Freddie Owens - Then Like the Blind Man - Orbie's Story

Victor slammed his hand against the steering wheel. “Accident my ass ! Some son of a bitch, a Negro , poured hot steel on Jessie! That’s what happened. Burned him up alive!”

Something rolled over in my stomach — a mess boiling up — eggs and tears mixed with tail pipe fumes and clotted milk.

“Victor!” Momma shouted.

But Victor went on like he hadn’t heard, adjusting the bill of the ball cap. “Jackson was his name. We called him Black Jack.” He drove the car slow behind all the other cars. He growled at the windshield. “Had no business on that crane with a full ladle, that’s all. They should’ve investigated it then! Not like they’re doing now! After the fact! Bringing in that smart-ass Union Steward!”

Momma threw the magazine at Victor. He ducked but it hit him anyway.

“Son of a bitch, Ruby! I’m trying to drive here!”

“I’ll kill you! You bastard!”

I could see my own self now — still from the ceiling — my own body, skinny bird legs, red shorts, tooth pick arms in a white Davy Crockett tee shirt, trembling like a squirrel on a cold branch. I could see my head, too big for my body, the ears sticking out lopsided like Daddy’s pear halves, the cheeks stretching away from the nose holes, the mouth open, eyes steamy red with tears.

When the scream blew out of me, it was like I’d come back from a long way away. “You never said that Momma! You never said he got burned up! It was an accident you said!” Hot tears flooded down my face.

Momma looked lost. “It was an accident sweetheart. The man done it made a mistake was all. Sometimes things happen by mistake. Wasn’t nothing anybody could do.”

It came up all of a sudden, blue jam, chunks of banana and bacon and raisins — everything from this morning’s breakfast — splashing in a yellow gush against the black vinyl seat.

“What’s the matter now?” Victor said.

“Lord, God!” Momma said. “Orbie’s puked all over the back seat!”

“Jesus H. Christ! We can’t stop here!” Victor yelled. “There are some rags under the seat there. Hell!”

Da doom doom doom!

Momma found the rags. “You can just drop us off at the next bus station Victor! I mean it! I had just about all I can stand of you cussing and carrying on. Taking the Lord’s name in vain. Bringing out what happened to their Daddy! If that don’t beat all!” She leaned over the back seat and started in wiping at the puke. “You ought to be the one back here cleaning this!”

Missy sat in her corner with her baby doll. “You sick Orbie?”

Inside my mouth a sour milk taste burned. I tried to wipe my mouth on my arm.

“Here honey, let Momma help.” Momma looked at Missy while she wiped my mouth. “He’ll be all right.” She had me take my Davy Crockett tee shirt off. Davy Crockett had puke all over his face. Momma said she’d get me another shirt as soon as we could stop. She finished wiping the back seat and threw the rags out the window. She rolled up my shirt and put it under the front seat.

“It stinks Momma,” Missy said.

“It’ll clear. We can’t stop here.”

I was still crying but soft now. “Did that man really… burn him up Momma? Did he really do… like Victor said?”

Momma looked into my eyes, her lips dark red. “It was an accident, honey. Wasn’t nothing anybody could do. Try and understand.”

“I unnerstand,” Missy said.

“That’s good sweetheart. I know you do.” Momma turned toward the front.

Fat drops of rain started to slap across the black hood of the Ford, first one then another. Slap! Pop! Pop! Slap! One at a time they hit. Cool air rushed in through the windows.

I looked out at the sky. The clouds had gone from black to gray, stretching out over the sky like an upside down ocean with lights flashing inside it.

“You kids roll them windows up,” Momma said.

I rolled up my window, still crying.

The rain exploded so hard it looked like white dust, a mist all over the cars and the road. The gray building was behind us now. I could see it way back there behind the white dusty rain, a black battleship going down under the clouds.

“He’s got nothing to cry about,” Victor said.

“How you can be so smart and stupid at the same time is beyond me,” Momma answered. “I told you not to never mention what happened to their Daddy. They got feelings Victor.”

The rain drowned over the windshield wipers.

I thought about Black Jack and the fire. I thought about coloreds. Negroes. Niggers. Mean niggers in Detroit with knives. Daddy burned up alive by one.

Not no accident, not like Momma said.

I looked outside at the rain. The sky exploded like a bomb. One mountain crashed into another mountain. Thunder. Rain smashing and smoking over everything.

Victor leaned over the steering wheel trying to see. “Feelings,” he said under his breath. “I’ll give them feelings.”

Granny fibbed about kids being down here. There weren’t even any grownups far as I could see except Bird and Nealy and that was across the road. Mostly I played by myself. I read comic books, drew sailing ships and made battles with my army men. I climbed up the chicken yard fence and watched Granny slop the hogs. I threw rocks at the barn door. I threw rocks at the dirt dobber’s nests in the hayloft. I moped around until I got tired of moping around, then I beat on things with sticks. Weeds. The side of the house. The milk bucket. I put dents in one of Granpaw’s hubcaps with a hammer.

Granny had fibbed about him too, saying how Granpaw and me would have fun together, how he’d take me fishing, show me how to look for worms. That never happened. He tried to teach me to hoe tobacco, but the hoe was too big and kept going the wrong way, slipping out of my hand and cutting into the tobacco stalks. Granpaw got fed up with that. “I reckon you ain’t big enough to handle a hoe yet,” he said. “Best you go on up to the house.”

He worked all the time. Most mornings he was already gone when I came down to breakfast. At the end of the day he came in all wore out and grouchy-like. He’d sit down to supper and not even talk at all unless he was wanting something. Then it was Mattie this or Mattie that, Mattie pass the butter or Mattie, where’d you put that cornbread?

After supper he would go in the front room and sit under the light bulb that hung naked in there from a black twist of cord. Moths and other flying insects would be making circles in and out of the light, flying off other places and coming back around. Granpaw would open up his Bible under there and read, every now and then stopping to spit in a big blue Maxwell House Coffee can he kept on the floor by his chair. He read like Momma did, mouthing the words, following them along with a calloused big finger.

I’d lie in there on the floor and read my comic books. I had Superman and Flash Gordon and The Fantastic Four. I had Batman and Robin. I also had “The Body Snatchers” a book Victor gave me, all about pod creatures from outer space that took over people’s bodies and walked around like zombies.

The front room was just plain. Green cracked walls. Brown linoleum on the floor. There were two windows, one that looked out on the front porch and one behind a bumpy red couch that looked out toward the barn. There were cigarette burns on the arms of the couch Granny had covered with pieces of dingy lace. Across from the couch was a table with Granny’s sewing machine. There was a small day-bed beside the sewing machine with a picture of Jesus and The Last Supper hanging on the wall above. Jesus looked sad. He always looked sad. Even when he was smiling he looked sad.