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

Chapter 10





Odette, Clarice, and Barbara Jean became the Supremes in the summer of 1967, just after the end of their junior year of high

school. Classes had been out for only a couple of weeks and Clarice was at Odette’s house preparing to go to the All-You-Can-Eat.

Big Earl occasionally opened up the restaurant to his son’s friends on Saturday nights. The kids thought of it as adventurous and

grown-up, getting out of Leaning Tree and into downtown Plainview for an evening. A night at the All-You-Can-Eat was their first

taste of adult liberty. In truth, they had escaped their homes and their parents to sip Coca-Cola and eat chicken wings under the

most watchful eyes in town. They couldn’t have been more strictly monitored anywhere else on the planet. Big Earl and Miss Thelma

had a talent for identifying and neutralizing troublemakers, and no kind of teenage mischief got past them.

Mrs. Jackson tapped on Odette’s bedroom door as Clarice rummaged through her best friend’s chest of drawers searching for

something to liven up, or cover up, those dreadful dresses Odette always wore. The blind grandmother who had made her clothes back

when she was a little girl was dead, but her grandma’s style and taste lived on in Odette’s sorry closet. Mrs. Jackson said,

“Before y’all go to Earl’s, I want you to run this over to Mrs. Perdue’s house for me.”

She held out a cardboard box wrapped with twine. Grease stains covered most of the box’s surface, and it emitted an aroma of

burnt toast and raw garlic. Even Odette’s three cats, all strays that had sensed her true nature beneath her get-the-hell-away-

from-me exterior and followed her home to be adopted, shrank away from the odor of the package. They yowled and bolted out of the

open doorway.

Odette took the box from her mother and asked, “Who is Mrs. Perdue?”

Mrs. Jackson said, “You know, your little friend Barbara Jean’s mother. Her funeral was today, so I baked a chicken for the

family.”

Clarice looked at the clock and felt that she had to say something. She had made plans to meet Richmond and one of his buddies at

7:00. It was only 5:30, but Clarice knew from experience how long it could take to transform Odette from her usual self into

someone a boy might want to wrap his arm around. There simply wasn’t time for anything else.

Clarice was indignant. She was a good girl. She got excellent grades. Hardly a season passed without her piano playing winning her

a prize or affording her a mention in the newspaper that would join the articles about her birth that adorned the walls of her

parents’ home. Still, she was monitored every hour of her day. All of her socializing took a backseat to the four hours of piano

practice she did daily in preparation for the two lessons she had each week with Zara Olavsky, an internationally renowned piano

pedagogue who taught at the university’s music school. She was required to check in hourly whenever she was away from home. And

she had the earliest curfew of any teenager in town.

Her parents grew even more vigilant that year, with Richmond in college and Clarice still in high school. There were no dates at

all unless she double-dated with Odette. Clarice was certain that, with Odette’s gruff personality around boys and those horrible

outfits she wore that growled “keep away,” her parents viewed Odette as walking, talking virginity insurance. Not that Odette’s

face was all that bad. She could be cute in the right light. And her figure was decent, top-heavy and round. Lord knows there were

plenty of boys who longed to slip a hand down her blouse. But no boy wanted to cop a feel off the fearless girl. She was just more

trouble than she was worth. Richmond had called in all kinds of favors to get his college friends to go out with her. Pretty soon

he was going to have to start paying them.

But Richmond had a date for Odette that night and Clarice’s parents had agreed to allow her to stay out an hour later than usual.

It was going to be a perfect evening. Now Odette’s mother was trying to ruin it.

Whining often worked on her own mother when she wanted out of an unpleasant chore or wanted her curfew extended, so Clarice gave

it a try with Dora Jackson. She said, “But, Mrs. Jackson, we’re going to the All-You-Can-Eat and Barbara Jean lives the other

direction and I’ve got on heels.”

Odette mouthed, “Shut up.” But even though she knew from the look on Mrs. Jackson’s face that she should stop talking, Clarice

piped up with “And besides, Barbara Jean is not our friend. She’s nobody’s friend, except the boys she runs around with. And

she stinks, Mrs. Jackson. She really does. She drowns herself in cheap perfume every day. And my cousin Veronica saw her combing

her hair in the bathroom at school last year and a roach fell out.”

Mrs. Jackson narrowed her eyes at Clarice and said, slow and low, “Odette’s gonna take this chicken over to Barbara Jean to show

that child some kindness on the day of her mother’s funeral. If you don’t wanna go, then don’t. If you’re worried about your

feet, borrow some sneakers from Odette. If you’re worried about roaches fallin’ off of her, then step back if she gets to

flingin’ her head around. Or maybe you should just go on home.”

