by Fannie Flagg
February 20,1953
Sunday, Daddy and I were up at the Bon Ton Café and Daddy kept watching Billy Bundy count his money. According to Billy, to make real money in the religious game, you need a Glory Getter. A Glory Getter is someone who can make people think they can get them to glory. The best Glory Getters are little children and platinum-blond-haired women. Billy had a platinum-blond-haired woman once whose specialty was handling snakes. She could get more money in that collection box than you could shake a stick at, but she got mad at him because one of her snakes bit her, so she ran off with a mechanic. There was some little preacher boy over in Louisiana he wished he could get his hands on because he was a gold mine. But the boy’s momma and daddy had him all tied up and weren’t letting anybody have any part of him. I’ll bet that little boy has curly hair.
Billy averages about $150 a week, and that sounds like a lot to Daddy and me, but Billy says it is only peanuts. At one time he made over $500 a week and he can hardly live on $150. He has to pay alimony to two women and child support for five children. He doesn’t dare not to pay it because he is still in trouble with the law for selling autographed pictures of the Last Supper.
Daddy asked Billy Bundy if it was hard to preach and if you had to go to Bible school before they would let you get up in front of people and take up a collection. Billy said no, all you got to do is tell people what they want to hear, and then scare them into giving you their money. Then he went back to counting and stacking his money.
Daddy is worried because the insurance money is almost gone, and we have another payment to make on the land where the malt shop used to be. Maybe that is why he thought up the miracle.
Today when I got home, Daddy and Billy Bundy were both there. Daddy pulled me in the house, shut the door and closed all the windows. I didn’t know what was going on, but I knew it wasn’t bad because they sure looked happy to see me. They sat me down at the kitchen table and asked me if there was anything I wanted before they started to talk to me. I ordered a Coca-Cola and a liver cheese sandwich with mustard and mayonnaise that I got in a hurry. Billy Bundy looked at me and said, “Yes indeed, you are a very lucky little girl because your smart daddy has thought up a miracle that will make us all rich and maybe make you famous.”
The miracle is that I am going to pretend to drown and then come back from the dead as Billy Bundy’s new Glory Getter. Daddy is convinced he can make a machine that can shine a cross on the sky. The deal is Billy is getting sixty percent of the profits and I am thrown in for nothing. When I heard this, I told Daddy I didn’t think he made such a good bargain. Daddy said for me not to worry, we will still make a bundle. Billy Bundy is a very sharp businessman.
Billy wants to keep me dead for three days, but Daddy said no, I was only going to be dead for twenty-four hours. He didn’t want my momma to hear about it or to worry her on any account. Daddy stuck to his guns on that point, and we all shook hands. Daddy is to get to work on that machine and I am to keep my mouth shut.
February 22, 1953
Yesterday Daddy went to Meridian and bought himself an old movie projector. He has a little piece of plywood with a cross cut in it over the hole in front of the projector where the light comes out. Last night about three o’clock in the morning, when everyone was asleep, he woke me up and we went out on the beach with an extension cord. Sure enough, when he turned it on, there was this cross shining in the sky as big as you please. Boy, is he smart. Now all he has to do is figure out a way to get the machine to work on batteries because on the day of the miracle I am going to have it in a boat and after everybody sees the cross, I am going to sink the boat with the machine in it so nobody can find any evidence. The timing of the miracle is very important because a lot of people should see the cross. Daddy and Billy Bundy think we should do it on a cloudy day. There are a lot of technical things involved in a miracle you wouldn’t even dream about.
Plans for the miracle are moving right along. We need a rowboat. Billy Bundy pointed out that Mr. Wentzel, who lives up on the Bon Secour River and has a lot of rowboats for rent, might not miss one. Last night Billy borrowed a truck from somewhere, and about one o’clock this morning Billy and Daddy and I drove up there. We parked the truck by the river about two miles up from Mr. Wentzel’s boat dock, and Billy told Daddy to stay with the truck while he and I went and got the boat. The trip up was an easy one for Billy because he had a bottle of whiskey he was swigging on the whole way, but I was just eaten alive by those Bon Secour mosquitoes. To me, it would have been easier if Daddy had let us off closer to the boat dock, but they are not listening to me. I don’t even have a percentage of the miracle.
