by Fannie Flagg
Pickle’s daddy went out of town for a White Citizens’ Council meeting, and Lem and she and Baby Sister and Michael and I drove their tractor to the Hub Drive-In where we saw The Beast with a Thousand Faces and The Cult of the Cobra. Nathan and Amy Jo Snipes were there. They never watch the movie.
Pickle is after me all the time to smoke Kents because the senior girls do. They taste awful. I told her smoking Kents was like smoking Tampax. She smokes every chance she gets.
The TB bus came to the school the other day. In the study hall over the loudspeaker, they announced the names of all the girls who had to go back to have their X rays done over. Their X rays didn’t take because they were wearing rubber falsies and that great and wonderful majorette Kay Bob Benson was one of the first names called. Ha-ha.
November 1, 1956
Patsy Ruth Coggins sewed her own skirt into the sewing machine in Future Homemakers of America class. When the bell rang, she jumped up and ripped the arm right off the sewing machine. Her father has to pay for the whole machine. Tomorrow we have a lecture about small appliances and how to use them.
We had another football game. The band did a salute to Stephen Foster and played “Beautiful Dreamer” and we formed a bed. Then we played “My Old Kentucky Home” while the majorettes slowly pranced like horses. We finished up with “I Dream of Jeanie with the Light Brown Hair.” We formed a comb. Miss Philpot is running out of ideas if you ask me. We won the game again and Pickle is still pushing for Senior Radiator.
We can’t wait until next week because Madame Ramona is coming to town. Listen to this ad:
MADAME RAMONA DOESN’T MAKE HOUSE CALLS … FIRST TIME IN YOUR COUNTY … TELLS EVERYTHING YOU WANT TO KNOW WITHOUT ASKING ANY QUESTIONS … GIVES YOU NAMES OF ENEMIES AND FRIENDS … GIVES TRUE AND NEVER-FAILING ADVICE ON ALL AFFAIRS OF LIFE … CONSULT HER ON BUSINESS … LOVE … MARRIAGE … WILLS … DEEDS … MORTGAGES … LOST AND STOLEN ARTICLES AND SPECULATIONS OF ALL KINDS. DON’T BE DISCOURAGED IF OTHERS HAVE FAILED. SHE DOES WHAT OTHERS CLAIM TO DO. ONE VISIT WILL CONVINCE YOU THIS MEDIUM AND DIVINER IS SUPERIOR TO ANY READER YOU HAVE CONSULTED. THIRTY YEARS’ EXPERIENCE PRIVATE AND CONFIDENTIAL READING DAILY AND SUNDAY FOR BOTH WHITE AND COLORED … HOURS 9 A.M. TO 10 P.M. YOU MUST BE SATISFIED OR NO CHARGE. LOCATED AT THE SIDWELL SERVICE STATION ON ROUTE 19 … LOOK FOR A SIGN WITH A HAND … ATTENTION. SHE IS STRICTLY AN AMERICAN PALMIST, NOT A GYPSY OR AN INDIAN.
November 5, 1956
Last night Pickle and I had to ride back from the football game in Robertsdale with Mustard and Marion Eugene. We have to be nice to them so we can have dates with seniors for the Homecoming Dance. Marion Eugene about drowns himself in Old Spice and all he wants to do is kiss-kiss-kiss. It wouldn’t be so bad if he kept his mouth shut.
We won the game. I hugged Vernon Mooseburger because he hadn’t played at all and smelled nice. Marion Eugene got mad. Amy Jo Snipes is mad as hell because when Nathan made a touchdown, she got all excited and jumped up and down and cracked her tooth on his gold football she wore on a chain around her neck. It was just a hairline crack, not chipped like mine, so I don’t know what she was carrying on about.
November 6, 1956
Today after school Patsy Ruth Coggins, Amy Jo Snipes, and Pickle and I went out to see Madame Ramona at the filling station. All of Amy Jo Snipes’s questions were about Nathan. She wanted to find out if he truly loved her. I wanted to know if I was going to be famous and rich, and how long it would take, and when Pickle and I are gonna get to New York City or Hollywood.
Pickle went in first and was in there a long time. When she came out, she was all smiles. Madame Ramona had told her she was going to win a prize, and Pickle was sure it was going to be the Betty Crocker Homemaker of Tomorrow pin. I didn’t want to disappoint her, but the bread she made was the worst in the class, even worse than mine. At least mine rose up a little. Then Amy Jo Snipes went in and came back in a fit. Madame Ramona told her her sister, who is a member of Curtis Honeywell’s all-girl army, was going to get married before she did. Patsy Ruth Coggins chickened out altogether because she said it was against the rules of the Rainbow Girls to believe in anything but God.
