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

“You ain’t long for this world then!” Old Man Harlan said.

Fable and Vern came running up the steps. Then came Willis. Miss Alma said, “We be back fo’ long.” She turned away then and walked off toward Moses’ truck — us boys trailed after.

Old Man Harlan yelled from the cellar. “You cain’t talk to me that way! Come back here!”

Miss Alma walked on. “See all dat?” she said, sweeping her hand over the ground. “Dat hail. I neva see no hailstone pile up dat way befo’.” The hailstones were piled thick as snow.

They crunched under our shoes. “I hope we find yo mammy soon. Out here in all dis.”

We got out to the truck and Miss Alma opened the door. I crawled in behind the steering wheel and over to the passenger side. Willis crawled in with his walking stick, then Fable and Vern. Vern sat up in Fable’s lap.

Miss Alma positioned herself behind the steering wheel and started the truck. She backed out and went up the road toward Granny and Granpaw’s, went into the pond of water at the bottom of the hill. The truck went a little ways in, slid sideways and stopped. “Lawd! Wata three feet deep if it a inch!” Miss Alma shouted. She stomped the gas pedal. Water shot out the back end. The whole truck tilted sideways. Our side went lower than Miss Alma’s. “We sho stuck now.”

“We can walk Miss Alma,” I said. “It ain’t that far.”

Miss Alma looked out the windshield up in the sky. A spooky green light surrounded everything. “Dem cloud like to cut loose any minute. Bad ‘nuff be ridin’ in dis truck. Dey some board back da house. Ya’ll wait here.” Before we could say anything, she was out the door, holding up her housedress, sloshing her way through the water back to the house. We waited and waited but she never came back. I doubted she’d be able to get the truck out anyway. I turned the handle of the door and pushed but it wouldn’t budge.

“Storm tear you up boy,” Fable said. “It like one dem comic book monster. I know. I seen it befo’. Tear you up.”

“That jus a lie,” Vern said. “He don’t know.”

I pushed again against the door. It made a sucking sound and gave way. Muddy red water rushed in over the floorboard. It stretched away and out over Moses’ yard.

“We all gone get a whippin’ now,” Fable said.

I splashed in up to my knees. The water was ice cold.

“What you gone do, boy?” Fable said.

“I’m going,” I said. “It’ll be too late.”

“You nutty as a fruit cake,” Vern said, his fuzzed up hair tinted with green light.

Willis said, “Twista blow you away, boy.”

“Don’t call me that, Willis. Come with me. Vern, you and Fable too.”

They all three just stared at me; three black ducks hunkered there on the front seat. I turned and sloshed my way around the door toward the hill, got to where the road started up and ran to the top. There was a bad smell. A dog lay dead up there, covered with hailstones that were already melting. Dead birds were scattered everywhere, killed by the storm.

From the hilltop, I could see down to Harlan’s Crossroads, how Bounty Road went down and up again to a bigger hill on the other side. I could see the graveyard and part of Old Man Harlan’s store. Across from it, Granny and Granpaw’s house, Momma’s car, the trailer and the chicken yard.

A twang began over the hills, like a row of piano keys played all at once, low and sustained, then in seconds rising up until it was blaring louder than a steel mill, making it almost impossible to move or think or do anything but listen. I could see black funnel clouds, coiling and uncoiling above Granny and Granpaw’s barn, monster snakes, three of them, slithering downward out of the upside down floor of clouds, black and whirling, circling, passing each other like partners at a dance. One reached, curling toward the barn, making itself long and shrinking back. The barn stood like always, a black skull laughing at the day. The snake reached again, this time touching the barn, sucking the roof away — whirling the walls around and over the field, busting them to smithereens. The snake shrunk back and disappeared. The other snakes disappeared too. The thundering twang went with them.

“Ole Gooseberry!” Willis shouted. He was standing a little ways in back of me, walking stick tucked under his arm — potato foot, a glob of mud. “Blow dat barn, kingdom come!”

I was so glad it was him I almost laughed out loud. “God A Mighty, Willis, come on! Momma and Missy’s down there.” I turned and started running, slogging and splashing my way down the hill, down the middle of the road, to the house. Willis did a fast hobble with his stick, not far behind. If I could go around under the house to my secret place, I could get the knife and the skull. I could save Momma from Victor and the storm.

I stopped at the crossroads. The rain was starting up again. Mud had splashed up along my legs and onto my shorts. “Go there behind the well, Willis. Don’t let anybody see you!”

“Wha-What you gone do?” Willis said.

“I don’t know yet. Go behind the well. Wait for me.”

I ran up Nub Road a ways and climbed the bank. Fat cold drops of rain smacked against my legs. I ran around to the back of the house to the porch, crawled under there next to the steps and over to the board that went over the hole where I kept the shoebox. I took out the knife, Grandpaw’s pouch and the Rain Skull. I looped the leather cord of the pouch around my neck, gripped the knife and crawled out. Granny’s washtub lay upside down on some boards by the steps. Raindrops thumping across the bottom. I looked up the path toward where the barn had been. The trailer had blown sideways — had mashed through the fence into the pig yard. Black planks and splinters of wood were scattered everywhere all over the chicken yard. I ran around to the front of the house. Momma’s Ford sat near the fence with its trunk raised. Momma was there too, inside the car on the passenger side, eyes closed, her head thrown back against the seat. “Momma!” I yelled, running up to the car. Her hands were tied together with clothesline. Missy sat holding onto Momma’s arm, eyes wide open, trembling like a bird.

“Momma! Wake up Momma!”

“No Victor, don’t,” Momma said, her eyes still closed.

“Momma? It’s me Momma.”

Momma’s eyes fluttered open. She looked at me. “Oh no. No. Orbie, sweetheart,” she whispered, her voice raspy as sandpaper. “Orbie, you got to get away from here. Victor. He’s… What you said about him. Honey…” She closed her eyes then and went back to sleep.

The rain was coming almost straight down now. My tee shirt had soaked tight to my skin. I looked around the yard. There was the Jesus Tree, the picture of Jesus, hanging with his belly against the cross. There was the well with its round roof full of flowers tilted back in the rain. Willis peeked out from behind it. I hurried over. “Victor’s got Momma tied up in the car, Willis.” I looked up the road. “Where’s Miss Alma?” Up on the porch I could see Victor’s green file box had turned over, its papers scattered and stuck to the wet floor.

…spirit’s robbed away! Ain’t it? In ‘at box!

All at once, the screen door opened and out stepped Victor with Momma’s blue suitcase. He set it down on the porch and went back inside. In a minute the screen door opened again. I ducked back behind the well. “Stay down, Willis.” Victor stepped out with my army tank and Missy’s baby doll under his arm. He stopped and picked up Momma’s suitcase. The whole front of his shirt was soaked dark pink with rain. His hair was soaked too. One black curl fell like a hook down the middle of his forehead.

He stepped down off the porch; talking out loud to himself now. Crazy talk like before. “It’s the only thing. Yes. I know it is. No! Don’t say that! Just get everything in the car. Then we’ll see. Then we’ll be on our way. Florida? Forget Florida. We can go anywhere Momma. Tucson. Yes! That’s right Momma! No, goddamn it! Just do what I tell you to do!” He walked to the car, put the suitcase, Missy’s doll and my tank in the trunk. He took up a jar and started back toward the house. He stopped next to the Jesus Tree and unscrewed the lid. Green black clouds circled overhead. He drank from the jar and looked up in the sky. In a big booming voice he yelled, “The falcon cannot hear the falconer! Things fall apart!” He tried to stand straight, staggered backward and yelled, “The centre cannot hold!”