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

“You the sorriest excuse for a preacher I ever seen,” Granny said. Her and Miss Alma helped him to sit down in the wheelchair.

Granpaw looked up at Granny. “If you all wanted to be loved on, you could have asked.”

“Hush that sorry talk,” Granny said.

Granpaw got loud. “Well, you could have! I would have give you some!” His eyes went over to Miss Alma. “Would have give you some too, girl! White sugar on brown!”

Miss Alma laughed so hard her titties shook.

Granny looked disgusted. “And you call yourself a man of God.”

“I never said no sich a thing,” Granpaw said.

Granpaw sat on a stool beside the cow. He got hold of one of its teats. “Come here boy. Feel this. Grab ‘at other stool there.”

I pulled the other stool over and sat down.

“Take a hold of her, right there,” Granpaw said.

I reached under where Granpaw’s hand was and got a hold on the teat. I was surprised how warm it was — warm and squishy like a sponge.

“Now squeeze her,” Granpaw said.

I squeezed but no milk came out.

“Let me show you.” Granpaw got a hold of the teat and squeezed in a way to make the milk whistle in the bucket.

“See? Squeeze and pull. Pretend that little hand of yours is a calf’s mouth. Suck it right out of there.”

I tried again, got a little bit to come, then nothing.

“It’s a wonder any milk comes at all, it’s been so dry,” Granpaw said. “Ain’t had a drop of rain in weeks.”

Granpaw was right. All we had were thunderheads in the afternoons that would flash and boom a while — then blow away. We hadn’t had a real rain since I chased after Moses in the woods. That was almost two weeks ago.

“Can it rain on one side of a hill and not on the other?” I asked.

“I reckon it could,” Granpaw said. “Don’t rain everywhere all at once. It ain’t likely though.”

“It did when I was following Moses,” I said. “It rained. It rained hard. But when I got back on the other side of the dragon, it was dry.”

“Dragon?”

“A hill Granpaw. It looked like a dragon on one side. I was inside its belly. Inside a pool of water. Green water that went all silvery like a mirror.”

Granpaw looked at me flat on. “You was with Moses then?”

“Willis took me,” I said before I could catch myself.

“Willis did?”

“Yeah Granpaw,” I said. “I wasn’t supposed to tell you that, but he did. Don’t tell Granny.”

Granpaw shook his head.

“I was scared, Granpaw. I thought Moses might could help me. I dreamed Victor poured fire on Daddy. Remember I told you?”

Granpaw shook his head. “A dream’s one thing. What’s real is another.” He got up from the stool with the milk bucket. I got up too. He set the bucket on a shelf, and then undid the rope holding the cow. The cow walked out to the middle of the open barn door and stood.

“Get out now!” Granpaw yelled. But the cow lifted its tail and pooped a big pile of soupy green poop right there on the barn’s dirt floor. Granpaw got mad and bounced a corncob off the cow’s rear end. The cow knocked against a milk can and leaped out the door.

“Razor-backed bitch!” Granpaw shouted. He ditch-walked himself back to his stool, sat down and motioned me to sit down on mine. He gave me that flat-on look. “Now. Tell Granpaw. What all happened out there with Moses?”

I sat down and told him everything I could remember. How the beams appeared and disappeared. How the little boy who was Victor tried to get his Momma to stop what she was doing. How the men around the table laughed. About the sight I had of Moses, hanging upside down in a tree. How the blood dripped from his fingers. I reached in my pocket and pulled out the rattlesnake skull. “He gave me this, Granpaw.”

Granpaw took it between his first finger and thumb, raised it up to the level of his eyes.

“He used it on you, Granpaw. He made you better with it.”

Granpaw turned the little skull around, looking at it every which way. “Moses wouldn’t give this away unless they was good reason to. This is his Rain Skull. You know what a Rain Skull is?”

“No Granpaw.”

Granpaw shook the skull, making that swishy hissing sound. “Them’s herbs and things Moses put in there. Walked all over these hills gathering them. I know. I helped him do it. A Rain Skull is power, son. Contrary power. You’ll think it’s going one way but then it’ll end up going another. Then it’s too late.”

“Too late for what, Granpaw?”

He gave me another flat-on look. “To save what you was wanting to destroy, by grabs.”

I thought about that a minute. “But that doesn’t make any sense.”

“No,” Granpaw said. “And I don’t reckon it ever will. That’s how it works though.”

“Like magic,” I said.

“Not magic. Contrary power. Moses is a medicine man, son. Takes a good long while to get what a medicine man is saying. It’ll seem unnatural.” Granpaw nodded his head at me real slow like. “You’ll see though. In time.”

I was glad I would see. Still I wanted to know about the little boy, about Victor. I wanted to know what he was doing there with his momma in that kitchen with all those men.

“Victor’s the enemy, that’s what you think,” Granpaw said. “To feel sorry for the enemy runs agin the blood. An eye for an eye is what the blood says. Vengeance is mine, sayeth the Lord.”

“But what if the enemy was going to kill your family, Granpaw?” I said. “Like in a war. Like, if somebody was going to drop a bomb on your house. What would you do then?”

Granpaw laughed. “Well, I reckon I’d have to kill the sumbitch!” He reached up around his neck, took hold of the leather draw-string his tobacco pouch was tied on and pulled it over his head. “You got to keep that in a good place. You got to keep it protected.” Granpaw emptied the pouch of chewing tobacco and pushed the rattlesnake skull inside. “I can’t chew no more no how. Here. Put this around your neck.”

I’ll skin it back for you, if you want me to. You can put its skull on a string for a necklace.

“How’s that feel?” Granpaw said.

“All right I guess.” I ran my finger along the draw-string. “Granpaw? If you wanted to destroy something, why would you want to save it too?” I looked up for the answer, but Granpaw had gone all zombie-eyed again.

It was the 7 thof August. Granny was sitting in her rocking chair on the front porch. Granpaw was in his wheelchair, staring at something across the road. I was throwing little stones at the picture of Jesus in the Jesus Tree.

“Orbie, cut that out,” Granny said. “You’ll put a hole in Jesus.”

“Yes. Stop that,” Momma said. She was sitting on the edge of the porch with Missy in her lap. Her face had healed some, more yellow now than purple. Missy still wasn’t talking.

“Aw shit,” I said.

“I’ll wear you out boy,” Momma said.

“Them kids ought not be missing their school,” Granny said.

“I ain’t leaving Harlan’s Crossroads Mamaw. Not till you and Granpaw get more situated.”

“Lord hon, that might be a while,” Granny said. “Won’t see any crop money till the fall.”

I sat down next to Momma. “I could go with Willis, Momma. They got school in the Kingdom. Missy could go too.”

Missy laid her head against Momma’s chest, staring, the white sail of the sling falling across the front of her. All she did anymore was suck her thumb and stare — or else whine around like a little lost puppy dog.

“Missy won’t be going there,” Momma said.

Granny cracked her gum. “You afraid she might turn colored?”