Фэнни Флэгг - The Wonder Boy of Whistle Stop

He wasn’t trying to upset anybody or disappear for good. All he wanted to do was take a ride on the train. It wasn’t a spur-of-the-moment thing. He had been planning today’s little caper for quite a while. For the last few months, he had been taking different church shuttle buses every other Sunday just to confuse the Briarwood staff.

He had managed to look up the train schedule, and last Friday, he had slipped into the new assistant’s office while she was at lunch and printed out a round-trip ticket. He was taking the Amtrak train from Atlanta to Birmingham, then coming back to Atlanta on the same day. Hopefully, he’d be back at the Manor in time for dinner. If all went well, they wouldn’t even know he was gone. He certainly didn’t want to upset Ruthie; she had enough troubles without worrying about him.

He had been looking so forward to making this trip again. When he was a kid, Aunt Idgie had been friends with all the railroad men in Whistle Stop, and knowing how much he loved trains, the engineers used to let him ride with them over to Atlanta and back. His mother was not too happy about it, but had let him go, as long as he was home by dark. What fun those trips were. The engineers let him blow the whistle at all the crossings. And on the way back home, the Pullman porter on the Crescent always brought him a ham and cheese sandwich and a big silver bowl of vanilla ice cream from the dining car. How lucky can a kid get?

All he wanted to do was ride the train past Whistle Stop one more time. He had heard there was really nothing much left. But he still wanted to see it.

AS BUD FOUND his platform and waited for the train, he felt sad and happy at the same time. He’d wanted to make this trip while he was still in his right mind and in fairly good physical health. He was slipping just a bit, and he knew it. Just this morning he had walked out and forgotten his phone. This could be his last trip back to Alabama for all he knew.

For years, Bud had sworn up and down that he would never be one of those old codgers sitting around all day talking about the past. But lately, God help him, the past had been on his mind a lot. He had to admit he was now a card-carrying member of the “Back when I was a boy” club.

After he boarded the long Amtrak train to Birmingham, Bud made his way down the aisle and noticed an empty seat next to a nice-looking young person. He had to look twice because the person had their hair pulled back in some kind of bun. But as he got closer, he saw it was a boy.

“Pardon me, son, is this seat taken?” he asked.

“No sir, please sit down.”

“Thank you.”

After he sat down, Bud asked him, “Where are you traveling today? Going down to New Orleans?”

“No sir. Going home to Birmingham.”

“Ah…me too.”

“Oh are you from Birmingham, too?”

“No, but close. I’m from a little place right outside you’ve probably never heard of called Whistle Stop.”

The young man said, “Whistle Stop? Gosh, I think I remember my grandmother saying something about riding through a town called Whistle Stop.”

“Is that right?”

“Yes sir. My grandparents used to take the train to New York every year to do Christmas shopping.”

“Well, Whistle Stop’s the place where I grew up, but like a lot of things, it’s not there anymore. Things change, time marches on.”

The boy looked sympathetic. “I know just how you feel. My old neighborhood has changed a lot since I was young.”

“I see….If you don’t mind me asking, how old are you, son?”

“Twenty-two.”

“Lucky you. Twenty-two is a great age.” Then Bud laughed. “Come to think of it, every age is a great age. At least that’s been my experience. Some are better than others, but every year has something good to offer. What’s your name?”

“William Hornbeck, Jr. But people call me Billy.”

“Well, happy to meet you, Billy. My name is Bud Threadgoode. I’m going to be eighty-four years old next week.”

“Wow. What’s that like, to be eighty-four?”

“I don’t know yet, but I can tell you what the best part of being eighty-three is.”

“What’s that, sir?”

“No more peer pressure.” Buddy looked over at him and grinned, and the young man laughed.

“I guess that would be great, all right. I’m in grad school over at Emory. It’s a lot of pressure.”

“Is that so? What are you studying?”

“Applied sociology.”

Bud nodded. “Well, I don’t have any idea what that is, but it sounds like you must be a pretty smart fellow. I’m a retired person myself.”

Bud pulled out his old brown leather wallet and opened it up.

“Here’s a picture of my daughter, Ruthie, when she was six…and this one is when she was homecoming queen.”

“Wow, she was a beauty.”

Bud smiled. “Thank you. She still is. Here she is with my two grandchildren. She lost her husband a few years ago. It was hard but she picked up the ball and went on. I’m so proud of her, I don’t know what I’d do without her. Best daughter in the world. Calls me every day. I just talked to her this morning….Of course, I didn’t tell where I was headed today.”

“Is she your only child?”

“Yep, and I sure hit the jackpot with her.”

Billy said, “I’m an only child.”

“Well, I’ll be dogged. Here we’ve just met and already we have something in common. I am, too. I kinda liked being the only one, but it can be hard on some folks. Ruthie’s husband was an only child, and it came with an awful lot of responsibility. Too much, if you ask me. That’s why I don’t tell Ruthie a lot of things. Don’t want to worry her too much.”

“By the way, that’s a very cool jacket you have on.”

“Why, thank you. My wife bought it for me. I’ve had it since 1959, but it’s still good as new, don’t you think?”

“Yes sir. If you don’t mind my asking, Mr. Threadgoode, what was your line of business?”

“Not at all. I was a doctor of veterinary medicine.”

“A veterinarian. Oh cool….Did you always want to be a vet?”

Bud nodded. “Pretty much. And I guess I can blame my Aunt Idgie for that. She was a big animal lover. From the time I can remember, she always had a couple of cats, and took in every stray animal for miles around. Some of them so sick or hurt they were barely alive. But somehow she was able to nurse them back to life. Possums, birds, baby squirrels, you name it. One time somebody brought her a chicken that had lost both its feet in an accident, and darned if she didn’t figure out a way to make it a pair of new feet.”

“How’d she do that?

“She took a pair of leather baby shoes and glued them on its legs, and before you knew it that chicken was running all over the yard in pink leather baby shoes.”

“Really?”

“Oh yeah, and when one shoe came off, she’d just glue another one on. We even had an alligator once, with half his tail missing.”

“An alligator?”

“Sure did. My uncle Julian was living down in Florida at the time and found it on the side of the road and brought it to her. She kept it in a big cement tub in the back of the cafe, with wires over the top, so it wouldn’t escape.”

“Was it dangerous?”

“Oh, you bet he was. One time he got loose and was hiding under the steps. And the next morning when I came down them headed for school he jumped out and bit the hell out of me.”

“No…”

“Oh yeah, just about took my whole leg off.”

Billy was horrified. “Oh no…your whole leg?”

Bud smiled. “Well…it was more like a toe. Makes a good story though, doesn’t it?”

Billy said, “Yeah, an alligator…wow.”

Bud smiled. He was going to have a good time with this boy.