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

Fable looked at Vern. Vern looked at Fable.

Victor tried to get up but fell backward onto his elbows. The ugly shrapnel scar gleamed at the base of his neck. Momma leaned forward, Missy clinging to her like a little white monkey. “Victor, you all right?”

“I’m a long way from all right, Ruby baby.” Victor turned his head then and looked at me, then at Fable and Vern. His eyeglasses had slipped to the front of his nose.

Fable and Vern sniggered.

Victor sat up next to Willis’s drawing pad. “What the hell is this? ” He picked up the pad. Everything about his face was lit in yellow light except his eyes. Crickets chirped by the well. “Orbie, what in hell have you been up to?”

“What?” I said.

“This! This is what!” Victor tossed the drawing pad my way. It was a picture of Daddy. A good one too. And of another man. A giant. The giant was pouring fire from a black pot on top of Daddy. The giant was drawn to look like Victor — complete with grin and cigar and the mole by his nose. Victor lurched forward but as he got to his feet the blanket gathered about his shoe. In a fit of sudden rage he kicked it away. Comic books went flying. The kerosene lamp turned over. Fire whooshed over the blanket. I jumped away. Victor began stomping at the fire. Vern and Fable had run up onto the porch. Willis stood on one leg with his walking stick drawn back.

I got Granny’s butcher knife from the shoebox by the well. The fire went out. Victor stood bow armed and smoking, staring around at the yard. I held the knife but couldn’t think what to do. Victor grabbed it away. “Now. You tell me! What’s this about?”

Granny jumped down off the porch and stepped in between us. “Put that knife away Victor! This is still my house!”

“It is for the moment, old woman,” Victor said. “Get out of the way!”

“Over my dead body!” Granny stood up to him. She was big but not nearly as big as he was.

“Victor!” Momma yelled. “Put that knife away!” She was standing up with Missy now.

I could feel my heart beating almost up in my neck. The light from the porch, from the other kerosene lamp and from the light bulb in the front room cast a strange glow over the yard. Victor frowned, tried to smile, and then frowned again. He held the knife pointed toward Granny, its blade dimly catching up the light.

Granny stayed put.

“Are you crazy!” Momma yelled from the porch. “Put it away! Put it away before somebody gets hurt!”

Granny made a fist.

Missy hugged herself tighter around Momma’s neck.

“Whoremongers!” Granpaw yelled from his wheelchair. “Pharisees!”

“This isn’t over, old woman,” Victor finally said. “Not by any stretch of the imagination. Least of all that boy’s.” Then, knife still in hand, he stormed off around the house toward the trailer.

The whole yard smelled of kerosene. Kerosene and burned blanket. Lightning bugs blinked in the crown of the Jesus Tree. Crickets chirped by the well. Momma sat back in the rocking chair with Missy, her face half in shadow. “I’m sorry you had to see that, Mamaw. He gets that way when he’s upset.”

“When he’s drunk you mean,” Granny said. “What was he going on about anyway?”

I picked up the drawing pad and handed it to Granny.

“This is what.” Granny looked at the picture, then walked it over to Momma. I told them all about the dream I had. “He killed Daddy, Momma! He poured fire on him!”

“Reckon there’s anything to this?” Granny asked.

“No,” Momma said. “Anybody would be upset. I mean if they was accused of something like that. You ought to be ashamed Orbie.”

“Maybe they would be upset,” Granny said.

“Not if they didn’t do it,” I said.

“It ain’t right to go around accusing people,” Momma said. “Just because you had a dream. Just because you don’t get along with Victor.”

“You sure you all right Ruby?” Granny said. “You sound a thousand miles away.”

“I’m all right. I got to get ready for bed Mamaw. We all have to.” Without saying another word, Momma got up with Missy and went inside the house.

“I never seen the like,” Granny said. She looked at Willis and me. “Clean all this up now, you boys. Fable. You and Vern too. It’s time for bed.”

Willis lay in bed next to me, sleeping. Moonlight flooded in through the window, making with the crosshairs of the frame a black cross that stretched over the floor. I still had my Rain Skull, but I was absent the knife. How was I going to help Momma now? Keep her body from being snatched away? It worried me that she didn’t believe me. And I wondered if Granny did.

I had lain in bed a long time, thinking about everything, when suddenly I heard the screen door in the kitchen yawn open. I got down from the featherbed and tiptoed over to the window. There in the distance was the barn, a black shape against a black hill. And there was the trailer, a light still on inside. Somebody was walking out there in the moonlight, a ghost in a bathrobe walking toward the trailer. Momma.

“What I got here Ma’am, is paypahs from the court. It ordahs you to desist using hired help to work yo land. Until futhah notice, that is.” Reverend Pennycall held the papers up for Granny to see. The way he talked sounded like somebody reading out a book. “Complaint is issued on behalf a one Nealy Hawlan of Hawlan’s Crossroads.”

Granny had been hanging out towels and washrags on the back porch line. Now she stood, glaring at Reverend Pennycall. “Complaint? What you talking about, complaint?”

“Says here ya’ll usin’ hired help, Mrs. Wood.”

“T’ain’t nobody’s business if I am,” Granny said.

Willis and me were sitting on stools, breaking up string beans for supper. The sun was so hot, not even bugs wanted to fly. Elvis and Johnny were out in the chicken yard, the only chickens out there, bobbing their heads up and down at the water trough.

Reverend Pennycall pulled out a white hankie and wiped his forehead. “It is somebawdy’s business Ma’am, if ya’ll agreed not to.”

“I never agreed to such a thing Reverend.”

“Well, begging yo pawdon Ma’am, but you have. See here, cawdin’ to Mista Hawlan, ya’ll agreed not to bring in no help less it was okayed by him. When ya’ll rented the place.”

“Okayed? By Nealy Harlan?”

“Yes Ma’am.” He held out the papers for her to see. “It’s right here on this paper ya’ll signed.”

Granny came down the steps half way and squinted at the papers. “Where’s it say that? Show me.”

“Right there Ma’am.” Reverend Pennycall pointed and gave the papers over to Granny.

Granny glared at the papers. “He’s going to hold us to this?”

“Well, yes Ma’am, I reckon he is.” Reverend Pennycall ran his thumb behind the police badge on the strap of his suspenders. It wobbled sunlight back to us.

Granny looked off across the road to Old Man Harlan’s. Without looking back at the Reverend she said, “I got me a sick man laid up in the house. Did you know that?”

“Well, yes I do Ma’am.” The Reverend took off his hat, wiped the inside band with his hankie.

Granny looked away off over the fields. “When it rains it pours don’t it?”

“That’s what they say Ma’am.” Reverend Pennycall looked at Willis and put his hat back on. Then he looked at Granny. “That’s a court ordah Ma’am.”