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

by Edward Kelsey Moore

angel. She could cook, sew, sing, and speak French. And she was as kind and generous a friend as anyone could hope for. What she didn’t have much of a knack for was placing blame where it should truly lie.

Clarice’s church didn’t help her disposition much. Calvary Baptist wasn’t full-blown Pentecostal, but it still managed to be the Bible-thumpingest and angriest church in town. So Sundays were bad for Clarice even without Richmond misbehaving or Minnie’s name coming up in the conversation. Calvary’s pastor, Reverend ...

you weren’t in a foul temper by the time you left a Calvary Baptist service, it meant you weren’t listening. At my church, Holy Family Baptist, the only hard-and-fast rule was that everyone should be kind to everybody. That view was way too casual for the Calvary congregation, and it drove them straight up the wall that we didn’t take a harder line on sin and sinners. The Calvary crowd were equally disgusted with Barbara Jean’s church, First Baptist, where the members proved their devotion to God by

doing charity work and by dressing up like they were on a fashion runway every Sunday. The old joke was that Holy Family preached the good news gospel, Calvary Baptist preached the bad news gospel, and First Baptist

preached the new cloth...

The 3 baptist churches

They often appeared for supper an hour late after having to pull their car over for Barbara Jean to kick-start one of Lester’s vital organs with a remedy from the portable clinic she kept in her pocketbook.

Clarice would never say a word to Barbara Jean about the way she dressed, and we both knew it. Just like she and Barbara Jean wouldn’t tell me to my face that I was fat, and Barbara Jean and I wouldn’t remind Clarice that her husband was a dog. These were the tender considerations that came with being a member of the Supremes. We overlooked each other’s flaws and treated each other well, even when we didn’t deserve it.

Truth was, Barbara Jean looked lovely in whatever she wore. She’d been the prettiest girl in our high school and she became the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen. In middle age, it’s still difficult to look away from her. Every single feature of her face is striking and exotic. Looking at Barbara Jean makes you think that maybe God is a wonderful, ancient artist who decided one day to piece together all his loveliest creations and craft something that

She ate minuscule portions of low-fat items. Out of consideration for Clarice, Barbara Jean, who could eat anything and never gain a pound, ate only low-fat foods so it wouldn’t seem like she was rubbing the difference in their metabolisms in Clarice’s face. I, as always, divided my plate equally between main courses and desserts. Vegetables take

up too

much space on a small pla...

She lowered the range of her normally high-pitched voice to a deep rumble and said, loud enough for nearly everyone in the place to hear, “Charlemagne says I’ll be dead within a year.” Most people in the restaurant, having heard Minnie announce grave prophecies that failed to come to pass many times, paid her no mind. Clarice, Barbara Jean, and I stuck around and waited

Clarice was tired of listening to Minnie’s ramblings. She whispered in my ear, “My food is getting cold. Are we about done listening to this old fake?” Minnie screamed, “I heard that!” She was old; but you had to hand it to her, the woman still had excellent hearing. She leapt from the stool and lunged at Clarice, ready to dig her purple polished nails into Clarice’s face. Little Earl held her back and got her onto the stool again. She immediately

“Charlemagne came to me early this morning and said that I would follow Earl to the grave within a year. Those were his exact words.” Now the restaurant grew quiet as people began to catch the drift of what she was saying. “Are you saying that Daddy is dead?” “Yeah, he died last night while he was sayin’

I’ve had a terrible, terrible Sunday, let me tell you.” Little Earl grabbed Minnie’s shoulders and spun her on the stool so she faced him directly. “Daddy died last night … and you didn’t call me?” “I was gonna call you, but then I thought, If I call ’em, they’ll feel like they’ve got to come over. Then there’ll be the preacher and the undertaker and maybe the grandkids. With everybody makin’ such a fuss, I’ll never get a lick of sleep.

Erma Mae began to sob. She came around the buffet line and launched herself straight into Barbara Jean’s arms, passing by Clarice and me even though we were both closer friends of hers than Barbara Jean. I wasn’t surprised or offended, though. And I was sure Clarice wasn’t either. Everyone knew Barbara Jean was the expert on grief. As Barbara Jean held Erma Mae

James and Little Earl were just arriving at Big Earl’s home. They rushed up the front stairs and right past Mama, who stood near the porch swing. Big Earl and Thelma McIntyre sat on the swing holding hands, Miss Thelma’s head on her husband’s shoulder. I could tell from Mama’s familiar gestures that she was telling one of her jokes.