So I went next. Madame Ramona was in a dark curtained room in back of the filling station. A little dirty girl was on the floor playing with paper dolls. Madame Ramona claims she isn’t an Indian or a Gypsy, but she is something foreign. She had on lots of greasy makeup, tons of bracelets, and was smoking Chesterfields. I had to sit down at this old card table with pictures of dogs on it and shuffle some cards. I was so scared I forgot my questions for a minute. When I remembered to ask her if I was going to be rich and famous, all of a sudden she stopped playing with those old cards and said, “Did you just receive an inheritance?”
I said no, I was not from a rich family. She might have me mixed up with Patsy Ruth Coggins, whose daddy owns the Chevrolet dealership, but is a Rainbow Girl and isn’t going to come in.
She said, “You got an inheritance from somebody.”
I said, “No, ma’am, I didn’t.”
She said, “Yes, you did.”
I said, “No, I don’t think I did.”
She said, “It is shiny.”
I thought and thought, but I couldn’t think of anything. I told her the only thing I ever got was a sweetheart pillow from Jessie LeGore and a ring that belonged to my mother. She jumped at me and said, “That’s it! Your mother wants you to wear that ring so she can help you.” My heart stopped.
“Your mother wants you to stop grieving over her and let her go. She is fine and she wants you to be happy. She is worried because you aren’t sleeping and you need your sleep.”
I said, “Really?”
“Yes, that will be five dollars.”
I gave it to her. I was sweating. How did that woman know about me not sleeping and that ring? I didn’t tell anybody anything. When I got home, I put Momma’s ring on and I’m never going to take it off. And I threw out what was left of my Jack Daniel’s whiskey.
November 21, 1956
Here’s the latest news. We got dates to the Homecoming Dance with Mustard and Marion Eugene. Amy Jo Snipes is going to make Nathan marry her during the Christmas vacation, and we all have to be in her wedding. Pickle is going to be the photographer for the school annual, and she signed me up to be on the staff. We all have to do our science projects so we can enter them in the county fair. Pickle is heartbroken because Judy Ashwinder won the Betty Crocker Homemaker of Tomorrow Award pin. Now she is sure she is going to win a prize for her science project.
Pickle says I shouldn’t be seen with Vernon Mooseburger because he is bald and not a senior. Vernon’s problem is that he is very shy.
I cut an ad out of the paper for the Dale Carnegie Course. It says that Dale can turn you into a confident and forceful speaker. I talked to Jimmy Snow, who agreed to loan Vernon the money for the course. I told him to consider it as an investment. Vernon could turn out to be the President of the United States or something. Vernon will go if I don’t tell anyone.
I am still failing algebra. That teacher hates me because I walked in and saw her washing her false teeth in the ladies’ room. Daddy thinks people who are good at math are Nazis.
Pickle’s daddy was just named some big deal in the White Citizens’ Council. His speech was in the paper. Mr. Watkins said the NAACP is not the enemy of the white people, they are only stupid. The enemies of the white people are the Democratic party and the Republican party. He is a Dixiecrat and has proof that eighty-seven different organizations of the Communist party are working with the southern Negro to take over the United States and kill all the white people in their beds. Rock and roll is a Communist-inspired plot to get white children to lower their moral standards and if it isn’t stopped, we will all go crazy and be hypnotized by the African drumbeat that is in rock and roll. When the. time comes, we will turn on our parents and kill them. He said he has proof that Fats Domino is in cahoots with Russia.
Anyway, this Assembly of
God preacher came up to the school and made Miss Philpot take “Blueberry Hill” out of our band show because it is a Communist number. So we had to do the salute to Stephen Foster again. Puke.
We got in the school paper. It said in “Teen Talk”:
What cute, blonde sophomore, with blue glasses and eyes to match, has Marion Eugene keeping his white bucks clean as a whistle?
Everybody knows it is me. And it said:
Mustard Smoot and Pickle Watkins have been seen sharing a malt and sweet talk at the Spinning Wheel.
Mustard and Pickle. They sound like a hot dog!
