The Supremes at Earl's All-You-Can-Eat (11 page)

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.