Barbara Jean knew what the first words out of Miss Carmel’s mouth would be and she held her breath, bracing herself to hear them. Miss Carmel didn’t disappoint. In her high-pitched, feathery voice she said, “Sweetheart, did you know you were born on my davenport?” Barbara Jean’s mother, Loretta Perdue, was drunk when she gave birth on the living room sofa of Miss Carmel, a woman she had never met. Her friends had thrown

She often told Barbara Jean how she only drank whiskey sours when she was expecting because everyone knew that drinking beer during pregnancy would make your baby nappy-headed. “See, honey,” she would say, “your mama was always lookin’ out for you.”

She’d told him five months earlier that he was going to be a father, and he had seemed to be pleased about it. Or rather, he was pleased Loretta was not going to tell his wife. She was content merely to accept a small monthly payment in exchange for her discretion. This same arrangement also suited each of the three other men Loretta had informed that they were the father of her unborn child.

Loretta had set up a meeting with Daddy no. 4 (going by the order in which she had told them about her pregnancy) at a quiet roadside diner in Leaning Tree after the baby shower. At the diner, she was going to remind him of just how fair she was being and then, when she had him feeling appropriately grateful to her for being such a good sport, she would casually mention just how much easier a new Chevrolet would make life for her and his child. If she worked it right, by sunset she would have a new car and

She seated herself at a booth and drank coffee to come down from her whiskey sour buzz and waited for Daddy no. 4 to join her. When he stepped through the door with Daddy no. 2 right behind him, she knew that the jig was up.

As the men approached, Loretta, always quick on her feet when cornered, made one last desperate move to hold her plan together

by playing one daddy against the other. She said, “I’m sorry, sweetheart. I’ve tried so many times to tell him that I love you and it’s all over with him, but I was just too scared. He’s so mean; I didn’t know what he might do to me and our baby.” She said it to both of them, hoping each would assume she was talking to him alone and that she could slip out of the diner while they fought over her. L...

assuring each that she loved only him. With luck, after the dust settled, her plans could go forward unchanged. Loretta was a stunning beauty, and she knew it. She thought it was only logical that men should fight over her, and they often did. When she got sick with the cirrhosis that killed her at thirty-five, the hardest thing for her—harder than dying, Barbara Jean thought—was saying g...

The fathers had ended up seated next to each other at Forrest Payne’s joint, and after they had sucked down enough of Forrest’s watered-down liquor to loosen their tongues, they started bragging about their women. It didn’t take them long to realize that they were each bragging about the same one.

Daddy no. 4 leaned across the table and wagged his finger at Loretta’s nose. He said, “I was too smart for you, li’l girl. You been outplayed at your own game.” Loretta stared at Daddy no. 4, who had once been her favorite, and wondered what it was she had ever seen in him, with his wide, lopsided mouth and his strange, Egyptian-looking eyes. Then she thought about the ring he had bought for her, a decent-sized ruby with tiny

Daddy no. 2 surprised Loretta by bursting into tears. He buried his face in his hands and wailed as if he’d been stuck with a sharp stick, blubbering on about his lost son.

Daddy no. 4 put his arm around

The nurse brought Barbara Jean into the world right there on the sofa while Carmel Handy made the first of a dozen phone calls she would make that day to tell her friends what had happened in her home and to extol the benefits of plasticizing your furniture. That first call began “Some girl just popped out another of Forrest Payne’s bastards right in my front room,” starting a rumor that would

It

was No. 4 all along.” Then she turned to Mrs.

She always dreamed of the same waving boy, her lost Adam. The woman in the air also never varied. It was always her mother.

