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"Julian and Cleo had built four wooden booths and built the room in the back, so Idgie and Ruth would have a place to live. The cafe part had walls that were knotty Georgia pine, and the floor was just plain old wood.
"Ruth tried to fix the place up. She put a picture of a ship sailing in the moonlight, but Idgie came right along behind her and took it down and stuck up a picture she found of a bunch of dogs sitting around a card table, smoking cigars and playing polker. And she wrote underneath it, The Dill Pickle Club. That was the name of this crazy club that she and her friend Grady Kilgore had started. Other than the Christmas decorations they put up the first year that Idgie never did take down, and an old railroad calendar. That was it.
"There was only about four tables and a bunch of uncertain chairs." She laughed. "You never knew for certain if they was go
"Idgie opened the place at daybreak and didn't close the place until, as she said, 'the last dog was hung.'
"The big L N switching yard was only two blocks down the street, and all the railroad people ate there, colored and white alike. She'd serve the colored out the back door. Of course, a lot of people didn't like the idea of her selling food to the coloreds, and she got into some trouble doing it, but she said that nobody was go
MARCH 22, 1933
ldgie was drinking coffee and talking about not much of anything with her hobo friend Smokey. Back in the kitchen, Sipsey and Onzell were busy frying up a batch of green tomatoes for the lunch crowd, due in about 11:30, and listening to the "Wings Over Jordan Gospel Hour," over W.A.P.I. radio when Ocie Smith knocked at the kitchen door.
Sipsey came out into the cafe, wiping her hands on her apron. "Miz Idgie, there's a colored boy who's axing to speak wid you."
Idgie went to the screen door and immediately recognized Ocie Smith, a friend of hers from Troutville, who worked at the railroad yard.
"Well hey there, Ocie. How are you?"
"I's fine, Miz Idgie."
"What can I do for you?"
"Miz Idgie, they's a whole bunch of us boys over at the yard, and we's been smelling barbecue every day for 'bout two months and it's 'bout to drive us out of our heads, and we's wonderin' if you wouldn't be willing to sell us some of them barbecue sandwiches. I's got money."
Idgie sighed and shook her head. "Let me tell you something, Ocie. You know that if it was up to me, I'd have you come on in the front door and sit at a table, but you know I cain't do that."
"Yes'm."
"There's a bunch in town that would burn me down in a minute, and I've got to make a living."
"Yes'm, I knows you do."
"But I want you to go back over to the yard and tell your friends, anytime they want anything, just to come on around to the kitchen door."
He gri
"Tell Sipsey what you want, and she'll fix you up."
"Yes'm. Thank you, ma'am."
"Sipsey, give him his barbecue and anything else he wants. Give him some pie, too."
Sipsey mumbled under her breath, "You go
But she fixed the sandwiches and got grape drinks and pie and put them in a paper sack with a napkin for him.
About three days later, Grady Kilgore, the local sheriff and part-time railroad detective, came in all puffed up. He was a big bear of a man who had been a friend of her brother, Buddy.
He put his hat on the hat rack, like he always did, and told Idgie he had some serious business to discuss. She brought his coffee to the booth and sat down. Grady leaned across the table and started his unpleasant task.
"Now, Idgie, you ought not to be selling those niggers food, you know better than that. And there's some boys in this town that's not too happy about it. Nobody wants to eat in the same place that niggers come, it's not right and you just ought not be doin' it."
Idgie thought it over for a moment and shook her head in agreement.
"You're right, Grady, I know better and I just ought not be doing it."
Grady sat back and seemed pleased.
She continued, "Yeah, Grady, it's fu
Grady, who was at the present time a deacon in the Baptist church and had married the former Gladys Moats, who was known to have a temper, got flustered. "Oh come on, Idgie, that's not fu
"I think it is. Just like I think a bunch of grown men getting liquored up and putting sheets on their heads is pretty damn fu
Grady called out to Ruth, who was behind the counter, "Ruth, will you come over here and try to talk some sense into her? She ain't go
Idgie lit her Camel and smiled. "Well, Grady, tell you what. The next time those 'some people' come in here, like Jack Butts and Wilbur Weems and Pete Tidwell, I'll ask 'em if they don't want anybody to know who they are when they go marching around in one of those stupid parades you boys have, why don't they have enough sense to change their shoes?"
"Now, wait a minute, Idgie—"
"Oh hell, Grady, y'all ain't fooling anybody. Why, I'd recognize those size-fourteen clodhoppers you got on anywhere."
Grady looked down at his feet. He was losing this battle in a hurry.
"Aw now, Idgie, I've got to tell them something. Are you go
Ruth went to the table. "Oh Grady, what harm can it be to sell a few sandwiches out the back door? It's not like they're coming in and sitting down."
"Well, I don't know, Ruth . . . I'll have to talk to the boys."
"They're not hurting anybody, Grady."
He thought for a minute. "Well . . . okay for now, I guess."
He pointed his finger at Idgie. "But you make sure you keep them at the back door, you hear me?"
He got up to leave and put his hat on, and then turned back to Idgie.
"We still playing polker Friday?"
"Yep. Eight o'clock. And bring plenty of money, I feel lucky."
"I'll tell Jack and them . . . 'bye, Ruth."
“‘Bye, Grady."
Idgie shook her head as she watched him go on down the street.
"Ruth, I wish you could have seen that big ox, down at the river for three days, drunk as a dog, crying like a baby, 'cause Joe, that old colored man that raised him, died. I swear, I don't know what people are using for brains anymore. Imagine those boys: They're terrified to sit next to a nigger and have a meal, but they'll eat eggs that came right out of a chicken's ass."
"Oh, Idgie!"