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

“She can’t go to her own school let alone someone else’s,” Momma said. “Look at her.”

“I could go,” I said. “Willis is my friend.”

The other day I’d brought Willis in to meet Momma. I think it surprised her, him being colored and crippled and all. He told Momma he was sorry about her face, about Granpaw and Missy getting hurt. After he left, Momma went on about how sweet he was, how well behaved. She didn’t use the ‘nigger’ word even one time.

“He’s a nice boy, Willis is,” Momma said. “We’ll see about school when the time comes. Victor will have something to say about that.”

“You mean to take him back then?” Granny said.

“No. I don’t know, Mamaw,” Momma said. “I never was one to stay mad.”

Granny spit her gum in a tin can she held up to her mouth. “I’d learn to stay mad if I was you. He might get to feeling bad someday and decide to kill somebody.”

Missy tried to hug herself closer to Momma.

“They something not right,” Granny said. “All that business in Floridy. Him on a leave of absence.”

“It worries me too,” Momma said.

I wanted to tell them about my dream of Victor killing Daddy, of how Moses had come, of how I met with Moses in the cave and what all I seen when Victor was a little boy. I almost did, but then I remembered my promise to Willis.

“He’s like a bucket got a hole in its bottom,” Granny said. “More you put in, more goes out.”

“We all got holes,” Momma said.

“Don’t it bother you none him takin’ that feller Armstrong’s side against Jessie?”

“‘Course it does. He was just mad though. At all that business with the Union.” She looked away over the yard over the crossroads toward the cemetery. “Jessie’s gone, Mamaw. Won’t nothing bring him back.”

The other day me, Missy, Granny and Momma had all gone over to the cemetery. Momma had stood over Daddy’s grave, arms wrapped about her body, shivering in the hot sun.

“I need Victor,” Momma said. “Even with all he’s done, I still think of him.”

“That little patch between your legs is talking now,” Granny said. “That’s old pussy talk!”

I couldn’t keep from laughing out loud.

Momma sent mad eyes to me, then back to Granny. “You sorrier than Granpaw is, I swear.”

“I wasn’t born yesterday, daughter.”

“What about forgiveness Mamaw? Ain’t they no room for forgiveness?”

“Well, cut my ears off and feed ’em to the hogs!” Granny almost hollered. “Victor ain’t been around to ask for no forgiveness, and here you are a giving it away already. I wouldn’t be so quick to forgive a sorry son of a bitch! Excuse my French, Orbie.”

“Revelations!” Granpaw hollered from his wheelchair.

Willis and me were lying out on an old blanket by the well. It rained a few little sprinkles after supper, and we had spread the blanket over some grass sacks to keep it dry. I was reading my comic books. Willis sat, drawing a picture of Granny in her rocking chair. She was up on the front porch, fixing holes in Granpaw’s socks.

A car grumbled down Bounty from Circle Stump followed by another. When it got to Granny and Granpaw’s, it pulled up in the yard and backed out again, turning so its nose pointed back the way it had come, back toward Circle Stump. It was Reverend Pennycall’s white police car, the gold ‘SHERIFF’ star on the side speckled with orange mud.

The other car was a flashy blue Cadillac, shiny new with long smooth tail fins, double chrome headlights and whitewall tires. It waited for Reverend Pennycall’s police car to turn around, then pulled in the yard along side Momma’s Ford. The driver turned the motor off and got out. He walked around the front of the car, put his hands in his pockets and smiled at the yard.

He wore sunglasses and a red sport coat over a pink shirt, a skinny white tie down the middle. He looked like a movie star, like Dean Martin maybe or Matt Dillon on Gun Smoke but without the hat. The way his hair was combed was more like Dean Martin’s, long and black and waved up over the top of his head.

He walked closer and smiled a movie star smile at Willis and me. Then he looked the well up and down and smiled at it, like he was thinking it might look good someplace else, that he might could buy it with his movie star money and take it off to be wherever that was. He ran the palm of one of his hands, his left hand, along the side of his head like to smooth the hair flatter there. On the back of the hand I saw the heart shaped tattoo.

“Victor!” I whispered to Willis but Willis had already stopped drawing on his picture and was staring at the man. I could feel my own heart doing somersaults inside my chest. I wanted to get up, but my legs wouldn’t go. “That’s him,” I said. “Victor.”

Victor stepped toward the Jesus Tree. He looked the picture of Jesus up and down. I could see Granny, watching him from the porch. If he saw her, he never let on. He reached inside his coat to bring out a gold cigarette case. I could see a bunch of cigarettes with gold filters, all in a line. He tapped the case to get one out, shut it with a little click and slipped it back inside his coat. He put the cigarette between his teeth, looking at the Jesus Tree while he did. The way he cocked his head, the way he smiled at the Jesus Tree was like with the well, like he was figuring where a better place for the Jesus Tree might be and how much money it would cost to move it there.

I found my legs and got up. “That tree ain’t for sale!”

The unlit cigarette was planted in the middle of Victor’s movie star smile. He scissored it between his fingers and took it away. “ Isn’t. Isn’t for sale, is what you mean, son.” He smiled at Willis then and nodded. Willis pulled himself up on his walking stick. Victor came a step or two closer and stopped. “It’s been a while, hasn’t it? You look good boy! Kentucky’s toughened you.” He nodded toward my feet. “You’ve got calluses.” I looked down at the hard half-moon slices that’d grown around my big toes. Victor gestured toward Willis. “Who’s your little friend?”

“Willis,” I said. “His name’s Willis.”

Willis tried to smile but it wouldn’t go.

Victor had always dressed nice, but today he flashed out like a page in a magazine. You wouldn’t think he was from Detroit at all, but some other place fine and rich and pink. Someplace with palm trees maybe, with blue skies and sandy beaches. The buttons on his red coat matched the gold of his watch. Sharp creases sliced down the front of his creamy white slacks. A pair of shiny brown alligator shoes waited like real alligators, all smiley-mouthed and staring against the dirt. He gave the bill of my ball cap a friendly tap. “Never thought I’d see that thing again,” he said, his voice all-smooth-sounding like a radio announcer’s. “Pegasus. The winged horse.”

He took off his sunglasses, nothing nasty in his eyes now, no worms cutting themselves and getting mean. He dropped the sunglasses in the slit of his pocket, his voice smooth as cream. “I’ve behaved badly son. Not just about the hat but about a lot of things. I hope you’ll forgive me. I hope you can.”

I thought of the little boy in the cave; how confused I’d been, seeing his name written at the top of that page.

“Ah. But that was then, wasn’t it?” Victor said. “Back then all I could think of was Florida and The Pink Flamingo. Got so caught up I forgot the reason for my going down in the first place.” He looked at me as though I could fill in the blank for his reason.