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

Chapter 27





AA meetings made Barbara Jean want to drink. She sat and listened to people whine about the hardships that had led them to gather

in a basement room of the administration building at University Hospital, where they were served the harshest coffee Barbara Jean

had ever tasted—but good pastries, thanks to Donut Heaven. They’d tell their tales of woe and Barbara Jean would think, I can

top that. But she never said anything herself during those first meetings, nothing honest, at least. She went twice a week, and at

the end of each meeting she left feeling that she was fully justified in having a little cocktail as a reward for having sat

through it. Still, she declared her AA experience a success because she now drank about half as much as she had been drinking

before. At least it seemed like half as much to her.

She patted herself on the back for throwing out most of the alcohol in her house. Though, naturally, she had to keep some beer and

wine on hand for guests. And she saw no reason to toss out the whiskey, since she hardly ever drank that anyway. She stopped

carrying around liquor in her thermos to her volunteer jobs, most days. She didn’t drink before 5:00 p.m., more often than not.

And she let the calendar determine the extent of her late-night drinking. She only drank on dates that had some particular

importance—holidays, birthdays, special anniversaries, things like that. So, if she was drinking every night, it was just because

it was April. That month being a minefield of significant dates was hardly her fault.


On April 11, 1968, one week after Dr. King was shot dead, Miss Thelma tired of watching Barbara Jean mope around the house and

struggle to keep her food down. So she sent her to the clinic at University Hospital. The next day, which was the day Lester was

due back to hear Barbara Jean’s answer to his proposal of marriage, she returned to the clinic and learned that she was pregnant.

Barbara Jean was seventeen, no husband, no family—more or less the same situation her mother had faced in 1950. But Barbara Jean

was relieved when she found out. By the time she walked the distance from the clinic to the All-You-Can-Eat, she actually felt

joyous. The decision she had made to choose Lester was suddenly unmade. She had leaped off a tall building and discovered that the

pavement was made of rubber. Marrying Lester was out now. Chick and Barbara Jean would have to create a life together somehow.

Detroit, Chicago, Los Angeles. Any city, burning or not, would have to do.

When she got to the All-You-Can-Eat, the after-work rush was on. Barbara Jean saw Little Earl running from table to table taking

drink orders and clearing plates, but she didn’t see Chick. She walked through the dining room and down the back hallway and

looked into the kitchen. Still no Chick. Big Earl was alone there, so busy slinging pots and pans around that he didn’t notice

her sticking her head in. She went to the storeroom then.

Barbara Jean knocked lightly on the storeroom door and whispered, “Ray?” No one answered. She pushed open the door and walked

into the dark room. Groping along the wall, she found the light switch and turned it on. Everything of Chick’s was gone. The bed

was there, but it was stripped of its sheets and blankets. His books and magazines were no longer stacked on the homemade shelves.

His clothes were missing from the hooks Big Earl had screwed into the walls. She stepped further inside and turned in a circle as

if she might find him secreted away in a corner of the tiny room. The one thing she did find was the Timex she had given him for

his birthday, a day that now seemed as if it were a thousand years in the past. The watch rested atop a stack of cans at the side

of the bed surrounded by tiny bits of glass from its smashed crystal. She picked up the watch and squeezed it tight, feeling the

broken glass bite into her palm.

She heard Big Earl’s rumbling voice behind her. “Barbara Jean, you all right?”

“I was looking for Ray,” she said.

Big Earl walked into the storeroom, making the space seem even smaller with his massive presence. He stood there wiping his hands

on his apron and said, “Ray quit last night, baby. Said he was movin’ on.”

Barbara Jean managed not to shout when she asked, “Did he say where he was going?”

“No, he just said he had to go.” He put a hand on her shoulder. “Maybe this is the best thing for you two, for now, at least.”

Barbara Jean nodded, not knowing what to say. Then she took off. She hurried out of the All-You-Can-Eat and headed up the street.

First walking, then running, she went in the direction of Main Street and then over to Wall Road. She had a hard time remembering

the way, but eventually she found the winding gravel and dirt route that led to the house Chick had once shared with his brother.

She was covered in perspiration and gasping for breath when Desmond Carlson’s place came into view. She saw the big red truck

Desmond used to chase people off Wall Road sitting on a bald patch in the center of the overgrown field of weeds that passed for a

front lawn. The sun had set by then and the property was dark except for the pulsating blue light of a television shining through

one of the windows. She hurried out back and found the run-down old shed that Chick had called home. For the second time that

night, Barbara Jean searched an empty room. The moonlight beaming in from the open door provided just enough light for her to see

that the few personal belongings she had taken note of on her previous visits when she and Chick had come there to lie together on

his narrow cot had vanished. The two posters of eagles in flight, the photograph of his mother and father, the ratty blue sleeping

bag covered with crudely cut rectangular patches—all of it gone.

But then, just when she thought she would lose her mind from despair, she turned and saw him standing in the doorway. She shouted,

“Ray!” and ran the few steps to him.

Not Ray, she realized when she was close enough to smell the sour odor of his sweat and feel his breath on her face.

Desmond Carlson reached up and pulled a chain to light the bare bulb that hung from the ceiling so that they could both see each

other. The thing that struck Barbara Jean about Desmond, whom she had never seen up close before this moment, was how much he

resembled Ray. They had the same height and build, although Desmond was considerably heavier around the waist—a drinker’s body.