November 23, 1956
When I came home from school today, Daddy had some woman in his motel room. She answered the door and said he was asleep. Her name is Ruth, and she looks like an old drunk to me. Jimmy Snow said Ruth was divorced from some air-conditioning man. No wonder I haven’t seen much of Daddy lately. And I thought he was still so upset over Momma!
Jimmy Snow and I go out and eat almost every night, but Daddy never comes with us. Well, I hope he’s happy. I’m not talking to Ruth. She’s worse than Rayette Walker.
Grandma Pettibone said most men won’t wait until their wives are cold in their graves before they find another one. Daddy’s a real jerk. I would go live with my grandmother if I could, but the man she married is in bed with another heart attack. Daddy’s daddy still won’t talk to him so I guess I’ll stay here until I can graduate and Pickle and I can go to New York. Stupid jerk!
We had to take an aptitude test for the Harwin County Board of Education. It had a lot of math on it, so I copied Pickle’s answers. My test said I was suited to be an Artistic Mechanic. What’s an artistic mechanic?
November 24, 1956
Jimmy Snow and I went with Vernon Mooseburger to his first Dale Carnegie lesson at the Elks Lodge. We waited for him to make sure he didn’t leave. Afterwards he said he liked it, even though there were mostly old men in there. He thinks he can go through with it, and I’m glad. He still needs a wig, though.
Pickle decided we need to become Rainbow Girls because all the senior girls are in it. Your daddy has to be a Mason or your mother has to be in the Eastern Star. She talked Patsy Ruth Coggins into getting her mother to sponsor us. I asked Patsy Ruth what the Rainbow Girls do. She said it was pretty easy. All you do is sing hymns. Just what I want! Thanks a lot, Pickle!
We bought our formals for the Homecoming Dance. Pickle’s is a pretty aqua net with a big satin bow. Mine is a white ballerina-length net dress with little red polka dots. We had to buy strapless bras. Pickle’s has lots of padding. We’re both on the decorating committee. Our theme is “Rhapsody in Blue” because the Blue Flame Butane Company is sponsoring the dance. I hope I never see any more blue crepe paper and blue toilet-paper flowers. That crepe paper stains your hands something awful. Everybody knows that Amy Jo Snipes is going to be the Homecoming Queen because she is getting married and Nathan is the captain of the football team and a senior. Besides that, she threatened him with “you know what” if she didn’t get to be queen. Pickle and I are in the Homecoming Court.
It looks like we will be county champions in football. We haven’t lost a game yet. We’re going to have a slumber party at Patsy Ruth Coggins’s house the night of the Homecoming Dance.
Yesterday Daddy’s girlfriend, Ruth, packed her bags and left. She slammed the door so hard it sounded like a cannon going off. About five minutes later Daddy opened the door and it fell off the hinges. When I walked by him, he said, “The bookkeeper I hired for the motel hasn’t worked out, so I had to fire her.”
Does he think I’m stupid or something?
November 25, 1956
Poor Pickle. Her daddy won’t let her go out with Mustard Smoot anymore. He thinks she is letting Mustard go all the way. He beat the hell out of her last week. He must be crazy. Pickle is going to go to the Homecoming Dance with her brother, and Lem will have to meet his date at the dance. She is always having to sneak around because he won’t let her do anything! I can’t spend the night there anymore because he says I am a bad influence. It’s just as well. He looks at me funny and makes me feel dirty. I feel sorry for Pickle’s mother. She has to do everything he says, and he won’t give her any money. She sews some clothes for people so the kids can have money. I’m lucky. When I want money, I go get it out of the cash register or ask Jimmy Snow for some. Nobody checks to see how much is in there. Jimmy says that the bartender that Daddy has working for him takes money all the time anyway.
I read in Photoplay that June Haver left the convent and married Fred MacMurray. I’m writing Sister Jude and if she isn’t there anymore, I’ll know for sure she’s June Haver. Why in the world would anybody leave the convent and marry Fred MacMurray?
Daddy and Jimmy and I had Thanksgiving dinner at the Romeos’ house. I don’t think you are supposed to have lasagne on Thanksgiving, but it was good, a lot better than Jimmy’s cooking.
Guess what? We lost the Homecoming Game. It’s all Michael Romeo’s fault. He made a touchdown in the first half and turned around to see if everybody was looking and ran into the goalpost and hurt his throwing arm so bad they had to take him out of the game. He was the only one on the team who could pass. Every time Mustard threw the ball, the other team kept catching it and made three touchdowns.
