"I never knew that."

"I know you didn't."

"Wow  Do you know any other brave people? What about Uncle Julian shooting that twelve-point deer last week? That took a lot of courage."

"Well now, there's courage and then there's courage," Idgie said. "You don't have to be too brave to shoot some poor dumb animal with a twenty-gauge shotgun."

"Who else do you know that's brave besides Big George?"

"Well, let's see," she said, musing. "Besides Big George, I'd have to say that your mother was one of the bravest people I know."

"Momma?"

"Yes. Your momma."

"Oh, I don't believe that. Why, she's scared of everything, even a little bug. What'd she ever do?"

"Something. She did something once."

"What?"

"It doesn't matter what. You asked me and I told you. Your mother and Big George are the two bravest people I know."

"Really?"

"I promise you so."

Stump was amazed. "Well, I'll be ..."

"That's right. And there's something else I want you always to remember. There are magnificent beings on this earth, son, that are walking around posing as humans. And I don't ever want you to forget that. You hear me?"

Stump looked at her sincerely and said, "No ma'am, I won't."

As they continued on down the tracks, a bright red cardinal swooped out of a snow-covered tree and made a Christmas flight across the white horizon.

MARCH 9, 1986

Before during those long endless black nights when Evelyn had been awake sweating with fear and fighting visions of death and tubes and tumors growing, she had wanted to scream out for help while Ed slept beside her. But she had just lain there in that dark pit of her own personal hell until morning.

Lately, to get her mind off that cold gun and pulling the trigger, she would close her eyes and force herself to hear Mrs. Threadgoode's voice and if she breathed deep and concentrated she would soon see herself in Whistle Stop. She would walk down the street and go in Opal's beauty shop and could actually feel her hair being washed with warm water, then cool, then cooler. After a comb-out she would stop by to visit with Dot Weems at the post office and then on to the cafe where she could see everyone so clearly, Stump and Ruth and Idgie. She would order lunch and Wilbur Weems and Grady Kilgore would wave to her. Sipsey and Onzell would smile at her and she could hear the radio from the kitchen. Everyone would ask her how she was and the sun was always shining and there would always be a tomorrow . . .Lately she slept more and more, and thought of the gun less and less . . .

When she woke this morning, Evelyn realized that she was actually looking forward to going to the nursing home. Sitting there all these weeks listening to stories about the cafe and Whistle Stop had become more of a reality than her own life with Ed in Birmingham.

When she arrived, her friend was in a good mood, as usual, and was happy to get the Hershey bar without almonds, a special request. Halfway through it, Mrs. Threadgoode was busy wondering about a hobo she had known years ago.

"Lord, I wonder whatever happened to Smokey Lonesome. It's no telling where he is now, probably dead somewhere, I guess.

"I remember the first time he ever came in the cafe. I was having a plate of fried green tomatoes, and he knocked on the back door, looking for food. Idgie went in the kitchen and pretty soon she came back in with this poor fella that was filthy dirty from riding the rails, and told him to go into the bathroom and wash up and she'd give him a bite to eat. Idgie went to fix him a plate and said that was the lonesomest-looking character she'd ever seen. He said his name was Smokey Phillips, but Idgie named him Smokey Lonesome, and after that, every time she'd see him coming in off the road, she'd say, 'Here comes ol' Smokey Lonesome.'

"Poor ol’ thing, I don't think he had a family, and Ruth and Idgie felt sorry for him 'cause he was 'bout half dead, and let him stay in that old shed they had out in back of the cafe. Oh, he'd get the wanderlust every once in a while and take off two or three times a year, but sooner or later he'd show back up, usually drunk and run-down, and, he'd go out back in his shed and stay awhile. He never owned a thing in his life. All he had was a knife and a fork and a spoon that he carried inside his coat pocket, and this can opener that he kept in his hatband.  Said he didn't want to be burdened down. I think that shed out back was the only place he ever had to call home, and if it hadn't been for Ruth and Idgie, he might have starved to death.

"But I think the real reason he kept coming back was because he was in love with Ruth. He never said so, but you could tell by the way he looked at her.

"You know, I'm thankful that my Cleo passed on first. It seems like a man cain't live without a woman. That's why most of them die right after their wives do. They just get lost. It's pitiful . . . you take Old Man Dunaway who's out here. His wife hasn't even been dead over a month yet, and he's already started goosing all the women . . . that's why they're giving him those tranquilizers, to calm him down. Thinks he's a Romeo, can you imagine? And you should see what he looks like, just like an old turkey buzzard, with big floppy ears and all. But who am I to say? No matter what you look like, there's somebody who's gonna think you're the handsomest man in the world. Well, maybe he'll catch one of these old women yet. . .”

CHICAGO, ILLINOIS

DECEMBER 3, 1938

West Madison Street, Chicago, was no different from Pratt Street in Baltimore, South Main Street in Los Angeles, or Third Street in San Francisco; a street of gospel missions, cheap rooming houses, and hotels, secondhand clothes stores, greasy-spoon soup lines, pawn shops, liquor stores, and whorehouses, teeming with what were kindly referred to as "disappointed men."

The only thing that made that year in Chicago different from any other was that Smokey Lonesome, who usually traveled alone, had picked up a friend. Just a kid, really, but he was company. They'd met over a month ago, in Michigan.

He was a good-looking, fresh-faced kid, wearing a thin blue-gray slipover sweater over a brown frayed shirt and ragged brown pants, with skin like a baby's ass. Still wet behind the ears, he'd had a lot of trouble over in Detroit with guys trying to bugger him, and he'd asked Smokey if he could travel with him for a while.

Smokey had told him the same thing that an old guy once said: "Go home now, kid, while you can. Get away from this life, 'cause once you piss out of a boxcar, you're hooked."

But it didn't do any good, just like it hadn't done any good with him, so Smokey decided to let him tag along.

He was a funny kid. He had about pulled his own britches off, digging so hard for a dime. He wanted to see Sally Rand do her fan dance to "White Birds in the Moonlight," as it said on the poster. He never did find a dime, but the woman in the glass ticket booth felt so sorry for him that she let him in free.

Smokey had hustled up a quarter while he was waiting for him to come out of the show, and thought they'd go get them a ten-cent steak over at the Tile Grill. They had not had anything to eat that day except for a can of Vienna sausages and some stale crackers. He was smoking a Lucky Strike that he had found mashed in a cigarette package someone had thrown away when the kid came bursting out of the theater, flying high.

"Oh Smokey, you should have seen her! She's the most beautiful and delicate thing I've ever seen. She was like an angel, a real live angel come down from heaven."