Their features were similar, but the mouth Barbara Jean had known so well as a feature of Chick’s face was misshapen on his

brother due to a white scar that ran from just below his nose to the cleft in his chin. And Desmond’s nose looked slightly off-

kilter, the result, she imagined, of a long-ago fight. Still, the life he led had only damaged him slightly. This man, who had

caused so much turmoil and become the symbol of everything scary and evil in the world to her, was pretty.

Desmond looked Barbara Jean up and down two times—slowly, making a show of it. Then he snorted and said, “Now I see what it was

had Ray goin’ over to the coloreds. Didn’t know he had it in him. I always figured him for a sissy.”

Barbara Jean wanted out of there and away from this man, but she stayed calm long enough to ask, “Where’s Ray?”

“Your little boyfriend’s gone. Ungrateful bastard ran off and said he ain’t comin’ back.” He smiled at her then. But there

was no friendliness or humor in his expression, and she moved away from him as far as the space allowed. He said, “But listen,

sweet thing, if it’s white meat you’ve got a taste for, let me show you what a real man’s like.” Then he lunged at her and

pressed her against the wall with his body. He ground his crotch against Barbara Jean’s hip, all the while snickering like a

mean-spirited child playing a game. He stopped laughing when she brought her hand to his crotch, grabbed him and twisted as if she

were wringing out a wet dish towel. He hit the floor with Barbara Jean’s fist still between his legs, gripping and turning.

She let go, leaped over him, and ran out of the shed. She flew across the yard, hearing him cuss and threaten as she escaped. “I

’m gonna kill you, bitch!” he shouted.

Barbara Jean was back on the gravel road when she heard the sound of an engine firing and knew that he was coming after her. She

darted down narrow, muddy streets that she had never seen before, hoping to hide from Desmond. She ducked behind trees and

crouched in gullies to stay out of sight. More than once her pursuer’s truck passed just a few feet away from her face as she

knelt in tall weeds at the side of the road.

Finally, after thinking she would be lost forever in this unfamiliar and inhospitable part of town, Barbara Jean found her way

back to Wall Road. From there, it was just a twenty-five-minute walk back to Big Earl’s house.

It was probably the thunderous pounding of her heart that kept Barbara Jean from hearing the sound of the engine as it approached

from the rear. She didn’t realize that she was being followed until the headlights behind her caused her shadow to lengthen on

the road ahead. She started to run again, but she only had two steps left in her. She was just too damn tired.

She glanced toward the side of the road where it sloped down into a deep gully and then dark woods. If she could get out of the

light and into the trees, she might be all right. She could hide, maybe even all night if she had to.

No. No hiding, she decided. For just a little while she had to become somebody else. Until this was over, no matter how it ended,

she had to be somebody fearless.

Barbara Jean turned toward the headlights that had now come to a stop just a few yards away from her. Then she brought up her

fists, ready to fight. She whispered to herself, “My name is Odette Breeze Jackson and I was born in a sycamore tree. My name is

Odette Breeze Jackson and I was born in a sycamore tree.”

But no one approached. She heard nothing for several drawn-out seconds. Then the quiet night air was filled with the sound of a

car horn’s blast. The horn played out, “Ooo, Ooo-ooo.”

Lester.

Inside the blue Cadillac, Lester explained that he had gone to the McIntyres’ to see her as soon as he returned to town. He had

arrived at the house just in time to cross paths with Big Earl as he came rushing out of the door on his way to look for Barbara

Jean. They had talked, and Lester persuaded Big Earl to go back to the All-You-Can-Eat while he tracked her down. After being

pointed in the direction of Wall Road, that’s just what Lester had done.

Barbara Jean didn’t say a word all the way back to the house and Lester asked her no questions. When they pulled up outside Big

Earl and Miss Thelma’s, Lester performed like the gentleman he was. He opened the passenger-side door for her and accompanied her

up the front walkway. As they reached the porch steps, Lester asked, “Have you given any thought to what we talked about?”

She started to laugh then. She laughed so hard at God’s good joke on her that she had to hold on to the wrought-iron step railing

to keep from falling over. Tears rushed down Barbara Jean’s face and she struggled to breathe. When she could talk again, she

said, “I’m sorry. But you’re going to think this is funny, too, when I tell you … Lester, I’m pregnant. I’m going to have

Chick Carlson’s baby. And I just spent the evening running and hiding behind trees, trying to get away from his crazy-ass

brother. So, you can take that proposal back and count yourself lucky.” Barbara Jean climbed the three steps to the porch and

then turned around, expecting to see Lester scrambling back to his Cadillac.

But Lester didn’t walk away. He looked up at her and asked, “What do you want to do?”

“What I want doesn’t matter. Chick’s gone. Now I’ve got to make plans for me and my baby. My mother managed to do it on her

own. I figure I can’t do a worse job of it than she did.”

Lester said, “I really meant it when I said I wanted to marry you, Barbara Jean. I’ve loved you since I first laid eyes on you,

and that hasn’t changed. We can get married tomorrow, if you want.”

She waited for Lester to think about what he had just said and return to his senses. But he just stood there. She could only think

of one thing to say. She asked the question her mother would have wanted her to ask. “Lester, can you look me in the eye and

swear that you’ll forever be my man and that you’ll always do right by me and my baby?”

Lester stepped up onto the porch beside her and placed a warm hand on her stomach. “I swear,” he said.

So Barbara Jean married Lester, the man who had the right answer to her mother’s question.