy is a Commie anyway.
We were in the “Dashes from Dot” column this week. It said, “As the end of the season approaches, it is no doubt that Harper’s Malt Shop is the busiest place on the beach,” and she was happy Little Daisy Fay Harper’s ringworm is clearing up. Kay Bob Benson was in it, too. She was “Thrilled to receive a Madame Alexander walking doll from her grandparents for her birthday.” She is a little old for dolls if you ask me.
I wonder how that crippled girl, Betty Caldwell, up at the Bon Secour, is doing. She liked the number painting I gave her. I am going to send her an oyster shell ashtray from Jr. Debutantes.
Poor Jimmy is heartbroken over Iris Ann Moody whose house he crashed into because she went and married someone else.
The other night Peachy Wigham called Daddy and said for him to come get Jimmy. He was sitting in the Elite Nightspot drunk and wouldn’t go home and her customers don’t like white people in their colored nightclub.
When we got there, Jimmy had passed out and Peachy had put him to bed in her back room. It took Daddy and two colored men to carry him to the car. The whole time I was back there where Peachy lived, I heard someone moving around in the other room. I tried to open the door, but it was locked.
Maybe Peachy has a boyfriend living with her. She isn’t very pretty, but she is real rich. I bet her boyfriend is just after her money. She sells bootleg whiskey. Daddy says if there was ever anything you need, just ask Peachy. She can get it and will be happy to sell it to you.
Besides being real rich, she knows a secret about the white sheriff’s daughter, so she never gets arrested like the other coloreds do.
Most of her money comes from the colored mortuary she owns, which is the only one in Harwin County. She even has a layaway plan.
August 28, 1952
I wish those two would make up their minds. One minute Momma hates Daddy and the next minute they both gang up on me. She tells me he is a no-good rotten father and I don’t have to mind him. Then she gets friendly with him and ignores me. I never know what to think.
I have to go in their room to get to the bathroom and all I did was come in to go to the bathroom when both of them jumped on me. Daddy even hit me. It was in the middle of the afternoon and Daddy must be crazy because there isn’t any door to knock on, except the screen door.
I didn’t know they were taking a nap and besides, my mother didn’t have any clothes on. I asked her what she was doing and she said she was showing Daddy her hysterectomy scar.
She lied to me. Daddy has too seen her naked. To hell with them!
I have checked and they don’t have a girls’ town where I could go and live at all, just a boys’ town. Boys get all the attention!
August 29, 1952
Do you think that Ann Blyth has false teeth? The beauty operators up at Nita’s Beauty Box do.
I had my hair fixed for the Smiley Burnette picture contest today. Earline, the one that did my hair, said that Ann Blyth had enough china in her mouth to set a table for ten.
The Beauty Box is decorated all in purple. They have purple leather chairs and all the operators wear purple uniforms with purple plastic name pins. The woman who owns the Beauty Box, Mrs. Nita Beaver, must be crazy over purple.
Edna took me there because Momma was working. They let me look in the movie magazines and pick out a hairdo, free of extra charge. I chose one that Lizabeth Scott wore in the movie Dark City.
My ears about burned off from sitting under that dryer. They didn’t put enough cotton on them. Those bobby pins get red-hot and I still have marks on the back of my neck where they burned me. When Earline combed me out, she nearly killed me and broke some teeth in her comb. She said, “Girl, you’ve got hait like a horse’s tail.” According to Mrs. Dot, true aristocrats have hair as thin as a bee’s wing, so I guess that lets me out
. When she finished, Edna said it looked exactly like Lizabeth Scott’s hair, but Daddy said I looked more like Betty Furness.
The hairdo cost me two dollars and a half, plus tip. Momma said I had to tip my operator. Only white trash don’t tip. If it had been up to me, I wouldn’t have given her anything for breaking a comb on my head.
I made a mistake because the Smiley Burnette picture contest isn’t until tomorrow morning at ten o’clock and I am going to have to sit up all night. If I don’t, I will mash my hairdo.
