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

“Just in time, as usual,” Victor said. “Go on. Go let your grandmother in. We’ll finish this later.” He let go of my arm. The place where he’d grabbed me burned like fever.

“Do like he says, sweetheart,” Momma said.

I went around his chair and into the front room. Missy was in there sleeping — even with all the noise she was. Granny and Granpaw filled up the whole front door almost, one lumpy shadow with the morning light a glare behind them. “Come hold this door for us old people,” Granny said. “You get old, you’ll wish you was young.”

I went over and held the door open. Granny pushed Granpaw in the wheelchair over the bump into the front room. She looked at me. “What was all that ruckus about?”

“Nothing,” I said.

“Didn’t sound like nothing to me. Come on.” Granny pushed the wheelchair across the living room, through the kitchen door and up to the table. “Somebody in here mention a knife?” I squeezed around behind her and went off down to the end of the table away from Victor. Granny looked at me. “I thought I heard somebody mention a knife.”

“Victor did,” I said.

Granny looked at Victor. He was busy again, eating his eggs. He shoveled up a fork full and put it in his mouth. The belt was still on the table. “It was you walked off with my knife the other night,” Granny said.

Victor looked at Granny then continued with his eating. “It’s in safe keeping, Mrs. Wood.”

“What you keeping it safe for?”

Victor gulped and swallowed and wiped his lips with his napkin. “It’s safe, that’s all.”

Granny tied a rubber thing around the muscle of Granpaw’s arm. “Knives belong in a kitchen.”

“Tell that to the boy,” Victor said.

Granny reached around in back of her to the top part of the cabinet. She brought down the little black case with Granpaw’s medicines and the hypodermic needle she used to give him his shots. “I got plenty of knives. In my drawer yonder. Keeping one out won’t make a bit of difference somebody wants to stick you with one.”

“Mamaw now,” Momma said.

Victor sipped his coffee.

Granny squirted some of the medicine out the end of the needle. She put her mouth close to Granpaw’s ear. “Strode. Make a fist now, hon.”

Granpaw blinked and made a fist.

“Hold that a minute now.” Granny finished giving Granpaw his shot and untied the rubber-thing. Momma was still standing by the stove, arms crossed, the coffee-ground rag balled up in one hand like before. Granny put the black case and Granpaw’s medicines back atop the cabinet. “Victor, you remember what you said to me t’other night? When you called me an ‘old woman’? I said this house was mine and you said it was for the moment. You remember that? For the moment, you said.”

Victor kept eating.

Granny tied a dishtowel around Granpaw’s neck, straightened it down the front of his chest. “It was awful strange Reverend Pennycall showing up here like he did. Talking about court orders. All that old stuff about Moses and his hat. The cross they burned over to Kingdom Church. And now I got to go to Circle Stump to talk to that judge. I was just thinking Old Man Harlan wouldn’t have had sense enough to do all that. Not by himself. He wouldn’t know a court order from a chicken’s ass, it staring him right in the face. You have anything to do with that Victor?”

Victor answered with a mouth full of food, “I don’t know what I said the other night and I don’t care. I don’t know what you mean.” He jabbed his empty fork toward where I was sitting. “What you should be concerned with is that boy. He needs a good straightening out.”

“Now let’s just all of us eat our breakfast why don’t we,” Momma said in a weak little voice. “There’s been enough upset for one morning.” Momma was wrong though, I could feel she was.

“Did you know he’s been threatening people with that knife?” Victor said. “Not just me and not just the other night. He’s been threatening some little boys down by the creek. Mr. Harlan told me.”

“With that knife?” Granny said.

“Yes,” Victor said.

“They were scaring me and Willis,” I said. “They pushed Willis in the water and threw rocks at him.”

“Willis wasn’t even there,” Victor said. “You went after those boys by yourself for no reason. Mr. Harlan told me.”

“That’s a lie!” I yelled. “Old Man Harlan’s a goddamn chicken buzzard anyway!”

“Orbie!” Momma said.

“See what I mean?” Victor said. “The boy’s out of control.”

“That don’t make it all right for you to be,” Granny said. “Look at what you did t’other night. Kicking and stomping around at something silly as that little picture Willis drew. What you do that for?” The air around Granny was full of electricity. I thought any second a blue light might start drawing itself around her.

“Let’s just everybody calm down,” Momma said.

Victor threw his napkin on his plate. “That’s just fine, isn’t it? The boy insults me, threatens me with a knife and you sit there apparently bent on taking his side. Has it ever occurred to you that I’m the closest thing that boy has to a father? That he needs a father’s hand?”

“You a long ways from a father, Victor,” Granny said. “You might make a proper stepfather someday if you was to sober up.”

Victor’s voice suddenly became sad. It was like he’d become a poor innocent person everybody was making out to be bad. “You’re right Mrs. Wood. I do need to sober up.” He leaned back from Granny a little. “If you want to accuse me, go right ahead, but hear me out first. I didn’t know anything about Reverend Pennycall coming over here. Mr. Harlan never spoke to me about any of this business. I’m sorry though. I really am. Having to deal with eviction at a time like this, well, that must be rough.”

“It don’t give me no easy feeling,” Granny said.

“I’m sure it doesn’t,” Victor said. “Perhaps, well, if you would allow me to, perhaps I could help you. I’m not unfamiliar with such proceedings.”

“I don’t reckon it’ll amount to much,” Granny said. “Judge Beechum’s a reasonable man.”

Victor went on in his sad, be sorry for me, voice. “As for the other night, well, I overreacted, I know that. Not without cause, though.” He bowed his head a little; still looking at Granny. “Seeing that drawing the other night was a slap in the face to me, Mrs. Wood — after having done so much for Jessie — after having gone so far out of my way to help. With the investigation I mean. I’ve told everything I know to the authorities. I was sitting at my desk, doing payroll when it happened. The night janitor saw me there; and that’s all there is to tell.” He stopped to clear his throat. “I wish I’d been there to stop that man Jackson, but I wasn’t. Blame me for that if you want to. I do. Every day.” He bowed his head a minute then looked back up at Granny. There were tears in his eyes.

“Ruby, mash up some of them eggs, would you?” Granny said. “Granpaw can’t eat them they ain’t mashed.”

Momma fixed Granpaw’s eggs. She handed them to Granny and sat down in my old chair next to Victor, a sad little smile on her face. She looked at him and her eyes went soft. She reached out and touched him on the arm.

“Ruby, Sweetness, you look awful,” Granny said.

Momma started to cry.

Granny said to Victor, “I appreciate what you said just now Victor. We all sad over losing Jessie.”

Momma reached out again and touched Victor’s arm. She slipped her hand in his.

The room turned quiet. I listened to all the quiet sounds. Granpaw slurping eggs from the spoon Granny held. A fly bouncing along the screen on the door behind Victor. The Dark Thing was going in places it’d never gone before. Granny took off Granpaw’s dishtowel and wiped his mouth. “There’s one thing I don’t understand though.”