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

There were more boys scattered out around the swimming hole. Circle Stump Boys. None wore shirts. They stood around on the bank, laughing, sniggering, throwing rocks at each other and at the coveralls in the water.

The Skeleton Boy’s hair was also orange colored, combed straight down around his head like an upside-down bowl. His upper lip looked like a night crawler somebody had cut in two and sown back together. Whenever he opened his mouth, it would give a little spasm and try to jerk itself apart. “Lose something, nigger-boy?”

That littlest boy, the one that had pretended the rope was a snake, stood on the other side of the swimming hole, throwing rocks at Willis’s coveralls. A purple birthmark clung like a bent hand to the rib bones over his heart. “Throw him in too Raymond! We need us a better target.”

“Yeah throw Sambo in!” another boy shouted.

A sheet of white light flashed over the trees.

“It’s coming up a storm, you boys! We’d best be going!” It was the fat boy. He stood up a ways from the bank, shouting at the others, the gray ball cap planted so the bill stuck out sideways atop his head. The boy with the birthmark skipped a rock off the fat boy’s arm. “I hope you get the shit shocked out of you, Neddy!” the fat boy shouted.

“You go to hell, Sow Face!” Neddy said. The other boys laughed. Neddy threw another rock; Sow Face jumped to one side, twisting away but the rock hit him in the back.

“Goddamn you Neddy!” Sow Face blew his cheeks up with air, made a little run at Neddy, stopped, stood with his fists balled. “I’ll stomp you till your nose bleeds!”

“Come on then!” Neddy raised his little fists.

Sow Face was twice his size, but he didn’t do anything, just stayed where he was, a fat boy statue with a gray sideways ball cap, his eyes all red and glaring.

“You jest a pussy,” Neddy said.

The other boys he-hawed. Willis tried to get up. Raymond, the Skeleton Boy, pushed him right back down. “Whoa there, nigger-boy! Where ya’ll off to?”

“Come on Raymond,” Neddy yelled. “Throw his naked ass in!”

Willis tried to crawl away but Raymond grabbed him by his potato foot and pulled him back. More thunder dropped out of the sky.

da Doom! Doom! Boom!

“Do it, Raymond! Pitch him in!”

“Na uh!” Willis cried.

“Let’s get away from here!” Sow Face hollered. “They’s lightning!”

Raymond turned suddenly and kicked Willis in the stomach. Willis let out a rush of breath and curled up in a ball, his potato foot jerking as if trying to run off on its own.

Raymond pried up the foot with the toe of his work boot. “I want you just to look at this boys. That ain’t a goddamn freak, I don’t know what is.”

Willis lay there, whimpering. I wanted to help him, but there were too many boys. More sheets of light flashed overhead — white, then blue, then white again. A gust of wind bent the tree-tops, hissing down through the leaves. Raymond grabbed Willis by his potato foot, pulled him screaming to the edge of the water and threw him in. I squeezed the handle on Granny’s butcher knife, its blade dark like the sky.

Cut him Lawrence! Cut his dick off!

Stones whizzed through the air, split the water around Willis’s head. He tried to swim away but one of the stones cut him over the top of the eye. He flipped over backwards, got a mouthful of water and tried to spit.

Sow Face threw his ball cap at Raymond. The red winged horse turned over and over and landed in the water; the hat floated there in front of Raymond upside down like a boat with a gray flapper-tail, sticking out behind.

“Uh huh,” Raymond said. “You done it that time.” The other boys laughed and started throwing at the hat.

“Come on boys,” Sow Face begged. “Don’t be doing that.”

Willis flopped around in the water. Raymond picked up a rock so big he had to hold it with both hands.

“Smash his head in Raymond!” Neddy yelled.

Raymond stepped to the bank.

I thought of Jesus in the temple with all the money changers. Of David and Goliath. The US Army and the Alamo. Momma throwing her magazine at Victor. Daddy with his baseball bat. I thought of the copperhead snake. How it had reared back in my hand, slicking its tongue out at all the colored people. How they all held back, looking at me, a scared little white boy that had come all the way down from Detroit just to hold a snake in the dark church of Kentucky.

Raymond raised the rock over his head, looking down at Willis.

I held up the knife. “Hold it right there! You skinny ass mother fucker!” It was the meanest thing I could think of to say. I pushed myself back and away and jumped down from the tree. Raymond looked even bigger from the ground — a giant skeleton with a sunken in chest and a rock — me standing there just by myself with Granny’s old butcher knife. I pointed it at Raymond and tried to make my voice sound big. “You leave him alone!”

Raymond smiled. “You that Detroit boy, ain’t ye?” He held the rock in both hands against his stomach. It looked like Granpaw’s anvil, narrow on one end, thick on the other. Raymond made his voice go friendly, a friendly neighbor boy, passing the time of day. “Pappy told me about ya’ll. Said ya’ll was staying up there to Harlan’s with old Mattie Wood and Strode.” His lip tried to pull itself in two. “You Jessie’s boy, ain’t ye?”

Granny’s knife blade trembled. “You just stay right where you are.”

“I know all about you,” Raymond said, his voice all of a sudden sad. “I heard about Jessie too. That was a shame, wasn’t it? The way he died and all.”

“You don’t know anything about it,” I said.

“You wrong there Honey Pie,” Raymond smiled. “Everybody down here knows.” The other boys giggled. I could see Willis moving now toward the little waterfall on the opposite side. Raymond went all friendly again. “Your Daddy’s folks went to Circle Stump. You knowed that didn’t ye?”

“Don’t call me Honey Pie.”

“Everybody knowed Jessie. They still talk about him too.” Raymond made a half step closer. “That’s a mean looking knife you got there. The point’s bent though.”

“Stand back!”

“You know that fire boiled your Daddy’s eyes? I didn’t know fire could do that, did you?” Raymond moved a little to one side. I kept the knife blade shaking between us. He was right about its point. Even if I managed to stab him, it wouldn’t go in. His voice oozed with false sympathy. “His eyes was still in his head. All rubbery and white — like boiled eggs, they said — flesh burned black as pitch. Did you know they had to scoop all that up with a shovel?”

Something whizzed past my ear. A rock. It landed in the trees in back of me. I could see Willis out in the swimming hole — back peddling — trying to get to the other side.

Sow Face was down to the bank, trying to fish his hat out with a stick. “You better quit torturing them Kingdom Boys Raymond. Pappy’ll hide you!”

I was surprised and proud too to be counted as one of the Kingdom Boys. Maybe Granny was wrong about me after all.

Raymond said to Sow Face, “How’d you like this here rock up your ass?”

“Go on! You thank you man enough!” Sow Face turned around; pushed his butt out at Raymond and farted.

Everybody laughed. Even I did, a little. Raymond didn’t though. He tossed the rock off in the swimming hole on top the gray hat. A big splash of water went up all over Sow Face.

“Goddamn you to hell Raymond!”

Everybody laughed.

I stood there with the knife. All of a sudden Raymond turned and swiped at me with his empty hand, smiled that friendly neighbor boy’s smile of his. Another rock cut through the leaves. Raymond picked up a dead tree limb. It was long and thick around as a baseball bat, rotten through and through. He swished it at me and the end broke off. “What’s the matter Honey Pie? I bet you miss your Momma now, don’t ye?”