The Supremes at Earl's All-You-Can-Eat

Chapter 13





After Lester’s business was sold and all of the money issues had been seen to, Barbara Jean decided that she needed some sort of

regular activity to give shape to her days. So she found a job. Then she found another. And another. All three were volunteer

positions; still, it was the first time she’d had to report to work since she’d polished nails and administered shampoos at a

hair salon when she was a teenager. On Mondays and Wednesdays, she delivered flowers to patients at University Hospital. Out of

respect for her recent loss, the volunteer coordinator assigned her to the maternity ward, where she mostly encountered happy new

parents and avoided the terminally ill. It wouldn’t have mattered, though. They could have thrown death in her face all day and

Barbara Jean wouldn’t have blinked. With the help of an occasional sip from the thermos of spiked tea she always kept with her—

it wasn’t practical to bring her demitasse cups from home—she had turned off the part of her that grieved. And she wasn’t about

to turn it back on.

Every Friday morning, Barbara Jean went to First Baptist and did office work. She answered the phone, filed and made copies, all

the things she had once done for Lester when his business first took off. After the office closed, she went downstairs to the

church school and led Bible study class for new members. Even her pastor, Reverend Biggs, was impressed with Barbara Jean’s

biblical knowledge. Finally, she thought, all of those drunken nights in her library with Clarice’s gift Bible were of some use

to her.

On Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays, she worked at the Plainview Historical Society Museum. The museum, which consisted of a

greeting area and three small rooms, each dedicated to a period of Plainview history—Indian Territory, Civil War, and Modern—was

a twenty-minute walk up Plainview Avenue from her house. Her primary responsibilities were to sit at a desk in the greeting area,

hand out brochures, and say, “Please wait beneath the Indiana state flag generously donated to the museum by the descendants of

famed Hoosier president Benjamin Harrison. A tour guide will be with you momentarily.”

Sometimes she was called upon to don a frontier wife costume and pretend to churn butter or stir imaginary food in a plastic pot

over a papier-mâché fire, if the usual frontier wife volunteer couldn’t make it. When no guests were at the museum, which was

most of the time, she sat, sipped from her thermos, and read fashion magazines.

There were many days when her two sentences guiding the museum guests to their waiting place beneath the flag were the only words

to cross her lips from sunrise to sunset. Those days were her favorites. She saw the other Supremes two or three times a week, and

that was all the conversation she felt she could handle.

Walking back to her house from the museum, she followed Plainview Avenue as it rose toward the center of town and the intersection

of Plainview and Main, where her house stood. If she turned her head to the left and peered downhill, she had a perfect view of

the remnants of Ballard’s Wall and the entrance to Leaning Tree Estates, as the housing development that now occupied her old

neighborhood was called.

One early November day as she left the museum for home, she looked down at Leaning Tree. The tall, contorted trees of her old

stomping grounds lent even more drama to the landscape now that they’d shed their leaves. She stared at their hunched-over

skeletons. They were more impressive to her now than ever. Those trees had all adapted and thrived in the face of the grave insult

that had been done to them. If she’d been inclined to ask God for anything, it would have been to make her more like the leaning

trees.

She had done her best to adapt. In the three months since Lester’s death, she had organized her time so that she was on the move

nearly all day, every day. And wasn’t that what everyone said widows should do?

But now, studying those crooked, old trees, Barbara Jean had to admit to herself that she had failed to thrive. No matter how

activity-filled her days were, it was her nights that owned her. That night, she entered her fine home and heard the voice of her

mother whispering bad advice and viperous recriminations in her ear. And after managing to fall asleep in her bed, she was wide

awake within an hour, believing that she had felt Lester shift positions in the bed and then heard his congested cough coming from

the bathroom. Was it pneumonia again?