When we finally got down to where the boats were, we picked us out a rowboat and were busy trying to untie it when all of a sudden we looked up and Mr. Caldwell, the crippled girl’s daddy, was standing right there and shining a big heavy-duty flashlight on us. He said, “Hey, what’s going on?”
I thought we were goners for sure, but just then Billy grabbed me by the neck and stuck me under the water and said, “It’s just me, Brother Caldwell, baptizing a poor sinner, a real emergency case, who needs to be saved.” He made up this whole story about me and how I had come to him that night, begging to be saved from a life without Christ. He went on and on, but I wasn’t hearing much because he was drowning me and I was having to fight for my life.
Billy used my fighting for the benefit of his story. He said, “See, Mr. Caldwell, how some sinners fight salvation.” Mr. Caldwell must have believed him because he wished Billy good luck with God’s work and went on back up to his house.
I was mad as the devil at Billy for holding me under that water for such a long time. I told him that I was for the miracle as much as he and Daddy were, but I sure didn’t want to be killed at such an early age because of it.
We had to wait in the water until Mr. Caldwell turned out his lights, a fact that didn’t make me too happy because everybody knows that the Bon Secour is full of water moccasins. To make matters worse, when we did get that boat untied, Billy made me row all the way up to where Daddy and the truck were. The boat was heavy and it took us forever to get it in the back of that truck. When I told Daddy that Billy had made me row, Billy claimed he had done it because it was good practice since I would have to use rowing in the miracle. Anyway, we have got that rowboat in the living room and I can’t have anybody over.
I was so tired in school today I slept through Chapter 14, “George Gets Lost,” of our Nancy Drew story.
Daddy has been painting that stolen rowboat all week. It is now the same color as the Gulf of Mexico, so if a plane comes over, they can’t see it. He has the machine working on batteries real good. We tried it out last night. He has also come up with a great idea he got from working at theaters.
A lot of times the people from Hollywood would send life-size cardboard figures of the stars to put outside the theaters. Daddy’s idea is to make cardboard figures of Jesus Christ, His mother and the Apostles to stand up behind me in the revival meetings. Each one will have its own spotlight, he is going to put clothes on them and then use fans so the clothes will blow in the wind. Daddy says this will be a very dramatic sight and should bring in more money. He is going all out.
The miracle is set for next Tuesday, when the Farmers’ Almanac says it is going to be cloudy. Late Tuesday night I am going to put on a white choir robe that Billy stole for me from his church. We will get the boat in the water and I’ll row out as far as I can until I can’t see land anymore. Daddy will then run up and down the beach and wake everyone up and carry on about how his little girl has drowned in the Gulf of Mexico because of his drinking. In the meantime, Billy is just going to happen to have a camera in his car so he can take a picture of the cross for the paper. At 6:45 A.M. on the dot, I turn the machine on and pull the nail out of the hole Daddy drilled in the bottom of the boat. Daddy figures it will take about thirty minutes for the boat and the projector machine to sink, so the cross will still be on w
hen I get to shore on my inner tube. Once I can see people, I am to let go of the inner tube and dog-paddle all the way in. As soon as my feet touch bottom, I will stand up and walk out of the water with my hands in a praying position and my eyes cast upwards. According to plan, this should be at five after seven when Daddy will make a big fuss and get people to look at the spot where I’ll be.
When I get to the shore, I’m supposed to say, “I have been with my Father in heaven, and He let me come back from the dead to deliver a message to my daddy to quit drinking, and I have something very important to tell all of the other sinners in Harwin County …”
After that, Daddy and Billy Bundy will grab me and take me up to the house and keep me there for three days, and Friday I will make my first appearance after being dead at a revival meeting. It sounds good to me.
