TEN YEARS FOR THE ATTEMPTED MURDER OF A CITY OFFICER WITH A DEADLY WEAPON.  It would have been thirty if those two men had been white.

SEPTEMBER 1, 1986

Ed Couch came home Thursday night and said he was having trouble with a woman at the office who was “a real ball breaker,” and that none of the men wanted to work with her because of it.

 The next day, Evelyn went out to the mall to shop for a bed jacket for Big Momma and while she was having lunch at the Pioneer Cafeteria a thought popped into her head unannounced:

What is a ball breaker?

She’d heard Ed use that term quite a lot along with She’s out to get my balls and I had to hold onto my balls for dear life.

Why was Ed so scared that someone was out to get his balls?  What were they anyway?  Just little pouches that carried sperm; but the way men carried on about them, you’d think they were the most important thing in the world.  My God, Ed had just about died when one of their son’s hadn’t dropped properly.  The doctor said it wouldn’t affect his ability to have children, but Ed had acted like it was a tragedy and wanted to send him to a psychiatrist, so he wouldn’t feel less of a man.  She remembered thinking at the time, how silly . . . her breasts had never developed, and nobody ever sent her for help.

But Ed had won out, because he told her she didn't understand about being a man and what it meant. Ed had even pitched a fit when she wanted to have their cat, Valentine, who had impregnated the thoroughbred Siamese cat across the street, fixed.

He said, "If you're gonna cut his balls off, you might as well just go on and put him to sleep!*'

No doubt about it, he was peculiar where balls were concerned.

She remembered how Ed had once complimented that same woman at the office when she had stood up to the boss. He had bragged on her, saying what a ballsy dame she was.

But now that she thought about it, she wondered: What did that woman's strength have to do with Ed's anatomy? He hadn't said, "Boy, she's got some ovaries"; he had definitely said what balls she had. Ovaries have eggs in them, she thought: Shouldn't they be as important as sperm?

And when had that woman stepped over the line of having just enough balls to having too much?

That poor woman. She would have to spend her whole life balancing imaginary balls if she wanted to get along. Balance was everything. But what about size? she wondered. She never heard Ed mention size before. It was the other thing's size they were so concerned about, so she guessed it didn't matter all that much. All that mattered in this world was the fact that you had balls. Then all at once, the simple and pure truth of that conclusion hit her. She felt as if someone had run a pencil up her spine and dotted an i on her head. She sat up straight in her chair, shocked that she, Evelyn Couch, of Birmingham, Alabama, had stumbled on the answer. She suddenly knew what Edison must have felt like when he discovered electricity. Of course! That was it . . . having balls was the most important thing in this world. No wonder she had always felt like a car in traffic without a horn.

It was true. Those two little balls opened the door to everything. They were the credit cards she needed to get ahead, to be listened to, to be taken seriously. No wonder Ed had wanted a boy.

Then another truth occurred to her. Another sad, irrevocable truth: She had no balls and never would or could have balls. She was doomed. Ball-less forever. Unless, she thought, if maybe the balls in your immediate family counted. There were four in hers . . . Ed's and Tommy's . . . No, wait . . . six, if she counted the cat. No, wait just another minute, if Ed loved her so much, why couldn't he give her one of his? A ball transplant . . . . That's right. Or, maybe she could get two from an anonymous donor. That's it, she'd buy some off a dead man and she could put them in a box and take them to important meetings and bang them on the table to get her way. Maybe she'd buy four . . .

No wonder Christianity had been such a big hit. Think of Jesus and the Apostles . . . And if you counted John the Baptist, why that was 14 pairs and 28 singles, right there!

Oh, it was all so simple to her now. How had she been so blind and not seen it before?

Yes, by heavens, she'd done it. She'd hit upon the secret that women have been searching for through the centuries . . .

THIS WAS THE ANSWER . . .

Hadn't Lucille Ball been the biggest star on television?

She banged her iced tea on the table in triumph and shouted, "YES! THAT'S IT!"

Everyone in the cafeteria turned and looked at her.

Evelyn quietly finished her lunch and thought, Lucille Ball? Ed might be right I probably am going crazy.

JUNE 10, 1948

Benefit for New Balls

The Dill Pickle Club will hold a womanless wedding to benefit the high school so they can get a new set of balls for the football, basketball, and baseball teams this year. This should be quite an evening, with our own Sheriff Grady Kilgore as the lovely bride and Idgie as the groom. Julian Threadgoode, Jack Butts, Harold Vick, Pete Tidwell, and Charlie Fowler will be bridesmaids.

This affair will be at the high school on June 14, at seven o'clock. Admission is 20c for adults and 5c for children.

Essie Rue Limeway will play the organ for the wedding.

Come one, come all! I intend to be there, as my other half, Wilbur, will be the flower girl.

My other half and I went to the picture show and saw The Gracie Allen Murder Mystery. It was funny, but go before the prices change at seven.

By the way, Rev. Scroggins said someone put his lawn furniture on top of his house.

. . . Dot Weems . . .

ATMORE, ALABAMA

JULY 11, 1948

Artis O. Peavey had been sent down to Kilbey Prison, better known as the Murder Farm, for pulling a knife on those two dogcatchers, and it had taken Idgie and Grady six months of trying before they could get him out.

On the way down, Grady said to Idgie, "It's a damn good thing he's coming out now. He might not of lasted in that place for another month."

Grady knew what he was talking about, having once been a guard there.

"Hell, if the guards don't get him, then the other niggers will. I've seen decent men turn into animals inside. Men, with a wife and children at home, will turn around and kill one another over some gal-boy . . . every night in the cell blocks was bad—but whenever there was a full moon, look out. They all go crazy and stick each other. We'd go in the next morning and there'd be about twenty-five stiffs we'd have to bring out. And after a while down there, the only difference between the men and the guards is the gun. Most of those guards are pretty simpleminded old boys . . . they'll go to a picture show and see Tom Mix or Hoot Gibson and then they come back and ride around the farm, pulling their guns, trying to be cowboys. Sometimes they get meaner than the prisoners. That's why I quit. Seen men that would beat a nigger to death, just to have something to do. I'm telling you, that place gets to you after a while, and I hear now that they've got those Scottsborough boys down here, things is worse than ever."

Now Idgie was really worried and she wished he would drive faster.

When they turned in the gate that led down the road to the main building, they saw hundreds of prisoners in coarse striped uniforms out in the yard digging or hoeing, and they saw the guards, just like Grady had said, showing off as the car passed by, running their horses in circles and peering at the car as it drove by. Idgie thought that most of them did look a little retarded, so when they brought Artis out, she was relieved to see that he was still alive and well.