Our band show stunk! It was all about Thanksgiving. We formed a turkey that looked like a chicken. On top of that, it rained and our pompoms got wet and soggy. At the end of the game I ran up to hug the players. It was the least I could do after they lost and those boys were crying their eyes out. Can you imagine getting so upset over a stupid football game? All the cheerleaders were crying except me. Pickle worked herself up into a fit. I know she didn’t care that much. She told me I didn’t have any school spirit and to pretend. So I pretended to cry for her sake.
We changed into our evening gowns at Patsy Ruth Coggins’s house and I was the only one whose eyes weren’t red and puffy. Amy Jo Snipes said we had to be happy for the boys’ sake, to help them get over the tragedy of losing. It was our duty as southern women and cheerleaders. When the boys came to get us, Patsy Ruth’s mother made us all pose for pictures in front of the fireplace. Not a one of their tuxedos fit. Lemuel’s pants were three inches too short. Marion Eugene looked like a pigeon, his shirt stuck out so far in front. Pickle could have killed Mustard Smoot because he brought her a purple orchid, which didn’t match her aqua dress.
When we got to the auditorium, most of the crepe paper had fallen down. The boys were drunk before the dance even got started. By the time the Homecoming Queen and her court were presented, half the boys couldn’t walk straight. Amy Jo Snipes and Nathan led the parade, and the band played “Blue Velvet,” which is “their song.” Amy mooned all over Nathan, who didn’t even know where he was. Somebody spiked the punch. Miss Philpot must have had some because all night she crawled over the dance floor with a flashlight looking for a cameo that fell off a black velvet ribbon she wore around her neck. Pickle made me take off my glasses, so I didn’t get to see much. Those glasses looked awful with my new dress.
Guess who showed up at the dance? Crazy old Jimmy Snow. He wanted to see me in my formal. I tried to get him to dance with Miss Philpot, but he wouldn’t. He said I was the prettiest girl there! The strapless bra I bought was the most uncomfortable thing I ever had to wear in my life. With that and the girdle, all I remember is pain. None of the boys know how to dance, so I wound up dancing with Pickle and Amy Jo Snipes most of the night. They’re not much better. I am the only person in the Magnolia Springs High School who can lead. Kay Bob Benson and Flicka Hicks came in late. She had on a black dress her mother got her in Meridian and looked like the poor man’s Virginia Mayo, but all the boys thought she was wonderful.
After the dance at the pajama party, Amy Jo Snipes made us swear we would give her a wedding shower. Then she passed out slips of paper with what she wanted on them. She said she did it so we wouldn’t be embarrassed and two of us get her the
same thing. I have to buy her a colander, whatever that is.
I still have marks on me from that strapless bra. I’m throwing that thing away.
December 3, 1956
I am so disgusted. I got a letter from Sister Jude, she’s not June Haver, and my science project failed even before it got started. Mr. Leeds, our teacher, said whoever won would get a prize and a trip to Tupelo. I wanted to mate a flounder and a stingray and see if I could come up with a whole new breed of flounder that could sting you if you tried to gig it. I feel sorry for flounders lying there on the bottom of the Gulf getting gigged. Jimmy Snow got me a flounder and a stingray, but nobody could tell what sex they were. When we put them in the washtub, they hated each other and the flounder died. I killed a fish. I didn’t mean to, but we ate it, so I guess it was all right.
I told Mr. Leeds, and he gave me another project. I have to do one on the “Effects of Chemicals on Fire Ants.” Patsy Ruth Coggins is doing “The Blowfly Maggot in Harwin County” and Michael is doing “Islets of Langerhans, Your Liver’s Best Friend.” Kay Bob Benson is doing “The Human Circulatory System” and Vernon Mooseburger is doing “The Incredible Life-Span of the Potato Bug.” Now that he is in Dale Carnegie School, he shouts and uses funny gestures. He is going too far, and everybody thinks he is obnoxious.
Pickle is cheating. She is doing “The Study of the Chick Embryo.” Her brother, Lemuel, did it last year and since we have a new science teacher, she is using his old charts. Ever since Madame Ramona told her she was going to win a prize, she’s been impossible.
We attend Rainbow Girls every week down at the Masonic Hall on top of Tally’s Furniture Store. We have to sit outside while everybody else goes in to the secret meeting. All those Rainbow Girls have secrets. I can’t wait until we are initiated to find out what they are.