Earline told me Kay Bob Benson had made a special seven-thirty-in-the-morning appointment so her hairdo will be fresh for the picture with Smiley. I didn’t know you could get an appointment at seven-thirty in the morning.
Dumb Michael has the measles and can’t go at all, so I wasted that dollar I paid him not to have his picture taken. He said it was only fair because I made him miss Tawney the Tassel Woman’s act. He’s got a memory like an elephant.
Daddy and I have been working all week to fix my tooth for the picture. He got some white candle wax and glued a piece on with airplane glue so you would never know I had a chipped tooth.
I can’t wait until tomorrow morning. I hope the saddle goes with it. Jimmy Snow is going to pick me up in his Henry J at nine and take me to the theater because Saturday is Momma’s and Daddy’s busy day and they can’t leave.
August 30, 1952
I was out in front of the malt shop at eight o’clock this morning, ready to go. I waited and waited, but Jimmy Snow never showed up.
When it got to be ten o’clock, I started walking so if I met Jimmy on the highway, we could save some time.
I walked ten miles to Magnolia Springs, but he never came down that highway.
By the time I got to the theater, the wax had melted off my tooth. It didn’t matter, though, because the movie had started and Smiley Burnette had already left
I had to get a ride home with Kay Bob Benson and her mother. She never stopped talking about how it had been a real great show and how she was sure she was going to win that pony because all the other kids had been real ugly. I thought ugly is as ugly does. Maybe she will win the pony and I can ride it or something.
Jimmy Snow is in big trouble. Momma hopes he is dead because he will wish he was by the time she gets through with him, disappointing her little girl like that.
I am so sunburned from walking up the highway that I can hardly move. Maybe they will feel sorry for me and call Peachy Wigham and order a pony, but no luck so far.
August 31, 1952
Guess why Jimmy Snow didn’t come and get me? He was in jail because he found out that Iris Ann Moody and her new husband were home from their honeymoon and he flew over their house and dumped DDT all over it.
It’s amazing how he was able to hit their house and miss all the neighbors. We went to see it and it looked just like Christmas. Jimmy is a Champion Crop Duster.
The Kowboskis left today, so I went over and said good-bye. I am still mad, but I wanted to have my picture made in that machine for the last time. You get four pictures for a quarter and I had my pictures made thirty-two times, smiling and not smiling; but Michael stuck his face in four and ruined them. I am saving those pictures for This Is Your Life.
Hank is going to quit in two weeks and go to work for Tommie Jo’s daddy for the winter. I sure will miss him, but he said he would come and see me.
Woooonnnnnnderfulllll Velveeta is going to leave. We can’t afford to pay her after the season is over. Hooray!
School is getting ready to start. Momma doesn’t want me to go to school in Magnolia Springs. It is too country. She wants me in Catholic boarding school and talks about putting me in the Ursuline Academy in New Orleans.
We are going to New Orleans and take a look at the school pretty soon. Momma hired an accountant to go over the books and tell us how much money we made. His name is Mr. Lilly and he has one hand missing, but instead of having a hook, like Harold Russell in The Best Years of Our Lives, he’s got a rubber hand that looks just like a baby doll hand.
Momma is mad at me because I keep looking at it, but I can’t help myself. He keeps it in his lap most of the time, though.
I wonder where he got that hand. It must have come off a big doll. The fingers are stuck together and it is yellow. What if someone went to shake hands with him and it came off, or if he left it on a restaurant table by mistake?
September 2, 1952
Momma is mad at me. I pulled the bathroom mirror off the wall in that cheap motel we stayed at in New Orleans. It wasn’t my fault. It looked like a medicine cabinet to me and I wanted to see if anybody had left anything. Momma’s afraid we are going to have seven years’ bad luck because of it
When we got home, Mr. Lilly told Momma we hadn’t made any money. We are in debt Daddy spent a lot buying that liquor license. We used ice cream in the malts, instead of malt base like we were supposed to, and Daddy hadn’t mixed his hamburger with bread the way everyone else does.
