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

“We better go back now!” I called. “Granny’ll be mad!”

He kept on walking. Willis and me had to go after him. It was just an empty field; dried out mostly; with weeds and some grass growing here and there. Granpaw got to the top of a low hill and stopped. He turned around and around, looking up in the sky at the clouds. “Hot. Hot weather this is, for September.” He set the frying pan on a rock and sprinkled more stuff from his shirt pocket. Smoke boiled up. “Fan that a little,” he said to Willis.

Willis started to wave the witch’s broom at the smoke.

“Towards the sky there,” Granpaw said. “Fan towards the sky.” Willis made a motion with the broom like to lift the smoke toward the sky. “Keep on that a way,” Granpaw said. “Sang ‘at song. Sang Amazing Grace How Sweet The Sound! ”

Willis started to sing the song. The sound of it lifted up with the smoke to the sky. It was lonesome and strange like the time me and him snuck in Kingdom Church, Willis singing Amazing Grace in that pretty girl voice of his, me thinking I was on a hill somewhere wide open, looking off at clouds in a blue sky.

“Now, Orbie,” Granpaw said, “I want you to pick one of them clouds out. I want you to stare at it, you know, like it was the only one up there. Hold that skull like this.” Granpaw made a fist and put it in the middle of his chest. The sky was clear except for a few little cottony-white clouds. I held the rattlesnake skull like Granpaw said, the fangs of it poking me in the chest. I chose one of the little clouds. Willis kept on with the song.

We’ve no less days to sing God’s praise…

“Look at it,” Granpaw said. “Like you loved it more than anything. Like it was the only thing in the world. That cloud.”

I tried to stare at the cloud like Granpaw said. Like I loved it. I stared and stared. I stared until the cloud started to go all shifty like. Fuzzy. Different shades of gray and blue.

“Think about all the people you love. That love you,” Granpaw said.

I thought of Momma and Granny. I thought of Missy. The cloud jumped around and changed color. “It isn’t working Granpaw. It’s not melting.”

“Don’t force it. Here, let me show you.” Granpaw took the rattlesnake skull, put it in the middle of his chest and looked at the cloud. I looked too.

…ten thousand years, bright shining as the sun!…

Right away the cloud started to break apart. It broke into smaller pieces; wisps of steam that stayed a few seconds then melted away.

Granpaw handed the skull back to me. “These signs shall foller them what believe!”

I picked out another cloud. It went all fuzzy like the first one, changing shape and color so fast I began to get dizzy. I felt Granpaw tap the back of my head. Suddenly I was up there in the sky, right next to the cloud — I mean I was almost touching it — and there inside the cloud was Daddy, smiling, waving his bird claw hand, dressed in steel mill clothes.

You have to pay attention, son. Even in dreams.

A great happiness welled up inside me then. I felt something warm and flowing, giving out as if from where the skull’s fangs touched my chest. It flooded me and gave outward toward Daddy until there we were, together, one person skyward, not separate at all. Then just as suddenly I was back on the ground. The cloud had broken into two pieces, one small and one big.

“I never thought I’d see the like.” Granpaw looked over at Willis and laughed. “He’s a good one, ain’t he?”

Willis nodded that I was.

“What?” I said. “It didn’t melt.”

“Took me most a year to do that much,” Grandpaw said.

Granpaw drove up Bounty toward Harlan’s Crossroads. Hot air rushed in through the window over my face. It felt like spider webs.

“You don’t have a Rain Skull?” I asked Willis.

“Na uh.”

“How come Moses never give you one?”

“He don’t need one,” Granpaw said. “He’s been showed.”

Up ahead a bunch of cows had wandered onto the road. Granpaw slowed the station wagon and blew the horn.

I felt good. Happy and excited. “I seen Daddy, Granpaw. In that cloud. Heat came inside me from that skull. It went out to Daddy.”

“You the smartest little boy I ever seed next to Willis here. But you wrong, if you think heat came from that skull.” Granpaw pulled at the brim of his hat. “Bone. That’s all that is.”

“You said it was power.”

“Power’s in you.” Granpaw blew the horn again at the cows. They made way, running off both sides of the road. Granpaw went slow. He had to yell over the sound of the engine. “By itself t’ain’t nothin’! Bone with a bunch of seeds rattling around inside!”

We came to the little bridge that went over Kingdom Creek. On the other side there were two cars parked nose to nose along the side of the road. The car facing us I could see was Victor’s blue Cadillac. The other was smaller and red colored. I couldn’t tell what kind it was right off because it was turned the other way. Something like a towel maybe or maybe a flag hung from the antenna.

Victor stood in front of the Cadillac, leaning against the front end. He was talking to some little man that sat cross-legged on the hood of the red car. As we came across the bridge, the little man passed a jar over to Victor. Victor set it down behind him and out of sight.

“Well, I’ll be.” Granpaw slowed the station wagon to a crawl and stopped. He leaned over from where he sat at the steering wheel, over Willis and me, and hollered out the passenger side window. “Hot day to be sittin’ at the side of the road!”

The branches of a dead cottonwood tree hung over the Cadillac. Victor pointed to them and grinned. “What do you mean, Mr. Wood? There’s plenty of shade!” A joke nobody thought was funny. “Should you be out here driving?”

Granpaw didn’t answer.

The red car was a Mercury, and the thing hanging from the antenna was a coon’s tail. The little man wore a dark gray hat and a vest over a white shirt rolled to the elbows. He was bony-looking and had a jagged pockmarked face with a broken, Dick Tracy type nose. He squinted from under his hat and grinned. I’d seen him before.

“These gentlemen came all the way from Florida.” Victor motioned toward the man on the hood. “They’re on their way to Detroit.”

“That right?” Granpaw said in his most deadpan voice.

“That’s right, Mr. Wood. They’re with Armstrong.” Victor smiled. “The one who’s helping me and Ruby.”

“I know who Armstrong is,” Granpaw said.

Something wasn’t right. Victor sounded way too friendly for one thing. For another he was talking about more than one man.

Granpaw saw it too, still leaning over Willis and me, he said, “Where’s the other at?”

“Other what?” Victor said.

“Other man or men.” Granpaw nodded toward the little man on the hood. “All I see is the one.”

“Oh,” Victor said. “In the car there. Resting.”

Slouched behind the wheel of the Mercury was another man, huge — it was a wonder we hadn’t seen him — his arms crossed in front of him, asleep. He wore sunglasses with white frames, and there was sweat streaming down one side of his face. I’d seen him before.

The boney little man leaned back and with the ball of his fist, pounded against the windshield. “Zeek! Look sharp! Company!”

Zeek jerked up and pushed the back of his hand against his mouth. Something or somebody had caved in one side of his face. He yawned at the back of his hand.

“This is Jimmy The Diamond,” Victor said, jerking his chin toward the man on the hood. “Jimmy, meet Mr. Wood.”