She got out of bed and wandered the three floors of her house, hoping that she might find it calming. But it didn’t work; it

never did. Adam filled the space every bit as much now as he had when he was alive. She heard his footsteps running from room to

room on the third floor, where Lester’s home office had been before the stairs became too much for him. Adam played up there that

night just as he had thirty years earlier. The dark, cluttered storage rooms and mazes of filing cabinets held no menace for an

adventurous boy who was never frightened, even when he should have been. The sound of Adam humming to himself in the TV room off

of the kitchen as he polished that collection of shoes he was so fond of echoed through the first floor. She caught sight of him

at the piano in the sitting room, waiting for his aunt Clarice to come by to give him his lesson. The museum that his bedroom had

become seemed to have taken over the second floor. All of the other bedrooms were merely anterooms ushering her into the one room

on the floor that mattered.

Only the library, with its waiting bottle and book, was a sanctuary from the spirits that haunted her. And that room offered no

refuge after she collapsed into a drunken, exhausted sleep in her Chippendale chair. As soon as she nodded off, they returned.

Loretta, Lester, Adam, and now Chick.


By the start of her senior year of high school, Barbara Jean was spending most of her time with Clarice and Odette. She hung out

at one of their houses every day after school, doing homework, listening to records, and gossiping until at least eight. That way,

when she got home she could tiptoe past Vondell, who was pretty much guaranteed to be passed out on the couch by then. On

weekends, when it was harder to avoid Vondell, she worked at a hair salon that one of her mother’s old friends owned, and slept

at Odette’s.

Barbara Jean never stayed over at Clarice’s house. Mrs. Jordan always went out of her way to be polite and kind to Barbara Jean,

but she couldn’t go so far as to allow the daughter of Loretta Perdue to spend an entire night in her home. Barbara Jean was

initially surprised that Clarice’s mother even allowed her to enter her front door, as Mrs. Jordan was widely thought to be equal

parts sanctimonious and stuck up. But she welcomed Barbara Jean’s visits. When Barbara Jean better understood the workings of Mr.

and Mrs. Jordan’s marriage, she felt comfortable in assuming that Mrs. Jordan’s friendliness was the result of her relief at

seeing that at least one of the town’s bastards looked nothing like her husband.

It was a Saturday night. The three girls were at Clarice’s house listening to records when the phone rang. Mrs. Jordan called up

the stairs for Clarice, saying that her cousin Veronica was on the line. Odette and Barbara Jean followed Clarice down to the

kitchen where the phone was and watched as she listened. She hardly spoke at all, just shook her head and gasped, “No,” and

“You’re kidding.” When she hung up the phone, she turned to Odette and Barbara Jean and said, “Veronica says there’s a white

boy working at the All-You-Can-Eat.”

Back then, no white people ever wandered into the All-You-Can-Eat. And it was unheard of for a white person, even a teenager, to

work for a black man. So this was major news indeed. Five minutes after Clarice hung up the phone, the Supremes were on their way

to Earl’s.

When they arrived at the restaurant, they found the largest Saturday night crowd they had ever seen. Every table was full, except

for the window table that, on weekends, was now permanently reserved for them. They had to squeeze through the crowd to get to

their station. What with Clarice’s music prizes, Richmond being the local football hero, and Barbara Jean looking the way she

did, the window table was normally the center of attention at Earl’s. But that night nobody glanced their way. Everyone was there

to see the white boy.

When he stepped out of the kitchen with Big Earl, the crowd grew quiet. All that could be heard was an occasional whisper and the

voice of Diana Ross cooing “Reflections” on the jukebox.

The white boy did not disappoint. He was tall and thin with wide shoulders and narrow hips. His skin was so pale that he looked as

if he hadn’t been in the sun in years. His hair was Shinola black and somewhere between wavy and curly. His pronounced cheekbones

and high-bridged nose reminded Barbara Jean of the faces of statues she had seen in school art books. His round eyes were an icy

blue. Later, Barbara Jean would remember looking at those eyes and thinking, This must be what the sky looks like if you see it

through a diamond. He followed Big Earl from table to table, taking drink orders, clearing dishes, and wiping up spills. All the

while, no one in the entire restaurant made a sound. They just watched him.

It was Odette, never embarrassed to say what she thought, who broke the silence. “That,” she said, “is one pretty white boy.”