The little girl from South America the Jr. Debutantes adopted is still sending us letters, but nobody will answer her, so I am going to write and tell her Mrs. Dot is sick, but not to worry, we will keep sending her money.
I’ll bet she looks just like Carmen Miranda!
March 2, 1953
I am back from the dead, and you wouldn’t believe what happened.
Last night at one o’clock I put on my choir robe, and Daddy and Billy and I dragged the boat out in the water. I got in it and rowed away. In the boat with me were the projection machine, a flashlight, an inner tube, a pair of pliers and an assortment of Peter Paul candy bars. Billy let me take his Timex waterproof, shatterproof watch, which I was to throw away when I left the boat, because he didn’t think a person coming down from heaven would be wearing a Timex. I had to agree with him, although I would have loved to have it for myself if he didn’t want it.
I also had a list of instructions in case I forgot what to do. Daddy said if you know how to read instructions, you can do anything in life, and he taught me how to read them real good. I rowed and rowed as far out as I could and ate all my candy in the first hour.
It sure was cold sitting in that boat in the dark for five hours. I started doing a lot of thinking about sharks and I hoped I wasn’t going to be drowned for real.
To tell you the truth, I almost rowed back a couple of times, but I knew if I did, Daddy would kill me. When the sun came up, I looked at the shore and I had drifted all the way down past the pier, so I had to row like crazy to get back to where I was supposed to be in time for the projection machine to go on.
By then it was six forty-five. I was exhausted, but I turned the machine on and pulled the nail out with a pair of needle-nosed pliers, threw the perfectly good watch away, and jumped out of the boat and headed for shore on my inner tube. I could begin to hear voices on the beach as I got closer and helicopters were beginning to fly all over the place. I thought I never was going to make it, but I let go of the inner tube when I was supposed to and started dog-paddling in.
When I got to where I could walk and looked up, I never saw so many people in my life. It’s hard to walk in the water with your hands in a praying position, looking up. I fell down three times. We should have practiced that part. When I reached the shore, everyone started screaming and running toward me, Mr. Curtis Honeywell and his all-girl army, Michael and his whole family, the police and the Coast Guard, and just about the entire town.
Daddy grabbed me first and did a great scene, just like Cary Grant’s in the movie Penny Serenade when he thought he was going to lose his little girl. Billy Bundy was running up and down the beach, screaming, “Look at the cross, look at the cross,” to make sure that everyone saw it. I said my line about coming from heaven with an important message and I had to repeat it twice so everyone could hear me. Then Daddy took me straight up to the house and put me in the bedroom.
Daddy hadn’t told Jimmy Snow about the miracle and he had come down to the beach with his arm still in a cast to look for me. When he saw me alive, he just sat right down on the beach and cried like a baby. He wasn’t paying any attention to the cross at all. All day long, reporters and people kept coming, but Daddy and Billy Bundy won’t let me talk to anyone until the revival meeting.
I heard what Daddy was saying to them through the door, promising he would never touch a drop of liquor again because God had let his child live. Daddy was real corny, especially when he would tell them he had to check on his little girl and then walk in here and take a drink. Mrs. Underwood came down to see me and I felt real bad that I couldn’t see her, but Daddy said that it would be bad for business. The room is full of cardboard figures, fans and spotlights and signs that say, “Come see the Little Girl who came back from the dead, with a message from God,” and she might get suspicious.
Daddy promised to tell Jimmy Snow that I wasn’t really drowned. I don’t like to see Jimmy upset. I will probably be in the paper since this is the most exciting news that has happened here since the malt shop burned up.
March 23, 1953
I’m still not sure what went wrong. Daddy rented the dance hall across the street for the revival meeting. Billy Bundy announced on the radio where the revival meeting would be held and at what time. He also announced he had photographs of the cross that had appeared on the clouds and he would send them to anybody in his listening audience for a donation of $5. He did a sermon based on how a little child shall lead them and threw in “unless a person becomes as innocent as a child, they cannot enter the kingdom of heaven.” It was great.
