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

Victor blew his nose in a hankie. “What’s that Mrs. Wood?”

All of a sudden the room perked up. “Well, I never said anything about no eviction. Alls I said was a court order. Now, them papers Reverend Pennycall gave me, they did mention eviction, but I haven’t said a word about that. Not to nobody. So… How did you know about it?”

Momma and Victor both looked at Granny. Victor let go of Momma’s hand. “Ruby explained your problem to me. I just assumed eviction was part of the package.”

“Because I was letting them colored fellers work my land?”

“No. But if you didn’t abide by the order, you could be.”

“And how would you know that?”

“I told you, I just assumed it. What is this anyway?”

“How’d you know Nealy Harlan was our landlord then? I don’t recollect ever telling you.”

Victor picked his coffee cup up and set it back down. “Of course I knew. Ruby’s told me everything about your situation.” He looked at Momma. “Haven’t you Baby.”

Momma sniffled and looked up. “What? Well, yes. I reckon I did. If you say so hon.”

“Sure you told me.”

“If you say so. I reckon that’s right Mamaw.”

Victor threw his eyes back on Granny. “I don’t like where this is going. A minute ago you seemed sympathetic. I could’ve guessed your situation from the nature of the court order alone. I didn’t need anybody to tell me. I could have…”

“You could have talked to Old Man Harlan!” Granny slapped the table with the palm of her hand, not hard, just enough you knew she was mad. I almost slapped the table myself.

“Wait a minute, wait a minute! Even if I had, so what?”

“You and Old Man Harlan could have got this up between the two of you is so what!” Granny was fuming now.

“That’s ridiculous! What would I gain by doing such a thing?”

“I don’t know. But there’s something. I can feel there is.”

Granny and Victor looked at each other over the table. If I closed my eyes I could see a black cloud, twirling over the table inside the room — full of wind and sparks. Granny stood up. “You been nothing but a burden since you been down here. A sight more on my daughter here and her younguns.”

“There’s no need in stirring things up again,” Momma said.

“There is too!” Granny snapped. “I want you to stop this whatever you’re doing and wake up girl! Can’t you see what he’s up to? Poor little Missy, why, she ain’t said two words since she been down here, and all cause of this man here, or whatever you want to call him!”

“You’re full of shit,” Victor said, dry-eyed now.

“I’m not through yet!” Granny stretched herself taller over the table. Her flowered housedress caught some of the light from the window. “I’ll tell you what’s the truth, I don’t know whether you played a part in what happened to Jessie or not, I hope for your own soul’s salvation you didn’t have anything to do with that. If I were you though, I would humble myself. I would get down on my knees in front of that woman there.” She pointed to Momma. “And I would ask her to forgive me what I done to her and to her kids.”

Victor, red faced, stood up out of his chair.

Granny didn’t flinch. “I want you out of my house, Victor, and the sooner the better! There’s a bus on Saturday. Ruby can ride you to town. Or Reverend Pennycall can. I don’t want to see you after that!”

“Oh Mamaw, no,” Momma said.

“You think you’re going to keep me from mine? You better think again, you old bitch!” Victor grabbed up his belt so fast from the table he flipped his plate over. He tried to catch hold of it but it fell to the floor and smashed into a gazillion pieces. “Sorry for the mess,” he said. “Maybe you can get one of your niggers to clean it up!” He looked at Momma one last time and threading the belt through a loop as he went, slammed through the screen door.

Victor staggered across the road from Old Man Harlan’s, his hand like a claw over the lid of a canning jar. I ducked behind the well and watched him come up in the yard. He was talking out loud to himself, his words running together, still fighting with Granny over what she had said. “Yes. We’ll see about that! Old woman!” He was all red in the face and glassy-eyed, shaking a finger at his thoughts. “We’ll see who has to go!” He unscrewed the lid on the jar and took a drink, screwed it back and staggered on. I followed after.

He grabbed onto the rain barrel and swatted at the air with the canning jar. “Think I don’t know what you’re up to? Armstrong? All you people? I’ll show all of you! ” He pushed himself from the barrel; zigzagged across the yard out to the trailer, unlocked the door and went inside. He left the door standing open.

I waited a little while before creeping up to the door. I saw Victor on his knees in there by the sofa bed, praying. “Forgive me Father! I didn’t know. I didn’t! I didn’t!” He sucked tears up his nose and wiped at his eyes. “If I could make things right. If only I could.” He kept on like that, praying, mumbling about letters and what all some people had said, bits of stories, shreds of things that had happened I could make neither heads nor tails of, asking God over and over to forgive him without ever really saying what he’d done. Finally he crawled up on the bed and lay over on his back, crosswise with his feet on the floor. In a minute he was sound asleep.

I kicked my tennis shoes off and tiptoed barefoot up the steps. I stood just inside the door on the dirty gray carpet. The little egg shaped room of the trailer closed in around me, hot and stuffy, even with the door and all the windows open. I could feel grainy little pieces of dirt in the carpet under my feet. On a table next to the bed sat the coil of Victor’s belt and a wind up alarm clock, white with black hands — the big hand on the twelve, the little on the two. Tomorrow would be Friday. Then Saturday, the day Victor was supposed to leave. I knew he wouldn’t though, not without a fight. I had to find the knife.

He lay with his eyeglasses pushed up to the top of his head, snoring inside a cloud of moonshine smell and body odor. Past the bed on the other side of the room were shelves that went up the wall on one side of a little stainless steel sink. The sink had no faucet but was piled high with dishes Momma had brought over from the house. There was a jalousie window over the sink, its slats filled with smoky white sunlight. The sunlight threw a lumpy white square across the bed. The clock ticked in the corner. Victor took in a deep breath and slowly let it out; then he went on snoring.

I tiptoed to the sink and pulled at a drawer under the counter. It made a screeching sound. “Come to bed baby,” Victor muttered. I waited, the blood building, pounding drumlike in my head. Again I tried the drawer, pulling it out a little at a time. Inside were pencils and pens and other odds and ends — two wrapped cigars, a tin of Band-Aids, a lidless half-used jar of Vaseline. Other things were arranged on the shelves beside the sink — Pamolive Aftershave Lotion, a tube of Pepsodent, combs and brushes, razor blades, a can of Barbasol. There were magazines too, Popular Mechanics, Life Magazine and Reader’s Digest, and nail polish remover and aspirin and Brylcream — all organized in straight rows and neat little piles.

On one of the upper shelves sat Victor’s green file box and a slotted stand full of envelopes and manila file folders, some with papers inside. I pulled the counter drawer out a little further and ran my hand into the shadows at the back. I found a tablespoon there; two bent forks and a rusty can opener but no knife.