The Supremes at Earl's All-You-Can-Eat (15 page)

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 fuckin’ 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.

I got a second opinion about my condition on the Friday after Halloween. Again, Mama, Mrs. Roosevelt, and I had to sit through a speech about non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. This time nobody cried, though.

Mama said I should talk to James as soon as I got back home, but I ignored her advice. I still wanted to hold on to the fantasy that maybe I could get through my treatment and never have to tell him. Hadn’t Alex Soo said that some rare patients got through chemo like they were taking an aspirin? Well, maybe he hadn’t said exactly that, but I decided to believe he had. I made up my mind to put my trust in the part of James’s nature that never noticed when I got new clothes or when I gained pounds or lost them. Okay, so far only
gained
pounds, but the opposite was likely to be true, too. I decided to count on the same cluelessness that used to make me want to shake James by the throat to be my friend now.

I slept late that next morning. Life being funny the way it is, the hot flashes that had been keeping me awake at night for months stopped the day after Alex Soo told me I might be dying. When I walked into the kitchen, the first surprise was the smell of coffee. I had learned decades ago that James didn’t understand the science of coffee making. Whenever he brewed up a batch, he ended up with sludge or piss water, nothing in between. So he was forbidden to touch the coffee machine.

But that morning a glass carafe full of coffee rested on a cork trivet in the center of the kitchen table. My mug, a brown and white mess of clay coils fashioned by the tiny fingers of the grandkids and presented to me the previous Christmas, was there on the
table, too. And at his usual spot at the table, behind a coffee mug that matched mine, sat James, who was supposed to be working that day.

He sat at attention with his back completely straight and his hands clasped together in front of him atop a wicker placemat. He stared at me for a moment and then said, “What’s wrong?”

I started to say, “Nothing,” but he held up a hand to stop me. He asked again, slower this time, “Odette, what’s wrong?”

I never lie to James—well, not often, at least. I poured a cup of pale brown coffee for myself and I sat down next to him. I exhaled and began, “You know those hot spells I was having? Turns out it was more than the change.”

Then I told him everything that both of the doctors had told me. James listened to me without saying a word. The only time he interrupted me was when he scooted his chair back from the table and patted his thighs with his palms, a gesture that had been a signal for me to climb into his lap in the early days of our marriage.

I laughed. “It’s been a long time since I sat in your lap, honey.” Running my hand over my round stomach, I said, “This might be the end of that chair.”

But James didn’t laugh at my little joke. He patted his thighs again and I went over to him and sat. As I talked, he squeezed me tighter and tighter against his body. By the time I reached the end, explaining what I knew of my treatment, our faces were pressed together and I could feel tears rolling down my cheeks.

I cried for the first time since hearing Dr. Soo tell me I had cancer. I wasn’t crying for the life I might be leaving. Months of talking to Mama had taught me that death didn’t have to mean leaving at all. I cried for James, whose heart I might break, for my beautiful, scarred husband who continued to hold me even though his legs must surely have already gone numb under my weight. My tears fell for this strong man who surprised me by managing not to weep, even though I knew from our decades together that he must be screaming inside. I cried for James, who never expected, or needed, me to be that fearless girl from the tree, just me.

He wiped my face with a paper napkin and asked, “So, when do we start treatment?”

“Tuesday,” I said. I had made plans to start on Tuesday because that was usually James’s late day at work. I wanted as much time as possible to get myself together afterwards, in case my first day was rough.

He caught on immediately that I had planned to use his work schedule as a way to maneuver around him. He said, “Decided to do it on my late day, huh? Sneaky. And a little cowardly, I’ve got to say.” But he didn’t look too angry. And he didn’t let go of me.

He asked, “What time do we go to the hospital?”

“James, you don’t have to come. There’s a service at University Hospital that’ll drive me home if I don’t feel good.”

He acted like he hadn’t heard me. “What time on Tuesday?”

I told him, and it was settled. He would take Tuesday off from work and go with me to the hospital for my first treatment.

James said, “If you don’t tell Clarice and Barbara Jean soon, you won’t have to worry about any cancer. They’ll kill you themselves when they find out. You wanna call ’em now, or do you wanna call the kids and Rudy first?”

I said. “I’ve got a better idea. When do you have to go in to work?”

“I told ’em I’d be in around noon, but I’ll call in and stay here with you.”

“No, I won’t need you for the whole day, the morning’ll do.” Then I began to unbutton his shirt.

James might sometimes be slow on the uptake, but he read my intentions right away. “Really?” he said.