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

“No,” I lied. “Momma, what happened? Where’s Missy?”

“In there in the bedroom,” Granny said. “Poor thing.”

Right then Granpaw came walking up on the back porch with an arm full of boards and the paint he had bought in town. He put it all down out there on a table by the door and came in. The second he saw Momma he grabbed his hat off and whacked it against his pant leg. “What did that jackassfool do now?”

“Strode,” Granny said.

Granpaw gave Granny a look but didn’t say anything. He stood over Momma, waiting, his hat resting against his pant leg.

Finally Momma said, “I don’t know Papaw. He went crazy I reckon.” She looked at me real quick, then back at Granpaw.

“We tried to set up house down there but it didn’t take.” She started to cry again. Another string of hair fell over her face.

Granny passed Momma another hankie.

“Sum bitch.” Granpaw looked around the room as if he thought Victor might be hiding somewhere, behind the stove maybe, or maybe behind the refrigerator. “Where’s he at?”

“Florida, I reckon,” Momma said.

“Floridy?”

“He can rot down there for all I care.”

“She run off, Strode,” Granny said. “Had to.”

Granpaw looked around the room again, mad, lost, that one hawk eyebrow like a hook. Then he reared back like a horse and I saw the gray of his eyeball disappear upward inside his head. He started to cough. He coughed and coughed till he had to go out on the back porch. Out there he kept on coughing. Granny and Momma both had to go out there with him. I went too. He coughed up blood and knocked over the table with the wood and the paint cans. He fell down on the porch trying to get his breath.

“Strode! Strode!” Granny yelled. “Lord, he’s having a fit!”

“Papaw!” Momma said.

Granpaw’s mouth was going like a fish when you take it out of water, opening and closing and opening again. Pink foam bubbled over his bottom lip.

Momma got down on the floor, lifted Granpaw’s head and put it in her lap.

“I’ll run get Nealy!” Granny stomped down the porch steps and out across the yard, her big boney hips swinging side to side like a bell. “Don’t let him swaller his tongue!”

Granny had already got back and was standing over Momma and Granpaw when Old Man Harlan came up in the yard. Bird came up behind him, both arms moving like a bug in a glass of water. Granny wrung her hands, rocking one foot to the other.

Old Man Harlan pointed to a place on the door where the screen had come loose. “Thought ya’ll was gonna mend that.”

“We ain’t had time Nealy,” Granny said.

“Humph. It was my farm I’d make time.”

“It is your farm, Nealy,” Granny said.

Granpaw groaned, “Ohhh, ohhh.” He lay face up in Momma’s lap. The knot on the side of his head glowed fiery red. Momma bent over him; trying to wipe his face with a washrag, her own face lopsided and splashed with tears. I was sitting on a bucket next to the door. I looked at the screen, at the paint cans that were scattered over the porch.

Bird’s lips went tight. She frowned and shook her head and looked at Old Man Harlan. Then she looked at Granny. “Bad time for such as this. What with the crops and all.”

“That’s right, Mattie,” Old Man Harlan said. “I can’t offer you no more credit.”

“Well, I ain’t asking for none!” Granny said. “You gonna help us or just stand there complaining?”

Granpaw was breathing fast now, moving his head this way and that.

Old Man Harlan put his beak nose forward. “Strode?”

“He can’t hear you!” Granny hollered. “We got to get him up from here!”

Right then, Moses and Willis came round the corner. Moses with a stepladder. It was the first time I’d seen him since I took a hold of that snake.

Old Man Harlan’s face soured over.

“Moses! Thank God,” Granny said. “Strode’s about gone!”

Moses dropped the ladder and went up on the porch. He put one hand on Granpaw’s forehead and with the other took out from his pocket something looked like a little skull, bone white with eye sockets and fangs. A swishing, hissing sound came from inside. Moses kept his hand on Granpaw’s head. He shook the little skull, making the swishing sound all up and down Granpaw’s body. Nobody said a word. Momma’s eyes followed the movements of Moses’ hand, the movements of the swishing white skull. After what seemed a long while Granpaw’s breathing started to calm down.

“Thank you Jesus,” Granny said.

“Lord A Mighty!” Old Man Harlan whispered.

Bird had lost interest. “Dark meat,” she said, touching Willis’s arm. “I will like me some of that.”

Willis backed away.

It took them all four to get Granpaw up, get him to the station wagon. Granny and Momma carried him by his arms.

Moses and Old Man Harlan carried him by his feet. I carried his hat.

They got Granpaw in the back seat and Granny got in with him. She got Granpaw’s head in her lap. Old Man Harlan spied the groceries in the back seat and told Granny.

“They’ll keep,” Granny yelled. “Drive this thing! Drive it fast!”

A hateful look came up in Old Man Harlan’s eyes. “Been driving pert near all my life, Mattie. Don’t need no dirt farmer’s wife telling me how!” He started for the driver’s side door but Moses beat him to it. Willis crawled in on the passenger side.

Moses started the station wagon, slammed it backwards and out into the road. Granny hollered out the window. “They’s biscuits and ham-gravy in the refrigerator Ruby!” Before Momma could answer, Moses changed gears and the station wagon roared off, dust and gravel blowing out the back end.

“Old Gooseberry!” Bird cackled.

“You got that right,” said Old Man Harlan. “In the flesh.”

Willis and me were out on the porch steps at his house, eating ‘maters and baloney on white bread Miss Alma had made.

“Yo s-step pappy do dat to yo mammy?” Willis said.

I nodded that he did. “He got in with some men. In Florida. Bad men, Willis. Crooks. He broke Missy’s arm. Momma caught him rubbing on her.”

Willis brushed a fly off the end of his sandwich. “What you talking ‘bout?”

“You know. There,” I said, pointing between Willis’s legs. “Her privates.”

Willis opened his eyes wide. “Yo mammy tell you dat?”

“No, but I heard her talking to Granny. He was supposed to be giving her a bath. But Momma walked in.”

Missy hadn’t said a word since her and Momma came back, just laid on the couch, thumb inside her mouth, staring at nothing in particular. She wore a cast with a sling down the front like a sail. Four little purple fingers and a thumb curled out the end.

“Victor said he wasn’t doing anything. Momma didn’t believe him. She tried to pull Missy away, and that’s how her arm got broke. Victor beat Momma with his fists.”

“Call da police?”

“Don’t know. It was bad though. Like what happened to Granpaw.”

Granpaw’d been in the hospital three days. Me and Granny and Momma and Missy all went to see him there, all the way up to Glascow. The room they had him in smelled like pee.

“Granny got Miss Alma to help out around the house,” I said.

“I know,” Willis said.

“She had to get somebody to take care of the tobacco too.”

“‘L’ brothas,” Willis said. “From church. MMMiss Alma. She tell me.” He took another bite off his sandwich. Granny had hired the ‘L’ brothers — Lester, Luke and Lionel — tall colored boys with muscles and scarves and long handled hoes and jugs of water. She was going to pay them from her and Granpaw’s crop money. She figured out she could pay off Old Man Harlan and still have enough they could make it through the winter even with Granpaw being sick. She was sure of it. People from Kingdom Town would help.