Several people heard her and began to snicker. Then conversations started again and the atmosphere returned to something closer to

normal.

Clarice said, “I have to disagree with you, Odette. What we have here is the King of the Pretty White Boys.” Barbara Jean

giggled, but she thought that maybe it was true. It made perfect sense to her that, if she stared at him for long enough, a

jeweled crown would appear on top of his head, maybe with an accompanying trumpet salute, like in the Imperial Margarine

commercial on TV.

When Big Earl came to the window table accompanied by the King of the Pretty White Boys, he said, “Hey girls, let me introduce

you to Ray Carlson. He’s gonna be workin’ here.”

The boy mumbled, “Hi,” and gave the table a wipe, even though it was clean.

The Supremes were saying hi to him when Ramsey Abrams, who had overheard Big Earl’s introduction, hollered out from a couple of

tables away, “You related to Desmond Carlson?” And the place went quiet again.

Desmond Carlson and a few other rednecks were the reason blacks couldn’t walk along Wall Road any further north than Leaning

Tree. Desmond and his crew drove their pickup trucks over the northern end of Wall Road on their way from their houses to downtown

and to the back-country bars that dotted the landscape outside of Plainview’s town limits. Poor, uneducated, and faced with a

world that was changing in ways they couldn’t understand, Desmond and his buddies were perpetually one or two whiskey shots away

from stupidity and violence. It was their habit to hurl insults and beer bottles from their cars at anyone with dark skin they

found on the section of the road they had laid claim to.

His friends were content to cause trouble at night. But if Desmond encountered a Leaning Tree resident on Wall Road at any time of

the day, he would yell out, “Get off my f*ckin’ road, jig,” or some other comment that made his viewpoint clear. Then,

laughing, he would aim his truck at whomever he had caught trespassing on his road so that they had to jump into the ditch at the

side of the road to avoid being sideswiped.

Half of the town was scared to death of Desmond, who was always drunk, always angry, and—rumor had it—always armed. The

Plainview police were in the scared half. They used the fact that Wall Road was university property and therefore technically

under the jurisdiction of the Indiana State Police as an excuse to avoid having to confront Desmond and his buddies, who all had

much bigger guns and were much tougher than the police. The university cops were only equipped to deal with drunken frat boys and

they weren’t about to get in the middle of a local squabble that might ignite a civil rights battle. So the residents of Leaning

Tree walked a half mile out of their way, around the southern end of Wall Road and onto side streets that led to Plainview Avenue,

whenever they left home for downtown.

Ramsey Abrams asked again, “So, what is it? You related to him, or not?”

Ray Carlson said, “He’s my brother,” and a wave of cursing and grumbling moved through the room.

Ramsey said, “Damn, Big Earl, what’d you go and let him in here for?”

Big Earl turned a hard eye on Ramsey and said, “Ramsey, both your brothers is in jail and you don’t see me checkin’ your

pockets for silverware every time you leave here, do ya? I figure Ray here deserves the same chance.”

That was that. Big Earl had told everyone how it was going to go down, and there was to be no arguing. Ramsey made a loud snorting

noise to show his disapproval and went back to his food. Everyone else returned to eating, dancing, and flirting, the business of

being teenagers.

Every so often someone came to the window table to whisper about the white boy. Little Earl told the girls that Ray had come by

the restaurant trying to sell chickens he had raised. He said his father gave Ray a meal and then offered him a job on the spot,

without the boy even asking. Ramsey came over to repeat his belief that it was a shame Big Earl had given a job to a white man

that a black man should have had. Veronica came by and said that the girls at her table agreed he was cute, but thought he had no

ass. Odette replied, “Who cares what he looks like walking away when he looks that good coming at you.” And the night went on

that way.

Later in the evening, Barbara Jean watched Ray Carlson as he cleared the table next to hers. As he worked, small white feathers

began to fly through the air around him. Every time he moved his arm, another feather flew. She wasn’t sure what was going on at

first, but finally she saw that the feathers were coming from him. Hundreds of tiny white chicken feathers were stuck to his shirt

and pants. Did he sleep with those chickens he raised?