The only thing Clarice could think of that was worse than delaying her date with Richmond to run this ridiculous errand Mrs.

Jackson couldn’t be dissuaded from was the idea of going back home and, with her chaperone otherwise occupied, being forced to

stay in and keep her mother company all evening. Seeing her plans with Richmond fading away, Clarice rushed to save them. Speaking

quickly, she said, “No, ma’am. I’ll go with Odette. I didn’t really believe that roach story. Veronica likes to make stuff up.

”

Mrs. Jackson left the room without another word, and Odette and Clarice headed to Barbara Jean’s.

Plainview is shaped like a triangle. Leaning Tree comprises its southeast section. To get to Barbara Jean’s house, the two girls

had to walk south along Wall Road and then along side streets into the very tip of the triangle’s corner.

The wall that gave the road its name was built by the town when freed blacks started settling in Plainview after the Civil War. A

group of town leaders led by Alfred Ballard—whose house Barbara Jean would one day own—decided to build a ten-foot-high, five-

mile-long stone wall to protect the wealthy whites who lived downtown when the race war they expected finally came. Though further

north, the poor whites were on the east side of the wall with the blacks, but the town leaders figured they could fend for

themselves. When the new inhabitants proved less frightening than predicted, commitment to the wall project faded. The only

section of Ballard’s Wall that made it to the full ten-foot goal was the portion that divided Leaning Tree from downtown. The

rest of the proposed wall ended up as isolated piles of rocks, creating a dotted dividing line through town.

That part of the story of Leaning Tree was pretty well accepted as fact by everyone. Plainview’s children were taught that bit of

local history in school, with the aesthetic aspects of the wall replacing much of the racial politics. But the history taught in

school and what black children were taught at home took off in radically different directions at the subject of the naming of

Leaning Tree.

In school, they learned that early settlers called the southeast area of town Leaning Tree because of a mysterious natural

phenomenon—something about the position of the river and the hills—that caused the trees to lean toward the west.

At their dinner tables, the children of Leaning Tree were told that there was no mystery at all to the crooked trees. Their

parents told them that, because downtown was on higher ground, Ballard’s Wall cast a shadow over the black area of town. The

trees there needed sunlight, so they bent. Every tree that didn’t die in the shadow of that wall grew tall, top-heavy, and

visibly tilted. A name was born.

Barbara Jean’s house was on the worst street in the worst neighborhood in Leaning Tree. Her street was only eight blocks from

Clarice’s house, only five from Odette’s. But as they turned onto Barbara Jean’s block, Clarice surveyed her surroundings and

thought that this place might as well have been on the far side of the moon for all the resemblance it held to the landscaped,

middle-class order of her street or the quaint charm of Odette’s old farmhouse, with its fanciful octagonal windows and scalloped

picket fence, courtesy of Odette’s carpenter father. In this neighborhood, people lived in tiny boxes with warped and splintering

siding, peeling paint, and no gutters. Noisy, nappy-headed children ran naked over lawns that were mostly dirt accented with

patches of weeds.

Barbara Jean’s house was the best on her block, but that wasn’t saying much. It was a little brown shack whose paint had faded

to a chalky tan color. This house was only better than its neighbors because, unlike every other house on the street, the glass in

all of its windows seemed to be intact.

Odette climbed up the two steps from the walkway and rang the bell. No one answered, and Clarice said, “Let’s just leave it on

the stoop and get going.” But Odette started banging on the door with her fist.

A few seconds later, the door opened just wide enough for Clarice and Odette to see a big man with red eyes and blotchy, grayish-

brown skin staring at them. His nose was flat and crooked, as if it had been broken a few times. He had no discernible neck, and

most of his face was occupied by an unusually wide mouth. His shirt strained against his belly to stay fastened. He topped it all

off with hair that had been straightened and lacquered until it resembled a plastic wig from an Elvis Presley Halloween costume.

He squinted against the sunlight and said, “Y’all want somethin’?” His words whistled through a gap between his front teeth.

Odette lifted the box and said, “My mama sent this for Barbara Jean.”

The man opened the door fully then. He stretched his mouth into a smile that caused a prickly sensation to travel across the back

of Clarice’s neck and gave her the feeling he was about to take a bite out of her. She was relieved that they could finally hand

off the box and get the hell out of this neighborhood. But the man stepped back into the dark beyond the doorway and said, “Come

on in.” Then he yelled, “Barbara Jean, your friends is here to see you.”

