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

“Yeah,” I said. “Old Gooseberry.”

Granpaw stood up from the couch and stared out the window, stooping to look in the sky. “Like a shadow, it is. Or a shade. In and around them clouds, by grabs. A whorl.”

“What’s a whorl Granpaw?”

“Like in the Bible. A evil spirit. Don’t come to the eye direct neither; not like other things. Have to look sideways to see it. Look and not look at the same time.”

“It’s the Devil, isn’t it Granpaw?” I said.

Granpaw nodded. “Some say so. Why they ain’t been no rain to speak of.”

Granny and Granpaw’s house had three tin roofs, one over the main part, one over the back porch and one over the front — all with patches of rust and nails sticking out. Except for the places Moses had painted, it looked dirty and sun baked, stained with orange dust from the road. When it was hot outside, I’d go in the crawl space under the house and play. I’d make forts and have battles and listen to the goings on up above. One time I was there Granpaw came stomping up the back porch steps.

“Strode, that you?” Granny called from the kitchen. I could hear her through the floor.

“It’s me,” Granpaw said.

“You early ain’t you?”

The screen door squalled opened. “Finished that south row. Yeah, I’m early. I’ll start in again in the morning.” Granpaw did that stepping-off-in-a-ditch walk. Soft step, hard. Soft step, hard . Then a chair scraped where he sat down. “Where’s that Orbie?”

“Outside a playing, I reckon.”

“Thought he might like to go with me over to Nealy’s. I need me a twist of tobacco. And we need flour.”

“Not from Nealy we don’t. Costs too much.”

“Have to drive in to town then.”

“I’d rather do that as give Nealy our money.” There was a chopping sound, chop, chop, chop, chop , Granny chopping up vegetables for supper. Dust and little pieces of dirt came down from the under-boards where she stood.

“Moses staying to supper?” Granpaw asked.

“Said he would, then he changed his mind. Reverend Pennycall paid him a visit t’other day, him and Nealy both. They been going around.”

“Sumbitch,” Granpaw said.

“Strode!”

“Well, a man can eat where he wants to, cain’t he?” Granpaw said. “Hired him to paint! Nealy did. Beats all I ever seen.”

“No use to holler at me,” Granny said. “I don’t belong to the Brothers.” Chop, chop. More dirt drifted down. “They’ll be another example made of, I bet you anything they will.”

“Makes me so mad I don’t know what to do,” Granpaw said. “Men like Nealy and that Reverend Pennycall, lording it over folks twice as good.” Granpaw got up all of a sudden and started for the door.

“Don’t be stirring up no trouble,” Granny said.

The screen door opened and Granpaw’s boots went down the back porch steps. “Orbie! Ah Orbie!”

“Don’t you buy no flour over there!” Granny yelled.

A white car, covered half way up with orange dust from the road, was parked in the driveway at Old Man Harlan’s store. It had a red bubble light on top and a star with the word ‘Sheriff’ wrote across the door.

“Police,” I said.

“Reverend Pennycall,” Granpaw said. “It was a sorry day in hell when he became Sheriff.”

Up the hill a little way was Old Man Harlan’s house. It had a long porch with a swing and big pots of blue and red flowers up and down the front steps. Bird Pruitt was standing at the top of the steps hunched over with her cane. She wore that same purple dress and pillbox hat, its wire net twisted above her head.

“Crazy old bitch,” Granpaw said; then looked at me. “I ought not have said that. Ought I?” Steep steps went up to a solid wood porch in front of Old Man Harlan’s store. By the front door was a sign for RC Cola, under it another sign, a piece of cardboard on a nail that said ‘Coloreds Served Around Back’ with an arrow pointing the way. Granpaw shook his head. “They was another place handy, I’d go there to trade.”

The store was just one room, dark and shadowy even in the daytime. A red pop cooler sat in the middle. Old Man Harlan had chewing tobacco, cigarettes, chewing gum and peppermint candy, all under glass at the counter. Shelves with a few store goods — baking soda, turpentine, linseed oil, Kellogg’s Corn Flakes, matches, canned soup — went along the wall on the other side. The back door stood wide open, but Old Man Harlan was nowhere around.

Granpaw went over to the pop cooler, me following behind. The floorboards creaked under our feet. Granpaw raised the lid of the cooler and looked in. “What kind of soda you have boy? We got Orange in here, Coke and something looks like purple.”

“That’s Grape, Granpaw. I want Coke.”

Granpaw grabbed out one Coke and one Orange. He popped the lid off the Coke in the opener on the side and gave it to me. “This Orange here’s for Moses. He’ll like Orange.”

We went around to the back door. A colored-man was outside there; standing in the hot sun, no hat on, just a ragged pair of coveralls strapped over dingy long johns. Up the hill a little ways stood Old Man Harlan’s house.

“Toad?” Granpaw said. “Where’s Nealy?”

The colored-man bowed his head and backed up a step. Short gray whisker hairs went all over the top of his head. “Up da house.”

“Come inside a minute,” Granpaw said. “You’ll fry out there.”

The colored-man stayed where he was. “Mista Halan, now, he don’t ‘llow dat.”

“I do,” Granpaw said. “Come in here.”

The colored-man stayed where he was.

A door opened at the house. Old Man Harlan and another man stepped out. They looked at us then started across the yard. Old Man Harlan was carrying a fruit jar full of something looked like water. His head was bald and shiny, pink from sunburn, and the skin under his eyes sagged in puffy half circles.

The other man had a great big belly and a swollen, bulgy looking head with no neck on it at all. He wore a faded straw hat and a white short-sleeved shirt that was sweated through at the armpits. A pair of black suspenders crawled over his shoulders buttoned onto a pair of official-looking gray pants. On one of the straps wobbled a silver star. He had a gun too, a big silvery cowboy gun with a white handle that stuck out at an angle from a holster on his hip.

Granpaw fixed a hawk eye on Old Man Harlan. “Toad will get sun stroke, standing out here. He’s old, Nealy.”

Old Man Harlan was a head taller than Granpaw; scrawny looking and beak nosed. He wore a blue shirt, the sleeves rolled up to his elbows and a black vest. A gold chain looped out the pocket of the vest. “He’ll get a lot worse he steps inside my store. That right Toady?”

The colored-man chuckled. “I reckon dat so. Yessah. Sho is.”

The man with the police badge touched his hat to Granpaw. “Brothah Wood.”

“Reverend Pennycall,” Granpaw said.

An ugly grin went across Old Man Harlan’s face; his voice was rough and full of spit. “A man breaks the rules is like to go without. You remember that, Toady.”

The colored-man hung his head.

Old Man Harlan squeezed by us and went inside. He went behind the counter, got a paper sack and put the jar inside.

“Mighty precious water be puttin’ it in a paper sack,” Granpaw said.

Reverend Pennycall’s nose hole’s flared. “That wouldn’t be any of ya’ll’s business, now, would it Brothah Wood?”

Old Man Harlan took the bag with the jar back to the door and handed it to the colored-man. The colored-man smiled, first at Old Man Harlan, then at the rest of us. Then he ducked his head and went away.