Ray shed so much as he wiped the table that Richmond Baker made his entrance through a cloud of white. Richmond reached out with

one of his big hands and snatched a floating feather out of the air, then another. In addition to being a college football star,

Richmond was a twenty-four-hour smartass. He took a look at the molting boy and cracked, “Hey, Big Earl, I see you went and hired

yourself a chicken.” From that day forward, Ray was Chick.

All evening long, Barbara Jean watched Chick work. He was a sight to see. He moved quickly and gracefully, gliding between the

tables and maneuvering around the whirling couples as they spun in front of the jukebox in the corner where Big Earl had

rearranged the tables to make room for dancing.

The only time Chick and Barbara Jean acknowledged each other directly after their introduction at the table came just before the

girls went home that night. Clarice wanted to have one more dance with Richmond before leaving, so Barbara Jean was sent up to the

jukebox to choose a song. She had just picked a tune and turned around to go back to her table when she found herself staring

right into Chick’s face.

Both of his arms were loaded with dirty dishes as he headed toward the kitchen door just a few feet away. The strain of lifting

the plates made the muscles of his skinny arms stand out. Barbara Jean noticed for the first time that he had a dimple in his

chin. She had to clasp her hands behind her back to keep from reaching out and pressing that delicate indentation with her

forefinger.

Neither of them said anything for a few seconds. Then he said, “Hi,” and smiled at her. She said hi back and took in that face

of his again.

That was the end of their conversation. Just then, a dancer bumped him from behind and the stacks of dirty plates, silverware, and

cups that he had balanced on his arms tilted forward and headed straight for the floor. Barbara Jean had to jump back to keep from

being hit by the bits of food and shards of broken ceramics that went flying. The noise was tremendous, and when they saw what had

happened, several boys cackled and pointed as if it were the funniest thing they had ever seen.

Big Earl came rushing over then. And that was when Barbara Jean saw something. It was just the briefest exchange, but it taught

her lessons about both Big Earl and Chick, the first men she would love. Chick was already on his knees piling up the plates and

garbage when Big Earl got to him, all six and a half feet of him still moving fast. Chick’s reaction was to bring his forearm up

defensively over his face and say, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

Barbara Jean recognized that posture and that reflexive apology and the feeling of waiting to be hit that went along with it. She

understood then at least one part of Chick’s story.

Big Earl knelt down beside him and used his great paw of a hand to pull Chick’s arm away from his face. He wrapped an arm around

the King of the Pretty White Boys and gave him a quick squeeze. Though the music was loud, Barbara Jean heard him clearly say,

“It’s all right. You’re all right here. Ain’t nobody here gonna hurt you.” Then he helped Chick pick up the dishes.

The entire scene took less time to play out than it took Aretha to spell out “R-E-S-P-E-C-T” and Barbara Jean stood a few feet

away watching it all. As Big Earl and Chick cleaned up the mess and then headed into the kitchen together, Barbara Jean thought

for the first time in her life that she had truly been cheated by not having had a father.


More than three decades later, after she saw Chick standing on the porch at Big Earl’s funeral dinner and after Lester was dead

and gone, Barbara Jean had every evening to sit alone and think. She used many of those hours to return to the night she first saw

Chick at the All-You-Can-Eat. She played it over countless times in her head in a way she hadn’t done in ages. Every time she

thought about it, she asked herself whether things might have turned out differently if she hadn’t gone to the jukebox that

night, or if she had just walked away when those plates hit the floor instead of standing there and learning just enough of Ray

Carlson’s story to set in motion the schoolgirl process that transformed pity into love. She asked herself if maybe there was

some way she could have seen what was coming and avoided it. After each round of those thoughts, she would end up in her chair in

the library curled up with her vodka bottle, wondering if she would ever be able to stop rolling that same old stone up the hill

and just accept that what had happened was her fate. She had inherited her mother’s luck.