Clarice wanted to stand on the front stoop and wait for Barbara Jean to come outside, but Odette was already walking through the

front door and waving at her to follow. When they stepped into the front room, they saw Barbara Jean looking surprised and

embarrassed to have two girls from school she hardly knew walking into her house.

Barbara Jean wore her funeral clothes, a too-tight black skirt and a clinging, shiny black blouse. Shameless, Clarice thought.

During the walk to Barbara Jean’s, Clarice had admitted to herself that this mission of mercy really was the only right thing to

do. But as she silently critiqued Barbara Jean’s sexy mourning outfit, another side of Clarice’s nature leapt to the forefront

and she began to eagerly anticipate describing Barbara Jean’s getup to her mother and her cousin Veronica. Their reactions would

be priceless.

The living room was crowded with showy, ornate furniture that was all well past its prime. With each step, a plastic runner

protecting the bright orange carpet crunched beneath their feet. The place looked as if someone with a little money, but not much

taste or good sense, had once lived there and left behind all their stuff.

Odette walked over to Barbara Jean and held out the box. “We were sorry to hear about your loss. My mama sent this. It’s a roast

chicken.”

Barbara Jean said, “Thank you,” and reached for the box, looking eager to hasten her visitors’ departure. But the man grabbed

the box away just as Odette handed it to her. He said, “Y’all come on into the kitchen,” and walked toward the back of the

house. The girls didn’t move, and from the next room the man shouted, “Come on now.” Obedient girls that they were, they

followed.

The kitchen was in worse shape than the two rooms Clarice and Odette had passed through to get to it. The floor was so chipped

they could see the tar paper underneath the linoleum. Dirty dishes were heaped in the rusted metal sink and piled on the cracked

wooden countertop. The red patent leather seat covers of the kitchen chairs had all split open and dingy white stuffing bulged out

of the open seams.

Where, Clarice wondered, were the aunts, female friends, and cousins who were supposed to descend en masse to cook, clean, and

comfort after a tragedy? Even the lowliest, most despised second or third cousin in her family would have merited at least one

afternoon of attention on the day of their burial. But no one had bothered to come here.

The man sat at the table and motioned for them to sit with him. The three girls sat down and stared at each other, not knowing

what to say. He turned toward Odette and said, “Tell your mama that me and my stepdaughter sure appreciate her kindness.” He

reached out then and patted Barbara Jean’s arm, causing her to flinch and scoot away from him, her chair making a loud scraping

noise as the metal feet dug into the scarred floor.

Clarice wanted to get out worse than ever, but Odette wasn’t doing anything to move the process along. Odette just watched the

man and Barbara Jean closely, as if she were trying to decipher a riddle.

The man poured a shot of whiskey from a bottle of Old Crow that sat in front of him on the table. Then he picked up his smudged

glass and drained it in one swallow. Clarice had never seen a man drink straight whiskey and she couldn’t help gawking. When he

noticed her staring, he said, “Sorry, girls. Where’s my manners? Barbara Jean, get some glasses for our guests.”

Barbara Jean put her hand to her forehead and sank a little lower in her chair.

Odette said, “No, thank you, sir. We just came to drop off the food and get Barbara Jean. My mother said to bring her back to our

house for dinner and not to take no for an answer.”

Barbara Jean looked at Odette and wondered if she was crazy. Clarice kicked Odette hard under the table with the point of her

shoe. Odette didn’t yelp or react at all. She just sat there smiling at the man, who was pouring his second drink.

“Nah, I don’t think she should go anywhere tonight,” he said, his wide mouth twisting into a nasty expression that made Clarice

’s stomach tighten up. She got the feeling that something bad was about to happen, and she set her feet beneath her so she could

run if she needed to. But the man relaxed his mouth back into his cannibal grin and said, “Barbara Jean’s been through a lot

today and she should stay home with her family.” He looked around the room and made an expansive, circular motion with the

whiskey bottle as if he were indicating a corps of relatives scampering and fussing around them. Then he put the bottle down and

touched Barbara Jean’s arm again. Again, she recoiled from him.

Odette said, “Please let her come. If we come back without her, Mama’ll have Daddy drive us back over to get her. And I hate

riding around town in the back of that police cruiser. It’s embarrassing.”

“Your daddy’s a cop, huh?”

“Yes, sir. In Louisville,” Odette said.

Clarice couldn’t stop her jaw from dropping open at the sound of Odette lying with such conviction.