Barbara Jean and Lester’s house stood at the intersection of Plainview Avenue and Main Street. A three-story Queen Anne giant with a turret at its northeast corner and six separate porches, it had once been called Ballard House, and still was by most of the inhabitants of

Lester bought Ballard House for his young wife and their son, Adam. It was a gutted, falling-down mess at the time, and although she loved the house, Barbara Jean had no clue what needed to be done to put it back together. Clarice, though, had been raised by her mother with the assumption that she would one day oversee a grand home. So Barbara Jean turned every decision in the renovation process over to her friend. Barbara Jean stood back and

Barbara jean ( and lester) turnrd over decorating their big home to clarice

kind of showplace Clarice would have lived in if fate, in the form of a three-hundred-pound, corn-fed Wisconsin linebacker with blood in his eye, hadn’t stepped in and transformed Richmond from a potential NFL legend into a recruiter at a university whose football glory days were long past. Out of respect for her friend, Clarice never accepted a bit of credit for her hard work. Instead, she patiently tutored Barbara Jean, teaching her everything

Clarice and lester..a linebacker who was hit and had to becomr a univ football recruiter...otherwise they could have had a large shoeplace of a home like barbara jean and lester. clarice took no credit for decorating bj and lrster's big home

she knew about art, antiques, and architecture.

Between the practical experience Barbara Jean gained from tending to the needs of her extravagant old home and from Clarice’s guidance, she eventually surpassed her instructor’s level of expertise.

Bj soon surpassed claricd's knowsledge

When she stood from the antique chair to stretch her lower back, Barbara Jean’s Bible tumbled to the floor. After she’d had dinner with Lester, counted out his pills, and put him to bed, the evening had become a blur. She didn’t recall that

she’d been reading the Bible before she fell asleep. It made sense, though. She tended to drag out the Good Book when she was in a dark mood, and the shadows ha...

Lester had become frightened when his wife stopped speaking and eating and then refused to come out of Adam’s room, so he called in Odette and Clarice. They got right to work, each of her friends administering the

cures they trusted most.

Odette mothered her, cooking wonderful-smelling meals which she fed to her by hand on the worst days. And, during the long hours she spent sitting in bed beside Barbara Jean while her friend cried onto her broad bosom, brave Odette whisper...

Clarice came brandishing a brown suede-covered Bible. It was embossed with Barbara Jean’s name in gold letters on its front cover and had “Salvation = Calvary Baptist

How clarice and oddette ministered to bj when her son died and lester was afraid for her...he called in odette who cooked gredat food for bj. Clarice broughtg a brown bible with bj's name and

For weeks, Clarice read to her about the trials of Job and reminded her that the fifth chapter of Matthew promised “Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted.” But both of Barbara Jean’s friends had come bearing medicine for the wrong illness. More than courage or piety, what she needed, what she would scour Clarice’s Bible forwards and backwards searching for over the many years that followed, was a clue as to how to get out from under the boulder of guilt that

Bj's friends..clarice and odette brought " medicines" of piety and courage.....not what she needed...she needed scrioture for dealing with grief

Clarice’s gift just armed Barbara Jean with a long list of good reasons to be seriously pissed off at God while the weight of

her guilt ground her in...

Barbara Jean was finally able to leave Adam’s room after she and God came to an understanding. She would continue to smile and nod through services every week at First Baptist just as she always had, and she wouldn’t call Him out for being as demanding and capricious as the worst two-year-old child, ready at ...

In exchange for this consideration, Barbara Jean asked only that God leave her alone. For decades, the pact worked out fine. Then, with Big Earl’s sudden passing, God reminded Barbara Jean of who He was. Bringer of death, master comedian, lightning bearer. He made it clear to her that He had no intentions of honoring the terms of their truce. Barbara Jean put the Bible on the eighteenth-century candle table next to her chair and walked to the mirror above the fireplace...

the sun wasn’t up yet, so she still had time to get a little rest to ensure she would look good for Big Earl. And she was determined to say goodbye to her friend looking her very best. She had laid out her outfit for Big Earl’s service earlier that evening, before heading into the library. Out of respect, she would wear a black dress. But she chose magenta shoes, a matching belt, and a white hat with clusters of red and black leather roses around its wide brim to go with it. The little black dress was cut well above the knee and had a tiny slit on the right seam. Clarice would hate it and would have to bite her tongue to keep from

Bj getting ready for big earl's funeral