That afternoon we went over to the dance hall to set up the cardboard figures with their fans and their spotlights, and to rehearse. I was to stay in the ladies’ room until Billy had finished his sermon and told about how he was an eyewitness to me coming back from the dead. Daddy had rented an organ and had hired Miss Irma Jean Slawson to play “Let Us Gather by the River” when I was brought up on the stage. He thought a song about water was best since I had been drowned. Irma Jean had made quite a name for herself at the Future Farmers of America Convention that had been held in Robertsdale earlier this year.
Daddy had already taken care of arrangements to charge a dime for parking, but he never dreamed how many people would show up. There were so many people he didn’t get his dime from a lot of them. A man he’d hired to sell cold drinks and hot dogs ran out of hot dogs before the revival ever started. By seven o’clock Daddy’s folding chairs had been rented and people were still coming. Billy Bundy had gotten me a maroon choir robe from the Magnolia Springs Baptist Church and a rhinestone cross to wear. That was going to be my official uniform. Daddy put some rouge and some Maybelline mascara on me he had borrowed from Rayette Walker, who wasn’t mad at him anymore. All I was supposed to do was to walk on the stage, look real holy, talk a few minutes about my trip to heaven and go into the audience with my buckets and get money.
At first everything went real well. Billy Bundy had on a black suit with a string bow tie and preached like crazy about the burning fires of hell and how God had sent this child to lead everybody to salvation. He said things like “Suffer the little children to come unto me.” I couldn’t hear it all from the bathroom, but the people seemed to like it because they said “Amen” a lot. Then he got to the part where I had been in heaven and had returned from the dead to talk to them. The cue for me to enter was to be three knocks on the bathroom door from Miss Irma Jean Slawson. I was to count to ten to give her enough time to get back to her organ. I was getting real nervous waiting for my cue when all of a sudden Miss Irma Jean ran into the bathroom and used it and ran back out, and then she knocked three times on the door.
I counted to ten and entered the stage with my eyes pointed upwards just like Daddy had told me to do. Even though Miss Slawson had made me nervous giving me my cue, she was well worth the money Daddy paid her. She sure played loud. The minute I came out Daddy hit me with a spotlight and I had to stand there a long time before I could make my talk. Those people were taking my picture and screaming out things like “Praise the Lord” and “Hallelujah” and stuff like that. Daddy blinked the spotlight a couple of times bef
ore I got enough nerve to speak.
I put both my hands up in the air like Daddy had told me to and sure enough they quieted down. He knows his audiences. I started my talk with how I had been in heaven and that God was real nice-looking. He and the angels had told me to come back to earth and stop my daddy from drinking and to tell everyone how much we needed money so I could carry the Lord’s work all over the whole state of Mississippi. They seemed to like what I was telling them. Then I got carried away with myself and forgot my planned speech. I started talking about how wrong it was to catch fish that they weren’t going to eat and leave them on the pier to die and that catfish have souls and I had seen a lot of them in heaven and it was evil to kill them. I went on about how wrong it was to be mean to colored people and especially little children and albinos. I had a lot to say that night about meanness no matter what form it took.
I was having a good time when all of a sudden I could feel that they were no longer listening to me. Even though I was supposed to keep my eyes upward, I looked down in the audience and saw Mr. Caldwell, that man from the Bon Secour River, come walking up the aisle carrying his crippled daughter, Betty. Miss Irma Jean Slawson must have gotten scared. She stopped playing the organ and everything became real quiet. He walked right up the stairs and onto the stage and said, “Touch my little girl and make her whole.” I didn’t know what he was talking about, so I just stood there too scared to move. I looked at my daddy, who was by the spotlight, but he was just staring at Mr. Caldwell and Betty. I looked over for Billy Bundy, but he had dropped his Bible on the floor and froze on the spot. I was getting no help from my partners, who sure hadn’t told me what to do in this situation. Then Mr. Caldwell looked up towards heaven and said in a real loud voice, “Let the angel of the Lord touch my child.” I didn’t know what he was talking about and I would have been standing there to this day if Betty hadn’t said, “Fay, help me. Put your hands on me and help me.”