The man thought for a few seconds and had a change of heart. He rose from his chair, staggered badly, and stood just behind

Barbara Jean. He leaned forward and squeezed her upper arms with his large hands. Then he rested his chin on the top of her head.

He said, “No need to put your daddy through the trouble of comin’ by. Your mama’s right. My little girl should be around women

tonight. Jus’ don’t stay out too late. I don’t like to worry.”

He stood there for a while holding on to Barbara Jean’s arms and swaying while she looked straight ahead. Finally, she said, “I

’ve got to change,” and she slid sideways out of his grasp. The man was thrown off balance and had to grip the chair to keep

from toppling forward onto the table.

Barbara Jean walked just a few steps away and opened a door off the kitchen. She went into the smallest bedroom Clarice had ever

seen. It was really just a pantry with a bed and a battered old dresser in it. And the bed was a child’s bed, far too small for a

teenager. Clarice watched through the partially opened door as Barbara Jean pulled off her tacky black blouse. Then she picked up

a bottle of perfume from the dresser and repeatedly squeezed the bulb, spraying her arms where the man had touched her as if she

were applying an antiseptic. When she caught Clarice’s reflection in the mirror above her dresser, she slammed shut the door.

The man straightened up and said, “Y’all scuse me. I gotta take a leak.” He shuffled away, but stopped at the kitchen door and

turned back to Clarice and Odette. He winked and said, “Be good and don’t drink up all my whiskey while I’m gone.” Then he

continued out of the room. A few seconds later, they heard him relieving himself and humming from down the hallway.

When they were alone, Clarice took the opportunity to kick Odette again. This time Odette said, “Ouch, quit it.”

“Why did you do that? We could’ve been out of here and gone.”

Odette said, “We can’t just leave her here with him.”

“Yes, we can. This is her house.”

“Maybe, but we’re not leaving her alone with him right after she buried her mother.”

There was no use arguing with Odette once she got a notion stuck in her head, so Clarice said nothing more. It was clear to her

that Odette had looked at this cat-eyed, stray girl and set her mind on adoption.

When Barbara Jean emerged from her cramped cell, she was wearing a glittery red blouse and the same black skirt. Her hair, which

had been pulled back and pinned up, now fell around her shoulders in waves, and she had applied lipstick to match her blouse. She

may have stunk of cheap perfume, but she looked like a movie star.

The man came back into the room. He said, “You look just like your sweet mama,” and Barbara Jean looked at him with a hatred so

strong that Clarice and Odette felt it like a hot wind sweeping through the room.

As the man fell into his chair and reached for the bottle, Barbara Jean said, “Bye, Vondell.” She was out of the kitchen and

headed down the hallway before Clarice and Odette had begun their farewells to the bleary-eyed man at the table.

Outside, they stood in front of the house looking at each other. Clarice couldn’t stand the silence. She lied the way she’d been

taught to do after meeting someone’s unpleasant relative. “Your stepfather seems nice.”

Odette rolled her eyes.

Barbara Jean said, “He’s not my stepfather. He’s my mother’s … He’s nothing is what he is.”

They walked about a half a block together, quiet again. Barbara Jean spoke after a while. “Listen, I appreciate you getting me

out of the house. I really do. But you don’t have to take me anywhere. I can just walk around for a while.” She looked at her

watch, a dime-store accessory with yellow rhinestones surrounding its face and a cracked, white patent leather band. “Vondell’s

likely to be asleep in another couple hours. I can go back then.” To Odette she said, “Thank your mother for making the chicken.

It was real nice of her.”

Odette hooked an arm under Barbara Jean’s elbow and said, “If you’re gonna walk, you might as well walk with us. You can meet

the latest victim Clarice’s boyfriend has dragged over from the college to distract me while he tries to get down her pants.”

“Odette!” Clarice screamed.

Odette said, “It’s true and you know it.” Then she tugged Barbara Jean in the direction of the All-You-Can-Eat. “Oh, and

Barbara Jean, whatever you do, don’t eat any of my mama’s chicken.”


When her mother and her cousin later asked Clarice why she had become friendly with Barbara Jean that summer, she would say that

it was because she got to know and appreciate Barbara Jean’s sweetness and sense of humor and because she had felt a welling up

of Christian sympathy after gaining a deeper understanding of the difficulties of Barbara Jean’s life—her dead mother, her

dreadful neighborhood, her sad little hole of a bedroom, that man Vondell. And those things would one day be true. Within months,

Clarice’s mother and cousin would learn that any petty criticism or harsh judgment of Barbara Jean would be met with icy silence

or an uncharacteristically blunt rebuke from Clarice. And Clarice would eventually confess to Odette that she felt tremendous

guilt about having been the source of many of the rumors about Barbara Jean. Her cousin might have started the rumor about the

roach in Barbara Jean’s hair, but Clarice had been the main one spreading it around.

