Bound by Flesh Page #11

they came in the store.

Now,

they were showgirls still.

They had the long fingernails... -

red long fingernails,

orange hair and the makeup

and caused quite a stir.

And they went over

to the office, and they said,

"We want to see Mr. Reid.

We want a job."

Well, my aunt was on

the receiving thing,

and she's like,

"Oh, my gosh.

"These people can't work here.

What are they thinking?"

I mean, they were destitute.

They... - I mean, they had nothing.

And their life was taken away.

They sat down on one chair.

You know,

they kind of cuddled.

And they said,

"Mr. Reid, we need a job."

They said, "You only

has to pay one... - One people."

And Daddy's looking at them.

He said,

"Well, I got to think about it.

You know,

let me get back to you."

And he prayed and prayed.

He was a quiet man

and quite Christian.

It came to him... -

the produce.

They could work in the produce.

'Cause they couldn't

bag groceries.

And Dad was smart.

He was gonna use four hands.

- Back in those days,

every cash register

did not have its own scale

to weigh produce on.

So you would go down

a produce aisle,

and there would be

a set of scales

and a person there,

and they would weigh them

and price them,

and then they would

ring it up at the end.

Well, what he did is,

he set up a double aisle;

then the twins could sit

each on a stool

and work a set of scales.

- Coming toward them,

you couldn't tell

that they were connected.

And people would

go on out this way,

and unless they turned back,

they would see

the connection here.

- My little nephew would go,

and he'd try

to stand behind them

and see where

they were connected at.

- My mother's job

was to clean them up.

[laughs]

- You can't show up

in your stage makeup

and your old stage costumes.

- They cut their hair

and dyed it

a little more normal color.

They had two separate shirts

and two separate skirts,

but it was split,

see,

to go around both of them.

- Certainly people

did come to the store

to see the Hilton sisters.

- It was an asset to the store,

I'm sure.

- And a lot of people,

I guess, come to see them,

you know,

just to see Siamese twins.

They were nice.

They would speak to you

and talk to you

while they was working on it.

- Kind of interesting,

because their mother,

way, way, way back

also worked in a grocery store.

- There was a break room

at the store,

and they loved

to go back there

and then start telling stories

among the employees.

I don't know how many

were really true,

or they were just trying

to see... -

but they would smoke

those cigarettes

and just talk and laugh,

and they'd always say,

"Yeah, I had a husband

for a while."

The way we remember it is,

they had one... -

each one had one

at a different time.

They just liked to entertain.

They were still entertaining,

and that's what I remember

about the break room.

That was their kind of stage,

'cause they had to be good

on the floor, you know?

They knew my mother

would get them.

I think they enjoyed

startling people, to a degree.

I mean, well,

they startled people

just with their appearance,

to a degree, you know?

But I can still see them walk.

It was very interesting.

They walked together,

and they never stumbled.

But they had to have a rhythm,

you know, to walk.

They rode the taxi a lot,

and they always had

dollar bills in their purses

to pay cab fare to get

from their house to the store.

- And after they died,

when they looking through

their things,

they came across a dresser,

and inside the dresser was,

like, a big stack of purses.

And in each purse,

there were maybe $3 or $4.

When they wanted

to go out the door,

they could just grab a purse,

and they knew there would be

cab fare in there.

- The bread man,

he became friends with them,

and he lived close to them,

and so he'd take them home

in the bread truck

a lot of times.

- He came through

their neighborhood

and kind of kept watch over them

and gave their dogs toys.

When they were living

here in Charlotte,

there was a doctor

who came to town, who... -

supposedly his specialty

was separating conjoined twins.

And he came to diagnose them,

and his conclusion was that

they could be

successfully separated.

They didn't share

any organs or anything.

So, he said, you know,

"If you want this,

we can do this,

and it'll be successful,"

and they chose not to.

- They were too dependent

on each other,

not just because

they were cojoined

but because there were so many

things they did as one.

- They were a little... -

apparently a little difficult

to become friends with.

- When a lot of what you are

as a talent isn't your act,

however much the Hiltons

would have argued,

"It is our act"...-

it's what you are;

it's what you appear to be.

It's hard to let people in,

and it's hard to let people

pass the front,

because that's what you are.

I mean,

you're putting up the front.

You know,

"I'm putting up a good front."

- There was a house

that the church bought.

Dad, in his wisdom, again,

figured a way that

they could rent the house.

- It was the site

of an old World War I camp

where a lot of soldiers stayed

during that time.

- They did join the church.

They kind of had to

in order to use

the church property.

- When they went

to Sunday school,

it would be with

the men's class.

The men's class was on

the ground level.

The women's class

was in the basement.

There was one theory that

it was just a physical thing,

that it was hard for them

to get down the stairs

to the basement.

The other theory was that

they were more talkative

and more comfortable

among the men.

They were here six-plus years.

They sort of became just

more of a regular part

of the community,

even though they were loners,

in a sense.

- I think they had a good life

toward the end.

I feel in my heart, you know,

that they did.

- Until their final days,

they probably never had friends

as strong and as important

and as legitimate

as the friends they had

in their final days.

I'd say they were as well-loved

in that small town

as they had probably ever felt

in their whole lives.

- They had not been seen

for several days.

- It was close to Christmas,

and they always gave gifts

to all their friends,

even though they were not

in really great circumstances.

- One of the twins

caught the Hong Kong flu.

- Hong Kong came through

Charlotte very, very hard.

That was mean stuff.

I mean, I...

You had it,

and then you just felt so bad.

- Daisy had become ill.

- And it got worse and worse.

- They went to a doctor.

He gave her some prescription.

She continued to deteriorate.

She actually called Rue Reid,

the owner of the Park-N-Shop,

said things were not

going well.

She began to suspect that

she was imminently dying.

She pleaded with Rue

not to call any authorities

or medical people,

'cause she didn't want

any intervention,

nor did Violet.

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