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

“Sounds like them Circle Stump Boys to me,” she said.

“They’re like you Orbie. They think they better than colored folks.”

“I don’t think that Granny.”

“You did when you first come down here. It was nigger this and nigger that.” She reached the pan down to me again.

“I changed my mind though.”

“You just think you have. Chick, chick, chick!” Pieces of crushed corn sprayed out over the chicken’s backs. “Them white boys is like them friends of yours up in Detroit. You don’t see nothing wrong with the way they do.”

“Yes, I do.”

“No, you don’t. You don’t see because you a white boy. You think you’re better.”

“You’re white!” I almost shouted.

“I been around long enough to see a few things too!”

“I don’t think I’m better Granny. I like Willis. I like them Kingdom Boys. I like niggers, Granny — I mean, coloreds.”

Granny gave me a hard look. “You think because you handled a snake and made a few friends you different than you was before?”

“I am Granny. You don’t know.”

Granny gave me another look.

Elvis and Johnny were out there with all the other chickens — Elvis in the middle and Johnny by the fence. Two white chickens in with all the coloreds.

“Them folks over to Circle Stump is good people I reckon. Good Baptists. Like you are. Like your Momma.” Granny turned the pan over, dumped out the rest of the feed. The chickens went wild. She handed the pan down to me.

“I’m not no Baptist Granny. I don’t even like Jesus.”

“You better not say that.”

“I don’t care. He ain’t never around to hear me anyway.”

Granny started off toward the house. “Bring that pan and come on.” She opened the gate for me. “You’ll make Jesus sad talking that way.”

I hit the pan against the gate-post. “Jesus punishes people, don’t he Granny?”

“People punish people,” Granny said. “People punish they own selves.”

“God punishes people,” I said.

“God?”

“Uh huh. He made me come down here. Momma said it was God’s will.”

Granny was halfway up the back porch steps. “You think being down here’s a punishment?”

“No. Sometimes I do. Maybe. I don’t know.” I went up the stairs behind Granny. The pan banged loudly against the steps.

“Set that down a minute and come inside,” Granny said.

We both went in and sat down at the table. I could see the calendar on the wall next to the door. July 17 th. Wednesday.

Granny put one veined hand on top the other and looked at me. “Circle Stump folks used to come by all the time. Younguns too, when your Momma was a girl. They don’t no more though, not since me and Strode started over to Kingdom. Do you know why?”

“Uh huh. Circle Stump people don’t like coloreds. They don’t like nobody who likes coloreds. They don’t like you and Granpaw. Momma told me. But Granny, they don’t like me either. I’m not one of them.”

Granny raised her eyebrows. “You know, you just about the smartest little boy I ever laid eyes on. Folks is funny down here, Orbie. They say they love the Lord, but then again they won’t abide His people. You know what I’m talking about?”

“Uh huh,” I said. “Like Momma. She says she loves Jesus too, but she won’t let Missy marry no coloreds.”

“Lord!” Granny laughed. “How did you get to be so smart?”

“She says coloreds are nasty, Granny. She says they have blubbery lips.”

Granny slapped the table. “See, now that there’s what I’m a talking about! You been with Willis! You been over there to Kingdom Town with Fable and Vern and them other boys! And to that church too!”

“I know it.”

“All right then! Would you say they was all nasty and blubbery-lipped over there?”

“What are you hollering at me for Granny? I didn’t say they were!” I almost cried.

Granny laughed and patted me on the hand. “I’m not yelling at you hon. All this old stuff gets Granny’s blood up is all.”

She got up and went over to the cabinet behind me, took out some dishes and brought them around to the table.

I watched her set them out. “Victor says Momma says one thing and does another. They fight about it.”

Granny set one of the plates down in front of me.

“Victor give Momma a black eye,” I said.

Granny made a little whistling sound.

“He hits me and Missy,” I said. “But it’s right what he said about Momma isn’t it?”

Granny stopped what she was doing and sat down again. “Well maybe it is, a little bit. They’s a lot more to your Momma than that though. For one thing, she’s good hearted as they come. Too good, if you was to ask me.”

“Momma’s ignorant isn’t she Granny?”

Granny laughed. “She might be, a little. But you are too. We all are a little bit ain’t we?”

“She’s going to die, isn’t she?”

“Someday. We all going to die someday. How come you worried about that?”

“I don’t know. I just am.”

They were trying to get me to play the ‘pass out’ game, but I was afraid. “That train might come again. You don’t know.”

Fable made his eyes go wide. “Do too. Ain’t no two dream alike.”

“Some people dream the same,” I said.

“Yo turn boy,” Vern said.

“He don’t ha-has to,” Willis piped in.

Vern all of a sudden made his elbows go like wings and pretended to fly. “Caw! Caw! Caw!” We all laughed while he flew around to the back of me and stopped. “I hold you. Go head.”

“Chicken shit,” Fable said.

“He don’t ha-has to,” Willis said.

“It’s okay Willis,” I said. “I’ll kill you Vern, you drop me.”

Vern wrapped his arms around me. I put my thumb in my mouth and started to blow. Granny’s table with all her canning jars floated up in the air. Then it went all snowy like a snowy picture on a TV screen. I went down, or down went up, I couldn’t tell which, but then it didn’t matter because the world had turned black.

I’m looking up into gazillions of stars. I feel the ground under me but when I look there’s nothing but more stars — gazillions of them I see on the other side of the invisible ground in front of me — and there’s a round moon too, bright glowing but not enough to block out the stars. Then I see it’s not a moon at all but a bright white tunnel that goes down in the invisible ground, with a silver ladder up one side. Way, way down inside the tunnel there’s a speck or a dot of something that gets bigger and bigger until I see it’s a man in a yellow helmet and coveralls climbing up the silver ladder. He climbs up and out and stands in front of me and he looks at me and his face is a crow’s face with a black beak and sharp black eyes and one of his hands is not really a hand at all but a bird’s claw — Daddy’s bird claw hand — and I think the man must be Daddy or a half-crow-half-man-Daddy and I want to go up to him and I want to run away too but I’m so scared I don’t do either.

Then lights come on and I see I’m standing on a cement floor. I see ladders and wires. I see pipes. Drums and big oily machines. More yellow helmets, moving in the lights above. Factory lights. Men climbing ladders, walking stairways, some laughing, talking, some sitting on catwalks with their legs hanging over the edges, eating floppy white sandwiches and drinking coffee.

Thunder noises start to pound up in the floor, making the air hot all around me. A furnace flashes full of fire. Daddy or that Crow Man or whatever he is throws a cardboard box in front of the furnace’s open mouth. The box stays a second then explodes into flames.