But at the time, even as she listed in her mind the more noble reasons for making this new friend, she knew that there was more to

it. At seventeen, Clarice was unable to see the true extent to which she was ruled by a slavish devotion to her own self-interest,

but she understood that her primary reason for becoming friends with Barbara Jean was that it had benefited her. On the night she

and Odette dropped off that putrid-smelling chicken, Clarice discovered that Barbara Jean’s presence was surprisingly convenient.

When Clarice, Odette, and Barbara Jean walked into the All-You-Can-Eat, Little Earl ushered them to the coveted window table for

the first time. A group of his pals was sitting there, but he chased them off, saying, “Make way. This table is reserved for the

Supremes.” After that, every boy in the place, even those who Clarice knew had told some of the most outlandish lies about

Barbara Jean and what she’d supposedly done with them, came to the window table to stutter and stammer through their best

adolescent pickup lines.

Richmond showed up with James Henry in tow a few minutes after the girls had been seated. Clarice made a mental note to give

Richmond hell later for bringing him. James was the worst of all the regular guys Richmond had scrounged up for Odette. He was

nice enough, and he’d had a fondness for Odette ever since she’d beaten two teenage boys bloody when she was ten after they’d

called him “Frankenstein” because of that ugly knife scar on his face. But he was, Clarice thought, the most boring boy on the

face of the earth. He barely made conversation at all. And when he did, it was pathetic.

The only topic James talked with Odette about at any length was her mother’s garden. He worked for Lester Maxberry’s lawn care

business and he came to their dates armed with helpful hints for Odette to pass along to Mrs. Jackson. James was the only boy

Clarice knew who could sit in the back of a car parked on the side of a dark road with a girl and talk to her about nothing but

composted manure.

Worst of all, James was always exhausted. He had to be at work early in the mornings, and he took classes at the university in the

afternoons. So just when the evening got going, James would start nodding off. Odette would see his head droop and she would

announce, “My date’s asleep. Time to go home.” It was intolerable.

Odette had a slightly different view of James Henry. He might have been the worst double-date choice for Clarice’s purposes, but

Odette was content with him. She thought it was kind of sweet how he dropped off to sleep during their dates. How many other boys

would let themselves be that vulnerable in front of a girl—mouth open and snoring? And he had excellent manners. James had become

a frequent visitor, never failing to come by and personally convey his thanks to Dora Jackson for the food she regularly brought

to his home after his mother became housebound with emphysema. This in spite of the fact that Odette had witnessed James wisely

burying her mother’s half-raw, half-burned pork chops beside his house one day. She assumed, hoped, that all of the meals her

mother gave the Henrys ended up underground as well. Still, each inedible bundle was greeted with undeserved gratitude from James.

Odette knew just enough about men to have her guard up at all times. So she hadn’t eliminated the possibility that, underneath it

all, James might be as horny and stupid as his friend Richmond. But she was willing to tolerate his head falling onto her shoulder

occasionally while she figured him out.

Richmond and James wound through the crowd of boys gathered around the window table. James behaved the same way he always did. He

sat next to Odette, complimented her homemade dress, inquired about her mother’s garden, and then yawned. Richmond was another

story. To Clarice’s surprise and enjoyment, Richmond, by then a college football hero, felt threatened by all of the

testosterone-dizzy boys surrounding his girl, even though they were really there for Barbara Jean. Ordinarily, he was content to

sit in the center of the throng, entertaining the boys who came by the table to laugh at his jokes and to hear tales of his

record-breaking freshman year on the team. Clarice felt that she had his full attention only in those brief moments when they

found themselves alone. That night, though, Richmond spent the entire evening with his arm draped around her shoulders, whispering

in her ear and being extra attentive to her in order to clearly stake out his claim.

Barbara Jean was like magic, Clarice thought. The more boys came by to get a close look at her, the more territorial Richmond

became. That night was a wonderful evening of flirting, dancing, and nonstop free malts and Coca-Colas from admirers. When James

drifted off to sleep and it came time to leave, Big Earl had to intercede to forestall a fistfight over who would see the Supremes

home.

As they left the All-You-Can-Eat and headed for Richmond’s car, Clarice whispered to Odette, “Barbara Jean is our new best

friend, okay?”

Odette said, “Okay.” And by the end of the summer, that’s the way it was.