He believes Quality is better than Quantity, but in this case, we are in a lot of trouble. We have a big payment in November and no money. The minute I broke that mirror, Momma knew everything was going to turn out bad.
She is doubly mad because when we were in New Orleans, she bought my uniforms for the school and now I can’t afford to go. I guess I will have to wear a blue skirt and a white blouse for the rest of my natural life.
I’m glad I’m not going to that school in New Orleans. The mother superior said my roommate would be a nice girl from Colombia, South America. I sure didn’t want to be roommates with a headhunter.
Now I will get to ride the school bus with Michael. Kay Bob Benson’s mother takes her to school. Of course!
When I got back from New Orleans, the first thing I did was go and look for Edna, but she was out with some sailor who wants to marry her. When she came home, she told me that she had decided to accept his offer. She feels she should get married again, so her child can have a father. I don’t want her to marry him. He is a Yankee. I asked her why she couldn’t stay here with us, but she said she couldn’t.
It’s Roy Grimmett’s fault He pushed her into it. Now she is being friendly with Momma. I heard Momma say to her, “Mr. Harper and I did, up until the fifth month.” I came over and said, “Did what?” And Momma said, “Danced.” I know she’s lying. She hates to dance with Daddy. I don’t even want to think about it.
At Jr. Debutantes this week, Mrs. Dot gave a talk, “How to Handle Colored Help.” She says beware of being too familiar and that everyone must know their place for a house to run smoothly and a well-bred colored person doesn’t want to mix. It is only the ill-bred coloreds that try to be friendly. You must always be properly dressed when a colored man is on your property so as not to drive him crazy, and if a colored man is within two blocks of your home and can see in the window, you must put a robe on at once.
It is our Christian duty to see that colored help get all our old clothes and anything else you want to give them, but never anything new except at Christmas and never, never, under the threat of death, say the word, and she spelled it out, “N-I-G-G-E-R.” Only white trash calls them that. I never said that word but once. It doesn’t count, though, because Velveeta didn’t hear me.
It’s all right to touch or hug a colored woman, but never a colored man. Most important, though, never sit and eat at the same table with them. They don’t like it and you must give them their own jelly glass to drink out of. Colored people don’t respect you unless you respect their right to privacy.
I wish Momma could have heard that talk. Velveeta drinks out of any glass she wants to and sits down at the table with Momma and everything. Momma better watch out. Velveeta won’t respect her if she keeps this up. I never knew that white people weren’t supposed to drink out of a jelly glass. I have a Welch’s grape jelly glass I drink out of all the time.
Mrs. Dot’s thought for the day was: “Good manners are your round-trip ticket to the world.”
Roy Grimmett is a liar and I hate his guts. I hope he shoots himself in the heart with his own bow and arrow and if he asked me to pull the arrow out and save him, I wouldn’t I hope he gets locked in his trailer and freezes to death, or it falls off a cliff with him in it. I wish I had that machine gun that the Mississippi Maidens have. I would shoot him full of holes and pour acid on them.
He and Mava were taking Edna to Pensacola to get her married today. She started to cry and I know she didn’t want to go.
Roy came back from the wedding about six o’clock and was laughing his head off. He threw Edna’s old wedding ring on the counter and asked if anybody wanted to buy it. He said he bought her that ring himself. She never did have a husband in the first place; she was just some dumb old country gal that got herself in trouble and he was glad he finally got her married off.
I threw my cheeseburger and fries at him and told him he was a dirty liar and lower than snake shit.
Momma said how dare he say something like that in front of me and took me in the back room. She also said she was shocked at my language. Daddy came and put a cold rag on my head and said I might as well know the truth. Edna never was married. They had known it all along. Momma started shaking her head and said no that Daddy was wrong. She had been married. Then they got into an argument. Daddy was stupid enough to believe Roy against Edna. Men always stick together.